RE hs EE Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Lib Stewart A distinguished woman indeed Lib Stewart at a special church lunch. This week, many people in town have honored Lib Stewart — a fine Christian lady, a friend to many, a loved ‘aunt and sister to some, and to me — a great mentor. On Thursday night, Aug. 5th, the Cleveland County Commission of Women will recognize Lib as a Distin- guished Woman. The recog-. nition is much deserved and I think it’s safe to say that Ronnie Hawkins, who sub- mitted her as a nominee this year, and I are very grateful | that they chose | her out of a bunch of other | worthy candi- dates. On Sunday, Dixon Presbyte- rian Church, of which she is the last remaining charter mem- ber, honored : her in a special service. We were all able to keep it quiet enough so that she was sur- prised on Sunday, although I’m sure the reporter in her got suspicious when she saw me walk in and then Ronnie and Libby Hawkins and Myrtle Christenson and Ar- lene Barrett. (We were all guests to Dixon Presbytetian that morning.) And on Tuesday night she was surprised again by Mayor Rick Murphrey and the city as he read a special proclamation in her honor. At least I hope she was sur- prised. She’s very smart. Several people stood up at church on Sunday and spoke about her smarts. Her pastor Randy Patterson read verses from chapter 8 in Proverbs that spoke- about wisdom and how it is more precious than rubies. “I think Lib chose wis- dom,” he said, “and we are all blessed for that.” Her brother Gary Stew- art, longtime leader of The Emily Weaver Editor Herald and current sports ed- itor, also talked about her knowledge and other attrib- utes he’s admired in her over the years. His heartfelt talk was peppered with humor- ous accounts from when they were growing up. She’s kind, loving, fair, honest, just, and faithful. Someone you hope to be around when, times get tough. A doting. aunt you hope to have when your birthday rolls around. She’s an unspoken leader who leads by example and who - works | harder, than her counterparts. : Several others il shared memories 8 of her. I only wish now I would’ve had the courage to stand up and speak that Sunday. The irony is I thought of speaking about her courage. That’s one of the things I admire most about her. Like Gary pointed out she was born premature; small enough to fit in the hand of an, adult they say. Her bed was a pillow. And being born premature and with the symptoms of Typhoid fever that plagued her mother and other family members, her prognosis wasn’t good. The doctor, who came to the house, “said, “Don’t worry about this one. She won’t make it.” But by the grace of God she did. She grew up healthy and strong. Years later she relied once again on that strength to become a sur- vivor of breast cancer. Courage. If anyone has it, she does. I've seen that courage rear its head when she covers stories for the paper. I was with her once when she decided to drive out and see what was going on at the spot where South- ern Power was supposed to I ES SH OW LD J Jor just as hard, if not The Kings Mountain Herald . Beach Blas photos by EMILY WEAVER Left to right, Megan Clampett, Tyler Cutler (with back to camera), Christian Quevedo, and Kaleb Nor- ris compete with others in the watermelon eating contest Saturday at Beach Blast. Beach baby Jasmine Suarez looks like she might be wondering what the judges are writing about her in the Teenie Weenie Bikini Contest. Piper Green won first place in the youngest division of the bikini contest. Fourteen- month-old August Terry plays up to the judges during the Teenie Wee- nie Bikini Contest. He won first place among boys in his age division Saturday. be building its new plant off of Battleground Road. She had called’the company, bus hadn’t heard back. “We’ll just go and see what they’re doing,” she told me. We drove out there, down a dirt road, past a “no tres- passing” sign (I kept quiet Come on down to the BE. Vay eit) ethware, about seeing) to where the gravel gave way to grass. I looked in the rearview. mir- ror and saw that we weren’t alone. “We’ve got company,” I said. She stopped and got out of the car and walked up to the company truck behind us. Within a matter of min- utes she was laughing and smiling with the guys in the truck. She gave them her card and said, “just tell them to call us.” Within a day or so they did. And I saw then, as I’ve seen at other times, she is not afraid to go after a story. Being in the newspaper busi- ness isn’t easy, even though some of the truly best ones make it look that way. Like my first mentor here, her brother Gary, she’s one of the best — a distinguished woman indeed. E Miss Bethware Fair 2010 Miss Jada Roberts Entertainment Nightly: Tuesday & Wednesday - Johnny B B ; Thursday - Harvest N Friday - South by South Saturday - Timber Ridge Bethware School Grounds © Off Hwy 74 Bypass. » Kings Mountain —— a —

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view