By Staff
An individual's home community along with its people ought to be a source of pride not only in one generation but for some generations ahead. A given community might be in a rather poor section of America, but even then if one calls a home in that area as "mine," then it is excusable for him to express a measure of pride over that home area.
Recently, a high school senior was asked, "Do you know about Lindsay Warren or Herbert Bonner?" He said he had never heard of either one. For one in this Pamlico area, such a confession seems rather sad. While here on this good earth, men give their best efforts to improve the lot of mankind, but when the Grim Reaper calls and that leader is six feet under, his leadership belongs only to history, and it is a chapter in history that must be read spasmodically.
Here in this Pamlico area we have so many outstanding leaders who now belong to history and who are forgotten along the way. We have a question of longstanding which deserves to be asked and answered. Why does not our schools teach our young people about outstanding leadership in years gone by? It seems to us that every senior before graduation ought to know about the ones who did much through the years to shape our destinies and to do their bit to make this area a better place in which to live.
Surely, we shall miss a few, but we shall attempt to name some of our leaders who have done much to pave the way toward better living here. We begin with Lindsay Warren, Herbert Bonner, Edmund Harding, William Rodman, Fred Latham, Malcolm Paul, John Small, Harry McMullan, John Rodman, Angus D. MacLean, and many others.
The group listed above gave of themselves and their talents to the challenge of making North Carolina and this Pamlico area a better place to live and enjoy life. We know of no other county in all of North Carolina which can present such an array of great men as can Beaufort County.
Beaufort County is steeped in history, and all too often we just ignore it and forget about it. But that list above gave this area a chapter in history that cannot be plowed under.
It is just too bad and sometimes we feel it borders on tragedy that we never stop in the classrooms of Beaufort County to keep our future leaders aware of the historical greatness which was with us in years gone by. History might not be a favorite subject with many of our high school seniors, but when a county has such an amazing historical past as Beaufort County, it should not be forgotten.
We have so much to offer and so few takers that at times we look at the record and we wonder why we neglect to tell our story.