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VOLUME 94. NUMBER 66
25*
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5. 1961
KINGS MOUNTAIN. NORTH CAROLINA
o
0
Dickey, Ledford, Lee Win Local Elections
Incumbent District Six Com
missioner Jim Dickey retained
his seat on the Kings Mountain
Board of Commissioners Tues
day by defeating Jan Deaton in a
runoff election.
Dickey, a 10-year veteran of
city politics, received 693 votes
to 427 for Deaton in one of the
city’s best turnouts ever for a
runoff.
Dickey ran first among four
candidates in the October 6
primary, but failed to receive a
majority vote. Humes Houston
ran unopposed to win the
District Two seat for the third
time and Curt Gaffney defeated
William Orr for the District Five
seat. All three will take office in
December.
JIM DICKEY
Dickey’s big support came in
West Kings Mountain (Districts
Four, Five and Six) where he
collected 437 votes to 258 for
Deaton. Dickey received 256
votes in East Kings Mountain
(Districts One, Two and Three)
and Deaton received 169.
Dickey received congratula
tions on the victory outside the
Armory as the final count was
announced.
“It was a well, hard-fought
campaign, and I appreciate it be
ing that way,” he said. “I receiv
ed a lot of good help.”
Dickey said he began cam
paigning in August and spent
countless hours over the
weekend telephoning citizens
and urging them to vote.
“I congratulated Jan awhile
ago,” he said. “I think Jan and I
handled the campaign very nice
ly. She was good competition.”
Newcomer Jerry Ledford won
a seat on the Kings Mountain
Board of Education by a land
slide Tuesday and June Lee edg
ed board chairman Marian
Thomasson by 24 votes for the
second inside city seat.
Ledford received 1,081 votes,
Lee 749 and Thomasson 725.
Ledford will take office in
December and Lee will begin her
second six-year term on the five-
member board.
Ledford, entering politics for
the first time, led the voting at
every area precinct, and by
sizeable margins at most of
them. Mrs. Lee ran second at
two voting places, and Mrs.
Thomasson was second at two.
“I’m grateful that the hard
work paid off,” Ledford said
following the victory, “and I’m
thankful for everyone that sup
ported me. I’m pleased that a lot
of people showed a lot of con
fidence in me and 1 will try to
live up to the confidence they ex
pressed.”
Mrs. Lee could not be reached
for comment Tuesday night.
Ledford’s biggest support
JERRY LEDFORD
came in West Kings Mountain,
where he gathered 580 votes to
407 for Thomasson and 399 for
Lee. He received 243 votes at
East Kings Mountain to 166 for
Lee and 143 for Thomasson.
At Grover, Ledford received
171 votes, Thomasson 111 and
Lee 103, and at Beth ware Led
ford had 87, Lee 81 and
Thomasson 64.
The Ledford victory and
Thomasson defeat probably will
JUNE LEE
not change the Kings Mountain
Board’s feeling on the possibility
of a merger of the three county
school systems. Mrs. Thomasson
and Ledford had both already
gone on record as opposing a
study, as had board member
Kyle Smith. Mrs. Lee and Bill
McDaniel have said they have
not deci4ed, and the fifth board
member, Harold Lineberger, has
not made a public comment on
it.
DENNIS McDJlNIEL
VICKIE SMITH
RONALD QUEEN
McCarter Is Re-Elected
Grover Mayor Bill McCarter
defeated Martha Byers by two
votes Tuesday to win his fourth
two-year term of office, and
Grover voters elected four new
members to the five-member
Town Council.
McCarter received 100 votes
to 98 for Mrs. Byers, who had
served the past four years as a
commissioner.
The only incumbent commis
sioner to win was Ronald Queen,
who ran second in a 12-man race
for commissioner. Others elected
were Dennis McDaniel, Bill
Camp, Jim Howell and Vickie
Smith.
McDaniel, a lifelong Grover
resident and employee of Foote
Mineral in Kings Mountain, was
the top vote-getter with 130
votes. Other commissioner totals
were Queen 114, Camp 108,
Smith 103, Howell 95, Grady
BILL McCarter
Ross 92, Kenneth Anthony 78,
Quay Moss 72, Juanita Pruette
59, Edward Philbeck 54, James
Grindstaff 39 and Tom Childers
26.
It was the second time in the
past three elections that Mayor
McCarter has won a narrow vic
tory. In 1977, he ran a write-in
campaign and defeated Kings
Mountain High School teacher
Dean Westmoreland by one
vote. Two years ago, he ran
unopposed.
“I’m more happy that it was a
good, clean campaign than
anything else,” McCarter said. “I
expected it to be close, but didn’t
have any idea it would be two
votes. It could’ve gone either
way.”
McDaniel said, “I appreciate
the people of Grover supporting
me, and I will serve them to the
best of my ability.”
Mrs. Smith said she was “over
whelmed” at being elected. “I’m
anxious to learn and just tickled
to death,” she stud. “I’m ready to
get in there and work.”
/
WINS AWARD - Foote Mineral Friday was
presented a plaque for having gone one year
and 600,000 mem hours with o lost time acci
dent. Sandy Griffith, left, of Liberty Mutual In-
Photo by Gary Stewart
surance Company, presents the award to
Walter Cooke, plant operations manager, os
Robby Camper, safety supervisor, looks on.
Grover Closes Street
Grover Town Council Mon
day night voted 3-2 to close an
873-feet portion of Maple
Avenue.
Commissioners Quay Moss,
Juanita Pruette and Ronald
Queen voted in favor of the re
quest by Minette Mills and
State Attorney Promises Creek Investigation
Ed Gavin, attorney with the
N.C. Department of Natural
Resources and Community
Development, last week promis
ed landowners in the Kings
Creek area of south Kings
Mountain that the state will
begin an investigation into what
is causing fish kills, dirty water
and odors in the creek.
The department held a public
hearing Wednesday at the Kings
Mountain Community Center
on a request by Foote Mineral
that it be allowed to continue to
discharge an average of two
miligrams of flouride per liter of
water into the creek from its
mineral processing plant.
Citizens, thinking that might
possibly be the reason for the
above-mentioned problems, pro
tested.- By the time the four
hours of testimony were over,
citizens appeared more convinc
ed that the flouride is not the
problem.
Witnesses from Foote
Mineral, one dental expert, and
a scientist with the Division of
Environmental Management
testified that flouride is odorless
and colorless and could not
possibly be the reason for the
problems.
But, as testimony wore on, it
became more and more obvious
that there is something else being
discharged into the creek that is
the reason for those problems,
and that it could be chlorine be
ing discharged by the North
Carolina Department of
Transportation, which operates
the North Carolina Welcome
Center and 1-85 Rest Areas.
Gary Tweed of the N.C.
Divison of Environmental
Management in Asheville, said
Foote Mineral and the DOT are
the only companies permitted to
discharge anything into the
creek.
He said the DOT operates a
small “package” treatment facili
ty which treats domestic sewage,
and that chlorine is used to kill
the bacterias in the sewage. He
said “around 10,000 gallons” a
day is permitted to be discharged
into Kings Creek.
He said at times it could cause
an odor similar to household
clorox.
John Caveny, a landowner in
the area, stated earlier Wednes
day that he often walks the creek
early in the morning and a
clorox-type odor is “breathtak-
mg.
Tweed said under normal cir
cumstances the treatment
“would not have an odor” but in
times of heavy use of the rest
area, it could have.
* * *
Foote has discharged flouride
into the creek since 1975. It has
a permit allowing it to discharge
an average of two miligrams per
liter of water.
The flouride, Foote employees
testified, is necessary to separate
different minerals from ore. The
company has its own re-cycling
system which includes a
company-owned reservoir and
pond in addition to Kings Creek.
In many instances, plant
operations manager Walter
Cooke said, no flouride is
discharged into Kings Creek.
The only time more than two
miligrams would be discharged
would be due to seepage or
heavy rains.
The stale recently passed a
guideline of allowing only 1.8
miligrams per liter of water to be
discharged into the creek, and
that was the reason for Foote
asking for a variance to allow it
to continue under its original
permit. Cooke said if the com
pany is not allowed to continue
as is, it would have to discon
tinue producing felsphar and
that would result in huge losses
of profit for the company, and
loss of jobs for employees.
Dr. Charles Adams,
spokesman for the citizens, said
at the end of the hearing that his
group misunderstood Foote’s re
quest, and thought that Foote
was requesting that it be allowed
to discharge a greater amount of
flouride. Over 120 citizens had
signed a petition opposing
Foote’s request.
“It sounds like it’s not flouride
causing the problems,” Dr.
Adams said. “But something is
coming into the creek, perhaps
chloride. The petition was a
good thought but pwrhaps was
started wrong because of misin
formation. But we’re concerned
about things coming into the
creek.”
William Livinston, Foote’s at
torney, said Foote was “not
aware of the other problems and
is not prepared to deal with
what’s causing the odors and dir
ty water. But Foote Mineral is
here for a long time and wants to
be accepted in the community,
and is prepared to investigate.”
Foote has offered to assist the
Department of Natural
Resources and Community
Development in identifying
pollutants in the creek. Gavin
said the results of the investiga
tion will be made public and ac
tion will be taken against anyone
found to be discharging any tox
ic chemicals into the stream.
Lewis Barts, Wildlife Enforce
ment Officer for Cleveland and
Rutherford counties, testified
that hunting and trapping on the
creek has decreased over the past
several years “because animals
follow food supply and there’s
not that much food in Kings
Creek.”
Steve Dunn, a scientist with
the Division of Environmental
Management, said he ran tests to
find fish in the creek on Mon
day, Tuesday and Wednesday of
last week. He found live fish in
some areas but no sign of life in
others.
On State Road 2245 (Love
Valley Church Road), he said he
found chub, sunfish, bluegill,
bass and perch. But Jack
Hughes, a landowner in the area,
claimed any of those types of
fish found in that area probably
washed over the spillway of
three nearby lakes during last
week’s heavy rains.
Dunn said flouride would not
cause fish kills but chloride
would.
Dr. Adams asked how far
downstream would chloride ef
fect the creek, and Dunn said,
“At the height of concentration,
one or two miles downstream it
will kill them.”
In addition to the creek condi
tions, landowners are also con
cerned of the effect of the condi
tions on cattle. Dr. Adams said
three cattle deaths last year were
undetermined and were not due
to usual causes such as blackleg.
The transcript of last week’s
hearing will be reviewed by
Hearing Officer Becky French,
who will render her decision in
about two or three months.
It is expected that Foote’s re
quest will be approved. The lan
downers vowed they’d keep in
touch with the Department of
Natural Resources and Com
munity Developmen and make
sure it carries through with its
promise to investigate other
chemicals being discharged into
the creek.
Grover Industries, and commis
sioners Edward Philbeck and
Martha Byers voted against it.
The two mills made the re
quest because they anticipate
foture expansion, but Charlie
Duval, secretary-treasurer of
Minette Mills, said that mill will
not expand for at least three
years.
Maple Avenue runs behind
both industries in the area of the
Minette Mills ballfield, which is
the playing site of little league.
Babe Ruth League, and some
softball teams in Grover.
Minette has said it will pro
vide an access road to the
ballpark, and repair of water and
gas lines affected will also be
paid for by the mills.
Shelby
Approves
Of Study
The Shelby City School Board
went on record Monday night as
approving of a study on the
possibility of a merger of the
three county school systems.
The three boards-Shelby,
Cleveland County and Kings
Mountain-had an informal
meeting two weeks ago to
discuss the possibility of a study.
Shelby Superintendent
Johnny Presson said a study by
an “outside” group would cost
around $50,000.
The Kings Mountain and
Cleveland County boards have
not acted on the matter official
ly. The Kings Mountain board‘s
regular Novembej- meeting is
scheduled for Monday night at
7:30 at the School Administra
tion Building on Parker Street.