PUBLISHED EACH TUESDAY AND THURSDAY
GARLAND ATKINS GARY STEWART LIB STEWART
Publisher Co-Editor Co-Editor
MEMBER OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS /.SSOCIATION
The Herald is published by Herald Publishing House, P.O. Box 752, Kings Moun
tain, N,C, 28086. Business and editorial oiiices are located at Canterbury Road-
East King Street. Phone 739-7496. Second class postage paid at Kings Mountain.
N.C. Single copy 20 cents. Subscription rates: $12.48 yearly in-state. $6.24 six mon
ths. $13.52 yearly out of state. $6.76 six months. Student rates for nine months.
$8.50. USPS 931-040.
€DITORlM?&OPHIOrK
Visit Senior Center
Kings Mountain Multi-Purpose Senior Center
has been referred to by olTieials of the Division of
Aging in Raleigh as a model for those seeking to
establish one in their own area.
The City of Kings Mountain is vitally interested
in the elderly in the Kings Mountain Area, and
dedicated to offering services to aid them in any
way fea.sible and practical.
Make plans to visit your Senior Center during the
month of May which has been proclaimed “Older
Americans Month.”
The facility houses many educational and recrea
tional resources for the betterment of the senior
citizens.
This is your Senior Center, and we hope that you
will take an active part and interest in its’ growth.
Reader Dialogue
Praises For Huffman
To the editor:
Compliments are rare.
It’s very seldom one reads of an official in public
office every being commended or complemented for
his or her accomplishments done.
Seemingly one hears more in the manner of gripes
and complaints of this official not getting this or
that perfect job done.
Of course. I’ve never been one of these ardent
believers that one must go by the book, for the sim
ple reason that one must allow at given tin.es for
change and modifications of any given project or
situation.
Compliments are rare, as well as commendations
to our public works officials in our city, and 1 would
like to commend as well as to compliment Mr. Ted
Huffman for his superb job he has been doing in his
field of endeavor of public works, which can be very
tiring as well as difficult at times.
1 am an ardent believer of giving credit where
credit is due, and Mr. Huffman is to be not only
commended, yet as well as complimented for his
understanding of other people’s problems also.
I find him quite cordial as well as understanding
and sincere in his dealings with the public.
My vote of confidence goes to Mr. Huffman, as
well as to any other official who is trying sincerely
to do his job extremely well.
Everette Pearson
Against Harris Bill
The Honorable Ollie Harris
The State Senate
North Carolina Legislative Building
Raleigh, North Carolina 27602
Dear Senator Harris:
are two to three times more likely to die in their first
year than babies born to women in their twenties.
The incidence of prematurity and low birth weight
is higher. There is also an increased risk of epilepsy,
cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and the cesarean
section rate is higher in teenagers.
As a citizen of North Carolina and a practicing
Obstetrician-Gynecologist who also holds joint ap
pointments at the University of North Carolina
Medical School as well as East Carolina Medical
School in Greenville, 1 have had, over the last fif
teen years, ample opportunity to see teenagers who
find themselves pregnant. 1 have also written exten
sively on the problem of teenage pregnancy and
have been a consultant for HEW as well as the past
Deputy Director of the National Center for Family
Planning.
For years one of the problems in dealing with
teenagers that find themselves pregnant is that they
would come in late for treatment, or they would
withhold the pregnancy from fear of parents or
punitive control and they would end up finding
themselves in worse shape than they would be just
with the pregnancy.
The fact that there is a lack of adoptable babies
because of abortion being legal is not a very positive
anti-abortion position. You see, women should not
bo forced into having babies for infertile couples.
Adoptive babies are also scarce because today 93%
of unwed teenage mothers keep their babies.
When we force teenagers into continuing the
pregnancy, you should be aware that the maternal
death rate is six percent higher. You should also be
aw are that 85% of the teenagers that become preg
nant never complete high school. Y ou should also
be aware that suicide is nine times higher for
teenagers that are pregnant than for the same age
group without a pregnancy. You should also be
aware that a pregnant teenager is three times more
likely to die from toxemia of pregnancy. Children
Most teenagers that are forced into a pregnancy
and made to keep the pregnancy, end up on welfare.
That figure, sir, is seventy-two percent.
Most teenage mothers end up having a large
family and tend to have children closer together. If
the first child is born to a mother f 17, she can ex
pect four children in the famib' nere is a higher in
cidence of battered chiF’ren, child abuse, in
teenagers that are forced into having pregnancies
that they don’t want.
It is also of interest. Senator, that considerably
more interest has been given to the psychological efi
fects of abortion than to the psychological effects of
carrying through an out-of-wedlock pregnancy and
either keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption.
Many studies have shows that young women who
deliver an out-of-wedlock baby and place it for
adoption subsequently demonstrate more measures
of personality difficulty than do similar females who
obtain an abortion. Further conservations with pro
fessors at John Hopkins has confirmed our ex
perience of the continuing psychological upheaval
that persists for many years following the delivery
of an out-of-wedlock child who is placed for adop
tion. Parents of an adolescent female who delivers
and places her baby for adoption frequently con
tinue to experience shame, guilt, and grief. Often
these feelings appear to be mitigated considerably
when the daughter eventually marries.
LOOKIMG
(From the April 24, 1952 edition of The Kings
Mountain Herald)
Kings Mountain city schools band won a supterior
rating at the annual state music contest Tuesday at
Woman’s College in Greensboro. Director Joe Fled-
den’s organization was one of two bands in Group
111 who won superior ratings in last year’s contest
and along with it the right to compete in the state
contest this year.
The city board of commissioners took the first
step Monday toward offering a sewerage and water
bond issue when it instructed City Attorney J.R.
Davis to contact the New York law firm, Mitchell
and Pershing, bond attorneys, to start the necessary
legal procedures.
SOCIAL AND PERSONAL
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Burris Keeter of Grover an
nounce the engagement of their daughter, Jo Ann,
to Lt. Warren Sherrill Hicks, Jr., son of Mr. and
Mrs. Warien S. Hicks of Grover. The wedding will
be an event of June 1.
1 would appreciate your taking into deep con
sideration the facts that cannot be denied about the
problems of teenage pregnancy.
1 do agree with you that parents should be aware
of what is happening to their children. Unfortunate
ly, that is not the case and something has happened
to family structure. We have, in this country, eleven
million sexually active teenagers and last year eight
hundred thousand became pregnant. Next year the
projected figures are 1.2 million pregnancies in
teenagers.
I would appreciate having the opportunity to
speak to you personally and discussing this very im
portant social issue.
Please also be aware that we, as responsible
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are against this
bill.
1 remain
Respectfully yours,
TAKEY CRIST, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., F.A.C.S.
Director
Crist Clinic for Women
Tu.«lay. April 21. IMl HUGS MOUNTAIN HEBAID
Easter Is Family-
Day At Our House
As far as being against state funded abortions,
you should also be informed enough to be aware
that if those women that had abortions ptaid for by
tax dollars had been d«ni«d the abortions, the state
tax-payers would end up paying an extra sixty-two
million dollars taking care of those children from
birth to age eighteen.
Sunday was Easter, a hallowed day in world
history, a day when churches amassed record atten
dance figures and just about everyone made a point
to be in his pew, or a pew, on Sunday morning.
At our house we got up early and attended
Sunrise services at 6 a.m. at Graham and Julie
Wood’s new underground home off York Road.
The preacher warned us that the sun does rise in the
mountains but not until about 7 o’clock. By the
time the service ended it was indeed a spectacle
worth remembeiing. After the worship service, a
congregational country-style breakfast was served
in their home. At 9:45 a.m. we went to the church
(Dixon Presbyterian) for Sunday School and the
regular worship services of the day. By 12:30 all the
family joined us to celebrate Easter and Daddy’s bir
thday. So, like most families in the community,
Easter was a full day for our household as it is for
everyone. A time for worship and family
togetherness.
For the first time in many Eastertides, Americans
had local problems of immediate importance to ac
company the international ones.
At home there is galloping inflation and many
Mamas of this season turned to sewing their
children’s frilly frocks instead of visiting the stores
to select the flouncy skirts, frilly bows and pert bon
nets. People are resisting high prices, not because
they want to but because they must.
Easter is the chiefest dress-up season for the
youngsters, and the new apparel season perhaps
more than at any other time because it’s concidence
with spring helps too. Parents have always done
hours of tedious sewing, buying and budget
manipulation to dress up their little folks. The fact
that all the effort is quite likely to be lost by the
nearest dust 'oin or mudhole makes no difference at
all. At a given time on Easter morning the little
ladies and gentlemen are going to be just that, in ap-
peartmee anyway.
But the nicest part about the holiday is the
spiritual inspiration from the retelling of the Story
of the Resurrection and the re-learning of the lesson
it teaches.
All the other aspects of the Eastei season pale
when the real significance of Easter is considered.
Lib
Stewart
I
Church attendance is best at Easter and Christmas,
and while this may not be as it should, it is cer>->inly
indicative that the great mass of humanitt' the
Christian world still retains an awareness ol.. i on
ly important values in earthly life and return to
them if they have turned away or detoured.
At Eastertime, all should re-dedicate themselves
to those principles of honesty, courtesy patience,
fairmindedness, and humility demonstrated wholly
on this earth by Christ, who died that others mipht
be saved.
9
M
Something On
Your Mind?
Write
Reader Dialogue
P.O. Box 752
Kings Mountain, IN.C. 28086
Feature Idea?
Call 739-74%
ESTELL
Same Address, Please!
I was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, and I’m proud of it. 1 also plan to die in
Goatonla - not some little obscure village called Robinwood.
1 don’t like it one bit that a few people decided among themselves to move me,
without so much as consulting me, from residing presently on the outskirts of Gastonia
to a little village of around 2,000 people.
There must have been reasons known to this group, but as of this writing, they have
failed to convey them to me or anyone I’ve talked to. Believe you me my phone has
been ringing off the hook; everybody is as concerned and as alarmed as 1 am.
We’re not going to take this sitting down. You can rest assured of that. We have
already started and expect to keep the ball rolling.
We don’t want to impose our wishes on other sections. If other communities want to
live in Robinwood that’s their option. 1 believe most of us want to stay as we are, thank
you just the same.
I understand some of my neighbors do like this idea and that’s all right, but the ma
jority, unless 1 am sadly mistaken, are very much opposed. I just hope and pray this
issue won’t turn one neighbor against another. That indeed would be bad. This hai up
to now been for the most part such a congenial neighborhood. 1 loved living here and
planned to live here just as long as 1 could.
1 have lived out here for ten years. There were then very few houses out here - just
empty lots and some of them not very pretty ones at that. Houses seem to spring up
almost overnight until now there are few vacant lots. The houses are attractive and the
lots have been landscaped and now it’s an attractive place to live.
Those of us who moved out here years ago know what we wanted and what we were
getting into in the way of public services, etc. 1 haven’t heard any complaints from the
“old timers.” It’s the people who have only been out here a few years who seem to
want a change. We like them and want them as neighbors, but we can’t understand
why they moved out here in the first place if they didn’t like our present system. This
could have just as easily moved to another district where things already were to their
liking.
I’m certainly not anxious to be taken into the city before it’s necessary. Nobody
wants to pay extra taxes, but when 1 do have to pay city taxes 1 prefer them to be paid
to the City of Gastonia and not the Village of Robinwood.
Everytime I start to write Robinwood I catch myself wanting to write Robinhood.!
wonder if there is any significance in that - could be!
We have already consulted a lawyer to see what we can do to fight this issue. We
will do our best to follow instructions as fast as possible. As in any case like this many
will feel strongly about an issue, but a few faithful and determined ones will have to ac
tually do the work. I’m willing and able.
Not one soul I’ve talked to knew one single thing about this matter until we read
about it in the papers. We don’t feel this was right. We should have received all the
facts and had chances to express ourselves before it was brought up before the
legislature. We feel the wool was pulled over our eyes and all this would come about
with just a few chosen few on the inside. This is not democracy.
Naturally we are now ready to hear their side of it, if they are willing and able to tell
us the whol* story. There’s no way however 1 will ever be convinced that a village
newly formed and with no government experience to stand back of us can accomplish
our desired results. What we may hear may sound good at first glance.
Nobody agrees with everything the City of Gastonia does but Gastonia has been
here a long time and I’ll stick with them ii I can.
If I am criticized for writing this, and I’m sure I will be. I’m sorry. Please keep this in
mind, I’ve just heard about this. Nobody has tried to convince me it would have its’
avantages to live in Robinhood, I mean Robinwood. I’m just writing what I and others
strongly think as of this writing. We don’t want to change our address. We have many
sensible, logical reasons.
S •
e
<1