Friday, January 11, 2013 | 75¢
Inauguration bound
JON C. LAKEY/SALISBURY POST
School Board Chairman Richard Miller, left, wanted Thursday’s
meeting to be open to the public. County Commission Chairman
Jim Sides wanted to meet behind closed doors.
School, county
leaders don’t
see eye to eye
JON C. LAKEY/SALISBURY POST
Patrick Karriker checks the tuning of Zack Veitenheimer’s horn as Conner Andrews, left, gets ready for practice with the Catawba
Pride marching band, which gathered on Thursday evening to prepare for Saturday’s inaugural parade in Raleigh.
Local supporters ready to party, parade with McCrory
By Emily Ford
[email protected]
SALISBURY — From the
gala to the inaugural parade,
Rowan County will be well
represented this weekend as
residents travel to Raleigh to
usher in N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory’s new administration, which
includes several local people.
“I feel like it’s a proud day
for Nor t h
Carolina but
also a proud
day for Salisbur y,” sa id
former Mayor Margaret
Kluttz, who
w i l l at tend Drum major D.J. Colson warms up the band Thursday evening.
the inaugural
M. Kluttz
address Satu rd ay w it h
her husband, George. “We’re
very proud of our new goverSALISBURY — Catawba College students traveling north on Wilmington Street. The panor but even more so for Susan
will participate in several inauguration rade route ends at the intersection of WilmKluttz and Tony Almeida and
events for North Carolina’s new governor, ington and East Lane streets.
others who are part of serving
Attendance and parking for the inaugural
1978 Catawba alumnus Pat McCrory.
the state.”
Catawba’s Vernaculars All Stars will per- ceremony and parade are free and open to
McCrory tapped Susan
form between 7:30 and 8 p.m. tonight at the the public.
Kluttz, Salisbury’s longestJay Meachum, Dr. Steve Etters, Kim Etinaugural ball. Dr. David Fish, director of
serving mayor, to lead the
Popular Music and Music Business programs ters and Peter Zlotnick direct the Catawba
Department of Cultural RePride. Students from Rowan County who will
at Catawba, will accompany the students.
sources. He appointed AlmeiMembers of the Catawba Pride, the col- participate are Jordan Warren of Salisbury,
da, a retired vice president at
lege’s marching band, will join other par- Liz Overman of Salisbury, Ashton Alexander
Duke Energy, as senior adviser
ticipants from around the state during the of Granite Quarry, Chase Etters of Salisbury.
to the governor for jobs and the
inaugural parade at 12:30 p.m. Saturday in Patrick Karriker of China Grove, Daniel
economy.
Mowery of Salisbury, Taylor Lee of Kandowntown Raleigh.
Both also worked on McThe parade, which follows the inaugural napolis, Kristin Swilley of Salisbury, MadCrory’s transition team, as
ceremony and inaugural address, begins at die Wyatt of Kannapolis and Devan Purvis
did Margaret Kluttz and Jake
the intersection of Fayetteville and Davie of Spencer.
McCrory has been a member of Catawba’s
streets, travels north on Fayetteville Street
until turning right onto Hargett Street, then Board of Trustees since 2005.
See McCrory, 7A
Catawba students will take part in events
Efforts to improve relations fail
as meeting lasts only 15 minutes
By Sarah Campbell
[email protected]
ment about whether the press
should be allowed to attend.
County Commission ChairSALISBURY — A meeting man Jim Sides wanted to meet
meant to improve the rela- behind closed doors with Vice
Chairman Craig
tionship between
P ierce, school
the Rowan County
board Chairman
Board of Commissioners and the
Richard M iller,
Rowan-Salisbury
school board Vice
Board of EducaChairwoman Kay
tion ended with
Wright Norma n
the chairman of
and others.
one board saying
But Miller wantthere is no relaed the meeting to
tionship.
stay open.
The meeting lasted only
The boards have disagreed
about 15 minutes after leaders failed to come to an agreeSee Meeting, 2A
Gun control proposals
would target assault
rifles, ammunition limits
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Despite fresh opposition from
the National Rifle Association, the Obama administration is assembling proposals
to curb gun violence that
would include a ban on sales
of assault weapons, limits on
high-capacity ammunition
magazines and universal
background checks for gun
buyers.
Sketching out details of the
plan Thursday, Vice President
Joe Biden said he would give
President Barack Obama a set
of recommendations by next
Tuesday. The NRA, one of the
pro-gun groups that met with
Biden during the day, rejected
the effort to limit ammunition
and dug in on its opposition to
an assault weapons ban, which
Obama has previously said he
will propose to Congress.
“The vice president made it
clear, made it explicitly clear,
that the president had already
made up his mind on those issues,” NRA president David
Keene said following the meeting. “We made it clear that we
See Gun, 2A
Heart of gold: Young Lillie Edwards lived each day as a gift
S
ALISBURY — Robert Jones, one of
Lillie Edwards’ pallbearers, smiled
Thursday afternoon, remembering
a time when Lillie was in trouble with
her mother.
Elizabeth Edwards
decided the punishment would have to be
removing toys from
Lillie’s bedroom. It
made her sick to do it,
but Elizabeth asked
Lillie to leave while she
followed through on the
task.
She finally allowed
Lillie to return, and
upon entering the less
crowded bedroom, Lillie rejoiced.
“Oh, boy,” she said, “more room to
Mark
WINEKA
[|xbIAHD y0 0 1rzu
dance.”
Seldom does a death affect a community the way Lillie’s has.
Scattered throughout the 1,000
people at her funeral
Thursday, grown
men wore pink shirts
and dabbed at their
eyes.
Pink and purple
were Lillie’s favorite
colors.
So many people
knew the brave
6-year-old and her
Lillie Edwards
backstory. Born with
congenital heart disease, Lillie had undergone three openheart operations, the most recent one
last fall in Houston, Texas.
Today’s forecast
56º/ 50º
Rainy
Weather 12B
Deaths
Lillie’s surgery went better than
expected. She did not need the valve
replacement surgeons had planned on
and recently had received even more
encouraging medical reports.
Lillie enjoyed a great Christmas, and
the new year promised plenty more adventures, plenty more dancing.
Not long before she passed out at
the Chick-fil-A playground last Saturday and not long before her little heart
stopped, Lillie delivered a line many
Salisburians cannot get out of their
heads.
Flashing that dimpled smile, she announced several times she was having
the best day of her life.
Friends stopped each other in gro-
Joyce L. Kyles
Betty I. Brown
Walter S. Pepper
Virginia W. Yost
Neta K. Holshouser
See Lillie, 12A
Mary S. Russell
Billy R. Wall
Nellie F. Houston
James W. Hammill
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Sacred Heart Catholic School students painted the spirit rock
pink, a favorite color of Lillie Edwards.
Fannie J. Wray
Cora L. Trudeau
Maron E. Sloop
Dorothy C. Sweatt
Contents
Bridge
Classifieds
Comics
Crossword
Deaths
11B
5B
10B
10B
4A
Home/Garden 8A
Horoscope
11B
Opinion
10A
Sports
1B
Television
11B
12A n FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2013
CONTINUED
Lillie
The cover
that went
over Lillie
Edwards’
casket was
decorated
by Sacred
Heart
kindergarten
students and
friends.
Continued from 1A
cery stores or at church and
spoke of it. The loss of the
little girl and grief for her
family had slugged people
in the stomach and left them
feeling helpless.
What could they do? What
should they say? How could
their own grief even compare
with what Lillie’s family was
going through?
Many children were
hugged and held in Salisbury
this past week.
The casket bearing Lillie Edwards rolled through
Sacred Heart Catholic
Church Thursday morning
with a white cover, or pall,
decorated with a homemade
cross and the handprints of
her friends and kindergarten
classmates.
The service’s songs
ranged from “Amazing
Grace” to “Be Not Afraid” to
“On Eagle’s Wings.”
The church was full of
children — Lillie’s death had
led to the Catholic school’s
closing for a day. And children also participated in the
service, sending out prayers.
Sacred Heart’s magnificent altar still had Christmas
trees on each side and pink
flowers given by all of her
aunts, uncles and cousins.
One of those aunts, Betty
Lou Echerd, wore a necklace
Lillie had made and a charm
bracelet that meant the most
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Goodman had written an
open letter to Lillie, one of
her kindergarten students.
The teacher reminded Lillie how she wore the biggest
and best hair bows. Goodman
wrote she could never draw
palm trees as well as Lillie.
There also was mention of a
big ball of blue tape.
Students did the centerpieces
During periods when
for tables at the reception after
Lillie couldn’t participate
Lillie Edwards’ funeral.
in gym class with her classmates, she would help Goodman take down old bulletin
to her.
boards, which employed the
The charm on Echerd’s
generous use of blue tape.
wrist said “Friend.” Lillie
The teacher and student
had kept the other charm,
would roll all the old tape into
which said “Best.”
a big ball. As it grew in size,
All week, friends were
Lillie decided they should
sending each other videos
keep adding to it through the
on Facebook that replayed
year, to make it the biggest
the song Tripp Edwards had
ball of blue tape ever.
written for daughter Lillie
That was Lillie. She had a
not so long ago. At the postflair, an opinion, maybe even
funeral reception, display
an old soul.
boards showed many of the
After her first day of
family photographs and Lilschool last fall, Lillie relie’s drawings, one of which
ported back to her parents
was her dad with a guitar.
that kindergarten had three
On the board, Elizabeth
problems:
There were too many
rules, you weren’t allowed to
talk when you wanted to, and
the day was too long.
Goodman said her class
keeps a prayer list and
because of her pending
operation in the fall, Lillie
had been on the list every
week. After she returned
from Texas and had received
a good report, Lillie asked
Goodman to take her off the
list.
But Goodman suggested
they keep her name on just a
little longer. Goodman said
she and her students agreed
this past Monday to grant Lil-
SALISBURY POST
lie’s wish to come off the list.
She was in heaven now.
How could a 6-year-old
pack so much into her short
life?
Thursday’s pictures, homilies and conversations described a girl who went fishing, swimming and swinging.
There she is playing a fiddle
while her father plays guitar.
Or she might be wearing
funny, purple glasses and
trying to eat a hot dog in one
bite.
Lillie was a star in a big,
big family. That family included the First Methodist
Church pre-school where she
had attended and her grand-
mother is a teacher, her Sacred Heart friends, her peeps
at Trinity Oaks where her
great-grandmother lives and
all those doctors and nurses
she had touched.
She was an amazing little
girl, the kind who could make
people hug and write songs
for her, lead men to wear
pink shirts, have teachers
aspire to building the world’s
largest ball of tape — and one
more thing.
Show us the importance of
dancing.
Contact Mark Wineka at
704-797-4263,or mwineka@
salisburypost.com.
SecondFront
Saturday, January 19, 2013
3A
salisburypost.com
Andy Mooney, Page Designer | 704.797.4245 [email protected]
Daugherty Road accident Food Lion gives
Salvation Army
of Rowan $5,000
for food pantry
JON C. LAKEY/SALISBURY POST
Kelly Ijames looks at her car after she was involved in a single-vehicle accident on Friday afternoon while heading home on Daugherty
Road near Garmon Road. Her car left the road and went into a gully, narrowly missing several large trees.
Landis woman
uninjured as
car goes down
embankment
By Shavonne Potts
[email protected]
CHINA GROVE — Kelly
Ijames can’t explain how her
Nissan Altima left the roadway
and landed down a 20-foot embankment.
Ijames, 49, of Landis, was
traveling Friday on Daugherty
Road, just after 3:30 p.m. when
she felt her tire drift off the
road.
She believes she overcorrected and ran off the road
nearly two miles east of Landis, just before Garmon Road.
N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper
B.P. Potts said there was no
indication Ijames went off the
road to the right.
There were no skid marks
on the roadway, but there were
tire impressions in the wet
grass.
There were no other vehi-
cles involved in the collision.
Ijames was charged with driving left of center.
“The wheel was twisting,”
she said.
Ijames said she felt as
though the car overturned. In
fact, she told her husband she
was upside down in a creek.
Ijames called her husband first
before she called 911, she said.
“I was in shock at first,” she
said.
Ijames said when the car
left the road, she closed her
eyes. When Ijames opened her
eyes, the first thing she saw
was the creek. She said she
was panicked when she called
her husband.
“I felt like I was flipping,”
she said.
The 911 dispatchers, believing the 2005 Nissan Altima
was in a creek, sent multiple
emergency responders to the
Ijames’ Nissan was damaged in the crash, but she was not injured.
The car came to rest in a gully down an embankment on Daugherty
Road near Landis.
area.
Both Ijames and her husband were on the phone with
911 dispatchers, who were trying to determine her location.
Potts said he believes what
Ijames thought was the car
overturning may have been
the car rolling on two wheels
before coming to rest on all
four wheels. There was no
damage to the roof of her car.
Her husband reached her
first, opened her door and
hugged her, Ijames said.
Rowan EMS personnel
checked Ijames before she was
able move from the car. She
walked up the embankment
on her own, she said.
“I just started thanking
God,” Ijames said.
She said she has traveled
Daugherty Road many times.
She refused an ambulance,
but later complained of chest
pain. Ijames thinks the chest
pain came from her seat belt.
Her airbag did not deploy.
A tow truck spent about 20
minutes getting her car from
the embankment. On the first
attempt, the cable snapped
loose, pulling off the Nissan’s
front bumper. The precarious position Ijames’ car was
in made it difficult to get the
car onto the road.
The back window was broken, while the front of the car
and back trunk area were
heavily damaged.
Come back to the future, return to downtown
Dear Mr. Johnson,
Greetings from Salisbury,
N.C. You may not know it,
but JC Penney has been doing business in Salisbury
(pop. 33,000)
since 1941.
Your first
store was
located at
306 S. Main
St., and this
downtown
location
expanded in
1958.
From the
beginning,
Penney has
been a great corporate citizen here.
With the flight of major
retailers from most downtowns, especially during the
1970s and 1980s, JC Penney joined others in leaving
Salisbury’s central business
Mark
WINEKA
district for a new mall location.
This happened in 1986.
As the nature of retailing
goes, that same mall is not
as vibrant as it once was.
Belk — you probably heard
of this retail chain — will be
closing its store at the mall
later this year and moving
to a strip retail center near
Interstate 85. That will leave
JC Penney as the only original anchor store.
Forgive my meddling into
your business, but I anticipate JC Penney will face a
decision in the near future
as to what it should do with
its Salisbury location. Stay
at the struggling mall? Follow Belk again to the new
I-85 shopping center? Leave
Salisbury for good?
I now come to the reason
for my letter. I want JC Penney to consider a move back
to the future. Return to our
downtown. I will try to make
my case later, but first allow
me to review a few things.
As a former executive
Army of Rowan County has
served the community with
programs and services designed to provide basic needs
such as food. The Salvation
Army provides food baskets
to families and individuals in
the community who would otherwise go without food.
The Food Lion Charitable
Foundation was founded in
2001, and provides financial
support for programs and organizations dedicated to feeding the hungry in the communities it serves.
The Salvation Army of Rowan County offices are located
at 620 Bringle Ferry Road. For
more information about its services, call 704-636-6491.
Two sisters mugged near
Bendix Drive, police say
An open letter to JCP:
Ron Johnson
Chief executive officer
JC Penney
Plano, Texas
S A L I S BU RY — T h e
Salvation Army of Rowan
County will be able to restock their food pantry with
a $5,000 gift from Food Lion.
The Food Lion Charitable
Foundation presented the
agency with money that will
provide much needed food to
local residents.
“The Salvation Army is
extremely grateful to the
Food Lion Charitable Foundation’s support and partnership. Receiving these much
needed funds will help many people in our area who
face food insecurity every
day,” Corps. Officer Lt. Josh
Morse said in a statement.
Since 1912, the Salvation
By returning again to part of your
past, JCP would be an innovator,
not a follower. You also would be
leading the rebirth of middle
American downtowns where more
people are wanting to live, shop, dine,
attend events and have the feeling
they are part of a community again.
with Apple and Target,
you must be a man willing
to take chances. About a
year ago, you led the major
overhaul of JC Penney’s approach to retailing. You went
with “fair and square” low
prices, instead of constantly
bombarding customers with
sales and coupons.
You essentially changed
the name and logo of the
company to “JCP” and
brought on Ellen Degeneres
as a national spokesperson
— a bold move in itself, but
one of which I approved.
It’s interesting to note
that some of your in-store
merchandising has included
“Main Street” shops and
“Town Square” services. No
matter how big, every retailer likes to think of itself
as representing small-town
America.
I have read elsewhere
that JC Penney, in its much
See JCP, 5A
SALISBURY — Police
are looking for the men
who mugged two sisters
early Thursday near an
East Innes Street BP convenience store.
The women told police
they were staying at the
Economy Inn at Bendix
Drive and decided to walk
to the store at 1518 E. Innes
St. for a pack of cigarettes
around 3:45 a.m.
Before the sisters arrived
at the store, two men approached them from behind.
One woman slipped on
wet grass and fell to the
ground, she told authori-
ties. The suspect grabbed her
hair and placed his knee in her
back.
W h i le she was on the
g rou nd , one of t he men
punched her and kicked her in
the back. Her sister attempted
to fight off the second attacker.
The men stole a small amount
of money, said Salisbury Police
Capt. Melonie Thompson.
The women went inside
IHOP restaurant on Bendix
Drive to call for help. One of
the sisters complained of back
and ankle pain, but both were
taken to Rowan Regional Medical Center by ambulance.
No arrests have been made.
Reps. Brock, McLaurin
assigned to committees
N.C. Sen. Andrew Brock
has been assigned as cochairman of the Senate
agriculture/environment/
natural resources committee and the appropriations
committee on natural and
economic resources.
His other committee assignments include appropriations/base budget, rules
and operations of the Senate,
ways and means, finance and
program evaluation.
N.C. Sen. Gene McLaurin
has been assigned as a mem-
ber of the Senate agriculture/
environment/natural resources, appropriations on natural
and economic resources,
pensions and retirement and
aging, state and local government, commerce, finance and
insurance committees.
Agency: Camp Lejeune
water contaminated in 1953
RALEIGH (AP) — Tens
of thousands more Marines
and their relatives could
be eligible for government
health care for their illnesses now that a federal agency
determined that the water
at North Carolina’s Camp
Lejeune was contaminated
four years earlier than previously thought.
In a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs,
the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said computer modeling
shows that drinking water in
the residential Hadnot Point
area was unsafe for human
consumption as far back
as 1953. President Barack
Obama signed a law last
year granting health care
and screening to Marines
and their dependents on the
base between 1957 and 1987.
“This is yet another piece
of the puzzle that’s coming together and slowly exposing the
extent of the contamination at
Camp Lejeune — and the Marine Corps’ culpability and
negligence,” said Mike Partain, a Marine’s son who was
born at the southeast North
Carolina base and who says
he is one of at least 82 men
diagnosed with breast cancer.
“This is four years overdue.”
The Marines were slow to
react after groundwater sampling first showed contamination on the base in the early
1980s. Some drinking water
wells were closed in 1984 and
1985, after further testing confirmed contamination from
leaking fuel tanks and an offbase dry cleaner.
Health officials believe as
many as 1 million people may
have been exposed to tainted
See Water, 5A
NATION/CONTINUED
SALISBURY POST
Lawmaker pulls duty to retreat bill, cites threats
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — A
Washington state lawmaker
last week withdrew a bill to
limit self-defense rights after
saying she receiving threats
by telephone and email that
have made her fear for her
life.
Rep. Sherry Appleton, DPoulsbo, said House Bill 1012,
filed last month, was spurred
by the Trayvon Martin shooting last February, in which a
neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida shot dead the
unarmed Martin, 17, after
confronting him on the street.
The shooter, George Zimmerman, was not immediately
arrested after the shooting,
with local law enforcement
citing Florida’s “stand your
ground” law as justification
for his actions. Zimmerman
was subsequently arrested
and charged with seconddegree murder last April. His
case is pending.
Appleton’s bill would have
required a person to retreat
from a dangerous confrontation that person “knows or
should know” that doing so
would afford “complete safety.”
“I was so appalled by the
Trayvon Martin shooting,”
Appleton said. “I did the bill
because we have no verbiage
on `duty to retreat’ in Washington.”
Washington is one of at least
29 states with no explicit duty
to retreat. Some other states
employ a “castle doctrine,” exempting a person in his home
from the duty to retreat.
Appleton said her bill was
written in September and she
lamented that it was caught
up in the reignited national
debate over guns in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook
Elementary School shooting
massacre in Newtown, Conn.,
in which 26 people, including
20 children, were killed.
“It’s unfortunate, because
Newtown happened, and that
riled up so many people,” Appleton said. “I think it would
have gone unnoticed if it
hadn’t been for Newtown.”
The threats against Appleton, which were among the
more than a hundred emails
and telephone calls she received about the bill after reports of it circulated on gun
advocacy websites, were nonspecific but “very scary,” said
her assistant, Donna Bezon.
Bezon declined to provide
copies of emails or transcripts
of voice messages to The Associated Press, saying she want-
ed to spare Appleton, who has
not seen the worst of them, the
details contained therein. But
she said the most concerning
included information about
where Appleton lived.
One advised the lawmaker
to heed the lesson of an unnamed lawyer who had defended “murderers and rapists” but who had changed his
allegiances after his family
was attacked, Bezon said.
O ne of t he perc eived
threats was forwarded to the
state House of Representatives’ security office, said
House Security Director
Mark Arras.
“There was no direct or immediate threat, but there was
disturbing language,” said Arras, adding that his office discussed it with the Washington
State Patrol and continues to
monitor the situation.
Appleton conceded that the
bill could have been written
more narrowly, but said the
threats have left her fearful
and unwilling to pursue such
legislation again.
“I’m not going to fall on
my sword to have to live with
those kinds of threats,” Appleton said. “It will have to
be somebody else that will do
the bill.”
Water
blames the contamination for
the leukemia that killed his
9-year-old daughter, Janey,
in 1985. “These people are
terminal, and they need this
information.”
That veteran, Tom Gervasi,
76, had his left breast removed
in 2003. His service at Camp
Lejeune ended six months before the cutoff date.
The VA has denied his cancer claim twice. He learned
of the most recent rejection
on Wednesday in a call from
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s office.
Gervasi’s doctors have
given him at most three years
to live. He would like his wife,
Elaine, to have VA benefits
when he is gone.
“Hopefully, this will work
in my favor,” Gervasi said in
a telephone interview Friday
from his home in Sarasota.
“I don’t know. It’s sort of like
fighting city hall, so to speak.
When you’re fighting the federal government, you’re not
always going to win. Very seldom you’re going to win.”
“It is my hope that VA will
act quickly to amend their policy and review relevant disability claims that have been denied,” U.S. Sen. Richard Burr
said in a statement. “These
men and women have been
suffering through no fault of
their own and we owe them the
care they need without delay.”
A VA spokesman didn’t respond directly to how the department will handle claims
from 1953 to 1957 now. “The
VA remains committed to
providing the best quality
care and benefits for eligible
Veterans of service at Camp
Lejeune to the full extent authorized by law,” the spokesman said.
Ensminger told the group
that a fellow Marine had succumbed the day before to kidney cancer, one of the diseases
linked to the Lejeune contamination.
“I know you all deal with
facts and figures; I deal with
the personal aspect of this,” he
said. “You get to know these
people. You cry with them,
and every one of them that
dies, you die a little bit each
time with them. And it’s just
not fun.”
Continued from 3A
water. A Marine Corps spokeswoman estimated Friday that
the time line expansion adds
33,000 to 53,000 to the number
of people at Lejeune while the
water was contaminated.
The Hadnot Point water
system supplied the barracks
where the majority of the Marines lived, as well as the Naval Hospital, unmarried officer barracks and some family
housing areas. “It is by far the
largest exposed population on
the base,” Partain said.
In a letter to Gen. Allison
Hickey, VA undersecretary
for benefits, the head of the
toxic substance registry noted that a preliminary water
modeling report showed that
the period covered under the
2012 legislation didn’t go back
far enough, and that volatile
organic compounds exceeded
maximum contaminant levels
at Hadnot Point as early as August 1953.
“I hope this information
is useful as the Department
of Veterans Affairs evaluates claims from veterans
who served at USMC Camp
Lejeune prior to the release
of our full water modeling
report in the spring,” agency
Director Christopher J. Portier wrote in the letter, dated
Wednesday.
The letter was first released publicly during a meeting Thursday of the agency’s
community assistance panel
at the disease registry headquarters in Atlanta. Former
Marines and family members
angrily questioned officials
about why these studies have
taken so long to complete.
During the meeting, a VA
representative said the approval rate for claims related
to the water contamination
has been about 25 percent so
far. As of September, the VA
had granted 17 breast cancer
claims and denied 13 others;
not all were males.
Documents show that underground storage tanks at
Hadnot Point may have leaked
more than 1 million gallons of
fuel, a much bigger concern
than the off-base dry cleaners,
said Partain.
“This exposure had nothing
to do with ABC cleaners and
was the sole responsibility of
the USMC,” Partain said in an
email.
The Marine Corps “has
long recognized its responsibility for addressing contaminated areas at the base,” said
Capt. Kendra Motz, a Marine
spokeswoman. Standard practices for safe water didn’t exist
at the time of the contamination, and the Marines have addressed the problem in various
documents and by informing
base residents of it, she said.
Former Master Sgt. Jerry
Ensminger singled out the
case of a Florida Marine who
is dying of a rare case of male
breast cancer, and whose
claim the VA recently denied.
“We’ve got veterans out
there with life-ending diseases,” said Ensminger, who
JCP
Continued from 3A
earlier days, was known
as “America’s Favorite
Store.”
The founder, the late
James Cash Penney, left
the business world many
axioms to live by. One in
particular said, “Success
cannot come from standstill men. Methods change,
and men must change with
them.”
I’m sorry to see that
JCP’s new pricing and
branding strategy has not
necessarily taken hold,
though I think it could if
consumers understood
that, yes, Penney was offering the best prices on
quality merchandise.
Your company shares
took a 7 percent drop last
week alone, as analysts
predict your fourthquarter sales and earnings
report won’t be a good one.
Over the holidays, they
have said, JCP’s samestore sales were down as
much as 30 percent from
the previous year.
Of course, you know
these numbers better than
I do.
But back to this strange
suggestion to move your
Salisbury store back to our
little downtown. I think
it’s the kind of bold idea
that would not just work in
Salisbury, but could be the
foundation for JC Penney’s
rebirth as an iconic American retailer.
Bear with me. I know
our city officials and downtown merchants would
move heaven and earth
to have a retailer of your
stature back as a downtown anchor. What I’m
saying is, you would receive incentives, as though
you were a new industry.
Also, whatever downtown renovation you were
a part of would qualify for
historic district tax credits, which are considerable, and I’m sure the rent
you eventually would pay
would be less than some
box out on the interstate.
But these considerations are secondary to
SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2013 n 5A
what you would be demonstrating to Salisbury as a
company. You would be saying, “Here we are, a centuryold American firm that still
holds to the small-town values that made it great — values that made it “America’s
Favorite Store.”
By returning again to
part of your past, JCP would
be an innovator, not a follower. You also would be leading
the rebirth of middle American downtowns where more
people are wanting to live,
shop, dine, attend events and
have the feeling they are
part of a community again.
It’s not just me saying
this. You know companies
such as Walmart and Target
are moving back to downtowns, only in much bigger
cities. But there’s open, fertile ground in smaller towns
such as Salisbury — towns
which have always been big
enough for JC Penney.
Again, let me reiterate:
Your company has been in
Salisbury for 72 years.
How trendy would it be to
shop at the downtown JCP?
I say quite trendy, and you
can’t put a price on all the
goodwill and support you
would receive from your fellow businesses downtown.
By the way, there are more
places downtown than at the
mall.
I hate to put it this bluntly,
but is it trendy now to shop
at most of your JCPs? Again,
you know better than I do.
I know this type of move
would cause a major shift in
the way you do business, and
it may be too late. I hope not.
If you want to use Salisbury
as a test case, I’m sure we
would be willing.
If anything, we’re fair
and square.
All my best,
Mark Wineka
Salisbury, NC
Contact Mark Wineka at
704-797-4263 or mwineka@
salisburypost.com.
The Piedmont Source for
Garden, Farm and Lawn!
GROW WITH US
www.FarmCarolina.com
@farm_carolina
Thursday, June 20, 2013 | 75¢
No more
shoe repairs
McCrory
signs repeal
of Racial
Justice Act
Sang Nam Kung closed his shop without
warning this month after an illness.
Death penalty back as
option; no executions
in state since 2006
JON C. LAKEY / SALISBURY POST
Cheryl Goins, who owns the Pottery 101 building with husband Ted, unlocks the door to the shoe repair shop on East Innes Street.
Now closed, tiny shop near the Square remains frozen in time
S
ALISBURY — I was picking
through bones. When Sang Nam
Kung closed his shoe repair shop
on the Square because of illness, he left
everything as it was.
The calendar is stuck
on May, but the wall
clock still keeps perfect
time — odd, because the
rest of the shop inhabits
a freeze frame.
Sang’s spectacles and
Mark
a dusty cellphone are on
Wineka a top shelf behind the
counter, next to a rack of
Meltonian shoe polishes.
In various parts of the basement
shop, shoes, belts and handbags are
tagged and sometimes bagged, waiting
to be picked up. Sang’s tools are scattered to the spots in the shop where they
came in handiest — the blades, saws,
picks, pliers, hammers, scissors and
glue pots.
There are stacks of soles and heels
and ancient machinery with names such
as Adler, Champion, Landis and American. Black and menacing, they were
needed for jobs such as buffing, soling,
sewing and stitching.
A battered cash register shows the
last repair cost $5. A slot in the cash
drawer still holds a ticket.
The equipment used to repair shoes
remains in place at the shop that has been
operating for the past 12 years.
Since 2008, Ted and Cheryl Goins
were Sang’s landlord, and they adored
the cobbler and his shop. They often
talked with Sang about his grandchildren.
If Sang seemed a bit crusty and terse
when dealing with the public, they say,
it could be blamed mostly on his diffi-
culties with the language.
Sang, of Korean descent, depended
on few words and was brutally honest
about whether he could fix your shoes,
or whatever else you brought to him. If
your item was leather, the chances were
good Sang could make the repair.
If it was plastic, the outlook was
grim.
“We’re a throwaway society,” Ted
Goins laments.
Goins came to consider Sang’s shop
the next-to-last stop in town for shoes,
purses and belts, because if Sang
couldn’t fix them, Goins often saw those
items, especially shoes, tossed into the
city trash can near the shop’s door.
When he did make repairs, Sang’s
work was impeccable, and the prices
reasonable. “That man could repair
anything,” Delores Thomas says.
Men could wear their favorite pair of
dress shoes for decades by taking them
by the shoe repair shop for a periodic
retreading or restitching.
The same went for women’s boots
and purses.
“I’ll always remember taking my
favorite pair of boots to Sang several
years ago,” Wanda Deal Williams says.
“After looking at my boots, he said,
RALEIGH (AP) — Gov Pat McCrory’s signature Wednesday repealed a landmark law that had
allowed convicted murderers to have their sentences reduced to life in prison if they could prove
racial bias influenced the outcome of their cases.
McCrory signed a repeal of the 2009 Racial
Justice Act, which both proponents and critics say
will restart the death penalty in a state that hasn’t
executed an inmate since 2006.
McCrory’s final signature followed months of
debate between Democrats and Republicans on
the law’s intent and the way it has played out. Republicans say it was so poorly crafted that it has
allowed nearly all of the state’s
156 death-row inmates to launch
appeals under the law regardless
of their race. They say the law impedes the will of unanimous jury
decisions.
McCrory raised similar complaints in a statement.
“The policy implementation
McCrory
of the law was seriously flawed.
Nearly every person on death row,
regardless of race, has appealed their death sentence under the Racial Justice Act,” he said. “The
state’s district attorneys are nearly unanimous in
their bi-partisan conclusion that the Racial Justice
Act created a judicial loophole to avoid the death
penalty and not a path to justice.”
But Democrats argue there’s plenty of evidence
that those juries were racially biased.
They cite a Michigan State study of North Carolina that found evidence of prosecutors striking
black people from capital cases at more than
twice the rate of others over two decades. They
also point to the 2012 decisions of a Cumberland
County judge to reduce the sentences of four
convicted murderers on racial grounds. Three of
those rulings came after a rollback of the act that
restricted the use of statistics to prove prejudice
and required other forms of evidence.
The repeal of the Racial Justice Act was one
of 56 bills McCrory signed into law Wednesday.
He also approved a bill raising interest rates on
installment loans and another measure banning
e-cigarette sales to minors.
Meanwhile, a House committee recommended
a bill on Wednesday that lays the groundwork for
a private nonprofit corporation to take over many
economic development duties of North Carolina’s
Commerce Department.
The panel used a voice vote to approve the legislation enabling McCrory’s administration to begin
the process to shift department responsibilities
for travel and tourism, international trade and economic recruitment to the yet-created corporation.
Modeled on organizations in other states, the
public-private partnership is designed to help
the state respond more nimbly to companies that
want to relocate or expand in the state. The bill
also would end state support for the seven cur-
See Shoe, 2A
See McCrory, 6A
Gold Hill solar park gets green light
Real estate commission says Kannapolis
brokers tried to cheat banks, eliminate liens
By Nathan Hardin
[email protected]
One gives up license,
other on probation
By Scott Jenkins
[email protected]
KANNAPOLIS — A Kannapolis
real estate broker has given up his
license and his broker wife is on
probation after the North Carolina
Real Estate Commission said they
tried to cheat banks out of money
they owed on properties.
John Mac Chubirko, president of
[|xbIAHD y0 0 1rzu
Genesis Realty Co. on Lane Street,
accepted a permanent revocation of
his license on April 4. In exchange,
the commission dismissed allegations that he violated provisions of
real estate license law and commission rules, according to its May bulletin.
Gwen Lee Chubirko, co-owner
of Genesis Realty, had her license
suspended for two years after admitting to the violations, but that
ruling was stayed and she was put
on probation for five years, according to a consent order filed by the
commission.
Today’s forecast
81º/ 61º
Partly cloudy
Weather 12B
Janet Thoren, director of regulatory affairs for the Real Estate
Commission, said the charges came
after the oversight agency learned
the Chubirkos had been involved in
a scam where they tried to wipe out
their own real estate debt.
In 2010, the couple bought a kit
that taught them to how to create,
sign and record documents at the
local register of deeds office that
were supposed to eliminate liens on
the property they owned, Thoren
said. When banks that held notes
Please recycle
this newspaper
See Brokers, 2A
Deaths
Jennifer A. Fesperman
Charles W. Roseman
Steve A. Retzer
Richard A. Lewis Jr.
SALISBURY — Commissioners approved this year’s second
proposed solar energy farm Monday, and one county leader said
he sees more area solar farms on
the horizon.
Commissioners gave a 4-0
thumbs up to Sunlight Partners
LLC conditional use permit for
a 37-acre ground-mounted solar
energy farm in the 400-block of
St. Peters Church Road in Gold
Hill. The system is expected to
produce four megawatts of energy.
Vice Chairman Craig Pierce
Contents
said Monday the open, and — in the
eastern part of the county — shallow, stretches of Rowan County
make solar energy farms an ideal
candidate for companies looking to
create renewable energy.
“I’m glad they’re here,” Pierce
said. “I hope they fill up the eastern
part of the county and the western,
too.”
Dialogue between commissioners and project managers who were
sworn in to answer county leaders’
questions revolved mostly around
the basic issues of noise and signage.
Project managers assured com-
Bridge
Classifieds
Comics
Crossword
Deaths
See Solar, 6A
12B
5B
11B
11B
5A
Horoscope
Opinion
Outdoors
Sports
Timeout
12B
4A
5C
1C
1D
2A n THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2013
AREA
Authorities identify
man killed by train
Authorities have identified the man who died after
being hit by a train Tuesday
as 66-year-old Hugh Avril
Deadwyler of South Salisbury
Avenue in Spencer.
Deadwyler was struck and
killed by a Norfolk Southern train around 11:30 a.m.
Tuesday near the 11th Street
Crossing.
Salisbury Police Capt. Shelia Lingle said Tuesday the
Salisbury couple arrested on drug, neglect charges
train was traveling south
towards Salisbury at about
25 mph when it hit Deadwyler.
Lingle said train operators told police the man
walked out from behind an
adjacent train and lay down
in front of the oncoming
train. “They couldn’t stop in
time. They blew the horns
several times and hit the
brakes,” Lingle said.
Truck theft thwarted by armed
owner on Hildebran Road
SALISBURY — Authorities say a Salisbury man
caught his neighbor in the act
of stealing his truck and held
him at gunpoint until officers
arrived.
Tuesday morning, the
Rowan County Sheriff’s Office got a call from James
Lambert. He said he was
holding someone at gunpoint who had tried to steal
his truck. Lambert told deputies he was in
his house on
Hildebra n
Road when
he heard the
truck start
up. He said he
ran out of the
house w ith
a pistol and Wright
saw Richard
Lee Wright III, 19, also of Hildebran Road, in the driver’s
seat of his 1993 Ford Ranger.
According to the Sheriff’s Office report, Lambert
ordered Wright to get out of
the vehicle and lie down on
the ground. Wright obeyed.
When deputies arrived,
Lambert said he believed
Wright was the one who had
broken into his house and stolen a handgun the day before.
Wright admitted to the gun
theft upon further questioning, according to the report.
Lambert had previously
called the Sheriff’s Office on Monday evening to
report that a .380 caliber
Smith and Wesson handgun had been stolen from
his home. He had left for
work at 5:45 a.m., returned
at 5:45 p.m. and was about
to go out for the evening
with his wife when he realized the gun was gone.
While looking around
the house for it, Lambert
said, he noticed that the
screen of one window had
been turned around, and
the blinds appeared to be
damaged.
Wright was charged
with four felonies — breaking and entering a building, larceny of a firearm,
larceny of a motor vehicle
and possession of a firearm
by a felon.
He was placed in the
Rowan County Detention
Center under a $51,000
bond.
According to the North
Carolina Department of
Public Safety, Wright was
convicted of felony possession of stolen goods in 2010.
In 2012, he was convicted of larceny of firearms,
felony breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering and possession of a firearm by a
felon.
Cooking workshops at Livingstone canceled
The free Joy of Cookin-N ment and Culinary Arts
workshops will no longer be program.
For more information,
offered by Livingstone College’s Hospitality Manage- call 704-216-6151.
Posters
Deadline for posters is 5 p.m.
• Carmel Baptist Church VBS, Saturday-Wednesday, June 2226: We’re on a Fishin’ Mission for Jesus! 2100 Mooresville Road.
For preregistration or directions see www.carmelbaptistchurch.
org. For transportation, 704-620-0094.
• Today, 6:30 p.m, 120 E. Innes St., strategy session on how to
deal with legislative issues in country, state and county: taxes,
economy, educational system, voter ID, unemployment, health
care and more. More information, 704-754-6771.
Lottery numbers — RALEIGH (AP) — The winning numbers selected Wednesday in the N.C. Education Lottery:
Daytime: Pick 3: 7-1-5
Pick 4: 1-4-0-3
Evening: Pick 3: 9-2-0
Pick 4: 8-4-8-5
Cash 5: 02-08-19-26-33
Powerball: 07-46-47-52-57, Powerball: 17
Div
PE
CardnlHlth
Culp Inc
Delhaize
DukeEn rs
FNB Utd
FamilyDlr
HarrisTtr
Innospec
KrispKrm
Lowes
NorflkSo
1.21f
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1.82e
3.06
...
1.04
.60a
2.00e
...
.72f
2.00
14
12
...
20
...
17
28
16
55
24
14
YTD
Last Chg %Chg
48.37
18.11
66.31
66.72
7.95
63.20
47.23
41.96
17.63
41.03
75.45
-.39
-.23
+.41
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Name
Nucor
PiedNG
RedHat
RexAmRes
ReynAmer
SonocoP
SpeedM
SunTrst
UnivFor
VulcanM
WellsFargo
Div
PE
1.47
1.24
...
...
2.52f
1.24f
.60
.40f
.40
.04
1.20f
30
19
60
...
18
18
19
8
35
...
12
YTD
Last Chg %Chg
44.85
34.56
46.22
34.52
47.62
35.05
18.01
31.25
43.16
53.47
40.66
-.02
-.24
-.41
+.60
-1.69
-.57
-.50
-.50
-1.88
-.68
-.18
+3.9
+10.4
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+79.0
+14.9
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+1.0
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+2.7
+19.0
HOW TO CONTACT US:
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Salisbury Post (ISSN 0747-0738) is published daily; Second Class Postage paid at Salisbury, NC
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Salisbury Post, P.O. Box 4639, Salisbury, NC 28145-4639
Hayes
Klimas
had been acting strangely.
According to the Sheriff’s
Office report, the couple
called neighbors and said
people in their house, their
car and the nearby woods
were trying to hurt them. A
neighbor looked in the house
and didn’t see anyone.
Klimas later knocked on
the front door of a nearby
home a nd said she was
scared that her and Hayes’
son was in danger. The report said Klimas walked
back to her own house and
left the child in a carseat
in her vehicle, which was
parked in the neighbor’s
driveway.
The neighbor then called
the Sheriff’s Office, and
deputies went to the home
of Klimas and Hayes.
The couple again said
there were other people
in the house who wouldn’t
leave, but officers checked
the home and found no one.
Klimas first said their son
was in the crib asleep, then
agreed with a deputy that
she had actually taken him
to the neighbor’s house.
Deputies notified the Department of Social Services,
and DSS agreed that the
child should be placed with
his grandmother — Hayes’
mother.
One of the officers then
saw Hayes remove a piece
of foil from a kitchen utensil
drawer and take out a brown,
rock-like substance. A field
test kit confirmed it to be
methamphetamine.
According to the report,
deputies also found a glass
smoking pipe in the home.
Klimas and Hayes were
both arrested, given a $5,000
bond and taken to the Rowan
County Detention Center.
Hayes’ arrest was first reported in Monday’s Post.
Shoe
Continued from 1A
‘Boot broke.’ He fixed them
anyway.”
Carol Carpenter says the
closing of the shoe repair
shop is the loss of another
Salisbury institution.
“I remember Mother going there year after year,”
Carpenter says, “and whoever owned it at the time
could fix anything. I used
to love the smell of leather
and polish and just the ‘old’
smell of the place.”
Sang worked out of the
shop for about a dozen
years. Cheryl Goins thinks
the location, which is below her Pottery 101 store,
served as a shoe repair
shop since the 1930s.
Before that, according
to a 1915 Post story, A.B.
Saleeby might have used
the basement for his candy
and ice cream business.
It’s easy to be nostalgic
for places like this, because we realize we won’t
see them again. Not many
people are going into the
shoe repair business.
Plus, the place had so
much character — Sang
included. From the East
Innes Street sidewalk, you
walked down two steps
and through wooden doors,
padlocked now. Inside, the
ceiling was low enough to
make you feel as though
you should hunch over.
Outside, a cloth awning
covered the entrance, and
a white sign with red letters said simply “Shoe
Repair.” I don’t think Sang
ever gave his shop a formal
name.
Its being so small on
the imposing brick facade
of the rest of the building
made the shop intriguing,
even to artists. At home,
we have a framed print of
Robert Toth’s painting of
the shoe repair shop in our
kitchen.
Continued from 1A
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•
SALISBURY — A Salisbury couple was arrested
Sunday after authorities say
they used methamphetamine
while their 13-month-old
child was in the home.
Cassie Marie Klimas, 23,
and Kenneth Scott Hayes,
31, both of the same address
on Eastbrook Circle, were
charged with possession of
methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia
and contributing to the neglect of a minor.
On Sunday morning, the
Rowan County Sheriff’s Office received a call about a
suspicious person on Eastbrook Circle, located off
Dunns Mountain Road. The
caller said Klimas and Hayes
Brokers
STOCKS OF LOCAL INTEREST
Name
SALISBURY POST
on the properties tried to
foreclose or enforce the liens,
they ran into problems with
the fraudulent documents,
she said.
Thoren said John Chubirko did most of the work
on those documents.
“We’ve seen it from time
to time in different formats
around the state, but this
happened to be two brokers
that got caught up in it and
thought they could reduce
their own debt,” Thoren said.
JON C. LAKEY / SALISBURY POST
The equipment used to repair shoes remains in place at the shop that Sang Nam Kung has been
operating for the past 12 years on East Innes Street.
cern.
So here it is, frozen in
time, the bones of a man’s
work. There’s no rush to
touch anything in the shop
or clean it out. In fact, it
seems right to leave it alone
for awhile and think about
the future later.
“We just haven’t gotten
that far,” Ted says.
Since the shoe repair
shop’s closing, several readers say they have taken
shoes for repair to M&S
Cleaners. A sign on the
An empty cash register displays the last $5 transaction at the closed shop’s door also directs people to a shoe repair
shoe repair shop.
business in Concord.
told him not to worry about
One by one, we lose
Contact Mark Wineka at
cleaning out all the stuff.
places like this through
704-797-4263, or mwineka@
Sang’s taking care of
the years. Remember, not
himself was their main con- salisburypost.com.
so long ago, we took for
granted Bernhardt Hardware, Al’s Night Hawk,
O.O. Rufty’s General Store,
Bucky’s Produce Stand and
the State Smokeshop.
Now they’re gone. “Progress,” it seems, depends a
lot on subtractions.
When Ted and Cheryl
Goins learned Sang was
sick, needed to deal with his
illness and meant to close
his business for good, they
“It wound up not working at
all, of course.”
As a condition of her probation, if Gwen Chubirko
needs to file documents with
any register of deeds office,
she has to hire an attorney to
do it, according to the consent
order.
A woman who answered
the telephone at Genesis
Realty said Gwen Chubirko
had no comment on the disciplinary action. She said John
Chubirko was not in the office.
Information on the number of properties and amount
of money involved was not
immediately available.
Rockwell woman charged
with identity theft
The Iredell County Sheriff’s Department charged a
Rockwell woman Tuesday
with identity theft after another woman reported getting credit cards that she
never applied for in the mail.
The victim first filed a
report April 30, saying she
had received text messages
from the suspect telling her
to watch her credit.
Iredell detectives were
able to get copies of the online
application from the credit
card companies showing the
victim’s personal information being used. The credit
card companies had also
captured the
I P add ress
at the time of
the online application.
Detect ive s wer e
able to track
Earnhardt the address
and identify
Melissa Earnhardt, 33, of
Rockwell, as a suspect.
Detectives obtained a warrant and arrested Earnhardt
on Tuesday on two counts of
identity theft. She was placed
in the Iredell County Detention Center and bond was set
at $2,000.