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Fisher enjoying
new role as
Superintendent
The Herald's Dave Blanton had some questions for
Cleveland County Schools new superintendent, Dr.
Stephen Fisher -
O: You were named to the superintendent job
over the summer, replacing Dr. Bruce Boyles.
Has this been a busier summer than usual —
what with the transition and trying to settle into
the new role?
“This has been a very
busy summer and
seems to have been
busier than normal.
The transition has been
good but has made for a
busy summer. We have
had lots of things going
on during the summer
from an instructional
perspective — Summer
Reading Camp, Liter-
acy Camps, Summer Intensives for Teachers,
Teacher Symposium, etc. Combining these ac-
tivities with hiring a new assistant Superintend-
ent and filling a few principal jobs; the summer
has gone quickly.
Dr. Stephen Fisher
0: Can you give us and idea of how you'll
be picking up where Dr. Boyles left off. Or, al-
ternatively, going in some directions with
staffing and other goals?
We will continue to address the goals that are
highlighted in our Strategic Plan. Obviously,
we want to continue the work we’ve done with
our graduation rate. Continuing to make sure
that every student graduates and is post-sec-
ondary prepared is our goal.
Q: Having served for some years as the as-
sistant’ superintendent of curriculum and in-
struction with the Cleveland County Schools,
you already had a working relationship with the
members of the Board of Education. Do you see
that relationship getting stronger in the coming
year or two?
See FISHER Q&A, 7A
Moral Monday rally
The Cleveland County Branch of the
NAACP will sponsor a Moral Monday Rally on
Monday at 5:30 p.m. on the lawn of the old
Cleveland County Historic Courthouse, 103 S.
Lafayette Street, Shelby.
Seating will be provided for older seniors
and handicapped.
Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president of the
North Carolina State Conference of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, will be guest speaker.
Rev. Dante Murphy, Branch president, in-
vites the public to attend.
It PAYS to be a
Mountaineer!
00200
kmherald.com
Volume 126 ¢ Issue 36 ¢ Wednesday, September 3, 2014
75¢
More than just horseplay
gs DAVE BLANTON
© dave.kmherald@gmail.com
Students, teachers and ad-
ministrators at East School El-
ementary got the first taste of
the Early Act First Knight pro-
gram Friday as horsemen
dressed as medieval knights
put on a show in the school’s
sunny back lot.
The knights and ladies
came for the first time to the
school last year, making it the
first school in North Carolina
to embrace the Rotary Club-
sponsored program that em-
phasizes good citizenship and
strong character.
About 300 were in atten-
dance as Queen Suzannah
(Kings Mountain Rotary Club
member Suzanne Amos) em-
ceed the entertaining cere-
At right: A knight moves in on his
target in a display of sword and
horsemanship skills at Friday’s
kick off to East Elementary’s
Early Act First Knight program,
which will run all year long.
monies. Three knights, as-
sisted by a number of squires
and ladies, demonstrated their
skills — at lancing loops and
slicing heads of lettuce tar-
gets.
“We’re very supportive
of the pro- —
gram,” said Kings
Mountain Mayor Rick Mur-
phrey, a fellow Rotarian, who
was in attendance with other
city officials, including those
from the city’s police de-
The program last year
helped establish a junior Ro-
tary Club at the school.
And at every quarter, stu-
dents ranging from kinder-
garten through fourth were
recognized for such character
traits as honesty, fairness and
perseverance.
EarlyAct FirstKnight also
seeks to motivate and teach
children of all back
See
KNIGHTS,
7A
Wal-Mart to bring shifts in traffic
DAVE BLANTON
lave.kmherald@gmail.com
As residents look ahead to
the addition of a new 40,000
sq. foot Wal-Mart store, the
City of Kings Mountain and
the N.C. Department of Trans-
portation are studying how the
fresh influx of cars will affect
traffic flow and safety in the
changing neighborhood.
The last several years have
seen a handful of what trans-
portation experts call traffic
stressors pop up on the Shelby
Road and King Street.
First came Ingles. Then
came a Duke Energy training
facility, Telerex, a pharmaceu-
tical distributor and other busi-
nesses that found a home in the
industrial park near the Hwy.
74 Bus. and Hwy. 74 bypass
exchange on the west side of
town.
There’s also an O’Reilly
Auto Parts store that will be ar-
riving soon less than a mile
from where Wal-Mart is lo-
cated. And Dollar General, cur-
rently located in the small
shopping center next to Love’s
Fish Box on the Shelby Road.,
will soon be moving across the
street. Additionally, a 56-unit
apartment complex on King
Street near the I-85 interchange
is set to be completed by
Christmas.
For Steve Killian, the city’s
Director of Planning and Eco-
nomic Development, all these
mounting changes to the
town’s main artery mean that
the roads must change too. And
based on open lots that are
zoned for commercial use
along and near King Street,
he’s counted 25 possible new
businesses that could spring up
in the near future.
Because Shelby Rd./King
St. is a state-maintained road,
it falls upon the N.C. DOT to
An intersection that has limited drivers’ options will likely have to be re-designed ahead of the crush of traffic
that Wal-Mart is expected to bring to the west Kings Mountain neighborhood.
both maintain it and sign off on
driveway permits for new and
expanding businesses.
Killian credits the state De-
partment of Transportation for
being ahead of the game in
general and specifically when
it comes to needed changes to
King Street as Wal-Mart looks
to a Thanksgiving opening. He
said state engineers have done
an excellent job of keeping mo-
torists’ best interests in mind.
“That’s the reason you want
DOT to design (the changes),”
he said last week in his office
in City Hall. “There’s a science
to it. Their engineers can re-
view ingress and egress ... and
they’re striving to come up
with a plan that considers the
safety and long-term (traffic re-
alities) of the area.
Killian said traffic engi-
neers look at “movement con-
flict,” which is basically the
study of reducing the chances
that motorist have to collide
with each other as they navi-
gate toward or around a desti-
nation or intersection.
The changes DOT has
planned to accommodate the
retail giant’s arrival have not
been finalized, but city officials
feel that the entrance/exit point
onto King Street will get a
facelift. Now, motorists leaving
the shopping center are prohib-
ited from making a left turn
heading west. Meanwhile, cars
at that same intersection mak-
ing an exit from the Kings
Mountain Country Club can
turn only right.
The DOT passes along the
total cost of road modifications
and improvements that are pre-
cipitated by new businesses to
the businesses themselves.
Much of the stretch from
around Sims Street to the Food
Lion on the west side of town
could likely see some changes
regarding lane designations and
placement of stop lights, ac-
cording to Killian, who said
that Wal-Mart could radically
change the neighborhood,
drawing as it has in other lo-
cales an array of new busi-
nesses.
“Wal-Mart generates
enough traffic as a destination
that it’s nice to be close to,” he
said, adding that the Food Lion
on Shelby Road has renewed
its lease for multiple years.
Moore unopposed
ELIZABETH STEWART
lib.kmherald@gmail.com
Rep. Tim Moore (R-Cleve-
land), Kings Mountain lawyer
and five-term representative
from District III in the NC
House, is home free for another
term after Nick Carpenter, De-
mocrat, Shelby, announced this
week he has withdrawn as a
candidate.
The Cleveland County Dem-
ocratic Party did not nominate a
candidate as replacement for
Carpenter on the ballot.
Carpenter has withdrawn to
take advantage of new educa-
tional and political employment
opportunities opening up and
relocated in late July to the
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill
“Triangle” of the state.
Carpenter, 21, «will: work
through the November general
See MOORE, 7A
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