Newspaper Page Text
Fur and hide
New business in Griffin started
with $5 skunk fur in Georgia
Plott Hide and Fur Company, located
on West Solomon street in Griffin is 52-
years-old this year. In that time the
business has grown from a meager
beginning, when Jake Plott borrowed $5
to buy a skunk fur in North Georgia, to
a company with an annual sales volume
of $5-million.
Today the company deals in hides,
furs, skins, pecans, roots and herbs
from sources all over the U.S. Some 8-10
buying agents represent the business
and an additional collecting point in
Blairsville.
Jake, the founder, operates the
collecting point in Blairsville. His son,
Q. C. Plott, and grandson, Chris Plott,
operate the plant in Griffin.
“Our buying season runs close to
parallel with the trapping season,” said
Chris Plott.
“In Georgia, that’s from Nov. 20
through Feb. 28."
During that time the Plotts purchase
all sorts of hides and furs including
coon, grey fox, red fox, otter, bob cat,
mink, etc.
“Most of what we buy is already
skinned,” said Chris. “We don’t solicit
carcases.”
He said depending on the condition,
Eb-23 ■ v &
y .JflS '
KI KmcSi
I\ ♦ I
■ WF
wRnV
- <1
JgJ JLaF
—
All for one .. .
ATHENS, Ga.—These two University of Georgia students, Steve Nail (left) of
Dunwoody, Ga., and David Watson (r) of Decatur, Ga., in their unusual cloth is
(are) the ‘lma Duo’. They are running for the single seat of Student Govern
ment Association (SGA). Here they are soliciting votes on campus. (AP)
Amin slaps ban on Americans
nnf<nlnAAn nnmionflAn time c
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — President
Idi Amin today ordered all Americans
in Uganda to meet with him Monday
and told his security forces to prevent
any of them leaving the country before
that, Uganda radio said.
An Information Ministry spokesman,
reached by The Associated Press by
telephone from Washington, said the
Americans will be free to leave, if they
wish, after the Monday meeting.
“There’s no cause for alarm. There’s
no cause for fear at all,” he added.
The government radio quoted Amin
as telling regional administrative
officers to question the Americans in
advance of the Monday meeting and
ask them whether they have been ha
rassed in Uganda and whether they
wish to remain in the country.
Officials in Uganda, which borders
Kenya in East Africa, estimate the
number of Americans there at 250.
“President Carter has expressed
alarm and fear about the American
community here and the president
(Amin) has asked them to meet him on
Monday to tell them what is happening,
but otherwise there is no problem
DAILY
Daily Since 1872
size and quality of the hides and furs, he
pays from $lO to sl6 for coon skins, $26
to $32 for grey fox, S4O to $45 for red fox,
S4O to SSO for otter and around SSO for
bobcat.
“To prepare the furs, trappers skin
the animals, clean the furs, stretch
them over a form and dry them,” said
Plott. “Then they bring them to us.”
“We then run them through a
selection process according to type,
size, color and quality. Once they have
been categorized, they’re packed and
put into cool storage to await sale."
The stored hides and furs are then
sold to fur manufacturers who sell them
to retailers in the form of finished
products such as fur coats, belts, etc.
Among the varieties of Georgia
animals that the company buys the furs
and hides of are coyotes and minks.
“Just about every fur bearing animal
in the U. S. is represented in Georgia
except the badger and some varieties
native to the Northwest,” said Plott.
“There are wild minks inside
Griffin’s, city limits.”
He said the popular conception of a
trapper is far from reality.
“Most of them are only part-time
trappers,” he said. “They are farmers,
regarding the Americans here,” the
information spokesman said.
“They are all happy and I can assure
you they are going to stay,” he said.
Amin’s ban on American departures
came two days after he charged that
the United States, Britain and Israel
planned to drop paratroops into Uganda
in support of an alleged plot to
overthrow him.
The U.S. State Department said the
Russians pushing civil defense plans
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials
are more concerned about civil defense
than at any time since the early 1960 s
following reports of an elaborate Soviet
civil defense program that includes
construction of shelters to protect
citizens and critical industries from
nuclear blasts.
Some U.S. experts believe the
Russians are spending about $1 billion a
year on civil defense. This is about 12
times the current U.S. Civil Defense
budget of $82.5 million.
But some western observers in the
GRIFFIN
Griffin, Ga., 30223, Friday Afternoon, February 25,1977
f ■ I I Ifri 7
i -Wlr-y
7 mH
-A ** *
lawyers, retired people, etc. While
there are some trappers who depend
solely on trapping for their livelihood,
they are like you and I — ordinary
people,” he said.
“There are some burly, bearded
types, but they’re the exceptions.”
Asked how he felt about
Congress fiddling with time
By EDMUND PINTO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Daylight
Saving Time doesn’t start until late
April this year, but Congress is already
trying to fiddle around with it again.
Six bills have been introduced in the
House to alter the current system of six
months of Daylight Saving Time. One
would make it a permanent, year-round
fixture, another would cut it to three
months.
Benjamin Franklin is credited with
first proposing Daylight Saving Time
190 years ago to save candles. It first
started in this century to save energy
during wartime.
People
...and things
Wise pedestrian in shirt sleeves with
jacket and umbrella over his arm and
sunglasses in hand prepared for any
sort of weather.
Three excited school children in hot
pursuit of notebook papers blowing
across College street in strong
February wind.
Two pairs of legs protruding
horizontally side by side from beneath
lone car in downtown parking lot.
paratroop accusation was absurd. It
had no comment today on Amin’s order
prohibiting Americans from leaving
Uganda.
The broadcast today from Kampala,
the Ugandan capital, said Amin
ordered the regional administrative
officers to prepare a list of all
Americans in their areas along with
their property, “including chickens,
goats, pigs and other animals.”
Soviet Union say they have not seen
evidence of a major civil defense effort.
One western diplomat in Moscow re
ported no traces of such a program
“beyond an occasional CD poster.”
Pentagon analysts are worried that
extensive Soviet civil defense
preparations, coupled with significant
increases they say are underway in
Russian nuclear striking power, may
be aimed at gaining superiority over
the United States by the early 1980 s.
They fear that the “balance of
terror,” credited with deterring
NEWS
environmentalists or conservationists
who are opposed to trapping as being
inhumane, Plott said, “Most of these
people are emotionally sincere in their
opposition but essentially ignorant of
the facts. Most any expert will tell you
that wild animal populations must be
shaved from the top.
Daylight time starts on April 24 and
runs until Oct. 30 this year.
The extra hour of daylight in the
evening — stolen from the early
morning hours — has made Daylight
Saving Time popular with many, but
not with farmers who must wait an
extra hour to begin their chores.
One bill being offered to Congress this
year would start Daylight Saving Time
on the last Sunday in February and
extend it to the first Sunday after the
first Monday in November. Its sponsor,
Rep. Gerry E. Studds, D-Mass., says it
would make Halloween, Oct. 31, safer
for children trick or treating.
An aide to Studds pointed out it also
Dust was the cause
of funny looking sky
Dust from the Oklahoma and Texas
areas was responsible for that hazy
atmosphere in the Griffin area
Thursday.
It caused some people to cough. It
irritated the eyes of others.
People with contact lenses
complained.
In Alabama, the dust was so bad that
doctors cautioned people with
respiratory difficulties to stay indoors
through today.
Some officials called the western
weather one of the worst dust storms in
decades.
A massive storm system which has
more than two-thirds of the nation in its
grip caused the dusty weather.
Many Griffinites were somewhat
puzzled as they observed the haze-like
skies.
Some speculated it might be smoke
from the increased number of forest
and grass fires here.
nuclear war, would be toppled if the
Russian population were safeguarded
while the U.S. population was not.
However, there are significant dif
ferences of opinion about the extent of
the Russian civil defense effort.
Defense Secretary Harold Brown is
skeptical. He told a Senate hearing last
month that “I am not convinced... that
the Soviets have gotten very far” in
developing an effective civil defense
program.
Vol. 105 No. 47
Chris Plott busy with furs at new Griffin industry.
“Without trappers and hunters their
populations would increase to such
numbers that large amounts of them
would starve to death or die of disease.
That is nature’s way of shaving from
the top.”
He said he felt the swift death by the
hunter’s or trapper’s bullet is more
would retain daylight time past election
day — the first Tuesday after the first
Monday of November — and might
encourage neople to vote in the evening.
In 1973, because of the Arab oil em
bargo, emergency legislation put
daylight saving on a year-round basis to
save energy. The system lasted through
the last Sunday in October 1974.
Efforts to shorten or abolish daylight
time are made periodically.
Rep. John J. Flynt Jr., DGa., wants
to reduce daylight time to less than 5
months — from the last Sunday of April
through Labor Day, the first Monday in
September.
Georgia did not get as much of the
dust as Alabama.
In that state, a spokesman for the
health department said people with
respiratory ailments should protect
themselves from the dust.
“It’s certainly dangerous to your
health, there’s no doubt about it,” a
spokesman for the department said.
In Georgia the forecast called for rain
Saturday.
It prompted one forecaster in Atlanta
to crack, “It’ll probably rain mud.”
**% * £*:*'* W 3
i
From Russia ....
NEW YORK—Jose Serrano, who received a new kidney from a 16-year-old
Moscow youth killed in a car crash, is visited in a New York hospital by his wife
Louisa after the operation. Doctors at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical
Center arranged to have the kidney flown from Russia to perform the operation
on the 32-year-old Brooklyn construction worker 48 hours after it was taken
from the donor. (AP)
Weather
ESTIMATED HIGH TODAY 71, low
today 47, high yesterday 69, low
yesterday 38, high tomorrow in mid 70s,
low tonight near 50.
FORECAST: Increasing cloudiness
tonight. Chance of thundershowers
Saturday.
EXTENDED FORECAST: Scattered
showers Sunday and Monday. Cooler
Monday and fair Tuesday.
humane than the slow death of disease
or starvation.
“The same people who oppose
trapping animals, have exterminators
rid their houses of rats and termites
and spray to kill flies. Where do you
draw the line?,” he asked.
Traffic case
in Plains, Ga.
PLAINS, Ga. (AP) — The first case
involving the newly installed traffic
light in President Carter’s hometown
was settled Thursday when one of the
drivers failed to appear in court.
Two cars collided under the town’s
only stop light on the second day the
light was in operation.
Mayor A.L. Blanton, who doubles as
municipal judge, said William L.
Marshall, the driver of one car, failed to
appear in court and forfeited a sl9
bond.
Gladys Murray, the driver of the
other car, was judged innocent, Blanton
said.
The Country Parson
by Frank Clark
■khmhe
“Anybody can be successful
by revealing his goal after he’s
reached it.”