KINGS MOUNTAIN
North
Carolina
old time
ways and
wisdoms
iB
PLEDHONT
OUNT a 1TH hh
Vol. 113 No. 07 Since 1889
50 Cents
~ Thursday, February 15, 2001
3 to be
inducted
into KM
Hall of Fame
Two longtime supporters of
Kings Mountain High athletics
and one of the school’s all-time
great female athletes will be in-
ducted into the Kings Mountain
Sports Hall of Fame at the 14th
annual induction ceremony
Tuesday, April 17 at Kings
Mountain High School.
This year’s honorees are
Delbert Dixon and Gary
Stewart of Kings Mountain and
Judy Medlin Champion of
Monroe.
Dixon has been an avid sup-
porter of Mountaineer football
since the 1950s. He helped B.S.
“Sonny” Peeler film KMHS
football games for several years,
and then became the score clock
operator for 43 years, tracing
back to the time that the team’s
very first score clock was in-
stalled at the old City Stadium.
As a newspaperman, Stewart
has been covering sports in
Kings Mountain since 1964,
most of that time as sports edi-
tor/editor of the Kings
Mountain Herald. He is also
one of the original founders of
the Kings Mountain Sports Hall
of Fame.
Judy Medlin Champion was a
basketball star for the Lady
Mountaineers from 1956-59. She
scored 1,028 career points and
had a career scoring average of
18.4 points per game. Her se-
- nior year she scored 501 points
in 20 games (25.1 average) and
scored a school record 55 points
in a single game. She is retired
from the Union County School
System.
Another highlight of the Hall :
of Fame ceremony will be the
dedication of the KMHS gym in
honor of retired coach Donald
L. Parker. Parker, who now
lives in Tennessee, was KMHS
basketball coach from 1943-1967
and compiled a career won-lost
record of 247-139. Many of
Coach Parker's former players
will be returning to Kings
Mountain to take part in the
event, and Kings Mountain
school officials will participate
in the dedication ceremony.
The banquet gets under way
at 6 p.m. in the school cafeteria.
The induction ceremony fol- -
lows at B.N. Barnes
Auditorium.
Tickets are $10 each and cov-
er the meal as well as the induc-
tion and dedication ceremonies.
They may be purchased at
McGinnis Department Store,
Linwood Restaurant, The
Herald and from any member
of the Hall of Fame committee.
Hillway Drive
resident found
stabbed to death
Kings Mountain police are in-
vestigating the death of a Kings
Mountain man who was found
dead of a stab wound early
Monday morning.
Police answered a 2:40 a.m.
call to 218 Hillway Drive, where
they found the body of Rickie
Lee Moore, 22.
An autopsy was performed
on the body Monday at Gaston
Memorial Hospital, confirming
that Moore died of a single stab
wound.
According to police, Moore's
© cousin and housemate, Tommy
Lee Moore, discovered the body
and called 911.
Det. Lisa Proctor is heading
the investigation for KM Police,
and said they hope to be able to
close the case soon.
“Right now we're trying to
track down the information,”
she said. “We're getting a lot of
information and we're just try-
ing to cipher it all.”
GARY STEWART / THE HERALD
County Commissioner Ronnie Hawkins of Kings Mountain listens intensely as
* the commissioners and the county’s three school board discuss alternatives to
merger at Saturday morning meeting in Shelby,
Boards attempt
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Kings Mountain, Shelby and
Cleveland County school officials will
be busy between now and next Tuesday
night's meeting of the Cleveland
County Board of Commissioners.
- The commissioners and school sys-
tems are trying to see if they can put to-
gether a proposal for area State legisla-
tors to introduce a special bill to repeal
the State Board of Education’s approval
of the merger plan.
In a special meeting between the
commissioners and three boards on
Saturday morning at the County
Administrative Building, Commission
Chairman Willie McIntosh asked
County Manager Lane Alexander and
the superintendents of the three school
systems to come up with a plan regard-
ing equitable funding of the three sys-
tems and a review of attendance lines
every five years; and asked representa-
tives of the three Boards of Education to
work on a redistricting plan that would
place more students into the Shelby dis-
trict.
If those groups can put together pro-
posals that everyone can agree on, the
commissioners will ask the local
Legislative delegation to take the matter
to Raleigh
In a meeting last Wednesday night at
the Kings Mountain Teacher Center, the
Cleveland County Board's Attorney,
Michael Crowell of Tharrington Smith,
LLP-af Rainich, poitited out several op-
to work out
merger solutio
GARY STEWART / HERALD
George Litton of the Cleveland
County School Board makes a state-
ment at Saturday’s meeting.
tions the systems could take as an alter-
nate to merger, but short of it being
ruled on in the court system most of the
options would require action by the
General Assembly.
The Shelby School Board dropped a
bombshell on the marathon 2 1/2-hour
meeting when, near the end, its
Chairman Dr. Jack Hamrick read a pre-
pared statement which more or less im-
posed a deadline for settling the matter
or Shelby would have no alternative
but to support the merger.
SeeMerger, 3A
ALAN HODGE /THE HERALD
Joe Sox, superintendent of Crowders Mountain State Park, points out some interesting vegeta-
tion on Juniper Ridge. The land Sox and a group of hikers walked Sunday i is part of a new wilder-
ness area that encompasses over 2, eo acres.
Making the Connection
Hikers find out how tough park to park trail can be
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
As rugged and beautiful as it
gets. That's a good way to de-
scribe the new connector land
between Crowders Mountain
State Park and Kings Mountain
National Military and State
parks.
A hardy group of hikers got a
chance Sunday morning to find
out just how unspoiled the
Juniper Ridge section of the
land is when they took part in a
two-hour trek led by Crowders
Mountain park superintendent
. Joe Sox.
One of the dozen or so hikers
FIRST NATIONAL BANK
Celebrating 127 Years
who joined in the trail breaking
included Leroy Mercer of
Gastonia.
“I've always been rrorcated
in nature,” Mercer said. “So the
connector trail is especially ex-
citing. It's wonderful to have
that much natural area so close
by.”
The section of trail that Sox
took hike participants across is
totally unmarked and relatively
untouched. Large boulder for-
mations, briars, underbrush,
fallen logs and steep hillsides
make it something that only the
fit should attempt. Total new
area added to Crowders
Mountain by the connector land
Kings Mountain
300 W. Mountain St.
704-739-4782
529 New Hope Road
is 2,061 acres. The ridge line it-
self is 12 to 13 miles long and
' extends from Crowders
Mountain to the South Carolina
State line.
“We own the whole ridge,”
Sox said.
Even though the area is a
challenge to hike, the rewards
for those who make the effort
are great. At frequent intervals
during Sunday’s hike, Sox
stopped and pointed out un-
usual plant species. Just a few
of these were ground juniper
and turkey’s beard.
Other plants included yucca,
See Hike, 3A
Gastonia
704-865-1233
106 S. Lafayette St.
| What Gap?
Whites, Blacks in Kings Mountain
| performing close to the same level
BY ALAN HODGE
Staff Writer
Depending on how you look
at the numbers, there might or
might not be an achievement
gap between white and black
students in Kings Mountain
District Schools.
That’s-how John Goforth,
Executive Director of
Instruction and Curriculum de-
scribes the diverging and con-
verging lines on a series of
charts tracking the percentage
of students proficient in reading
and math over a five year peri-
od in different grades in Kings
Mountain. The charts showed
. both individual schools as well
as proficiency percentages sys-
temwide.
“Individual schools in indi-
vidual years can have situations
which might skew the percent-
age of proficient students,” said
Goforth. “It’s more accurate to
look at the long term scores for
the entire system to see if an
achievement gap exists and
how much it might be.”
Goforth said that according
to statisticians, the larger the
sample, the more accurate the
data. Also, if the scores between
white and black students were
not widely divergent, then per-
haps a gap didn’t exist at all.
“Some statisticians say that if
two numbers are within 10 per-
cent of each other, then there's
no gap,” he said.
According to the charts
Goforth has in his “Closing the
Gap 2000-2001 Task Force”
notebook, some proficiency
See Gap, 10A
100
Percent Proficient
40
30
1995-96 1996-97
oe Black — White
1997-98
School Year
KMDS Grade 5 Reading
Majority / Minority
1998-99 1999-00
|
The Kings Mountain District Schools have compiled a series
of charts that track the percent of white and black students
who are at grade level proficiency in reading and math. As
this chart shows, fifth graders of both races in Kings
Mountain are currently performing at very close levels in
reading skills.
‘Shelby
704-484-6200
Bessemer City
1225 Gastonia Hwy.
704-629-3906
Member FDIC §
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