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‘Run, Liddy, run’ tops lists of year’s best stories

BY FRANK DeLOACHE
SALISBURY POST

Liddy.

Or maybe it’s just our own newsroom bias from covering the roller coaster that Elizabeth Hanford “Liddy” Dole launched when she resigned from the American Red Cross to explore a presidential bid.

We wanted to “own” that story as much as a medium-sized hometown newspaper can own a presidential candidate. So we wrote lots of stories ourselves — sending political writer Mark Wineka and photographer Jon Lakey to New Hampshire and senior columnist Rose Post and chief photographer Wayne Hinshaw to Washington. Post wrote a biographical series on Dole, and we sent Wineka to Iowa for the straw poll.

We wrote about what others were writing about her. We called that LiddyWatch. We thought you’d want to know.

And we’ll keep on writing about her, because we believe she’s far from done with the 2000 presidential campaign and far from done with politics.

And she is, easily, the most recognizable Salisburian on the national scene in recent decades.

So we know you’re not surprised that when we surveyed the Post news staff about the Top 10 stories of 1999, Dole came out on top.

We do this survey every year. Not in any way scientific, it does, however, give us a chance to review the year and put stories in the context of time.

And even though Dole clearly dominated the ballot, 1999 was a momentous year for a lot of reasons.

Tragedy cut us deeply. Two law enforcement officers died from injuries incurred in the line of duty. Three people lost their lives falling from an unbelievable height. Though spared Floyd’s wrath, people in Rowan County were moved to help others who fell in the path of that mighty storm.

But dominating many headlines this year was another word we’re using more and more often:

Change.

Four of our top 10 stories are about change. Seismic changes in the economy. Possibly the biggest textile union victory ever in the South. Debate about where a person can put a mobile home. And a home-grown institution’s struggle to compete nationally.

Here, then, are the Post’s Top 10 news stories of 1999, in the order voted by the newsroom staff:

1. Run, Liddy Dole, run. She left the presidency of the American Red Cross in January, and Salisbury soon became the headquarters of a national Draft Liddy effort. We even staged one large rally without her.

In March, Dole finally declared herself a candidate and began barnstorming the country. Though she drew many disaffected voters, especially women, into the process, she couldn’t draw the people with money. And in October, an upbeat Dole conceded that she couldn’t compete with the bank account of George W. Bush or the personal fortune of Steve Forbes.

But what’s next? National commentators talk about her strength as a vice presidential running mate. Salisburians will just have to wait.

2. Food Lion, or should we say, Delhaize America. Tom Smith resigning in April was big enough. After assuming the reins of Food Lion in 1981, Smith had continued the dramatic growth of the Salisbury-based grocery chain. That is, until he ran into fights with unions and hidden TV cameras and a Texas market that didn’t take a hankering to Southern style.

His successor, Bill McCanless, another Salisbury boy, didn’t get one of Smith’s titles. That went to Pierre-Olivier Beckers, of the Delhaize Belgium grocery chain.

By the end of the year, Food Lion had bought the Hannaford chain for $3.6 billion, created a holding company called Delhaize America and approved a one-for-three reverse stock split, trying to make the stock more attractive to institutional investors.

No such luck. The stock was hovering around 20 at the end of the year.

3. Lowe’s bomber. At first, we couldn’t believe that two bombs would have detonated almost simultaneously in Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouses in Salisbury and Asheboro on Sept. 22.

Then, employees at a Concord store found a third, undetonated bomb. Though the FBI and state investigators were mum, sources said the bomber might be angry about people killed at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway earlier in the year. The media speculated about security at the racetrack.

Finally, after a team of agents swooped down on a Greensboro man’s home, we learned that FBI electronic sleuths had been following the bomber-blackmailer from the Forsyth County library to Latvia and back again, all over the Internet.

Turns out George Rocha was in debt and angry that he’d been caught switching price tags at a Lowe’s before. Now, he may serve the rest of his life in federal prison.

4. Many Rowan workers get a personal lesson in world economics. It started with textiles. They fell like dominoes — Cone, Burlington, American and Efird and Carolina Maid. All within weeks of each other, large and small, textile companies were closing plants here and moving to other countries where labor is cheaper.

But it didn’t end there. Frito Lay and York International closed plants as national and international companies consolidated for efficiencies. Others cut jobs — Oakwood mobile homes, in Rockwell and Richfield, KoSa and Fuchs. Alcoa’s aluminum smelting plant was forced to reduce workers through attrition to make itself more efficient.

At the same time, KoSa announced an $85-million investment in new technology — and a commitment to the Rowan plant. Fuchs said it was here to stay. And Draftex, a new German manufacturer, quietly hires hundreds of more workers.

At the end of the year, unemployment in Rowan remained very low. But people are working in different jobs and training for new ones as Rowan finds its place in the world.

5. A union comes to Fieldcrest Cannon. In the first election 25 years ago, then-Cannon Mills handily defeated a union’s attempts to organize its 15,000 workers. But by the fifth election this June, a majority of workers at Fieldcrest Cannon, now a subsidiary of Pillowtex, said they want representation.

Though the company initially tried to get the election thrown out, Pillowtex CEO Chuck Hansen Jr. said he “realized, as did other people in the company, that continuing litigation was not in the best interests of the company.” And suddenly, Fieldcrest Cannon workers are voting on who will bargain for them on the union team, and negotiations have begun. What would Charlie Cannon say?

Of course, Hansen has more to worry about than a union. As it tried to integrate companies and install new equipment, Pillowtex saw its profits — and its stock price — fall sharply. And by the end of the year, the company had failed to meet its debt agreements and was renegotiating $6.2 billion in debt.

6. We reach out to others. We were lucky, and we knew it. Hurricane Floyd missed us Sept. 15, but people in eastern North Carolina couldn’t escape. The water kept rising and rising and rising, causing billions in damage, killing people and livestock, resurrecting caskets and wiping out whole towns.

And when we saw the destruction, we responded. With money, with donations of clothes and diapers and canned goods and hay, with ourselves. Schools adopted other schools. Churches adopted churches. Work crews, many organized by local churches, continue to go to the east to help people tear out what has been ruined and rebuild something new.

Group after group has sponsored fund-raisers for flood victims. People have filled trailer after trailer, parked in church and school parking lots all over Rowan County, all destined to help our neighbors to the east. The need continues, and we’re sure the response will too.

7. What do we do with mobile homes? This wouldn’t have even been a subject for debate years ago, when zoning was still a dirty word in the county.

But with subdivisions springing up so quickly, Rowan County commissioners as well as leaders in Kannapolis, China Grove and Cleveland spent part of the year trying to decide whether to limit or ban individual mobile homes or mobile home parks and what sort of standards to set.

All four governments used a moratorium on mobile homes for a time. But mobile home residents and dealers mobilized to fight the regulations and hinted at lawsuits.

In the end, Kannapolis changed zoning to prevent future mobile home parks. Rowan commissioners approved strict new requirements on any new single-wide mobile homes, and Cleveland imposed stricter standards on mobile home parks. That prompted developers of Silo Hill, a large, proposed mobile home park to sue Cleveland, and that dispute is pending.

But nothing will stop the growth.

8. A police officer loses his long fight.

Spencer Police Officer Robert Clement refused to give up. Shot twice while trying to serve a warrant in October 1997, the Spencer officer barely survived a flight to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

But even after restarting his heart and making immediate repairs, surgeons couldn’t know the longer-lasting damage one of the bullets did when it struck Clement’s spinal column. Though he was left with feeling and some movement, he had very little use of his arms and legs were paralyzed.

That didn’t stop Clement. Gradually, through rehabilitation and surgery, he won back use of his legs and arms. He graduated to a brace and walker. He could hold his son, Robert Jr., on his shoulders. But he still had trouble with his right side, and it was during surgery on his right leg that a blood clot lodged in his heart and lungs, causing a series of ministrokes. He died on June 3, 1999.

Hundreds of officers from more than 30 agencies attended his funeral.

9. The job claims a second Rowan law enforcement officer.

Rowan County Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Hillard was doing his job on Oct. 17 — chasing a speeding motorcycle. But in a second, on a sharp turn on a narrow Davie County road, Hillard’s cruiser spun out of control and slammed into a tree, killing him instantly.

Officers seized a white motorcycle, and the driver, a Charlotte man, surrendered a few days later. Davie County District Attorney Gary Frank still hasn’t made a final decision on charges against Fred Edward Redmon Jr.

In his career, Hillard had saved a baby abandoned on a snowy day, wrestled with a bull and arrested criminals. But as they buried their friend, the suddenness of the loss reminded his fellow deputies, as well as local residents, of the inherent danger in upholding the law.

10. Three die in fall from radio tower. His brother said Daniel Zortman had worked on radio and cellular towers for years, had trained others and knew how to do the job safely. But on Dec. 3, as Zortman, his 16-year-old stepson and a family friend let a winch pull them up a 1,500-foot tower owned by WFMX radio, the rope apparently slipped off the drum and free from the machine, sending all three men plunging to their deaths.

All three men lived in northeastern North Carolina and apparently traveled the East Coast painting and repairing radio and cellular towers. Despite the sadness, questions immediately emerged about the work — which one safety expert calls a new, largely unregulated industry. State officials couldn’t even say how many accidents of this type have occurred in the past year because tower accidents are scattered among other categories of labor.

A state official has confirmed that labor rules would have prohibited a 16-year-old working around that equipment, and an industry expert, who trains others to work safely at such heights, said that winch was not the right equipment for that job.

The state investigation could take months.

That’s our Top 10 stories. To show how much news can pass in a year, it’s always interesting to note stories that didn’t quite make it into our list. Consider that:

• The city of Salisbury hired its first black police chief, Chris Herring, who immediately required his patrol officers to walk the streets at least part of every day to get to know people.
• The tragic shooting of students at Columbine High School in Colorado had many ripple effects here. Because of worries about students’ safety, Rowan-Salisbury Schools Superintendent Dr. Joe McCann moved all high school commencements to Catawba College’s Keppel Auditorium. A local church arranged for a group of Columbine students to visit here, and when they talked to students at local high schools, the visitors held local students spellbound. Then, 2,500 people attended a rally at Catawba College.
• County Commissioners fulfilled a promise to raise funding for Rowan-Salisbury Schools to the state’s per pupil average. With that extra cost, a court expansion project and other expenses, the county sent higher tax bills to most residents.
• The Veterans Administration fulfilled the dreams and hard work of veterans groups throughout Rowan County when it donated 40 acres on its Brenner Avenue campus as an annex to Salisbury’s National Cemetery. The gift means the cemetery will remain open for years to come. The VA also leased one of its buildings to the state, which will open nursing center for veterans. Federal officials also renamed the Salisbury complex the Bill Hefner VA Medical Center in honor of the retiring congressman.
• N.C. Rep. Richard Moore resigned his job at A.L. Brown High School and surrendered his state teacher’s license as two agencies investigated complaints that he had inappropriate sexual contact with a student.
• Carolina Power & Light won approval to build a peaking generator near U.S. 70 and N.C. 801, and the East Rowan community raised $5 million and broke ground on a new YMCA.

Finally, don’t forget that Terry Foster’s cow set a world record for milk production.

All that and not a word about Y2K.