Thursday, November 22, 2001
Vol. 113 No. 47
Since 1889
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oon With victory
1B
First KMLT
performance
at Joy opens
Friday night
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
The Joy Theater, once the
home of motion pictures, will
now house the Kings Mountain
Little Theater.
According to Little Theater
President Jim Champion, the
KM Little Theater raised over
$300,000 for purchasing and
renovating the building.
The renovation of the Joy
involved several parts which
included an extension of the
stage area, refurbishing the
marquee, a new neon sign, and
work toward the original
appearance of the theater.
The theater will open Friday
with the Little Theater's pro-
duction of “Forever Plaid.”
“This was an exciting oppor-
tunity for us to purchase the
Joy and renovate it,” Champion
said. “We've had great commu-
nity support for it”
Other renovations include
bringing the concession stand
back to its original location and
adding a new light and sound
system by the end of the year.
“This will give the building,
and our group, when we use it,
a lot of flexibility,” Champion
said. “It will also make the
building appropriate for arts
related performances.”
Other groups will be able to
use the theater as well,
Champion said.
The auditorinum, which:seats
224, can also be used for things
such as corporate training and
town meetings.
Champion said the seats are
comfortable, spacious and have
good sight lines.
Barnes Auditorium at Kings
Mountain High School and the
Council Chambers at Kings
Mountain City Hall have been
two widely-used facilities for
meetings in the city. Rental
See Joy, 3A
AANA
New senior center dedicated
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Hundreds of Kings Mountain citizens and
guests gathered Sunday afternoon where
grass and weeds once grew to dedicate the
new 17,000 square foot, $3.1 million H.
Lawrence Patrick Senior Life and
Conference Center which city officials say
will serve the needs of Kings Mountain area
senior citizens for generations to come.
Keynote speaker, former Kings Mountain
mayor John Henry Moss, said the site at the
intersection of East King Street and
Canterbury Road was once “an unattractive
area of grass and weeds. We drove past it
daily. Now as we drive by we have a sense
of deep pride as we view this facility.”
Moss was the mayor in the early-70s,
when at a town meeting the Rev. Kenneth
George shared a dream of his to have a pro-
Costners’
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
Grady and Katie Costner want the
Midpines area south of Kings Mointain to
be a Christmas town.
So to help fulfill the desire, they have dec-
orated their home for Christmas.
“It started off little and it just kept getting
bigger,” Grady said.
The couple decorates their yard and
house with cartoon characters, trees, a car-
rousel, a manger scene, and a burning bush.
And with the different scenes are a flurry of
lights that take two breakers to shine.
A lot of the ideas for the decorations came
from Christmas-themed coloring books.
Possibilities were also found from house-
hold things.
FIRST NATIONAL BANK
Celebrating 127 Year
gram geared for helping senior citizens.
George later became the city’s first aging
director and led a program out of the base-
ment of the Community Center which pro-
vided meals and transportation.
After just a few years the program relo-
cated at the old Southern Railway Depot on
North Battleground Avenue where pro-
grams expanded to include crafts, exercise
activities, and numerous classes and trips.
In its 26-year history, the Aging Program
has had only three directors - George,
Teresa Melton, and current director Monty
Thornburg who has held the post for 15 1/2
years.
“All of them did a great job providing a
viable center and social functions,” Moss
said.
Moss said the Depot has been renovated
and expanded several times - to the point
See Center, 3A
GARY STEWART / THE HERALD
Employees of Comco Signs of Charlotte use a crane to place the vertical marquee in place at the
new Joy Performance Center, which opens Friday with the performance of Forever Plaid.
GARY STEWART / THE HERALD
Mayor Rick Murphrey, Mary Helen Patrick
and Monty Thornburg cut ribbon to offi-
cially open new H. Lawrence Patrick
Senior Life and Conference Center.
idpines home to shine
“I had been hunting for a peacock,” Katie
said. “And one day I went through the
house and there they were on that potato
bag.”
Such of the decorations are lit, and peo-
ple may come by their house on
Thanksgiving night until New Year's to see
lights from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Santa Claus will also be at the Costners’,
sitting near the entrance to the driveway,
which winds around the back of their
house.
But before the lights go on, they have to
set the ornaments out, and then light them.
The couple, along with family friend Mark
Bumgardner, started on this year’s lights at -
the end of September.
Grady said although putting on a display
that gets nicknamed “Little
Kings Mountain
300 W. Mountain St.
704-739-4782
McAdenville,”after the Gaston County
town, is a time-consuming task, he enjoys
doing it.
“My wife and I both enjoy doing it,”
Grady said. “So there's really no labor to it
since we enjoy doing it.”
Although their yearly scenes have a
moniker for a bigger display, the Costners
said they did not know where the nickname
came from.
“A lot of people, they tell me they quit
going there so much, they would rather
come down here,” Grady said.
Putting up thousands of lights can be
costly, and Katie said donations help pay for
the power bills, candy canes, and Santa
Claus.
See Lights, 3A
Gastonia
529 New Hope Road
704-865-1233
106 S. Lafayette St.
704-484-6200
Diamond buys
Caldwell Chevy
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
A Charlotte car dealer has
purchased the Chevrolet dealer-
ship previously owned by Fred
Caldwell of York Road in Kings
Mountain.
Diamond Chevrolet-Isuzu is
owned by Reggie Hubbard,
who also owns Metrolina
Dodge in the Queen City. .
“We're looking to expaiid and
the opportunity arose and we
came to a mutual agreement,”
Executive Manager Jeff
Tomascak said.
Tomascak said the Charlotte
dealership had negotiated for
about two months on the prop-
erty, and bought it and the deal-
ership at market value. He
would not disclose the cost of
the sale.
The Kings Mountain location
is the first expansion for the
Charlotte car dealer.
Diamond started doing busi-
ness last week in Kings
Mountain. It will not sell Isuzu
vehicles at the Kings Mountain
location.
Tomascak said a number of
employees in Charlotte are from
Kings Mountain.
“We have several employees
that work in Charlotte from
Kings Mountain and they
thought there would be addi-
tional opportunity for retail
sales in the area.”
Currently the Kings
Mountain dealership employs
30 people, with an expected
increase to 45 workers.
General manager at the Kings
Mountain store is Steven Berry,
who has 15 years of experience
in automobile sales. Berry previ-
ously worked in Charlotte.
Tomascak said he thought the
business would do well, noting
Cleveland County’s unemploy-
ment situation.
EDC work session
set November 28
at KM City Hall
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
The Cleveland County
Economic Development
Commission will hold a series
of work sessions around the
county on the subject of job
recruitment.
The series of meetings, which
will last from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
will start Tuesday; Nov. 27 at
the Crest High School
Auditorium and will be in
Kings Mountain Wednesday,
Nov. 28 at City Hall.
After a Thursday meeging in
Lawndale, the last of the meet-
ings will be at the County
Administration Building in
Shelby on Saturday from 9-11
a.m.
Cleveland County, which
currently has North Carolina's
highest unemployment rate at
11.7 percent, has suffered from
a slowdown in the textile
industry.
Economic Development
Director Steve Nye said the
meetings are tied in with the
work session the county Board
of Commissioners and the EDC
held with local and state lead-
ers on Nov. 5.
Nye said he hopes the ses-
sions will increase. thie amount
of leads his office has already
received.
“We've had a couple of leads
come from folks who have
called us up,” Nye said.
Nye said he intends to collect
the information from the work
sessions and make it available
publicly sometime in
December.
See Session, 3A
Transit service to begin
in KM after first of year
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Mayor Rick Murphrey will
name a special committee at
next Tuesday’s City Council
meeting to work with city staff
and the Transportation
Administration of Cleveland
County to bring transit service
to the city.
Murphrey and Tom Crider,
director of TACC, have been
talking for several weeks and
both hope to have transit serv-
ice in the city shortly after the
first of the year.
The committee will work
with Crider and city planning
staff on schedules and routes.
Crider said the fee for the serv-
ice, which initially will be sup-
plied by a large van, will be one
dollar, one-way.
“We're shooting for January,”
said Crider, whose non-profit
organization eventually hopes
to bring transit service all over
Cleveland County. Currently,
the system operates in Shelby,
and after the KM system is put
in place it will extend its servic-
es to Boiling Springs and then
See Transit, 3A
Mark Bumgardner, left, and Grady Costner work on Christmas
scene in front yard of Costner’s home in Midpines.
Shelby
Bessemer City
1225 Gastonia Hwy.
704-629-3906
Member FDIC