More news for a Thursday

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Murder-for-hire plot
We love a good murder-for-hire plot, and WLOSers brought us one on Thursday. The said a 51-year-old McDowell County man, Michael Higgins, was charged with solicitation to commit the first-degree murder of his former in-laws. Higgins was divorced, WLOSers said, but had a long-running property dispute with his former mother- and father-in-law.

Higgins was apparently discussing the murders with an undercover Buncombe County detective. Holly Headache, who reported the story, said Higgins owned a shop called Collision Specialties and that when police finally arrested him and raided his place, they found thousands of rounds of ammunition, 15 assault rifles and something like $200,000 in cash.

This guy was getting serious.

Attack on Pearl Harbor! 65 years ago
Sheraldo went down to Hooterville to talk to a couple of Pearl Harbor veterans for his story marking the 65th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Both the old guys told Sheraldo they were pretty sure that they nailed ’em some Japs in the hectic aftermath of the attack, which Sheraldo vividly described. Then for Sheraldo’s story there was a color guard and some high school kids wrote some essays about war.

Civil Rights pioneer buried
WLOSers finally got around to doing a story on Alma Shippy, the first black man to break the color barrier of an undergraduate school in the old Confederacy by attending Warren Wilson College.

Pat “Smirkin'” Simon talked to people who knew Shippy and they all talked about what a great guy he was. One friend called him a “pioneer for black leadership.” Shippy was buried Thursday at the state veteran’s cemetery out in Black Mountain.

Simon took a minute to quote someone as saying that they were surprised Shippy’s passing didn’t get more attention, that he was a “well-kept secret.” Let’s see – the story was on the front page of the local newspaper, on the television news…. not much of a secret, that.

Day care controversy
WLOSers blew up into a big story what sounded like a few parent complaints about having to pack a lunch.

The Child Development Center at the First Baptist Church in Ashvegas is a popular day care center, but Cherub Charu said there have been complaints. Parents said staff has had salaries cut 40 percent and that the center has been through four directors. But the biggie was that the center cut its lunch program and told parents to start packing lunch and snack for their kids.

The Rev. Guy Sayles, pastor at First Baptist, said no child would go hungry. The church was cutting costs to try and keep the program afloat, he said.

In other news…
WLOSer Terrie “Pastyface” Foster told us how fire crews battled a 200-acre blaze on Shelton Mountain in the Tuckaseegee community of Jackson County. The flames got close to a house or two…. Somebody cut the phone lines to a Candler man’s home, waited for the man to come outside to check, then beat him over the head with a bat or something and broke is face and both his arms. No motive… An Ashvegas Police Department officer suffered a shoulder separation while chasing a suspect… And an old driver behind the wheel of a mini-van got his orthopedic shoe stuck on a peddle and rammed into the plate glass window of the Fresh Market down in Hendersonville.