This article was written for and published in the Cherokee Scout’s “The Far Blue Mountains” column on Wednesday, April 1, 2009. Tom Bennett, writer of “The Far Blue Mountains” is also the writer of the “WATR Column”.
By Tom Bennett
Murphy, N.C. — The Cherokee County Planning Board was working hard on recreation, protection of the fish and wildlife, proper drainage of land, and pollution control.
This didn’t happen last week, for there’s no such board. It happened a quarter-century ago when Ronald G. Hill was county manager from 1974 to 1981.
“There was tremendous pride then,” Hill said. “People had a reason to not sit on their tails but to come out and take part in the community.
“Gil Hargett was my ‘green’ person. He organized community clubs to do roadside litter cleanups. Gil discovered septic lines running straight into the Valley River. After heavy rains, you could see toilet paper in the trees.
“TVA provided boats and volunteers picked up trash in the lake coves. We hired Buel Carringer and he did a junk-car removal from yards.”
In a July 1980 speech to the National Association of Counties at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Ron Hill described how he upgraded mapping. Discarding the county’s Ozalid bluelines of aerial photos without any grid lines, registration marks or property boundary lines, Hill got better maps from TVA.
He appointed Joanne Davis land records manager. Together they persuaded the clerk of court and the registrar of deeds to communicate better, and to route deeds first to the tax supervisor.
“The number of parcels on record doubled, and land values soared,” Hill said. There were landowners here who had relied on their lawyers to exploit the primitive record-keeping system and avoid paying property taxes, according to Hill.
Hill recalls how Clifton Precision in the Peachtree Community set a poor environmental example. “When I took our industrial development prospects to see the plant manager, he would brag that he took his waste out back and dumped it,” Hill recalled.
This site is on the EPA’s Internet “Scorecard” of worst U.S. polluters.
Clifton Precision serviced airplane parts. Its parent company, Litton Industries of Woodland Hills, Calif., was acquired by Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles in 2000 for $5.1 billion. Northrop Grumman also assumed Litton debt of $1.3 billion.
For $15,000 a year, Ron Hill was county manager, health director, tax supervisor, emergency management director, and even “child support enforcement director” to go after deadbeat dads. A career Army officer and veteran of Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, Hill left Cherokee County government for three times the money. A major, he went to Saudi Arabia as civilian administrator of a Pentagon program to train the Saudi army. Later, Hill returned here and led the John C. Campbell Folk School.
The Andrews native is 75 now and lives in Georgia. He uses a hearing aid and has a vocal disorder. However, he still can greet a visitor at the door and then talk non-stop for hours.
“Are you sure they don’t have a planning board?” He asked. “Why wouldn’t they?”
Were the Corridor K highway completed on each side of Murphy, North Carolina and Tennessee would be required to take part in planning and submit annual development plans, said an Appalachian Regional Commission spokesman.
Tom Bennett of the Martins Creek community near Murphy, N.C., was a retired newsman, Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition member/volunteer/donor and recipient of the 2015 Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award. Tom died on December 28, 2020.