The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1937-12-30
Highway Workers !.
In Ashe County
Give Big Banquet
Party Given In Honor District
And Division Bosses. Judge
Bowie Chief Speaker.
ABOUT IS PRESENT

Capt George Doggett and the
employees of the State Highway
maintenance force in Ashe county
gave a delightful banquet at the
West Jefferson hotel last Thursday
night in honor of their district and
division bosses District Commits
sioner ]. G. Hackett, z. v. Stuart,
division engineer, Buck Hayworth,
assistant division engineer; Mr..
Peck, division manager of hard sur
face and sign work; Jim Council,
district engineer and E. Ford King,
district supervisor.
A total of about IS people were
present including ladies and a num-
Der of other guests. Unfortunately,
however, Mr.. Hackett was unable.
to be present.
The dining room was attractive
ly and appropriately decorated and
a delicious turkey dinner, served in
banquet style, was greatly enjoyed.
Capt. Doggett, who is county high
way foreman, acted as toastmas-
ter and introduced his bosses, as
well as many of the guests. Brief
talks were made by Messrs. Ford
King, Stuart, Peck, Council, Hay.
worth, of the State Highway De-
partment and by j. L. Segraves, ].
w. Gambill, J. L. Rackley, Hart
Brown, of Boone; E. M. Anderson
and T. C. Bowie, Jr.
In the feature address, Judge
T. c. Bowie, the principal speaker
of the evening who had a promin-
ent in the establishment of the
State Highway Department and in
the promotion of the good roads
movement, highly commended the
highway officials and employees
for rendering great service to HUI
manity and briefly traced the part
which he had as member of the
legislature in the establishment and
development Of the highway pro-
gram in North Carolina.
II have always been interested in
good roads," Mr.. Bowie stated. eve
had only one road in the county to
the outside world when I was boy
and that was the stage-coach road
to Wilkesboro, and it usually took
a full weeks time to go there and
back.
when I first went to the legis-
lature, it took from three TO four
days to get to Raleigh" he explain
ed.
In order to secure federal aid to
help build highways, it was neces-
Sary for state to have a highway
department, he said. so in 1915
bill to create such a department
was passed by the senate and on
the first reading in the house, the
vote was tied," he stated and ex-
planned that as speaker of the
house he cast the deciding vote in
favor of the bill. On the third
reading, he said it passed by big
majority.
But it was not until 1921 when
GOV. morrison was elected that we
launched upon good roads pro-
gram" the Judge declared, and
then told about the big fight that
was waged over the proposed road
bill. He stated that as chairman
of the roads committee in the
house, he was busy day and night
drafting bill that would povide
for an adequate system, fair to all
counties and have ample funds. ct
insisted on $5O,OOO,OOO appfopria-
ton and we finally passed the bill,
authorizing $2O,OOO,OOO, with
maximum feature of $5o,OOO,OOO,"
he said.
After stressing the value and i'm
portance of good roads, Judge con-
Guided with words of praise for
this great section of the ctato