Burke hears from new part-time celebrity (Monday, Aug. 20, 1973)

Move over Senator Sam, Art Linkletter is moving into your home territory.

In fact, last Friday and Saturday might have been unofficially called “Art Linkletter Days” in the Burke County area.

From the time the genial 61-year-old entertainer arrived in the area Friday until he left Sunday morning, he was involved in a whirlwind of activities – from business at Pine Mountain Lakes, where he is chair of the executive committee and building a vacation home, to pitching out the first ball at a men’s softball game in Drexel, to crowning the new Miss Hildebran.

An ardent crusader in the fight against drug abuse since the drug-related death of his youngest daughter a few years ago, Linkletter took time out to talk about this vital subject and gave some timely advice to Burke County young people contemplating turning to drugs.

“Drugs are for sick people,” Linkletter said. “They never really helped well persons. They don’t make you happy and won’t make you a better lover. Drugs are a temporary kind of Band-Aid and don’t do anything constructive to help.”

He urged youth instead to “get high on life.”

“Find the thing you like to do and get interested in it,” he said. “This is more important than riches.”

Lost man found watching TV (Thursday, Aug. 23, 1973)

While the Burke County Rescue Squad was dragging Lower Creek in search of a missing man’s body, the supposed victim was lounging in a motel room in Morganton watching television.

Glenn Ritchey, 42, of NC 18 in Burke County, a heart patient who had been reported missing by his family since 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, has been the subject of an intensive, widespread search. He had last been seen walking down NC 18 toward Mabel’s Store. It was feared because of his severe heart condition that he may have suffered another heart attack, possibly wandering from the road in the process.

The Burke County Rescue Squad launched an intensive six-hour search for Ritchey starting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Six squad members resumed the search the following day, including dragging the creek, which is in the vicinity of Mabel’s Store.

Around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, a citizen called the Burke County Sheriff’s Office and reported that Ritchey was registered at the Boxwood Motel on US 70 in the Carbon City area of Morganton. After he was located there, he told authorities that he just wanted two or three days of rest.

Burke man receives kidney transplant (Monday, Aug. 20, 1973)

The Rev. Rome Setzer, former pastor of Setzer’s Creek Baptist Church in Caldwell County and current member of Deaton’s Chapel Baptist Church of Morganton, has a new kidney.

He underwent a kidney transplant Tuesday at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Durham, and as of now, the doctors are pleased with his response. They said the new kidney is not working quite at full capacity, but they feel it will within a short time, according to Mrs. Setzer.

Prior to the surgery, Setzer, 42, of Connelly Springs, depended on a dialysis machine for the past year and a half. He has the type of kidney failure which is caused by hardening of the arteries.

His new kidney is reported to have come from a healthy 26-year-old-man.

Setzer remains in intensive care, and it is hoped he may return home within the next three weeks.

Foreign exchange

student finds Freedom High “incredible” (Friday, Aug. 24, 1973)

Judy Ferguson, 17, an American Field Service student from Lower Hutt, New Zealand, arrived in Morganton recently and said she is impressed with the new Freedom High School, where she will be attending for the next nine months.

“I think it’s incredible,” Ferguson said. “There’s nothing like it in New Zealand.”

The AFS student is being hosted by the Blanch Beam family of West Union Street in Morganton. She will be a senior at Freedom, while her host “sister,” Mary Alice Beam, 16, will be a junior.

Ferguson said she is looking forward to going to Freedom High and exploring the different type of curriculum available there. She explained that she had already completed most of her “hard” subjects for graduation and so is free to take subjects of her choice.

“I hope to take play production, manual communications, house planning, crafts and federal, state and local government study the first quarter,” she said. “This is very different from our curriculum in New Zealand.”

Two cited in garbage cart collision (Friday, Aug. 24, 1973)

Two Morganton city employees have been charged with failure to report an accident after their two city-owned garbage carts wrecked on South Green Street around 4:50 p.m. Wednesday.

One of the employees had reportedly stopped on South Green Street for the traffic in front of him when the other, following behind, failed to stop his cart before it rear-ended the other one. The incident was not discovered until later, when a member of the city sanitation department reported that two employees had been involved in a wreck which had not been reported to the police department.

Damage to the carts was estimated at $2,025.