The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

The Way We Were

Clips from available Mountain Eagle pages since our founding in 1907

THURSDAY

NOVEMBER 10, 1949

Republican G. Bennett Adams has been elected county judge. Hassel Stamper, a Democrat, is the new sheriff. Harold “Straight Hair” Davis became the first elected mayor of Jenkins. Jenkins has had an acting mayor, but Mr. Davis is the first one to elected.

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The Supreme Court has upheld contempt fines of $1,420,000 imposed on the United Mine Workers and John L. Lewis, UMW President, after the 1948 coal strike. The court refused to hear an appeal by the union and Lewis.

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Frank Majority Jr., of Whitesburg, this week signed with the Berger Construction and Tanks Company for an 18-month job as an operating engineer in Syria. To get a position with the company, which will lay a pipeline from Syria to Arabia, the man must be at least 30 years old, pass a rigid physical examination, be free to travel, and sign an 18-month contract. The company guarantees $528 a month, gives time and a half for overtime, and gives a 10 percent vacation bonus.

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“Roseanna McCoy”, the story of the Hatfield and McCoy feud, will play November 13 and 14 at the Haymond Theatre in Cromona.

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The Comets, Whitesburg’s independent basketball team, will have their first game of the season Friday night when they will meet the Pound, Va. Warriors.

THURSDAY

NOVEMBER 12, 1959

Fire did extensive damage Wednesday night to the Fleming-Neon High School gymnasium, a frame structure located near the high school at Fleming. Observers said one corner of the building was burned out from the fire, which apparently started from one of two pot-bellied stoves used to heat the structure.

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Whitesburg has no hope of getting any flood control work done by the federal government. In a letter to the Chamber of Commerce this week, C.C. Noble, district engineer for the Corps of Engineers, said in effect that there’s nothing in Whitesburg worth spending money to save.

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The Letcher County Board of Education voted Saturday to permit all children attending Letcher, Fleming-Neon, Whitesburg or other schools now served by school buses to ride on the buses if they so desire. The board voted to do so on motion of Kern Whitaker follow a lengthy and sometimes heated discussion of school transportation problems. In a related action, the board voted to hire someone to provide transportation for pupils at the Colson school, following appearance of a delegation of parents from that school. The parents said they wouldn’t send their children to school after the weather gets bad unless transportation is provided.

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Bobby Kincer, a 175-pound senior half back on the Morehead State College football team, will be honored at pregame ceremonies Saturday as Morehead plays Eastern Kentucky. Bobby, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Lundy Kincer of Mayking, is a former Whitesburg High School star and is the cousin of Whitesburg’s current sensation, Roger Kincer.

THURSDAY,

NOVEMBER 6, 1969

A Mountain Eagle editorial quotes letters about the war in Vietnam from two soldiers from Kentucky. The letters were written to Kentucky Senator Cook. President Nixon says that negotiations are getting nowhere, but nevertheless fighting would be turned over to South Vietnamese troops and American forces will be brought home. SP4 Raymond Clooney points out that the South Vietnamese already have had a 10-year period in which to organize an effective army. “They should be able to take this battle from our shoulders … How much longer can we sustain them in the present quasi-military government?” PFC Ronald Bogle raises another question: “How much longer are we going to allow {South Vietnamese} President Thieu to dictate the course of action to be followed?” Private Bogle also raises the very basic question of just why are we in Vietnam.

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Democrats remain in control of most county offices today after a hard-fought election which attracted a heavy turnout of nearly 8,500 voters. More votes were cast in the race for county judge than in any other. The final total was 4,359 for Democrat Robert Collins and 4,002 for Republican Estill Blair.

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A write-in campaign nearly defeated Jenkins Mayor R. Percy Elkins in his bid for re-election, and the final results of the vote counting in the race will not be known until later today. W.L. Terrill, a former mayor of Jenkins, received a sizeable number of votes as a write-in candidate to succeed Elkins as mayor.

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Specialist Four John A. Lamb, son of Mr. and Mrs. Willie L. Lamb of McRoberts, received the Army Commendation Medal Sept. 19 in Vietnam. Spec. 4 Lamb received the award for heroism in action while engaged in military operations. The 19-year-old soldier was graduated from Jenkins High School in 1968.

THURSDAY,

NOVEMBER 1, 1979

The dropping of the county trial commissioner, the assistant county attorney and a county patrolman from the county payroll are among the solutions decided on by the Letcher Fiscal Court to lessen the court’s current budgetary woes. The senior citizen center employees will be paid through the end of December before the court decides where cuts will be made. In addition, health department employees who were receiving salaries and supplements from the county’s general fund will now have to get that money from health tax revenue.

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In the first case of its kind, a Department of Interior administrative law judge has ruled that the federal Office of Surface Mining has jurisdiction over disturbance of gob piles, waste left behind by deep mine operations. In a hearing held in Wise, Va., it was ruled that Kencoal Assoc., a firm that has a washing plant on Ramey Fork near Haymond, must comply with OSM sediment control regulations and stop allowing surface drainage to flow into the creek.

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Letcher County’s new Disabled American Veterans chapter will become official next week when a charter will be presented to the group. The new chapter is being named the Paul Collins Memorial Chapter. Paul McCray is the service officer.

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Sliced bacon is 99 cents a pound at the A&P food store. Tide Detergent is $4.88 for a 171-ounce box.

WEDNESDAY,

NOVEMBER 8, 1989

Republican Magistrate Steve Banks defeated Sheriff Ben B. Taylor for the sheriff ’s office, winning 22 of Letcher County’s 31 voting precincts. Judge/Executive Ruben Watts was elected to his third four-year term of office, defeating Republican Elbert Lee.

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Rural Letcher Countians may have to repair flood damage without federal help, because of county officials’ refusal to adopt the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The cities of Fleming-Neon, Jenkins and Whitesburg participate in the NFIP, but most residents have not taken advantage of it. There are only four flood insurance policies in Fleming-Neon, four in Jenkins, and 22 in Whitesburg. Residents outside the three cities will be ineligible for grants and low-interest loans for home repair.

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A preliminary hearing has been set for Friday for Frank Godsey, 53, of Haymond, who is accused of shooting his four-year-old son in the face with a shotgun. State police say doctors at a Lexington hospital have removed one of the boy’s eyes and chances are slim that he will ever regain sight in the other. Police say the boy, Joseph Godsey, was shot once in the face and once in the back from 30 to 60 feet away.

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Letcher County’s official jobless rate fell to 5.6 percent in September, the lowest in years and the lowest in the entire Kentucky River Area Development District.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1999

Designers of the proposed Red Fox Golf Course in Knott County near the Letcher and Perry county borders have indicated that the first 10 to 12 holes could be finished in a year. The road to the golf course may be a different matter. Most of the road had been designed when Gov. Paul Patton visited the site and told planners that the road had to be redesigned as an industrial road before he would support using coal severance tax money to build the project. Those changes increase the cost of the road so much that there’s not enough money in the state highway department’s budget for the road to build it.

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Residents brought in 1,726 appliances and more than 14,000 pounds of recyclable materials last weekend during a buyback sponsored by the Letcher Fiscal Court and the County Conservation District. Money from the sale of the appliances will go back into cleanup programs.

. Whitesburg won 13-7 in double overtime over visiting Pike County. Whitesburg now travels to third-ranked Middlesboro for the opening round of the Class AA playoffs.

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The firms hired to design a baseball park off the Whitesburg bypass have announced the creation of a site on the World Wide Web to help gather public comment on the plans. The web page will include site photos, a directory of the Letcher Fiscal Court, a directory of the park committee members and a community response questionnaire.

WEDNESDAY,

NOVEMBER 4, 2009

A request for parole by confessed murderer Donald Terry Bartley, 51, was denied Nov. 2 by the Kentucky Parole Board. Bartley will spent the rest of his life in prison. Bartley, of Evarts in Harlan County, pleaded guilty in February 1988 to taking part in the August 1985 murder of 23-year-old Tammy Dee Acker and the robbery and attempted murder of her physician father, 79-year-old Roscoe Acker of Fleming-Neon.

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Jenkins residents will see a water rate hike in the near future. Mayor Charles Dixon told the city council the rate hike was tied to a $500,000 loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Agency and if the council did not approve the rate adjustment, the loan would be withdrawn.

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“All seven {senior} centers of Letcher County went to Kingscreek for a Halloween party,” writes Lizzie M. Wright. “We had 35 senior citizens and four workers there. A lot of us dressed up. Coleene Hart from our center won the prize. She dressed in Hawaiian style, even a grass skirt. (Way to go, Coleene.)”

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The members of the Martha Jane Potter Elementary School Lady Cardinals basketball team all wore pink socks during their game against the Cowan Elementary School Lady Bulldogs on Oct. 31 in observation of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

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