They Convinced Their Kosses
BETTER PICTURES CONING UP
A few energetic photographers ile-
citlc<l that their work coulil he im¬
proved, so now a new course is
being started at Chapel Hill.
By BILL SHARPE
SOME years ago, "Bugs" Bar¬
ringer of Rocky Mount, joined
up with the National Press
Photographers' Association, and at
its convention he was forced, rather
wryly, to the conclusion that many
of the up-Nawth professional pho¬
tographers came up with more in¬
teresting and more printable pic¬
tures than did his associates down
here. "Looked like we were about
ten years behind on technique and
ideas," he recalls.
The same thing dawned on John
Hemmer, president of the Caro¬
lina Press Photographers. Hugh
Morton of Wilmington, and others.
Then in April 1948, when the
N. C. Association was meeting at
Rocky Mount, the small group
heard a boy with a crew haircut
tell about his experiences at the
Short Course in Photography at
Kent State University in Ohio.
It was a good idea, said the boy
making the report; and if it was
good for Ohio, why wasn’t it good
closer home? That was Charlie
Killebrew, staff photographer for
the Rocky Mount Telegram.
Under the chairmanship then of
Johnny Havlieek. of the Greens¬
boro News, the nebulous sugges¬
tion was bounced around at suc¬
ceeding meetings, finally winding
up in the lap of Stuart Sechreist of
the UNC School of Journalism.
But photographers are not
noticeably academic, and also no
great shucks at organization, and
no one seemed to know how to
organize a university short course.
Most training courses are orga¬
nized by employers or others who
have practical motives for under¬
writing them.
But somebody in the association
always kept mentioning it, and
the matter finally got the familiar
routine of being assigned to a com¬
mittee.
Fortunately, the general chair¬
man of this committee happened
to be a young man named Hugh
Morton, of Wilmington.
Hugh was a what-the-hell, let’s-
get-going boy who had absorbed
right much Jap shrapnel at Luzon
before coming home to become a
most energetic citizen. A photog¬
rapher since childhood, his voca¬
tion is the management and pro¬
motion of the vast Hugh McRae
interests, which straddle North
Carolina, including both the
Grandfather Mountain country and
large parts of New Hanover.
Brunswick and Pender counties.
Hugh Morton hadn't heard that
a committee chairman was just
supposed to pull meditatively at
his gray beard and say: "and on
the other hand." He doesn’t even
have a gray beard, and at a meet¬
ing at Burlington he came up with
(Continued on page 17)
THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW
ABOUT DRILLING OF WELLS
RO. HEATER drills wells and
has been doing so for many
• years. The other day we
happened to be talking to him and
asked him if. during the course
of his well-drilling, he hadn't
brought to light many interesting
objects.
Well, he said, let’s sec. While
drilling a well for the school at
Bunn Level some few years ago.
we struck a log at a depth of 57
feet and found that we could not
drive our casing through it. It was
necessary to move over and drill
a larger hole through the log in
order to get the casing through.
We found out, from pieces of bark
and lightwood, that this log was
pine. The thickness of this log
was approximately 9 feet at the
point where we drilled. However,
we may have been drilling at a
6
slight angle. Anyway, it certainly
must have been a huge tree. The
work was continued and was
finished at a depth of 154 feet.
There must have been some tre¬
mendous changes in the surface
of the world. While drilling a
well at the prison camp at Kinston,
we encountered shale marl and, at
167 feet, ran into what seemed to
be a nest of shark's teeth. Imagine
finding shark’s teeth that far below
the surface! We recovered approx¬
imately half a gallon of these
teeth. And still further down, we
obtained some particles of bone
that had an elbow-like shape.
These bones, of course, were petri¬
fied. This particular well was
finished at 215 feet.
The Indians believed that cer¬
tain types of water from springs
would cure various types of ail¬
ments. This same theory has been
advanced by eminent physicians —
that the chemicals needed by the
body, when taken in the form of
drinking water, can do much good.
We drilled a well in Wilson
County for a man who had
been bothered with kidney trouble
for a number of years. A few
months after he began drinking
this water, the kidney trouble was
cleared up entirely and there has
been no further evidence of it. Not
only that, but one of his neigh¬
bors, suffering from the same ail¬
ment, drank this water and also
made a complete recovery.
A young girl in Person County
was seriously afllicted with eczema
and had been told that nothing
could be done for her. But after
drinking water from a well drilled
at the home of a neighbor near
Huxdle Mills, she was cured. On
being advised of this, we had the
water analyzed for new chemical
properties but found that it was
the usual type of water found in
and around Person County.
You probably have often heard
(Continued on page 17)
THE STATE, March II, 1950
