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Editor’s Note: During 2020, The SNAP will celebrate its 140th year of covering Stanly County people. In honor of 140 years, The SNAP will off a glimpse at events from 40 years ago and beyond.

Friday, April 25, 1980

W. Horace Carter

W. Horace Carter, a native of the Endy community in Stanly County, and son of the late Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Carter, had recently edited and published a 300-page nonfiction book on the outdoor life of naturalist Dr. John N. Hamlet, the scientist who captured and maintained the 5,000 cynomolgus monkeys used to perfect the polio vaccine following World War II. It was titled “Land That I Love.”

Hamlet was assigned the task of capturing these primates in remote jungles of Borneo, The Philippines and other sparsely populated areas of the Pacific.

The experiments using these monkeys, that were kept in isolation near Charleston, were shipped to researchers all over the world. Their availability led directly to the perfection of the vaccine that stamped the disease virtually off the face of the earth.

Tuesday, April 29, 1980

Hoyle Lowder

Funeral services for Hoyle Edward Lowder, 56, chief of the Albemarle Police Department, were conducted at Monday in First Street United Methodist Church, where he was a member.

Lowder died Saturday after an extended illness.

He was a detective lieutenant with the department from Aug. 27, 1972 until he became chief in March 1977. He joined the department May 15, 1953, and was promoted to sergeant in July 1968.
He was a veteran of World War II, serving in the Pacific Theatre.
(His two sons, Roger and Joe, would later become sheriffs of Stanly County.)

109-year-old

A 109-year-old evangelist who averaged three week-long revivals a month was to hold a revival May 11-18 at the First Baptist Church in Stanfield.

He was Rev. J.F. Aker of Radford, Va.

His second wife, Louise, age 67, was to accompany him.

Aker was born Feb. 12, 1871 and had been a preacher for 87 years.

Before the day of the automobile, he estimated he rode 15,000 miles on horseback in the early years of his ministry.

Friday, May 2, 1980

Commencement

Jack Callaghan, station manager for WSOC-TV in Charlotte, was to give the annual commencement address at Pfeiffer College on May 4.

Graduate

The month of May is a time for high school and college graduation exercises throughout the country. For one Stanly County resident the word graduation had special meaning this year because at the age of 71, Margaret Barrier of Gold Hill just completed requirements for her high school diploma at Stanly Technical College.

Barrier said she always loved school, but was forced to quit at the age of 12 when her mother died. She became “acting Mother” for her five brothers and four sisters. This consisted of working hard on her father’s farm, doing the housework, cooking, washing and ironing while keeping her brothers and sisters in school.

Barrier began working on her high school diploma in October 1976 at Stanly Tech in the Learning Resources Center. Due to an accident which resulted in a brain concussion, she was not able to attend the LRC for a time to study but she did continue to study … in her hospital bed. She recorded and continued to study at Stanly Tech while working part-time.

On April 16, 1980, she completed her requirements for her diploma.

Friday, April 30, 1965

School of Choice

Students in the Stanly County school system would be allowed to choose the school they wished to attend during the 1965-66 school year under a plan approved by the Stanly County Board of Education aimed at complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Letters would be sent soon to parents of all children attending the county schools explaining the new school policy and asking them to indicate which school they wished their child to attend next year.

Selective Service
The Stanly Selective Service office had been asked to send nine men for induction into the armed forces on May 13.

Training

Marine Lance Corporal Jay B. Eudy, son of Mr. and Mrs. J.B. Eudy of Stanfield, had reported for duty on March 30 at Marine Barracks, U.S. Naval Station, Bermuda.

Lawyer

Joshua J. Morton Jr. had been elected secretary of the Student Bar Association at the Wake Forest College School of Law.

Church

After the 7:30 service Sunday evening the congregation of Union Chapel Methodist Church on the Norwood Road would leave the church for the last time.

Services would be held in the church fellowship hall nearby for six or seven months as a new church and educational building took shape.

May 2, 1950

Honor Society

Five juniors at Albemarle High School had been selected for membership in the National Honor Society. They were: Jane Rogers, Charles Litaker, Edward Patterson, Ann Taylor and Dorothy Gaskin.