10 years ago
* Graham County’s moonshine legend Jim Tom Hedrick made plans to “lawyer up” to stop people from using his name for profit. “I’m tired of people making money off my name,” Hedrick said. “It’s not that I want money, it’s just that they use my name to make money.” Hedrick – a retired moonshiner – was the subject of four documentaries regarding his career. Hedrick had been in touch with a lawyer in Florida to represent him.
25 years ago
* It was a long, twisting journey for Michigan-born, lumber-industry business man William F. Austin. The latest turn brought he and wife, Lea Austin to Robbinsville, via a round-the-world trip, where he used his career skills. Austin was an energetic 70-year-old and he and his wife had both worked with government agencies and businesses in the Amazon, Czech Republic, Romania and Slovak Republic. Austin was a volunteer executive with the (IESC) International Executive Service Corps, a non-profit organization that sends retired Americans to assist businesses and private enterprises in the developing world by fostering economic self-sufficiency. “It’s rough in Russia and Siberia”, he said. “You can go hundreds of miles and not see a road or town – just timber.” He had worked with a venture capital project involving five companies,of which Bemis Lumber Company of Robbinsville was one. “That was when I made our home here,” said Austin.
50 years ago
* Paul Spirko, President of the Fontana Dam Lions Club, presented Mr. O.A. Fetch, Resident Manager of the famous Great Smoky Mountains Resort, with a lifetime membership in the N.C. Association for the Blind. Fetch had been active in the Lions Club of Fontana Dam for better than 20 years, during which time the club had won many state awards for the blind. There were 830 blind and visually impaired persons entering the workforce during the 1970-71 fiscal year. Wages showed a rise in weekly wages from as much as $21 weekly to $60 upon completion of their rehabilitation.
-Diane West