dbo
students rank
Thursday, September 12, 2002
KINGS
Vol. 114 No. 37
Since 1889
McIntosh,
Ledford
advance
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
Incumbent Willie
McIntosh and Kenneth
Ledford will be the two
Democrats in the general
election for the two seats on
the Cleveland County
Board of Commissioners.
McIntosh, the current
board. chairman, said he’s
running his campaign on
his past achievements.
“Well, I guess, when
you're in my position,
you're running on the
record,” he said. “What I've
done in the past is what I
want to continue to do. So I
just hope that will be peo-
ple will look at.”
McIntosh garnered 7,769
while Ledford had 6,788
after Tuesday's unofficial
count. The other challenger,
Freddie Ellis had 2,662.
The two winners in the
democratic primary are res-
idents of northern
Cleveland County.
Both McIntosh and
Ledford will run against
when
Raymond
Hamrick
soundly
defeated
his former
boss,
incumbent
sheriff Dan
Crawford,
in the
Democratic
primary.
“I'm very
GARY STEWART / HERALD
big winner
in primary
Cleveland County, the polit-
ical landscape changed
HAMRICK
excited,” Hamrick said.
“I've had a long year and
I've had good campaign
support with my folks here
and we're just tickled to
By BEN LEDBETTER 3,510.
Staff Writer With the first votes com-
ing in around 7:46 p.m., the
Tuesday night in absentees, Hamrick led by a
total of 407-230.
~ And the pace continued
with the rest of the precincts
with Hamrick capturing
most of them. He captured
all but one Kings Mountain
precinct as well as Grover,
Bethware and Oak Grove.
While Cleveland County
has been a historically
strong Democrat area,
Hamrick said he’s not look-
ing past the general election
in November, but taking the
whole process in steps.
“The kind of person I am,
I take things a step at a
time,” he said. “We'll look
forward to November. We'll
take care of that, then we'll
move on.”
Republicans Jerry Self, an
incumbent, and John
McBrayer in the November
5 general election.
See Ledford, 5A
A convoy from the 505th Engineering Battalion, Kings Mountain National Guard, leaves
Kings Mountain for Fort Bragg Friday for Operations Noble Eagle and Enduring Freedom.
After two weeks of training at Fort Bragg the soldiers will be assigned to bases in the
United States. People lined the streets in several areas of town to wave, salute and
wish the soldiers good luck.
death to come to this point.”
After Tuesday's unofficial
count, which was posted at
the Cleveland Volunteer Fire
Department, Hamrick
defeated Crawford 7,702 to
And with his upcoming
bid for election, Hamrick
said he was surprised to
make it out of the primary.
See Hamrick, 5A
KM vocational
#1 in State test
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Kings Mountain High
School is #1 in the State.
This time, we're not talk-
ing sports but vocational
education.
Sheila Sisk, Director of
Career and Technical
Education for Kings
Mountain District Schools, ~~ Union County, Yancey behalf of parent David
announced at Monday County, Elkin City, Mt. Airy Brinkley, who is spear-
night's School Board meet- City, Davie County, heading a public fund-
ing that the 1,100-plus Transylvania County, raising drive to raise
KMHS students that took Gaston County, and Clay the money and volun-
the State end-of-course County. ‘teer labor that will be
Career and Technical
Education courses during
the 2001-02 school year had
the best average score of all
high schools in the State.
Sisk explained: that the
State only recently went to
mandated “secured” end-of-
course testing for vocational
education courses. There
were 348,462 career and
technical students enrolled
my career.”
the students.
across the State.
Of every 100 North
Carolina students who took
an end-of-coutse test, 57%
answered correctly at least
65 of the 100 test items
(Level III), with 74.98% of
KMHS students answering
at least 65 items correctly.
Alleghany County ranked
#2 at 73.33%, followed by
Sisk, who is now being
asked by other systems to
share strategies that Kings
Mountain teachers used to
achieve the high scores, said
hearing the news is “one of
the proudest moments of
She gave all the credit to
“I am just real proud of all
See Test, 5A
Second
appro ved
for KMHS
By GARY STEWART
Editor of The Herald
Kings Mountain's
Board of Education
Monday night gave its
approval for a field
house at Lancaster
Baseball Field that will
cost between $100,000
and $150,000.
Dr. Larry Allen pre-
sented the proposal on
necessary to build it.
The School Board
stipulated in its action
that no work can begin
on the field house until
“all the money is in
hand.
Jerry Blanton, who
along with fellow
board member Terry
See KMHS, 5A
Grover gets grant for water study
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
The town of Grover’s water system may °
be improved in the next few years.
And the process moved forward after the
N.C. Rural Economic Development Center
awarded the lower Cleveland town a
$40,000 grant to go toward a feasibility
study for improving its system.
The N.C. Rural Center's board of direc-
tors voted recently toraward $22,793,000 in
grants to rural communities struggling to
improve their water and wastewater sys-
tems. The board reviewed 126 grant propos-
als and selected 60 for approval.
“It is especially important in these tight
economic times to keep our communities
growing and to protect
5
FIRST NATIONAL BANK
iu Celebrating 128 Years
the health of rural citizens and our environ-
ment,” Billy Ray Hall, Rural Center presi-
dent said. “These grants will help create and
retain more than 3,500 jobs and serve more
than 50,000 customers in 41 rural counties.”
The town has documented problems with
outdated, galvanized water lines and the
N.C. Department of Environment and
Natural Resources has notified the town
that the treatment plant is using non-.
approved disinfection procedures. Grover’s
project is expected to have a developed cap-
ital improvement plan along with a review
of water and wastewater treatment facilities.
The town applied for the grant through
the Forest City engineering firm Odom and
Associates.
The grants, which are funded through the
See Grover, 7A
Kings Mountain
704-739-4782
300 W. Mountain St.
Remembering
Special ceremonies at KM schools
3 ARE FRG
recall terrorist attacks of last year
By BEN LEDBETTER
Staff Writer
With the anniversary of the September 11
terrorist attacks Wednesday, schools, towns
and other groups of people planned obser-
vances. :
Several schools in the Kings Mountain
school district either had patriotic programs
or special studies and projects geared
toward remembering the date and thesvic-
tims and their families.
At Kings Mountain Intermediate School,
students worked on a peace chain.
The links contained words and pictures
from the fifth and sixth grade students and
were connected with links from other class-
es
The chain was placed outside the school
Wednesday morning.
The school-wide project was organized by
KMIS teacher Elaine Stewart
Although the attacks happened last year
sixth-grade teacher Lynda Frye said feelings
still exist over them.
“The purpose is for us to remember the
events of the past,” she said. “Hopefully, to
grow and learn and wish for peace and look
at the positives.”
Tuesday, Frye’s classroom had newspaper
See Schools, 5A
Gastonia
704-865- 1233
Shelby
529 New Hope Road 106 S Lafayette St.
704-484-6200
BEN LEDBETTER / THE HERALD
KMIS students Lavonda Gash, top, and
Brittany Bingham (foreground) and Cristy
Cain, bottom, color part of the peace chain
remember September 11.
Bessemer City
225 Gastonia Hwy.
704-629-3906
91.