The Wilmington morning star., 1947-10-13
m SPORTS PAN ... "
w BY Roy Cook
BY Roy Cook

This morning the Morning Star is publishing a special
section devoted to Wallace, one of the fastest growing
communities In Southeastern North Carolina.
Most of the material in this section was compiled and
written by John Skies, the Sales Supervisor of the Wallace
Tobacco market and press agent supreme for that com
munity.
All this does not sound like a sports column b1t #
leads up to the point we are trying to get across.
Skies, a former sports editor, has done a great lob
Of promoting the sale of golden weed on his market. He
Is a writer OF ability and we asked him to drop us some
dope on the Wallace football team. John was very oblio-
ng and several days later we received about a co]rmn
The first three paragraphs were all about the Wal
lace tobacco markets. He listed the sales, averages. pound
age and other remarks about what a fine place Wallace
was to sell tobacco.
Down about the fourth paragraph Skies began to talk
about the football team. The PLAYERS are some of tho host
tobacco troopers in the state, he wrote.
We read on and about the sixth paragraph Skies said
the Youngsters would work in the tobacco fields, practice
football ana then work IN the tobacco fields. We Won
dered about what kind of story it was and where to run
II. But several paragraphs later we discovered a few lines
about Coach Thell Overman and his %gridders.
Now to get to the point. We asked John to arrange
for someone to cover the game between Clinton and Wal
lace last Friday. He promised he would.
Friday evening John called US. "Roy, I have some
tobacco figures for you" He started giving us figures on
sales, averages and other figures. 'But, John. how about
the football game ?" We asked.
q got it too. Wait a minute. Editor Long of the
Wallace Enterprise has written a story and + will read it
TO you" He said.
John, in his deep bass voice, started reading and our
shorthand was unable to keep up with him. But after
a couple of minutes, John broke in to say, "don't FORGET
the tobacco averages"
With all these figures on tobacco and score of the
football game we were confused to no not one. We tried
to settle down and write from our notes which ran some
thing like this
The Wallace tobacco market sold 389, 900 pounds to-
day and Clinton scored in the first period. The averages
were above normal, as the Bulldogs came from behind
a 7 to s deficit to win over the Darkhorses. Warehouse
men urged farmers to bring in their tobacco to take ad-
vantage OF the high prices as Archie Barksdale of the
Clinton team returned a Wallace kickoff to the 40 ward
line. With one minute and fifteen seconds remaining In.
the ball game the demand for tobaccos continued strong.
That Is a sample of what our notes looked like.
The result of all this confusion was as follows:
The headline read wallace Defeats Clinton. 7 In e."
The first paragraph said the score was IL to 6.
The fourth paragraph said Clinton scored and kicked
the extra point, making the score 7 to 6 in favor of Gin
ton.
The last paragraph said Wallace scored, making the
score II to Z in favor of Wallace,
With the explanations all over. We are happv To re-
7ort that the Wallace Bulldogs defeated Clinton ~ In 7
hope this makes Mr.. Skies very happy.