Thursday, February 8, 2001
Vol. 113 No. 06
Since 1889
50 Cents
_<fons
«1 North
Carolina
8A
Students
report
attempted
abduction
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Three 9-year-old East
Elementary School students re-
ported Tuesday that a man at-
tempted to pick them up as
they were leaving school
Monday at 3 p.m.
According to Det. Derek;
Johnson of Kings Mountain
Police Department, the children
walked out of school at the bus
parking lot, and were walking
around the front of the school in
the area of Cleveland Avenue
The children said a Black
man in a Red Honda Civic ap-
proached them and said, “your
grandmother has sent me to
pick up you,” according to
Johnson.
Johnson said the children did
exactly what they needed to do:
‘they kept walking.
“As they kept walking he
said, ‘I'll just meet you up at the
store,” Johnson said. “But they
walked around to the other side
of the school where the parents
park and got into the car with
their parents.”
Johnson said the children did
not report the incident until the
following day, when they told a
school employee, who notified
Principal Jerry Hoyle. Hoyle in-
terviewed the children and
called the police and a report
“was filed at 2'p.m.
See Students, 3A
Freeze
saved gas
customers
44 percent
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Many Kings Mountain citi-
zens may have been alarmed at
the drastic increase when they
received their January utility
bill from the city.
Because of unusually cold
weather during December, ev-
eryone’s bill, especially the nat-
ural gas part of it, was much
higher than the month before.
But, says City Manager
Jimmy Maney, they would have
been 44% higher had the city
not frozen residential gas rates
foramonth.
Mayor Rick Murphrey had
~ announced on January 11 that
the city would freeze the rate
for January based on the
December wholesale rate. He
estimated the cost to the city -
and the savings to the over
4,000 residential customers -
would be about $150,000.
As it turned out, City
Manager Jimmy Maney said the
savings to customers was
$325,000.
Maney, who monitors gas
prices on an almost daily basis
and “locks in” a price when he
feels it is as low as it’s going to
get for a certain period of time,
said all cities are experiencing
drastic rises in gas rates because
of recent shortages and higher
wholesale prices.
For example, he said, in
December 1999 the city paid
$373,000 for the wholesale cost
of gas. In December 2000, the
cost was $1 million.
“As we move forward, you
can’t absorb too many $325,000
expenditures,” he said. “But,
the good new is that gas prices
See Freeze, 2A
GARY STEWART / THE HERALD
Flags fly at half-mast at North Elementary School in memory
of guidance counselor Judy Howell, who lost her life in a ski
tubing accident Saturday evening at Beech Mountain.
sweets.
Eden
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
EdenGardens assisted living
facility in Kings Mountain will
soon be having a major expan-
sion.
Scheduled to begin in mid-
summer, the growth could
eventually consist of 56 single
family homesites and a 30 unit
independent elderly apartment
building. A minimum 30-foot
greenspace will be maintained
around the property.
EdenGardens has 9.4 acres of
land adjacent to its current 12
acre plot for the project. Cost
when completed will be $12 to
$14 million. The project will al-
so include a new dementia unit.
“When the project is finished.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK
Celebrating 127 Years
300 W. Mountain St.
ardens plans major expansion |
EdenGardens will be the only
facility in the area to offer the
full continuum of care for se-
niors,” said EdenGardens mar-
keting director Vickie Husband.
Plans are for the first phase of
the three phase endeavor to be-
gin in a few months. Buildings
will consist of a three-story ~~
apartment with 30 units. That
figure could grow to 90 apart-
ments by the time the project is
completed.
There will also be 12-14 inde-
pendent garden homes on the
site. These will offer at least six
floor plans with around 1,300 to
1,400 square feet of heated
space. Pulliam Investment Co.
of Spartanburg will be handling
See Eden, 2A
Kings Mountain
704-739-4782
Snow tubing
saasessessaniasaaeane Zessssasirnassasenasenn
acciden
fatal to KM educator
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
A family outing to the ski slopes of Western
North Carolina to celebrate her son’s 10th birth-
day turned tragic Saturday for Kings Mountain
teacher Judy Howell, who died following a ski
tubing accident at Ski Beech.
Mrs. Howell, a guidance counselor at North
Elementary School, was an experienced skier but
was tubing for the first time when the tube she
was riding overshot the finish line and went over
the 6-to-8 feet sloped stopping area. Mrs. Howell
was caught by a safety net, but she dropped out
of the net on her neck. She was airlifted to a hos-
pital in Johnson City, TN where she died.
According to officials at the ski slope, it was the
first fatal accident at Ski Beech.
The accident occurred around 6:25 p.m. Mrs.
Howell's close friend, Betty Eaker, said they had
planned to go tubing earlier in the day but tickets
were sold out.
“She had skied before,” said Eaker. “She loved
the outdoors. They just decided to do that be-
cause the slopes were so crowded.”
Mrs. Howell's son, Jeff, who recently turned 10
years old, had gone to the mountains two weeks
earlier to try snowboarding, and the Saturday
outing was a part of his birthday celebration,
Eaker said. :
Friends and colleagues recall Howell as a dedi-
cated teacher, mother and friend who loved chil-
dren and sports. She was an avid supporter of her
son’s 10-under AAU baseball team. Her husband,
Scott, was one of the team’s coaches. The team
traveled every other week during the past season,
and finished high in a number of tournaments
.across the state.
“She was the backbone of the team,” Eaker
said. “The daddys coached, but the mommas al-
ways ran the team. She was the big cheerleader,
and if they needed anything done she was the
one that did it. There were 14 boys, and all of
their parents were involved in it.”
Howell's dedication to children was evident in
her recent decision to return to college to get a
Master's degree so she could be a school coun-
selor. Kings Mountain School Supt. Bob McRae
said she had worked as a teacher assistant at
Grover Elementary for several years before be-
coming a counselor at North at the beginning of
the current school year. She also did her semester
counseling internship at Grover under Janet
Smith.
“Although she was at North for a short time,
she endeared herself to the faculty with her ener-
gy and compassion,” McRae said. “She is certain-
ly going to be greatly missed. In a system of this
size - it’s so related to a small community that
when a tragedy like this happens the impact is
felt even more to the school system because we
have such a family feeling.”
North teachers were notified of Mrs. Howell's
death on Sunday, and they spent most of the af-
ternoon and evening calling parents of their stu- -
dents to encourage them to explain the situation
to their children so school counselors and minis-
ters could begin the healing process on Monday
See Howell, 3A
Board members
defend hiring,
salary of Allen
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
. paid $86,002.56 in state funds
and $21,372 in local supple-
in local supplements. McRae is:
PR T—
A ALAN HODGE/THE HERALD
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, kids at Bolin Day Care in Kings Mountain spent some
time making decorations for the event. Showing off the artwork, youngsters (from left) Robbie
Lysek, TaTa Nixon, Chelsea George, and Haley Camp were also looking forward to some Valentine
While the hiring of Dr. Larry
Allen and his $100,000 per year
| . salary approved by the Kings
Mountain Board of Education
Wednesday is being judged as
unnecessary and too costly by
proponents of school merger,
members of the Board are de-
fending their action and say it is
actually saving the county and
the state money. :
Board members say Dr.
Allen’s appointment as superin-
tendent is necessary because
KMDS is still a viable school
system and needs experienced
leadership.
School officials say Dr.
Allen’s salary, including state
and local funds, is less than the
salary of current superintendent
Bob McRae, and Allen’s con-
tract does not include any funds
for insurance coverage or a
- buyout clause.
According to KMDS Director
of Finances, Mary Jo Lindquist,
Allen will be paid $77,830 per
year in state funds and $22,170
ments. Dr. Allen’s contract is ef-
fective April 1, 2001 through
June 30, 2004. Dr. McRae’s will
be paid through March 30. He
becomes superintendent of
Randolph County Schools on
April 1.
School Board Vice-Chairman
Melony Bolin said Allen's in-
surance benefits are provided
under his retirement plan, and
estimated because of that and
the difference in Allen’s and
McRae’s salaries there would be
a savings of about $75,000 over
the three-year period of Allen's
contract.
Bolin said Southern
Association regulations state
that the superintendent must be
the system's highest-paid em-
ployee and that KMDS’s second
highest employee, an adminis-
trator, makes $91,300 per year.
“Dr. Allen is only receiving a
little bit over $8,000 per year
more than the highest paid em-\
See Allen, 3A
ALAN HODGE /THE HERALD
EdenGardens of Kings Mountain will expand its facilities into the surrounding forest beginning
later this year. A community of independent living residences will be built there by Pulliam
Investment Co. of Spartanburg.
Gastonia
529 New Hope Road
704-865-1233
Shelby
106 S. Lafayette St.
704-484-6200
Bessemer City
1225 Gastonia Hwy.
704-629-3906
Member FDIC