Thursday, June 8, 2000
Vol. 112 No. 23
Since 1889
oY
NT, morning 1A
State approves merger, injunctions sought
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Attorneys for Kings
Mountain District Schools
Board of Education and the par-
ents group Save Our Schools
were attempting to get court or-
ders this week to stop the July 1
implementation of the merger
of the Kings Mountain, Shelby
and Cleveland County school
systems.
The State Board voted 9-3
Senior
Center |
to break
ground
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Kings Mountain Senior
Center will break ground for
the new $1.4 million H.
Lawrence Patrick Senior Life
and Conference Center on East i
King Street Friday morning at i
10:30. Rain date is Friday, June
16. ;
Mayor Rick Murphrey, Senior :
Center Director Monty :
Thornburg, and other city offi-
cials will take part in the cere-
mony. Both will make remarks
and the Mayor will also intro-
duce members of the Senior
Center Capital Campaign
« Committee and other special = §
guests.
Tents will be set up and re-
freshments served to the public.
tect’s drawing for the 16,000
square foot facility which will
be located on 7 1/2 acres of,
land. City Council hopes to re-
ceive bids and begin work on
the facility by late July or early
August. The Senior Center
hopes to occupy the facility by
September 2001.
The Capital Campaign
Committee, chaired by Jim Belt, :
Johnny Harris, Charles Mauney :
and Stella Putnam, led an effort :
that topped the $1.4 million
goal. The City of Kings
Mountain pledged $700,000 to
the project, Mrs. Lawrence
Patrick donated $150,000, the
Cleveland County Board of
Commissioners appropriated
$150,000, and the project re-
ceived a $100,000 state grant
provided the new facility is oc-
cupied by September 2001. The
remaining funds were pledged
by businesses, civic groups, oth- }
See Center, 3A
BB&T robbed
on Monday
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
Rain wasn't the only thing
going down Monday morning
in Kings Mountain. While a
steady drizzle hit the pavement
outside, a lone thief was also
hitting the BB&T bank at 410 E.
King Street.
According to police, the sus-
pect entered the bank at 9:49
Thursday in Raleigh to approve
‘the Cleveland County
Commissioners merger plan,
and the Board of
Commissioners last night
named an interim board to
oversee the transition.
However, Kings Mountain
vows to continue the fight until
all avenues are exhausted.
Lue Lesegne, attorney for
Save Our Schools, filed a mo-
tion with the Office of
Administrative Hearings to stay
v
the merger action and was due
to have a conference call with
Judge Sammie Chess of High
Point Wednesday.
Attorneys Richard Schwartz
and Bryan Shaw, representing
the KM School Board, were
preparing to seek an injunction
in Cleveland County Superior
Court until the legal question of
whether or not 183 Gaston
County students belong to
Kings Mountain or Gaston
County schools is settled.
The city will unveil the archi- :
Summer fun, music, mural dedication
The KM School Board has
contended all along that those
students are legally a part of
KMDS and that the Cleveland
County Commissioners’ merger
plan is illegal because it was
not approved by the Gaston
County Commissioners.
If that position holds up in
court, Cleveland County
Commissioners would have to
re-draw their merger plan with
Gaston County approval, and
re-submit it to the State Board
of Education.
If that position does not stand
up in court, Kings Mountain
School Board members fear it
would mean the end of the 105-
year-old Kings Mountain
School System.
Kings Mountain officials got
excited at last week's State
Board meeting when Board
member Robert Douglas of
Asheville made a motion to de-
ny the merger request.
However, State Treasurer
Commissioners
\| appoint interim
‘1: school board
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
Harlan Boyles quickly made a
substitute motion to approve
the plan, and it passed.
“Our stomachs sort of
jumped into our throats,” KM
Board Chairman Larry Allen
said of the motion to deny.
Eddie Davis III of Durham and
Ronald Deal of Hickory voted
with Douglas to deny the plan.
Just knowing that three board
members had questions about
See Merger, 3A
RT
The Cleveland County Board of i
Commissioners selected a board for their merged
school system Tuesday night. The process was
carried out by paper ballot before a standing
room only crowd in the commission chambers.
No protest followed the announcement.
Members from the current separate school
boards selected to serve four-year terms on the
new board include Dr. Larry Allen and Shearra
Miller from Kings Mountain District Schools, Jo
Boggs and Tommy Greene from Cleveland
County Schools, and Dr. Jack Hamrick and
Richard Hooker from Shelby City Schools.
Allen is a former superintendent of Kings
Mountain District Schools and lives in Kings
Mountain. Miller is head of the Cleveland
County Arts Council and also lives in Kings Nl
Mountain. Boggs is a piano teacher from ! J
Fallston. Greene serves as vice president of i
Cleveland Community College and lives in
Boiling Springs. Hamrick is an orthopedic sux-
geon from Shelby. A businessman, Hooker is also wy
from Shelby. : id
The three at-large members selected to serve :
one-year terms are Dr. George Litton, Dr. Steve
Curtis, and Mary Evans. Curtis is the brother in
law of commissioner Joe Cabiness, retired super-
intendent of Shelby City Schools, and a Shelby
resident. Litton is from Shelby and is the former
principal at Crest High School. Evans is a retired
Shelby school teacher and lives in Shelby.
For the at-large seats, commissioners had 43
applicants from all over the county and walks of
life.)
—
highlight first annual downtown event
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
If you're not one of the lucky ones
who'll be vacationing on the coast
this Saturday, you can still get a good
taste of the ocean atmosphere at the
first annual Beach Blast at Patriots
Park (gazebo) in downtown Kings
Mountain.
Sponsored by KM Pools and the
Kings Mountain Business and
Professional Association, Beach Blast
2000 will feature a lot of sand and
water events, bikini and shag con-
tests, music by the popular beach
band Ocean Blvd., and the long-
Repaving, clean-up
projects under way
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
Several streets in Kings
Mountain are getting a summer
trimming is done,we put the
trash and other debris in bags
and take it away.”
Brooks estimates that he and
his crew have filled up over 50
awaited dedication of the downtown
mural depicting the history of Kings
Mountain as it was at the time of the
Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780.
Activities get underway at 3 p.m.
with a performance by Dance Magic.
The Teenie Weenie Bikini Contest for
ages newborn-3 and 4-6 will take
place at 4 p.m., and the mural will be
dedicated at 5.
Ocean Blvd. will play at 5:30 and
will break at 6:30 for a shag contest,
then resume following the contest.
In between the above activities,
beach-goers will have plenty of time
to participate in watermelon eating
contests, beachball race, kiddie fish
pond, face painting, dunking booth,
photo booth, and many other activi-
ties.
The championship Kings
Mountain High School women’s vol-
leyball team will put on an exhibi-
tion, and members of the
Mountaineer Car Club will provide
entries for a classic car show on
Railroad Avenue.
Entries for the shag contest ($5 per
couple) and the bikini contests ($5
each child) must be turned in to
Ashley’s Antiques on Railroad
Avenue by 5 p.m. Friday.
See Blast, 3A
“We have a number of very, very qualified peo-
ple for these positions,” said commission chair-
man Jim Crawley.
Crawley and commissioner Willie McIntosh
both stated that since so many good people ap-
plied for the at-large seats, and because only
three could be chosen, they hoped the applicants
would consider trying again at a later date for ad-
visory or other positions with the new school sys-
tem.
“We will be needing qualified people to help us
in the future,” McIntosh said.
Before the ballots were taken for the new board
members, commission attorney Gil Middlebrooks
reminded the commissioners that they were
See Interim, 3A
pS
REE
es
spruce-up. Work currently in
progress in town will not only
make driving smoother, but will
also clean up a stretch of side-
walk that was getting to be
a.m. and told employees he had ~/?ather shabby.
a gun. The suspect then ordered
tellers to fill a bag with money.
Police are looking for a white
male in his late 30s or 40s with a
dark mustache. He was wearing
dark pants and a dark T-shirt.
He also had a bandana tied
around his head.
After leaving the bank with
an undisclosed amount of mon-
ey, the suspect drove off in a
small red truck. No one in the
bank was injured.
Motorists and pedestrians on
King Street may have noticed a
crew of workers from the N.C.
Department of Corrections fa-
cility in Dallas working dili-
gently to beautify the sidewalks
on both sides of that thorough-
fare. The 10 or so guys hard at
work are being supervised by
Officer Brooks.
“We're using bush axes, shov-
els, and rakes to trim the side-
walk,” Brooks said. “After the
bags so far. Plans are for the en-
tire length of King Street from
one city limits sign to the other
to be cleaned up. The job will
continue until the end of this
week. Time permitting, the
crew will also begin a general
litter pickup around town.
That roaring sound many res-
idents of Gold and Mountain
streets heard last week wasn’t a
runaway locomotive. Part of a
project to repave the two roads,
a huge pavement grinding ma-
chine operated by Delta
Contracting was skimming off
the top layer of tarmac so thata
See Paving, 3A
© 2,
ae VL
CLINI)
BANK
IS || FIRST NATIONAL BANK
Celebrating 126 Years
Kings Mountain
300 W. Mountain St.
739-4782
|
ALAN HODGE /THE HERALD |
Workers for Delta Contracting have been smoothing the pavement on several streets in Kings
Mountain for new paving. Pictured on Gold Street are Roger Green and grinder operator Dustin
Vongliss. .
Gastonia Shelby Bessemer City
529 New Hope Rd. 106 S. Lafayette St. 1225 Gastonia Hwy. ; {
865-1233 484-6200 629-3906 X
Member FDIC
rT —