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ContentsDeathsMarvin ‘Wayne’ FraleyCarol Renae GattonCharles Edward JarrettAllan James Pletcher

Peggy Herrin RaryWard C. RhodesRandall Lee SmithRobert ‘Bo’ Clay Stegall

BY KATHY CHAFFINkchaffin@salisburypost.com

Three Salisbury newspapersare among 25 early North Car-olina papers now available on theN.C. State Archives’ Web site.

Digital images of North-Car-olina Mercury, The CarolinaWatchman and The Western Car-olinian offer people a glimpseinto the past. Already availableon microfilm at the Rowan Pub-lic Library and the StateArchives in Raleigh, the collec-tion is now also available to his-tory buffs and genealogists with

access to the Internet in the con-venience of their home, 24 hoursa day.

Editions of North-CarolinaMercury are available on digitalimages for June 27, Dec. 5-16,1799, as well as Jan. 2, 1800,through Aug. 13, 1801. Some is-sues within the 1800 to 1801 timeperiod are missing.

Digital images of The West-ern Carolinian are availablefrom 1820 to 1842, with some is-sues missing, and The CarolinaWatchman from 1832 to 1898,also with some issues missing.

Gretchen Witt, librarian in the

Edith M. Clark History Room atRowan Public Library, said al-though the early newspapershave been available on micro-film, “it’s just nice that you canjust get them online.”

North-Carolina Mercury wasan earlier newspaper that didn’tstay in business for long, Wittsaid. “We have bits and pieces ofit,” she said.

Witt said genealogists and his-torians who are regulars in theHistory Room get a lot of infor-mation from The CarolinaWatchman and The Western Car-olinian. “They were the papers

for the western half of NorthCarolina for a long time,” shesaid.

The Western Carolinian, pub-lished from 1820 to 1844 inRowan County, was the firstnewspaper in the western partof the state. The weekly, four-page paper, according to the N.C.State Archives Web site, was “avigorous champion for the inter-ests of western North Carolina,an opponent to the political dom-inance of the East and an advo-cate for better roads, education

BY JESSIE BURCHETTEjburchette@salisburypost.com

The official start of the 2010election season is little more thana month away.

Filing with the Rowan CountyBoard of Elections starts at noonMonday, Feb. 8, and continuesuntil noon Friday, Feb. 26. Filingis required with the State Boardof Elections in Raleigh for someoffices.

Local election observers ex-pect a crowded field for severaloffices.

Nancy Evans, Rowan’s elec-tions director, said if the numberof inquiries about offices is anyindication, there will be a lot ofcandidates on the May primaryballots.

The race for Rowan Countysheriff is expected to draw a lotof contenders. And it’s a wideopen race. There won’t be an in-cumbent sheriff on the ballot forthe first time in nearly threedecades.

Republican George Wilhelm,who resigned in December,served three terms after ousting

Bob Martin, a Democrat whoserved three-terms. And Martinwon in 1986 after the resignation

of Republican John Stirewalt,

Commission splits on offering DSS site to schoolsBY MARK WINEKA

mwineka@salisburypost.com

An outright offer of the old De-partment of Social Services buildingoff West Innes Street to Rowan-Sal-isbury Schools failed by a 3-2 voteMonday.

Still, the Rowan County Board ofCommissioners will ask a commit-tee to study whether the DSS build-ing could meet some of the centraloffice goals of the Rowan-SalisburyBoard of Education.

Commissioners Carl Ford andRaymond Coltrain belong to the com-mittee with school officials that hasbeen looking into a new central of-fice for the system.

Ford, chairman of the Board ofCommissioners, said the committee

should reassemble as soon as possi-ble.

But he acknowledged the coun-ty’s ideas for meeting the school sys-tem’s needs and what school officialswant were far apart in previous com-mittee meetings.

DSS is close to making a movefrom its longtime headquarters onWest Innes Street to new accommo-dations next to the Rowan CountyHealth Department off East InnesStreet.

Offering the old DSS building tothe Board of Education “would nothave a detrimental effect on thespace needs of county departments,”County Manager Gary Page said ina report Monday.

Commissioner Tina Hall said theold DSS location affords “a unique

opportunity” to offer the school sys-tem a safer location than its currentoffices on Long Street in East

Spencer.She recalled

the concernsschool officialshad about safe-ty and thesoundness ofthe building atthe Long Streetlocation.

While the DSS building’s 22,000square feet might not meet all of thecentral office needs, it would accom-modate the people working on LongStreet, Hall said.

“We have the opportunity to helpwith the safety issue,” she said.

With the economy the way it is, a

new building to house all of theschool offices — other administra-tive offices are on North Ellis Streetin Salisbury — may be out of thequestion, Hall said.

Hall added that $7.5 million mightbe a conservative estimate for a newcentral office when the school sys-tem faces other pressing capitalneeds such as new schools, schooladditions and technological updates.

“It’s a year later,” Hall added.“What other options do we have?”

If the school system were not in-terested in accepting the county’s of-fer of the DSS building, then thesafety issue must not be as criticalas it was portrayed, Hall said. But ifit is, then the county should moveforward to help the school systemnow, she added.

Her motion to offer the DSS build-ing to the school system was defeat-ed with Commissioners ChadMitchell, Raymond Coltrain and JonBarber voting against it. Ford votedwith her.

Barber said he couldn’t supportthe motion because of the commit-tee appointed last year to look at thecentral office issue. The proposalshould have some study from thatcommittee, he said.

The building should not be of-fered up in an “all-or-nothing sce-nario,” Barber added.

Mitchell and Coltrain agreed thatthe DSS option should be discussedat the committee level again.Mitchell reiterated his concerns

Copingwith cold

BY STEVE HUFFMANnews@salisburypost.com

Scott Benfield has been working as a plumberfor decades, but he admitted that Sunday’s coldsmarted about as much as any dip in tempera-ture he could remember.

Benfield, the owner of Scott’s Plumbing inSpencer, spent much of Sunday thawing frozenpipes. It was tough work, he said, labor that lefthis hands aching.

“It’s bad out there and it’s going to get worse,”Benfield cautioned.

Plumbers warn that the likelihood of homeand business owners having to deal with frozenpipes will increase as the week progresses.

North Carolina along with much of the restof the eastern half of the nation is in the midstof a bitter cold snap. It’s expected to last throughthe end of the week.

As Benfield and other area plumbers noted,the worst may be yet to come. While lows in re-cent mornings have fallen to the upper teens,the thermometer is expected to drop into thelow teens by Friday. Wind chills will make thingsseem even worse.

Benfield said area residents looking to keeppipes in their houses from freezing need to fol-low some simple precautions. Make sure crawlspaces are sealed, he said, protected from holesthat allow in the worst of the cold. Rememberto wrap pipes with heat tape whenever possible.Something, Benfield said, as simple as turningon a light in a well house can prevent pipes fromfreezing.

Even leaving a faucet dripping overnight canmake a big difference.

“It’s the little stuff that pays off,” Benfieldsaid�. “This stuff doesn’t have to cost a lot ofmoney.”

Ken Bean, the owner of Spencer Home Sup-ply in Park Plaza, said that as of Monday morn-ing he hadn’t seen a lot of �customers looking tobuy materials to protect their pipes. Only a shop-per or two had stopped by in search of heat tapeor pipe insulation, he said.

“I figured we’d be selling a lot of drop lightsand heat tape,” Bean said. “Nobody’s come infor anything like that.”

Bean said he worked with his brother-in-law,Billy Yow, in Guilford County on Sunday, thetwo traveling for miles to thaw numerous wellsthat were out of commission because of the cold.

Yow is the owner of D&Y Well Drilling.“We must have thawed about a million wells,”

Bean said, laughing as he spoke.Well, by the end of the day it probably seemed

like a million.At Southeastern Plumbing Supply on South

Main Street in Salisbury, Terry Hazlett, one ofthe firm’s owners, said business was hoppingMonday as plumbers addressed a number ofproblems pertaining to frozen pipes.

“We’ve been pretty slammed this morning,”he said.

Demand for heat tape and other essentialswas high, Hazlett said. Plumbers were also buy-ing pipes to replace a handful that had alreadyburst and stocking up on supplies they were like-ly to need as the cold lingered.

Hazlett agreed with Benfield and other areaplumbers that homeowners can save themselves

See DIGITAL, 2A

See FILING, 2A

File this away: Election season on the horizon

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY MOONEY/SALISBURY POST

The early North Carolina newspapers now available on the Web include editions of three Salisbury newspapers — the North-CarolinaMercury, Carolina Watchman and Western Carolinian.

Taking a page from historyOld Salisbury papers among those available online

State Sen. Andrew Brock and Reps. Lorene Coates and Fred Steenare among area politicians up for re-election in 2010.

See OFFICE, 2A

See COLD, 2A

Pipes vulnerable to icyblast, plumbers warn

Also onagenda Sales tax increasewill take effect onJuly 1, 4A