The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina (2024)

May 12, 1999

Publication:

The Charlotte Observeri

Location:

Charlotte, North Carolina

Issue Date:

Wednesday, May 12, 1999

Page:

26

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

2C WEDNESDAY MAY 12 1900 THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER NEWS AND PRACTICAL INFORMATION FROM AROUND THE REGION Reach Giving Reporter Jeri Fischer Krentz at (704) 358-5234 UseThisNews Charlotte a hand Donations to church programs serving the needy rise to nearly $4 billion Saturdayis Hands On Charlotte Day an community service blitz by Hands On at 9 am at Park By the more than volunteers will improved 36 public cleaned several painted centers and an ice cream Quisenberry the Salvation Army Women and Shelter Share an expertise Have a few hours to give? Adult Care and Share Center in Charlotte needs volunteers to tell stories lead discussion groups on current events organize and lead art projects and pitch in with the horticulture program Also needed: Volunteers on weekdays from 7-10 am or from 4-7 pm to greet family members and participants The center at 6709 Idlewild Road offers adult day careday health and support for frail older adults and disabled people To help callTheo Robinson at 567-2700 The center is open 7 am-7 pm weekdays and 9 am-4 pm Saturdays JFK million members 1 4 billion Churches of Christ with 1 8 million members $998449172 Lutheran Church Missouri Synod with 26 million members On average church members gave $557 each The study used 1996 figures for United Methodist and Episcopal churches would speculate that more competition for benevolent dollars than at any previous yearbook editor Eileen Lindner told the Chronicle years ago a Methodist family would receive requests from the local church and maybe one or two other local groups Today getting phone calls and mail from Save the Children Habitat for Humanity UNICEF and any number of other Copies of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches are available for $35 each from the Friendship Press 475 Riverside Dr Room 860 New York NY 10155 or call (212) 870-2496 You can also check out the National Council of Churches web site at wwwncccusaorg Jeri Fischer Krentz American parishioners gave nearly $4 billion to church programs designed to serve the needy an increase of about $800 million over what they gave the year before according to a new report by the National Council of Churches The report which uses 1997 figures shows that church members contributed a total of $25 billion to 58 Protestant denominations The report estimates that overall giving increased by $750 million from 1996 Giving for the needy amounted to 15 percent of all contributions On a per-capita basis it rose from $68 in 1996 to nearly $85 in 1997 Here are some of the giving 1997 totals according to a recent issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy: $7 billion Southern Baptist Convention with 159 million members $37 billion United Methodist Church with 85 million members $24 billion Presbyterian Church (USA) 'with 36 million members 19 billion Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with 52 million members 1 8 billion Episcopal Church with 24 On Charlotte Day shows the citizens have to strengthen our through working director Lisa Quisenberry day also brings in money through and corporate sponsorships to the year-round service efforts of On volunteers call 333-7471 anytime JFK SC to invest pension funds in stock market and rail project stocks South Carolina had a constitutional provision prohibiting equity investments Voters changed that three years ago to allow stock market investments by the plan that covers more than 200000 teachers state employees and local government workers The almost $918 million first investment represents about 5 percent of the SC Retirement $18 billion It will be put into a portfolio that tracks the Standard 500 Index which is based on some of the stock By PETE IAC0BELU Associated Press Columbia After more than a century of caution South pension funds are headed to the stock market with a plan to invest more than $900 million in an index fund before June 30 Next fiscal year starting July 1 that will double to $18 billion under the plan approved by the state Budget and Control Board on Tuesday Since 1895 after the state was swindled by investments in canal Davidson College President Bobby night Mandyl Evans (below) lead CATAWBA COUNTY Neighborhood program honored by planning group hickory Hickory was told Tuesday that its neighborhood improvement program won an outstanding planning award from the NC American Planning Association The award recognized the work on the Neighborhood Focus program which seeks to improve services and enhance communication between the city and its communities Two neighborhoods Ken-worth and Green Park have been heavily involved in the program so far STANLY COUNTY Teen dies in wreck where signal had been sought A high School student was killed and two other people injured Tuesday at an intersection where students and residents had petitioned for a stoplight Christina Lanae Smith 17 of Locust was killed in the wreck The state Highway Patrol said Smith was a passenger in a car that was struck by another vehicle as it tried to turn left from NC 24 into a store parking lot Her car then was pushed into another car which was parked at the store The store is beside West Stanly High School where she was a junior UNION COUNTY Grand jury indicts relative in death of his niece 3 monroe The Union County Grand Jury Tuesday returned indictments of felony child abuse and murder against Jason Douglas Yoder 25 of Marshville Yoder is charged with abusing his 3-year-old niece Ciera Foster while caring for the child Yoder who lives at 608 Phifer St told Marshville police the child fell down some steps Police said they are still awaiting the autopsy results Yoder is being held in the Union County jail without bond NORTH CAROLINA Mowers out race cars in for Race Against Drugs Kids ages seven through 12 are invited to try their skill at racing while raising money for anti-drug efforts at Kmart Race Against Drug events this weekend Miniature battery-powered race cars are replacing the modified lawn tractors used in previous races no charge for entering and local winners will advance to a national competition in Orlando Fla where the grand prize is a $10000 scholarship For each participant Kmart donates $5 to local drug and alcohol abuse prevention groups Races will be from 9 am to 6 pm Saturday and Sunday at these area Kmarts: 2401 Sardis Road and 8147 University City Blvd Charlotte 545 US Highway 29 North Concord 3580 Franklin Blvd Gastonia 3987 Highway 150 Moores-ville 10500 Centrum Parkway Pineville and 2302 Cherry Road Rock Hill Lumbee sees diversity as strength in Baptist Church Fayetteville A growing diversity is the greatest strength of Southern Baptist churches says the Rev Mike Cummings a Lumbee Indian who will take over as president of the Baptist State Convention Minorities including blacks Hispanics and Koreans now represent the fastest-growing segment of the church Cummings 49 who now serves as the first vice president is director of missions for the Burnt Swamp Baptist Association in Pembroke a group of Baptist churches of various American Indian tribes He will assume leadership of a predominantly white convention when the Rev Mac Brunson of High Point resigns next Tuesday as convention president to become pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas Texas Bills puts Wilson Creek section under protection A 233-mile stretch of the Wilson Creek in Avery and Caldwell counties would be designated a federal Wild and Scenic River under a bill introduced Tuesday by US Rep Cass Bal-lenger R-NC The US Interior Department names rivers and based on qualities such as natural beauty undeveloped banks clean water protection from development wildlife and recreational value The creek begins on Grandfather Mountain and empties into Johns Creek in Caldwell County Give investment advisory panel said it thought more conservative contribution is appropriate because of the short time period remaining before the beginning of the next fiscal There is no set plan yet on how to invest the $18 billion next fiscal year percent is a lot of state Treasurer Grady Patterson said got to be careful because this money belongs to the workers of South South Carolina eventually wants to invest about 40 percent of its for the beach after exams raged until early Tuesday morning when the few seniors who slipped into sleep on their front lawn woke up and went home Reach Jennifer Rothacker at (704) 358-5071 or jrothackeriii char-lottecom murder to keep the case in juvenile court or ask a judge to treat the girl as an adult A judge would consider factors such as the violence of the crime the record and the chances for successful rehabilitation if she is convicted before making a ruling For someone charged as an adult the maximum sentence for second-degree murder is 40 years or 20'2 years if the defendant has no prior record The criminal record made public NC law says that people charged with second-degree murder as juveniles must be released from custody such as training school by their 18th birthday annual organized Charlotte It begins Marshall 3 pm 2000 have schools parks community hosted social at power community says The pledges support Hands Details: retirement fund see the Dow go up every day to its high said Ed Pearlstein chairman of the investment advisory panel any 10-year period of investing this is a good State employees pay about 6 percent of their salaries into their pension plan which is matched by 755 percent from the state Despite voter approval in 1996 it took nearly two more years for the legislature to agree that the Budget and Control Board should have final say over the investments Union deputy did no wrong in shooting DA concludes By WENDY GOODMAN Staff Writer monroe A Union County sheriffs deputy who shot and critically wounded a man waving and pointing a pistol at him in January acted properly the district attorney ruled this week Union County District Attorney Ken Honeycutt said Tuesday that Sgt Tim Phillips has been cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting determined that Sergeant Phillips acted within course and scope of authority and did not use excessive force under the Honeycutt said Phillips shot Bobby Lane Crowder 38 twice after Crowder walked toward the deputy carrying a 22-caliber pistol and then pointed it Crowder was shot in the abdomen and groin Crowder was charged in April with assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer in the incident Union County Sheriff Frank McGuirt said Crowder is awaiting trial expected that Sergeant Phillips would be cleared because he acted properly within the McGuirt said always good to have this as a done deal and have everything cleared up so we can move what McGuirt said happened early Jan 21: Phillips a 19-year veteran of the force responded to two calls near the SC line Someone called before 3 am to report a traffic accident on Crowder Road Minutes later a second call reported shots in the area Phillips was the first to arrive the sheriff said He stopped at the accident scene then heard a gunshot about 200 yards away and went to investigate Another car occupied by several people was blocking the road and Crowder was standing beside the car holding a weapon in his hand McGuirt said Crowder within a very few feet of the McGuirt said despite repeated demands to drop the weapon the man raised the weapon and leveled it at the Phillips using his car door as a shield shot Crowder twice with his 9 mm semiautomatic pistol the sheriff said Reach Wendy Goodman at (704) 289-6576 or largest companies according to the plan drawn up by the Retirement investment advisory panel The budget board will determine next month who gets to manage the first pot of money The plan prepared by William Mercer Investment Consulting Inc of Atlanta projects at least a 6 percent annual return during the next five years The law allowed as much as 10 percent of the retirement fund to be invested this year but the floor by three energetic female seniors There to the Way (I Like by KC and the Sunshine Band Vagt slid swayed shook and shimmied amid graduating seniors and around discarded beer cans And so the party with about 50 students most had already left 1 1 pm Sunday and that he was with the 15-year-old police said Police found the girl and asked to talk with her She agreed and police arrested her based on that interview and statements by others said Gaston County Police Capt Johnny Phillips Phillips discuss possible motives in the shooting which he said occurred before midnight Sunday Police said Sellers was shot with a handgun which was recovered Tuesday in a brushy area near the crime scene on Eighth Street Extension in Bessemer City In coming weeks prosecutor Carlton Terry will decide whether pnotos by PATRICK SCHNEIDERStaff Vagt (left) dances with seniors Ashley Vagt (right) and Chris Knox at a party hosted by the president Monday singer of the band Mo Money provided the tunes for the party while Vagt provided beer and food Beer pizza at college party? Yes and buying DAVIDSON from 1C Money played a Bobby Brown dance tune the top of the list is the Students were certainly tickled about the first-ever president-sponsored bash but hardly surprised been called a president since his tenure at the small liberal arts college began in May 1997 earned that reputation by going to all the football games even the away ones 15-year-old girl charged with treating all the seniors to dinner and playing slip-and-slide down a wet plastic slide in a dorm with the fellas just ordered pizza the said senior Max Nelson holding a beer can in one hand and a smoldering cigarette in the other Not only did Vagt serve up hot pizza and cold beer to those 21 and older (underagers got Pepsi) he even broke out his dancing moves Under a tent sprawled before his pillared house and draped in small white lights Vagt was drawn onto the dance Police said Sellers and the girl whose name is being withheld because of her age knew each other through friends Detectives declined to elaborate other than say the two had not been dating father and brother grew concerned Monday because they heard from him police said They forced their way inside his house after they get him to answer from outside police said They found Sellers a construction worker dead on the living-room couch been shot once police said After interviewing friends and relatives police determined Sellers had last been seen by friends after By JEFF DIAMANT Staff Writer Bessemer city Police charged a 15-year-old girl with second-degree murder Tuesday in the shooting death of a 23-year-old man Phillip relatives found him shot in the head at 9 pm Monday in his house at 530 Steele Road just outside Bessemer City On Tuesday police took the girl to juvenile detention center Prosecutors said they decided whether to try to move the case from juvenile court to Superior Court where the girl would be charged as an adult and face stiffer penalties.

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