SNAP Back In Time takes a look back at newsmakers from yesteryear.

Friday, Jan. 21, 1966

Communications Center

A tremendous crater had been carved from the gravelly depths of Stanly County just south of Stanfield, and now everything was ready for the construction of the mammoth underground communication center for the Miami-Washington coaxial telephone cable which would occupy the site.

A portable, automatic concrete mixing machine had been brought to Stanfield by Trans-Carolina Concrete Company of Sylva and was now in place beside the railroad and ready to provide the concrete to go into the huge structure.

The communications center would contain 70,000 square feet on two levels and the roof would be an undisclosed number of feet below the surface of the ground.

Since communications are vital in time of emergency, the center would be impervious to all except a direct hit from a thermonuclear device.

Only a small entrance building would be visible above ground. The giant communications center would cost an estimated $2.5 million and was expected to be activated late in 1967.

FFA

Oren Huneycutt, 18, a 1965 graduate of North Stanly High School, had won the North Carolina Future Farmers of America broiler growing award for the FFA supervised practices program he carried out during his senior year in school.

This award entitled Oren and his FFA Chapter supervisor, Dick Koontz, Vo-Ag teacher at North Stanly, to an expense-paid trip to Atlanta for the Southeastern Poultry & Egg Association Exposition Jan. 24-26.

He would also compete with 11 other state winners for a $500 scholarship, the grand prize for the top regional winner.

Military Academy

William Stinson Trivette, son of Mr. and Mrs. F.M. Trivette of Albemarle, was one of 12 young men nominated by Congressman James T. Broyhill to compete for the Ninth District’s two vacancies in 1966 at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Dairy

More than $100 in cash prizes had been awarded to owners of top performing dairy herds and cows at the annual banquet meeting of the Stanly County Dairy Herd Improvement Association in Albemarle.

Winner of the $50 prize for the top herd was John Kearns of Montgomery County, who recorded an average of 594 pounds of butterfat per cow per year.

Prizes of $20 each went for outstanding individual cow production to Kearns for top Holstein, 800 pounds of butterfat, as well as to Moose’s Dairy of Albemarle, top Guernsey, 710 pounds of butterfat, and J.T. Mabry and Son, Norwood, top Jersey, 564 pounds of butterfat.

While no prizes were given, the top herd in Stanly County was recognized as that belonging to Spurgeon Brooks of Richfield, and the top producing Holstein cow to Moose’s Dairy, this animal giving 720 pounds of butterfat.