The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1959-06-19
FURORE RAISED IN
HYDE COUNTY BY
LAST MINUTE BILL
School Parfisans Accuse Repre-
resen+ative Of Scheme to
Keep Gaylord in Office

A list minute bill to increase
the Hyde County Board of Edu.
cation to seven members, has
raised big furore in Hyde, ano
some partisans of the hotly con-
tested school issue say it is as
much to keep Sut. Tommie Gay
lord in office for another two
years, as much as anything else.
They think Gaylord is now in
complete domination of the situa-
ton.
The bill would put back on the
Board the two defeated members,
Gratz Creole and Crawford CO.
hoon; plus w. T. Howard, and
George Bush, the latter a defeat
ed candidate.
Walter Lee Gibbs, only winning
incumbent, said this week accuses
Rep. O'Neal of deliberately stack
ing the, school Board to defeat
the will of the people, and said he
had been informed that O'Neal
had given the Raleigh News and
Observer incorrect information, in
that the Raleigh paper had been
led to print that he, Gibbs, was a
pro-consolidation member, and for
this reason the only Board men,
Der not defeated.
Rep. Dick O'Neal of Hyde intro
duced in the House Monday night
Legislation increasing the Hyde
board from three members to
seven. His bill, naming the seven
man board, would give pro-con-
solidation, of the Swan Quarter
and Engelhard schools.
= Walter Lee Gibbs of Engelhard,
elected to the school board in last
springs primary election, said in
a wire to The News and Observer
that O'Neal's bill bypasses the
wishes of Hyde voters.
"Mr. O'Neal ran on a platform
of hands off in the schools af-
fairs and promised to appoint to
the board those elected by the peo-
pie and none other" Gibbs said.
"Since his election he has made
personal promises to that effect.
Now he proposes to bypass the
will of the people of Hyde County
by stacking the board so that the
voices of the members elected by
the people will be smothered out
by those whom the people repudi-
ated."
Gibbs is one of the seven
named in O'Neal's bill to increase
the Hyde school board. The others
are w. T. Howard, George H.
Bush, Crawford L. Cahoon, Gratz
Spencer, w. L. Cochran, and Earl
Topping.
Cochran and Topping, anti-con-
solidation leaders, also were elect
ed to the three-man board last
spring.
Gibbs said news account in
The News and Observer on the
O'Neal bill inaccurately referred
to Gibbs as a "pro-consolidation"
member of the school board.
81 am not now and never have
been pro-consolidation :" Gibbs
said. "My position has been let
the people decide whether or not
they want to consolidate and the
people approxed my stand by CIV
ing me the largest vote received
by any candidate in the primary
while they repudiated the dicta-
torial stand taken by the other
two members of the board"
At this late date in the Legis-
lature, it is doubtful if there will
be any opportunity for the Apo
nents of the O'Neal measure to
stop passage of the bill.
The State Supreme Court, in a
ruling handed down last week,
cleared the way for resumption of
construction of a consolidated
school for Hyde, barring further
legal maneuvers by anti-consoli-
dation forces.
1t was the high courts ruling,
in effect, that the Hyde County
school board has proper title to a
15-acre tract of land on which the
new school will be built. Condem-
nation proceedings over the school
site were disputed by anti-consoli-
dation leaders who carried the
case to the Supreme Court.
Construction on the new school
which had begun on three-acre
portion of the site, has been held
| up by a restraining order. A mo-
ton will be made soon to remove
tho ractraininr nydor