State

_ EEL P ROFILE _ By Bechany Bradsher The Bessemer Beacon After 35 years on the job, 73-year old Lois Smith hasn't slowed down as editor of the Bessemer City Record AImiui hall accntuiyago. in llic middle of World War II. young Lois Sin i l h and a friend were driving from South Dakota to Bessemer City. They bail no spare tire. Gasoline was rationed. And. oh. Smith was a paraplegic and didn’t have a wheelchair. As they made their way from South Dakota — where Smith’s husband was stationed — the two women heard ol some excitement. "They were having floods down in Oklahoma." Smith recalls. “We de¬ toured so we could go sec what the flooded areas looked like. I’ve always been curious." Today 'he’s 75. owns a wheelchair and doesn’t travel much. But Ix»is Smith's curiosity still guides her. She spends her days talking on the phone and charming visitors, wringing Bessemei City news out of oveiy soul who crosses her path. I Icr while colonial house is the information hub of the small town in western Gaston County, home to about 5,000 people. For the past 35 years, the tidbits she has gathered have gone into the Bessemer City Record. She’s the only editor the newspaper has ever had. "It's just real nice, the Bessemer City lift out, "she says. "I’ve just always done it out of the house here." Smith does much more than edit — she also does every bit of the wi iting that goes into the weekly paper. She handles spoils news, mat г i ages, deaths, police repot ts and features. And she has never missed an issue. Met favorite stories arc the funnv ones, like her recent account of the black cow that wandered through down¬ town Bessemer City, “where she created a flurry of activity." And she likes to write about young people I tom Bessemer City who succeed t ж 1 - m I p * ‘-Sk -- ‘ I ' l , /П leiit Smith "s curiosity has guided Bessemer City Record readers for 35 years. out in the larger world — people like bet cliildirn. Her son is an engineer in Michigan; her daughters work in film production in Atlanta. An authority on Bessemer City liisto ty. she also thrives on news stories, the events that shape people's lives nr linger in their memories, such as the I92C train-crossing accident that killed five teen-age girls. It happened whcn-Smith was just in grade school, hut she inter¬ viewed the residents who remembered it for a recent story. Or take thejanuaiy I. 19-19, lire that destroyed city ball — and nearly killed several New Year's Eve revelers who were locked up in the jail. The lit e n u< к was inside < ity hall, and there were some people locked up drunk in the jail, and the jailer (who had the key), they couldn’t find him, and those men couldn't get out." she says. But perhaps the stories she can write with the most understanding arc those that tell of tragedy and loss. Bessemer City residents who’vc experienced pain lately hesitate to tell Smith about it. she says. Г hey know she’s been thctc. loo. Smith was an IS-year-old sophomore at Agnes Scott College in Decatur. Geor¬ gia. when the car she was riding in col¬ lided with a truck. Doctors thought her injuries would kill her. But medical opin¬ ion had nothing on her unquenchable love foi life. “It’s just real funny." she says. "I was supposed to die 55 v c.u s ago. and I’ve outlived all my doctors." The accident left her paralyzed from the waist down, but it also marked her for journalism. I let calling < ante in the form of a "W-shapcd” scar — still quite visible — on her forehead. The W, she says, stands for the five keywords of news gath¬ ering: who. what, where, when and why. She has asked those questions plenty in 35 years as the Record’* one-woman editorial staff, but the unique demands of a hometown paper lead her to other questions, too. questions like. "What did the rest of the town think?" and "Who arc her people?" They want to know who the gt audina was. and who the grandpa was," she say s ol her readers. "So you have to get off in little tangents sometimes." Shortly after her accident, a friend gave Smith a portable typewriter. She had failed English in college, hut she taught herself to type and put stories together as a correspondent foi the Gas- Ion Gazette and The Charlotte Observer. When a local businessman decided to start a Bessemer City newspaper. Smith, who has lived in the town since she was two. was the natural choice lot editor. In the years since, Smith has learned to squeeze the blood ol news from Besse¬ mer City’s small-town turnip — while fig- uiingout what she can and cannot write about her neighbors. “You hear so much, but half of it vou can’t put in the paper because flies ’ll nin you out of town." she say*. "I have lots of company, and I’ll say. ’Do you know any news?* They’ll say. ’No. not a thing I can think ol.‘ And they’ll start talking. Every other sentence is a news story." She carries hci notebook cveiywheie she goes — even to bridge and out to cat. Her mere presence can prompt peo¬ ple to spill secrets, she says. Til call somebody and they’ll say. ‘Oh. don’t pul it in the paper about my son being drunk and having a wreck,’ she say’s. "I didn't even know the son had a wreck." People often tell bet that the only Пк*.1| I» П U. The Stale/Scptcmhrr IWX