BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
Furniture retailer Heilig-
Meyers has filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. The company says
it plans to close 302 stores and
lay off'4,400 workers. The Kings
Motntain store at 401 S.
Battleground Avenue will ap-
parently escape the axe.
“We will not be one of the
stores to close,” said manager
Leonard Watts. “Our business
has been okay.”
Stores in Gastonia at 1392 E.
Franklin Blvd. and the Town
and Country Shopping Center
in Lincolnton will also remain
open.:'*
Based in Richmond, Virginia,
Heilig-Meyers will still have
nearly 600 stores with 12,900
workers still in operation after
the cuts. Most of the stores af-
fectéd will be in the Deep South
or on the West Coast.
Papers filed in the bankrupt-
cy proceedings said the compa-
ny had assets of $1.35 billion
and liabilities of $868 million. A
* net [0ss‘of $15 was posted for
the quarter ending May 31.
A news release quoted
Heilig-Meyers CEO Donald
Shaffer as saying the filing was
due to"continued disappoint-
ing’operating results coupled
with’an inability to secure alter-
nate financing sources.”
In addition to closing stores,
the’company will also cease op-
erations at distribution ware-
houses in Hesperia, California
and Thomasville, Georgia.
Heilig-Meyers will also stop of-
fering in-house financing. A
third party will be contracted to
handle credit sales.
Founded in Goldsboro in
1913, Heilig-Meyers achieved a
peak of 1,249 stores in 1998. In
1993, the company’s stock had
sold for nearly $40 a share.
Six sentenced in .
(Gperation Meth-Ex- 2
i Six more Cleveland County
residents were sentenced in U.S.
deral Court in Asheville on
ugust 21 for their involvement
ih Operation Meth-Ex.
i Operation Meth-Ex is an on-
going investigation being con-
ucted by the Cleveland
County Sheriff's Office, the
ederal Bureau of Investigation,
nd the State Bureau of
vestigation involving the traf-
ficking of Methamphetamine in
and around Cleveland County.
{ To date 22 people have been
indicted. Eight of the 22 were
sentenced March 29 in Federal
Court in Asheville, receiving
Sentences ranging from two and
bne half to 12 years. The investi-
ation began in the early spring
f 1998 and has continued to
his date. ”
: The investigation has led offi-
ers: to Methamphetamine traf-
fick not only in Cleveland
County and surrounding coun-
pes] but to other states as far as
outhern California. The inves-
tigation targets individuals who
ronspire to acquire, transport,
and distribute
Methamphetamine to.
Cleveland and surrounding
Counties. vi
Sentenced in Federal Court in
Ashville on August 21 were:
Eugene Turner, 53, 184 Clelo
Dr;César, conspiracy to traffick
Methamphetamine, sentenced
ito 28gears prison; William
Anthony Chapman, 42, 304
Longbranch Road, Grover, con-
spiraey-to traffick
Methamphetamine, sentenced
to6 1/2 years prison; Barry
William Lemmons, 41, 2320
Erherald Mine Road, Shelby,
conspifacy to traffick
Methamphetamine, sentenced
to 71/2 years prison; Joe Dean
Crotts, 33, 340 Double Shoals
Road, Shelby, conspiracy to traf-
fick Methamphetamine, sen-
tenced to 4 years three months
prison.
==BaFry Michael Engle, 31, 1505
Rn
=Shelby Road, Kings Mountain,
Econspiracy to traffick
viethamphetamine, sentenced
0.7 1/2 years prison; Ramiro
Nava Casas, 24, 9231 Juniper
Avenue, Fontana, California,
eonspiracy to traffick
Methamphetamine, sentenced
fo=6-F/2 years prison.
“Operation Meth-Ex is contin-
aing-and more indictments are
“expected in the near future.
pa
$i5
5
SID AR DRASTIC
tL
(OPINION The Kings Mountain Herald
PICTORIAL EDITORIAL
GARY STEWART / THE HERALD
The Supreme Court has ruled that high schools across the nation cannot have organized prayer
before football games. However, the Supreme Court cannot control what individuals do on
their own, even at football games. Players at Kings Mountain and many other high schools
have had a tradition for years of kneeling in prayer on the sidelines prior to their games. Here,
Kings Mountain Mountaineers Steven Blanton, Brandon Houze and Cortney Smith, left to right,
pray silently prior to a game with Freedom Saturday night at the First Charter Bank Jamboree
at Crest High School.
Digging up memories
One of my friends and colleagues mentioned
last week how he used to wash his hands in the
branch. That's the first time I've heard that term
in manyayear.
These days.nobody uses branch, they say. creek
or stream. but when ‘we were kids on the milpiyil=
lage we played in the branch, and when we got
wet and muddy, either our mother or grandmoth-
er would "cut the blood" out of us with a little
keen "hickory".
I guess I'm giving away my age, but when you
reach the autumn of your years it's sometimes
pleasant to look back on your younger days. I'm
always amazed at how 50 years ago seems like
only yesterday. Recently, I ran into a friend I had-
n't seen in 38 years and as we chatted those 38
years melted away, and it seemed we had played
baseball together just last week.
We lived down behind the Travora Mill in York
with my grandmother. It was just a five minute
walk to the mill and I can remember both my par-
ents heading for their jobs carrying a brown pa-
per bag of sandwiches and a mason jar filled with
coffee.
Remember bobbins and bands? Anybody who
has been around a cotton mill remembers bob-
bins. They came in several different sizes and a
kid could use them as all kinds of toys. Bands, to
the uninitiated, were made of twine twisted tight-
ly together, and I don’ know what they were used
for in the mill, but the neighborhood kids used
them as reins for the stick horses we rode all over
the place as we played cowboy.
My grandmother raised a good sized garden
and we had a cow. One of us would have to take
the cow to a different location around the neigh-
borhood where it could graze all day. In the
evening we'd bring the cow in for grandma to
milk. As she squeezed the milk from the cow's
udder into the galvanized water bucket, there
was an almost melodious "ping" until milk col-
lected in the bucket and then it was like rain
dropping in a puddle.
Sometimes, if you tied the cow in the wrong
place, the milk tasted like wild onions. I didn't
like that. One of my fondest memories of those
days was grandma sitting on the front porch
churning butter. If I had that churn now I could
probably get a small fortune for it.
"Ido have her old black wash pot. We used that
wash pot for everything from rendering hog fat
for lye soap to washing clothes. Does anybody re-
member the sticks of bluing people used when
washing those clothes back then? How about the
scrub board? Today's women worry about how
their hands look. If they washed a load of overalls
using a scrub board there wouldn't be enough
hand cream in the drug store to.make them soft.
My uncle Mose, who lived next door, had a
pair of mules. One day one of them stepped on
my foot and just stood there. I used every cuss
word I knew and pounded that dang block head
with both fists before I could get him t6 move off
my foot. I was screaming like a panther and my
grandmother came running. After she got that
stubborn mule to get off my foot, she turned
around and smacked me right up side of the
head, saying: "Where did you learn such lan-
guage?" She packed a mean punch.
Sometimes just a phrase, or even one word,
makes memories flood into my head. I find that if
I don't write them down, they are quickly gone
back to their hiding place where they rest until
somebody else mentions something like washing
in the branch. s i
I'll bet the same thing happens to you.
\
Editor: Gary Stewart 739-7496
August 24, 2000
Politicians and zebras come
in a wide variety of stripes
During my rounds at ribbon cuttings, anti-
mule scourger rallies, and other high class gath-
erings, I have met quite a few politicians. A
friendlier bunch of folk one would be hard
pressed to discover. Indeed, the presence ofa
politician at a get together can fairly light up a
room or a cow field, depending on the occasion.
From time to time I have thought of running
for political office. The main thing that keeps me
from giving it a shot is my checkedy past. You
see, | once spent three days in jail for gigging fish
at Lake James. I've done some other stuff too, but Staff Writer
when I once told someone about them, they said
my deeds would only qualify me for President of the United States.
I think there are certain qualities that make a person a good
politician. One of these is the ability to act. Not in a sense of being
decisive, but like John Wayne or, yes, Ronald Reagan. This ability
often comes into play when the politician has to be friendly to a ri-
val in public that they say bad words about when they are in the
privacy of their own home.
Another political skill is being able to say something false often
enough so that you eventually believe it to be the truth. This is like
when you were a kid and broke something and when your mom
asked who did it you said “I don't know” somany times that it you
came to believe it yourself. Bioe ;
Some politicians have real empathy for the people who elected
them. Others think of the people in terms of a superior being look-
ing down at a bunch of inferior twits. Just recently I saw a few guys
whose actions over the past nine months fall into this latter catego-
ry. My how they looked askance when they ventured down into
the neck of the woods where they had run roughshod and got the
snub.
It takes a politician of strong principles not to be swayed by lob-
byists and other folks seeking favors. I'll bet a lot of deals have
been brokered over the combination of an empty stomach, cheap
white wine, vegetable spread sandwiches and a slick voice at some
type of political soiree. The best politicians stick to cold soft drinks
and peanuts on the porches of country stores where bib overalls are
the garb. :
Yes, if I ever run for politics, I'll hereby promise to remember the
little man, keep a chicken or two in every coop, consume my fair
share of barbecue, and even go so far as to buy myself a real suit
and tie for the inauguration. 2
The way we were in 1978
Proof that technology and big city ways had come to Kings
Mountain made the front page of the August 24, 1978 Mirror-
Herald when it was reported that all local phone calls would soon
have to be dialed using all seven numbers. Previously, local Kings
Mountain calls could have been made by just dialing six digits.
Another big story on the front
°
Looking}
Alan Hodge
page of the August 24th Mirror-
Herald concerned a water main
break under S. Piedmont Avenue. A
photoof the pipe} which:city em-
ployee Red Blanton said was in-
stalled in the 1930s, showed work-
ers installing a new section in a
a, =
SEE
Sud (@)
Fh
7
v
a
2
huge trench. : Pe
Sports news filled three full pages WT oy ety Y
of the August 28, 1978 Mirror- AN Nena
Herald. Sports editor Gary Stewart AT KINGS MOUNTAIN
predicted in his column that South By Alan Hodge
Point would be the football team to
beat in the upcoming gridiron season. Second on the prediction list
was Shelby. Chase and Kings Mountain rounded out the top four of
Stewart's picks. In other sports news, coach Ed Guy said that he ex-
pected the Kings Mountain High School girls tennis team to be
much improved over the previous year. Guy said he had lost his
best player in Pat Durham, but felt most of his returning players
had gotten better.
The pages of the August 24, 1978 Mirror-Herald had several fea-
ture photo shots. One picture was that of beaming, eight-year-old
Patrick Heavner shown with the new 12-inch portable TV he won
by selling 21 subscriptions to the paper. Another shot featured
Kings Mountain Jaycees president Alvin Moretz and N.C. Jaycees
leader discussing upcoming club projects. Yet another photo fea-
ture framed 11-year-old Douglas Ramsey with the bicycle he won
by selling 20 Herald-Mirror subscriptions.
The special “Living Today” section of the August 24, 1978 Mirror-
Herald featured a full page story and photo layout of the home of
John and Jeanine Major of Kings Mountain. The story focused on
the unusual decorations that the Majors had acquired during their
excursion to South America. As Lib Stewart reported, the Majors
said that spending time in South America had given them a greater
appreciation of life on Moss Lake.
Just in time for back to school, many advertisements in the
August 24 Mirror-Herald featured clothing at low, low prices.
TG&Y Family Center was offering bell-bottom, polyester slacks for
just $9.50 a pair. :
SIDEWALK
SURVEY
By ALAN HODGE
Kings Mountain Herald | |
What is the
worst food you
have ever
fo
eaten?
shrimp.
The worst for me is
shrimp - | really hate
Gloria Pauley
Kings Mountain
1}
| was in Barcelona,
_.Once | had some
The worst thing |
Spain and ate some bad barbecued me was some poorly ever ate was a
calamari. chicken at a cooked hamburger boiled snapping
restaurant. with too many turtle.
onions. .
Cecilia Wingfield Mike Riffle Rhett Butler _ Rich Parker
Virginia Beach, VA Bessemer City Shelby Kings Mountain