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50 Years Ago in Burke County

Vivian Murray

news@morganton.com

Published: July 5, 2009

Morganton - A theft in Hildebran was charged up to a combination of holiday and hot weather. Someone stole 150 pounds of crushed ice from Charles Hick's service station.
• Billy Joe Patton was visibly pleased as he cheered John Anderson's grand-slam home run in the fourth inning when the Burke County American Legion Juniors romped to a 19-5 win over Charlotte.
• Mr. and Mrs. S.J. Ervin and children Martha, Anne and Sammy have returned from a week's stay in St. Augustine, Fla. They visited relatives, Mr. and Mrs. L.J. Anderson. They enjoyed deep-sea fishing and reported the weather was lovely and the catch fine.
• Barbara Aiken and Jimmy Oliver have announced their engagement to be wed July 25.
• Norman D. Ross will leave for Miami Beach where he will spend a month on vacation. He said he saved his money for two years in order to take this vacation.
• Frances Ann Crawley and Jack D. McKinney were married in Bethel Methodist Church. Jack's father, the Rev. Charles R. McKinney, performed the ceremony.
• A crowd estimated at 1,000 persons enjoyed the Fourth of July water show presented by the Morganton Recreation Department. Precision divers Larry E. Scott and Doug Powell were in rare form during one of the serious moments of the show. Howard Gray, Bobby McSwain, Terry Cole, Larry Scott, Joe Whisnant and Carroll Widenhouse brought the house down with hilarious comedy diving acts as they tumbled from the diving board in their clown costumes.
• Recovery of two one-pound cans of highly explosive TNT from a mountain cache and arrest of two on charges of conspiring to blow up Great Lakes Carbon Corp.'s power substation came as developments in an investigation of violence that erupted during the recent strike.
• Legal history will be made locally when a special term of Burke Superior Court opens to try cases arising from the Great Lakes Carbon strike. Judge Susie Sharpe, North Carolina's only female judge, will preside on her first official visit here.
• One part of Interstate 40 may be open in December. Clinchfield Paving has the contract for a stretch of about 15 miles running east from Highyway 18. Another concrete company began pouring concrete the same day on a 10-mile stretch.
• Everette Gilliam, 14, began having voice trouble while visiting his uncle George Gilliam. His mother started giving him medicine only to discover it was simply his voice changing.
• Local girls receiving nursing diplomas are Doris O'Kelly, Regina Crawley, Carolyn Oldham and Phyllis Dills.
• Mrs. George Earp will attend a directors' meeting of the N.C. Cemetery Association. She succeeded her late husband as a director.
• Bits from J. Gordon Queen: Raymond Littlejohn giving a friendly wave… Joe Poteat saying he remembered when folks used to buy beeswax… A man rolling his children in a wheelbarrow… Four and 20 blackbirds on the First Methodist Church lawn… Mable Duckworth herding a gang of precious children around town… A giant load of lumber on a truck that could hardly move rumbling down the main drag… Capt. Albert Prestwood waving at a suntanned fellow in a top-down car… A lot more residences being built on Stacy Street which is a new development off Bethel Street… The porch and other woodwork at the Caldwell Hotel sho' looks good since the recent paint job… A pair of shorts filled with woman… We would like to see some sort of flower or shrub selected to represent Morganton since the blight wreaked havoc on the mimosas. How about dogwood, thrift or petunias? …Cole Savage refusing to jaywalk.

50 Years Ago in Burke County is submitted by Vivian Murray, a volunteer at the History Museum of Burke County.