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Volume 82 • Issue 28
Thursday, July 14, 2016
See pages 10 & 11
News From a Neighbor Thursday, July 14, 2016
• Belmont • Cramerton • Lowell • McAdenville • Mount Holly • Stanley
Awards aplenty handed out at Belmont council meeting By Alan Hodge alan.bannernews@gmail.com
A wealth of well-deserved awards were given out at last week's meeting of the Belmont city council and Belmont PD also got a new Captain. Veteran Belmont PD officer Basil Marett was sworn in the rank of Captain by Mayor Charlie Martin. Marett's wife Kirsten pinned on his new badge. “God and my family gave me the strength and confidence to do this job,” Marett said. “It is an honor to be Captain of the Belmont Police Department. Belmont is an awesome place to live and work and I will give 110 percent to my position.” Marett has a long history of law enforcement work. A 1989 grad of South Point High, he received two Associate degrees from Catawba Valley Community College and went on to earn his BLET from Gaston College in 1995. He attended the FBI National Academy in March 2008, and in April 2009 got his 360 hour Law Enforcement Management Certificate from Rowan Cabarrus Community College. He also has an Advanced Law Enforcement Certificate and is a Certified NC Law Enforcement Instructor. Before coming to Belmont PD in February 1998, he worked as a policeman in Lowell for two years. He served as interim chief at Belmont PD as well before current chief Skip Clarke was hired. Marett attends Park St. UMC and coached football and basketball for Belmont Optimist and Cramerton Recreation. Last Monday also saw the son of council member Richard Turner, Vincent, receive recognition for his Eagle Scout project. Vincent and other scouts restored the dilapidated gazebo at North Belmont's Linford Park to better than new condition. Vincent explained how the project panned out. “When selecting an Eagle project I reached out to the City of Belmont for ideas,” he said. “There were several available but the gazebo in North Belmont seemed to need the most care. It had a great deal of potential to become a gath-
Veteran Belmont PD officer Basil Marett was sworn in as Captain at last week's Belmont city council meetSee COUNCIL page 8 ing. His wife Kirsten pinned on the badge. Photo by Alan Hodge
Cramerton adopts new logo By Alan Hodge alan.bannernews@gmail.com
This week marks 100th anniversary of Great Flood of 1916
By Alan Hodge
Whatever floats your goat. That's the message the Town of Cramerton's new logo might seem to convey since it features a goat riding in a canoe. “Town commissioner Will Cauthen and a steering committee of town staff and citizens came up with the goat in a canoe idea,” said town manager David Pugh. Cauthen described the process used to create the logo. “The branding steering committee worked diligently for months on reviewing, discussing and improving the way that the Town of Cramerton communicates,” said Cauthen. “After many productive meetings, we came to the conclusion that primary branding (the green oval with "Town of Cramerton" inset) was not an area that needed revision, but we could benefit from a secondary (or internal) brand, tagline and The new Cramerton logo. See LOGO page 3
alan.bannernews@gmail.com
Photo by Alan Hodge
This coming Saturday (July 16) marks the 100th anniversary of the Great Flood of 1916- the worst natural catastrophe in the history of Belmont and Mount Holly. On July 10, 1916, two category four hurricanes merged in the Blue Ridge Mountains and combined to produce torrential downpours that broke all previous 24-hour rainfall records. Rain hit the Charlotte area Monday afternoon and continued to fall virtually without ceasing at a rate of one inch per hour onto dry soil, conditions which assured that by Sunday the Catawba had swelled 22 feet and was risingan average of one foot an hour. Panicked rumors began to buzz among the locals that bridges were collapsing and by the afternoon of Sunday the July16th, they proved true. Flooding happened violently and abruptly, submerging entire neighborhoods and tearing down every railroad and highway bridge crossing the Catawba and South Fork rivers. A bend in the northeastern section of the Catawba spilled over with such force that it ripped open the earth, revealing the skeletons, earthenware pots, and weaponry of a Native American burial ground.
Homes along the riverside were swept away, and many small towns and villages in the region were left without access to electricity, running post, or much needed supplies. The streets of the Harden community were swirling with torrential rivers that evoked images of Venetian canals, and the filthy waters that had flooded Harden’s Mills were nine and a half feet deep. Charlotte’s formidable Mountain Island Manufacturing Company was ripped to shreds, with damage to the company totaling over $350,000 dollars. Even more expenses were accrued in lost merchandise when 1,000 cotton bales were swept out of storage and into the flood. Local boys risked their lives in the torrential downpour when the company offered a small reward for each safely returned bale. The most remarkable tragedy of this flood however, was the Catawba River railroad trestle catastrophe,in which 19 rail workers attempting to fortify the structure with cables and timbers were swept into the flood rapids when the trestle collapsed underneath them. Historians Robert F. Cope and Manly Wade Wellman claim that “for a moment [the trestle] seemed to sail like a raft; then it broke to pieces. Agonized watchers saw the workmen gulped down by the great foamy deluge”. See FLOOD page 4
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Scotty Mcreery
Caroline allen