Humidity Is Stifling in Courthouse
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•No winners Taking the Lake? in local Friday •Take the Lake is coming up this weekend at Lake night high Waccamaw. Are you ready? The call is out across the school football state for paddlers, cyclists, swimmers, runners, jog- action; lots gers and walkers. Which are your categories? Sports of soccer. See pages 1, 2-B. ThePublished News since 1890 every Monday and Thursday Reporterfor the County of Columbus and her people. Monday, August 31, 2015 Humidity is Volume 125, Number 18 Whiteville, North Carolina stifling in 75 Cents courthouse nHumid, muggy conditions hamper Inside procedures on second, third floors of 2-A new courthouse. •Local N.C. Forest By BOB HIGH Service crews out Staff Writer west fighting fires The humidity in the District courtrooms on the second floor of the new courthouse is so 3-A thick and heavy machines are kept on all night to lower the mugginess and attempt to get the •Third resolution rooms ready for the next day. pushes budget talks Dehumidifiers have been operating in the to Sept. 18. District and Superior courtrooms since the new building opened about 70 days ago. 4-A The conditions in •McCuthchen ar- Staff photo by LES HIGH ‘Working on it’ “They’re working the courtrooms rested on two major First leg on it,” is the answer felony charges. Tommy Mintz of Ash emerges from Lake Waccamaw after completing the swimming portion of Take given by County Man- are unacceptable.” the Lake X-Treme Saturday. Mintz, who has won the X-Treme event in previous years, emerged as ager Bill Clark, who’s Bill Clark the top finisher after completing the swim, cycle, paddle and run in one day. He had hoped to finish as frustrated with the County manager in under 10 hours this year. His time: 9:57:18. Shown with him in the canoe are sons Matthew and situation as the district attorney and clerk of Jonathan. The main Take the Lake event is this weekend with the walk/run Saturday, paddling and court’s staff, plus various judges and defense cycling Sunday and the swim Labor Day. The route will not include the state park trail for running/ attorneys. walking and cycling as lapping waves could make the dam crossing too slick. The solution to the problem has not been defined by county officials. It’s not known if the contracting firm has determined the proper answers. Clark said the mechanical contractor, Jesus Café serves more than food CNY of Wilmington, has not been paid a last pay- ment of more than $300,000 for equipment and By WALLYCE TODD expenses in placing the units in the new building. Staff Writer Clark could not say how soon the problems would be solved, or if they were to be a thing Yellow school buses are back of the past. Today’s on the roads in Columbus County “The conditions in the courtrooms are unac- as most area schools are back in ceptable,” Clark added. American Pro- session. However, this summer a CNY couldn’t be reached for a comment on file features “Our converted white school bus traveled the situation. the roads of the county to bring Clerk of Court Jess Hill said he was blessed Amazing Dogs. meals, a Bible story and laughter to have a separate heating and air system for Athletic, Brave & to children across the county. his offices on the courthouse’s first floor. “If The Jesus Café bus, sponsored we had the same humidity problem down here Brilliant Canines.” by the Columbus Baptist Asso- they’re having in the courtrooms we’d have ciation, traveled to five or more mildew on many of our files and equipment,” locations several weeks during Hill commented. DIDYOB? the summer. Volunteers from area The first floor of the courthouse has an elec- Baptist churches made the minis- tronic system that has been operating smoothly Did you observe ... try possible. During its last week of summer See Humidity, page 9-A Whiteville First Pres- service, members of Nakina Bap- byterian Church fill- tist Church and a bus driver from Mt. Zion Baptist sought guests from ing their church hour 10:45 a.m. until about 1:45 p.m. singing from the new The bus shuttled volunteers Meeting to hymnals donated by from place to place, opened its doors at places where hungry chil- Alexandria Ball, right, reads a Bible story to Jesus Café visitors the the family of the dren might live. The youngsters while Dalton Hawes, left, and her brother, Pearson, center, listen. ‘beef up’ Cerro late Bob Eplee? ... The would come out of their homes The meal Schools summer feeding program, Rev. Gregory Spaulding and onto the bus when they heard its horn. The meal that day was pork which can provide up to two meals Gordo Rescue and his Union Baptist On the day when the Nakina chops, rice and tomatoes, a fruit a day for any child in Columbus Church choir igniting a and Mt. Zion volunteers were serv- cup and milk. Children were also County between the ages of 1-18, ing the children, the bus stopped offered a snack to take home. as long as they are taking part in fire in more than 100 Go within the Sandy Acres mobile The meal and the snack bag is Thursday were both from the Whiteville City See Jesus Cafe, page 10-A Tell Columbus Crusade home park in Pleasant Plains. By ALLEN TURNER workers during Satur- Staff Writer day’s prayer breakfast at A meeting to discuss what it would cost to Lake Waccamaw Bap- Local PA, son walk Death Valley place more paid personnel on duty at Cerro tist Church? Gordo Fire and Rescue will be held Thursday at 7 By JEFFERSON WEAVER p.m. at the Cerro Gordo fire station. The meeting Staff Writer is in response to a letter about missed calls sent by Columbus County EMS Medical Director Dr. Dan Boyes was on an ambush site Joseph Dell’Aria to the Columbus County Board in Laos when he decided to walk County Deaths of Commissioners about a month ago. through Death Valley. Dell’Aria sent a letter July 29 to commission- Whiteville The Green Beret and his team had ers in which he expressed concern that Cerro Estelle Fowler been far behind enemy line for days, Gordo Fire and Rescue had missed 31 EMS calls under harsh conditions, and Boyes Roy Thomas Horne during 2014 and the first six months of 2015. The was tired of feeling wet, clammy, Priscilla Thomas medical director said, “At our last meeting it was cold and mosquito-bitten. Tabor City recommended that … notification be sent to the He decided that if he got out of county commissioners …to ask that the next Mitchell Wayne Phillips Vietnam alive, he was going to do course of action be taken.” Cerro Gordo the things that a lot of people only Cerro Gordo’s fire/rescue unit has paid dream about. Thomas Edison Nobles personnel on duty during days but not at night. “That was when I started making Chadbourn The referenced “next course of action” was my bucket list,” Boyes said recently. Carrie Hinson Andrews not identified in Dell’Aria’s letter, but sources “It was constantly wet, and the Dan Boyes on the first day of the journey. The measured air temper- say that Thursday’s meeting is to discuss ways Bolton mosquitoes? We think we have big ature under their shelter at 10 a.m. was 118 degrees on the first day. of financing full time, 24 hours a day/seven days Donald Lee Simmons Sr. ones here. The mosquitoes here are a week, coverage by personnel at Cerro Gordo nothing like those. You get to think- an area where park rangers are Fire and Rescue. ing they’re going to carry you off. in charge of the Riegelwood Medi- forbidden to go – even in vehicles Cerro Gordo Fire and Rescue Chief Terry “I decided if I ever got out of cal Clinic. At 65, many people are – in July. Floyd confirmed Friday that the meeting will there, I was going somewhere that content playing with their grand- “The Army was good to me,” involve his board of directors, Dell’Aria and was dry with no mosquitoes.” children and enjoying retirement, Boyes said. “They gave me a career, EMS Director Kay Worley. Floyd said he also The former U.S. Army Special but Boyes still works full-time. and sent me to PA school. I am had asked County Commissioner Ricky Bullard Forces medic did just that — he re- He never forgot the idea he had proud to have served my country, to attend. Bullard represents the Cerro Gordo cently completed an eight-day hike while waiting alongside a humid but I look around and see what my area and he confirmed Friday that he plans to across Death Valley with his son, jungle trail nearly 50 years ago. son and other young veterans have be at the meeting. Sean, who is also a veteran. His son helped give Boyes a rea- son to walk across a desert, hiking Boyes is the physician’s assistant See Death Valley, page 3-A See Cerro Gordo, page 10-A 2-A – The News Reporter, Monday, August 31, 2015 Local N.C. Forest Service crews out west fighting fires By JEFFERSON WEAVER equipment have been deployed Staff Writer as far as Texas before, Haynes said, and fire specialists regu- Three local forest service larly assist in wildfires on the employees have been deployed West Coast, but the Okonegon to the massive wildfires raging fires mark the first far west on the West Coast.