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Volume 126 ¢ Issue 18 ¢ Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Kings Mountain Herald
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PROJECT LEADERS - David Dear, left, a
leader in county economic development for
many years, and Kings Mountain Mayor
Rick Murphrey endorse the casino/resort
complex proposed by the Catawba Indian
Nation.
Photo by LIB STEWART
Opponents
seek support
OPPONENTS - Cynthia and Adam For-
cade, seen here addressing a crowd at
East Gold St. Wesleyan Church on
Thursday evening, have been outspoken
opponents of a proposed casino complex
slated to be built just south of Kings
Mountain. Photo by DAVE BLANTON
= DAVE BLANTON
". dave.kmherald@gmail.com
A group that aims to stop a Catawba
Indian casino from coming to Kings
Mountain gathered Thursday in hopes of
garnering more public support for its
cause.
The information session, held at East
Gold Street Wesleyan Church, drew
about 60 people, who heard claims by
members of the Kings Mountain Aware-
ness Group that casinos strangle local
economies and are an affront to Chris-
tian values.
“Gambling is a taxation on the poor,”
said Wes Brown, pastor of Bessemer
City’s First Wesleyan Church. “Gam-
bling undermines philanthropy. The
mere act of gambling flies in the face of
the values of hard work. It’s wanting to
get something for nothing.”
Brown also said that more and more
people in this country are gambling and
paying moral and financial cost for it.
“It’s a $550 billion a year obsession
in America,” he said.
Since its founding in February, the
Kings Mountain Awareness Group has
sought to reach the community with data
and research that they say are evidence
of the detrimental effects a casino would
bring to Kings Mountain and the people
See CASINO OPPONENTS, 7A
8 | | 1
852570020
Casino project leaders tout impact as positive
Cite potential increased jobs, utilities revenue to city
ELIZABETH STEWART
lib.kmherald @gmail.com
Project Schoolhouse — that
was the original tag for a major
economic development project
that began in January 2013 by
the Cleveland County Economic
Development Partnership work-
ing in collaboration with other
county and city officials and an-
nounced last November as the
Catawba Indian casino and re-
sort complex .
City and county officials em-
braced the project's potential im-
pact on a county with a 7.9
percent seasonally adjusted un-
employment rate. The develop-
ers promised 4,000 jobs, a new
revenue source for a cash-
strapped state and no incentives
from the county or from Kings
Mountain, where the Catawba
Nation is eying a site for a resort
destination on Dixon School
Road off I-85.
“Neither the county or Kings
Mountain will pay any incen-
tives if the project is successful
and in 35 plus years in county
government and economic de-
velopment I had never heard that
statement from a developer,"
Danica and Wesley Smith, along with their parents Calista and Rod-
ney, and their cousin Jacob Grier, were among a group of 30,000 that
enjoyed the Easter egg roll on the White House lawn in Washington
D.C. recently. Read all about it on page 4B.
:
Se
Rare ————
Barrett beat the odds
Set to graduate June 7
ELIZABETH STEWART
lib.kmherald @gmail.com
Alec Barrett, 18, beat the odds
and on June 7 he will grin from ear
to ear when he walks across the stage
at John Gamble Stadium to receive
his high school diploma.
At the age of 18 months Alec had
not said the two words every new
mother and father want to hear —
“mama” or “daddy.”
His mother knew something was
wrong.
Robin Crisp had taken him to sev-
eral doctors and finally at the age of
3 at Duke University Medical Center
she got the devastating diagnosis that
no parent wants to hear.
The toddler was diagnosed with
Pervasive Development Disorder:
Not Otherwise Specified (PDD:
NOS). In other words, he was autis-
tic. Doctors said he would never ma-
ture mentally or physically beyond
the age of 6 and would surely never
get a full high school education.
Sixteen years ago autism was not
a common household word as it is
today with 1 in every 68 children-
mostly boys - being diagnosed each
year.
”We’ve all learned a lot since
1998 when Alec was 1 of 300 chil-
dren diag-
nosed with
autism
spectrum
disorder,”
said Mrs.
Crisp. The
number of
children
with autism
spectrum
disorder has
grown to
disturbing
levels which has changed diagnostic
practices and increased public aware-
ness. Graduation is always a big deal
for students but even a bigger deal
for Alec Barrett.
He is full of surprises.
It took eight tries for Alec to get
his learner’s permit recently but he
mastered that test too and his Mom is
teaching him to drive a Honda Civic.
He works an hour after school each
day weighing bulk candy and re-
stocking vegetables at Rhodesdale
Farms and the icing on the cake is
that he has a date for the senior prom
with Miss KM 2012 Kristin Boone.
Robin enrolled Alec in the
SCATES program at Bethware
School at age 3. The program was
See BARRETT, 8A
Alec Barrett
said former county manager
David Dear. The developers will
also pay for road improvements,
This artist rendering of
the proposed casino
shows what the project
may look like when
completed.
the widening and on and off
ramps, and the project would
See CASINO SUPPORT, 7A
Voters to hit
the polls May 6
Kings Mountain voters will join their Cleveland County
neighbors at the polls Tuesday, May 6, to vote in Democratic
and Republican Primaries and choose nominees for the gen-
eral election in November.
The polls are already open for early voting in Kings
Mountain at the Jacob S. Mauney Memorial Library, Kings
Mountain North Precinct, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
— April 30, May 1, and May 2 from 8 a.m.-6 p.m. and on
Saturday, May 3, from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. :
The polls will open at 6: 30 a.m. Tuesday, May 6, close
at 7: 30 p.m. at KM North Precinct at Mauney Library (enter
from Harris Funeral Home back parking lot) and KM South
Precinct at the H. Lawrence Patrick Senior Life & Confer-
ence Center, E. King Street.
Grover citizens will vote Tuesday at Grover Town Hall,
207 Mulberry Road; Bethware voters will cast ballots at
Bethlehem Baptist Church, 1017 Bethlehem Road; Oak
Grove area voters will vote at Oak Grove Baptist Church
fellowship hall, 1022 Oak Grove Road, and Waco commu-
nity voters will cast ballots at Waco Community Building,
200 S. Main Street, Waco.
Kings Mountain voters will help nominate the GOP con-
tender for US Senator where former Shelby mayor Ted
Alexander is running in a field of eight candidates including
Thom Tillis, Jim Snyder, Edward Karin, Mark Harris,
Heather Grant, Alex Lee Bradshaw, and Greg Brannon. In-
cumbent Democrat Kay Hagan is opposed by William Curtis
Stewart Jr. and Ernest Reeves.
In the US House of Representatives, District 10 incum-
bent Republican Patrick McHenry is challenged by Richard
Lynch. Libertarian candidates for the District 10 House seat
are Sean Haugh and Tim D’Annunzio. Tate MacQueen is
the Democrat contender in November.
Democrats Colin McWhirter and John Robert Bridges
See VOTERS, 7A
Drop-out rate down;
graduation dates set
a DAVE BLANTON
\. dave.kmherald@gmail.com
The Cleveland County
Board of Education heard a
report Monday night that in-
dicates the county’s schools
are making improvements in
both their drop-out numbers
and discipline incidents.
Dr. Stephen Fisher, the
school system's assistant su-
perintendent for curriculum
and instruction, presented
the results of the 145-page
report, which is compiled
annually by the North Car-
olina Department of Instruc-
tion. He explained that
administrators are looking
for correlation between
school crime and violence,
suspensions and dropouts to
academic performance.
System-wide, there were
2,964 short-term suspen-
sions in 2012-13. That num-
ber fell by 548 from the pre-
vious year. Long-term
suspensions also fell, from
34 to 26 during the same
time span. In fact, the num-
ber of short-term suspen-
sions has been falling
consistently since the 2006-
2007 school year, which saw
4,557 short-term suspen-
sions.
Meanwhile the drop-out
rate fell by about one per-
cent from 2011-12 to 2012-
2013.
Fisher also explained that
administrators have put in
place a number of strategies
to continue to improve the
aggregate numbers, includ-
ing increased mentoring, a
pre-K through 12 priority of
student graduation, high
See SCHOOL BOARD, 7A
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