INSIDE..........
Sports
Dyksterhouse wins GeoBee 5B
1B
Serving Belmont, Mount Holly, Stanley, Cramerton, and McAdenville
Volume 78 • Issue 6 • Wednesday, February 6, 2013
75¢
MY VALENTINE
Suggs
Freightliner plans to lay off 1,200 workers
to be inducted into Belmont Sports Hall of Fame By Alan Hodge Editor
By Alan Hodge Editor
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The year 1957 was notable not only for introducing a great looking model of Chevrolet Bel Air car, but for also seeing star athlete Dick Suggs graduate from Belmont High School where he had earned letters in football, basketball, baseball, and track before going on to further accomplishments at Clemson University. Recognizing Suggs’ feats on the field, a committee of his pals and peers has selected him for induction into the Belmont Sports Hall of Fame during a banquet to be held on Tuesday, Feb. 19 See SUGGS, 4A
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Photo by Alan Hodge
Howard and Margaret Long of Belmont will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary this coming March 20th.
The Longs... A love that has stood the test of time By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Inappropriate student/staff relationships rare in our area By Alan Hodge Editor Alan.bannernews@gmail.com
In addition to the other things parents have on their minds when they send their kids off to school are those disturbing cases where teachers or other staff members engage in what are often termed “inappropriate relationships” with students. Fortunately, cases where school staff members prey on students in a sexual way in Cleveland and Gaston counties are rare. “Cleveland County Schools has had no teachers suspended or fired for this reason in recent years,” said Donna Carpenter, director of public information for the district. In Gaston County, a case in January saw a Bessemer City High School bus driver, 33-year-old Kwanda Carpenter, charged with two counts of sexual activity with a student by a school employee after allegedly engaging in a sex act off campus with two boys, ages 16 and 17, last October. The male students allegedly tried to extort $60 from Carpenter via a Facebook post but they ended up being charged with blackmail. “Carpenter was dismissed from her bus-driving duties effective January 11,” said Gaston County Schools spokeswoman Bonnie Reidy. The only other recent case in Gaston County where a teacher was disciplined for alleged sexual activity with a student or students took place in February 2012 when East Gaston High teacher Bradford Wayne Mulkey, 32, was arrested and charged with indecent liberties with a child. The incident had allegedly taken place on Nov. 29, 2011. He resigned his position at East Gaston on Dec. 16, 2011. In July 2012, Mulkey pleaded not guilty to sexual battery. Mulkey had been hired by GCS in 2007. Mecklenburg County Schools have had several cases of inappropriate staff/student activity. The most recent being that of a Myers Park High School exceptional children teacher, 43-year-old Kristina Ngum. She was arrested Jan. 5, 2012 and charged with one count of sexual activity with a student. The alleged sex with a male See STUDENTS & STAFF, 6A
For some married couples the husband’s love of ball games proves a sticking point, but for 93-year-old Howard and 90-year-old Margaret Long of Belmont, baseball has been one of the glues that have kept them together for nearly three-quarters of a century. Come March 20, the Longs will have been married 70 years. They first met in 1942 when Howard was in the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg doing his bit for the war effort, and playing on the post baseball team. Margaret was a native of Fayetteville working as a beautician and they met through a mutual friend. “Once he had to leave Fort Bragg for a while and go to Iceland,” Margaret said. “But we wrote letters to each other while he was gone.” The war and Iceland didn’t stop the Longs from getting married. On March 20, 1943 they were united in holy matrimony at First Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville.
“When the war was over I shouted hallelujah,” said Margaret. After his military stint, Howard worked in a variety of jobs including textiles and at the water treatment plant in Belmont. But no matter where he was, Howard stayed on the baseball diamond as a pitcher for numerous minor league teams. He not only played for the Belmont Combers, but also for a team in New York. Margaret recalled seeing Howard in action on the mound. “It was very exciting to see him play,” she said. “He loved baseball and I stood behind him in it.” Besides baseball, another bond that the Longs cite as a reason for their seven decades together is the church. They’re long-time members of East Belmont Presbyterian where they have served as Sunday school teachers and Howard as a deacon. “The Lord has been good to use in many ways,” Margaret said. “He will help you make it through hard times. It’s easy to love each other when you are around people that love each See LONGS, 4A
The poet T.S. Eliot said “April is the cruelest month” and that will certainly be the case for employees of Freightliner in Gaston County as well as Cleveland in Rowan County. The company announced last week that it will lay off about 1,200 workers on or about April 1 at its facilities in Mount Holly, Gastonia, and Cleveland. The Cleveland plant will likely see about 715 workers laid off. The Mount Holly plant will lose around 405 workers, and the Gastonia location. The largest cuts at Mount Holly plant will see 330 assemblers let go along folks in with other jobs such as millwrights, robotic technicians, welders, painters, and inspectors. At the Gastonia location, 38 machine operators will be cut along with other welders, material handlers, production workers, and inspectors. Ironically, President Barack Obama visited the Mount Holly factory last March and praised the firm for how it had weathered the Great Recession. Layoffs at Freightliner have happened in the past, and many workers were called back as the rollercoaster economy and demand for trucks waxed and waned. In February 2007, the Freightliner plant in
Mount Holly lost about onethird of its workforce. In 2009, the firm laid off around 2,000 workers in North Carolina, but called about half that number back just prior to Obama’s Mount Holly trip. The Freightliner layoffs won’t help the current unemployment picture not only in Gaston County but in the region and state as well. According to the latest numbers released last week by the NC Employment Security Commission, things are still looking rough as far as the number of folks without a job in Gaston County goes. As of December, 2012, 90,909 folks were employed in Gaston County versus 10,688 without work. The December 2012 figures show the county unemployment rate at 10.5 percent- that’s a full percentage point higher than the NC state average of 9.5 percent. The unemployment rate for the Charlotte-GastoniaRock Hill region was 9.3 percent. Mecklenburg County’s jobless rate was 9.3 percent in December. Statewide, 97 out of 100 counties in North Carolina saw unemployment rates rise for December, 2012. Graham County had the state’s highest unemployment with a rate of 18.5 percent. Orange County had the lowest with 5.9 percent joblessness.
A.M. Rollins School... not forgotten By Alan Hodge Editor
Photo by Alan Hodge
John Hope of Mount Holly shows one of the new engraved bricks ready to be installed in front of the monument to the Rollins School. The school was where Mount Holly’s African-America children were educated prior to integration in the late 1960s.
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Since February is officially known as Black History Month, it seems fitting to recognize a chapter in Mount Holly’s African-American heritage that is too often forgotten and whose only tangible evidence of having ever existed at all is a stone monument near the Rollins Apartments on South Hawthorne Street. What the stone marks is the location where the A.M. Rollins School stood from 19301969. The school was unique in that it was where all of Mount Holly’s black children in grades one through eight were educated before public schools were integrated in the late 1960s. The Rollins School was originally called the Mount Holly Colored School, but was later named after its first principal, A.M. Rollins. There was also another school for AfricanAmerican kids in the Lucia community, with just one teacher for all grades. This school eventually was merged with the Rollins School, meaning all African-American children in the area made the trek to S. Hawthorne St. Teachers at the Rollins School who needed a place to live and who had trouble finding transportation often stayed at the nearby home of Mrs. Roceda Bailey. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, schools began to integrate and in 1969, Rollins School was closed. For a short time, the school building was used as a community center, but like the Reid High School in Belmont about the same time, Rollins was relegated to the wrecking ball.
OBITUARIES, 2-3A Margaret Chavers....................................Mount Holly Susan Coffey...........................................Mount Holly Cora Grice.......................................................Stanley Harold Helton.........................................Mount Holly David Hunsucker ......................................... Gastonia
But the memory and spirit of the Rollins School would not die. In the mid-1990s a group known as the Black History Committee and led by John Hope in Mount Holly began working See ROLLINS SCHOOL, 4A
INDEX Police................................................................................3A Valentine Specials!.......................................................4&5A Business of the Year ........................................................6A Sports.............................................................................1BS Schools.............................................................................4B