THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250412
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AHOSKIE LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Babe Ruth Baseball on the Outer Banks batted .285 on Wednesday but it was a win for Dare County.
The Northeast North Carolina Economic Development Commission voted $57,000 to promote the teenaged Babe Ruth World Series in Manteo this summer, considerably less than the $200,000 requested.
``But we're really pleased,'' said Ray E. Hollowell, a Manteo member of the pump-priming commission, who had asked the commission for the $200,000 to nationally televise the July games.
``We're looking ahead - 10 years ahead - when the Babe Ruth world series in Manteo will be as big as the annual Little League World Series,'' said Hollowell.
The $200,000 was earmarked by the northeast commission for the Babe Ruth games last year, pending delivery by Hollowell of a contract detailing how the games would be nationally televised.
When Hollowell brought up the funding for the Babe Ruth games at the commission's April meeting in Ahoskie on Wednesday, he told the panel that he had a contract with Home Team Sports Limited Partnership, a Bethesda, Md., promotional organization.
The contract specified that Home Team Sports would require $52,500 to handle national television shows made during the Manteo games.
Hollowell told his fellow commissioners that incidental expenses would probably bring the total figure to $57,000.
``The most we could possibly need would be $70,000 and this will bring the most favorable kind of national publicity to northeastern North Carolina,'' said Hollowell.
After considerable dust-kicking debate, the northeast commission decided Hollowell's $57,000 request was a fair ball and voted to approve it.
Attached to copies of the proposed television contract distributed by Hollowell, was a letter from Max Busby, an Edenton attorney who trouble-shoots contractural obligations involving the commission.
Busby's covering letter cited 21 legal points that he said required clarification before the economic commission committed itself to underwriting the television coverage of the games.
The Babe Ruth World Series will be played by 16- to 18-year-old ballplayers from all over the United States and Canada. The games will conclude in August and the proposed contract submitted by Home Team Sports would provide television coverage of two semi-final games and the concluding championship game of the Babe Ruth World Series on Aug. 24.
Earlier the commission voted to become the new manager of the Dismal Swamp Canal Visitor Center that serves both boats and autos on U.S. Route 17 near the Virginia state line.
The North Carolina General Assembly has been providing $75,000 annually to operate the center, but the money has been handled by the Albemarle Commission, a financially troubled multicounty agency based in Hertford.
Albemarle Commission directors agreed to hand-off the Welcome Center to the Northeast N.C. Economic Commission at a meeting earlier this month.
Penny Leary-Smith, the director of the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center, has sought the transfer of her facility for many months.
The N.E. Economic Commission has spent most of it's annual funding of $1.4-million for this year, but expects a new appropriation from the General Assembly when it meets next months.
But Chairman Jimmy Dixon, a Pasquotank County Commissioner and Elizabeth City businessman, told the assembled pump-primers that he thought the Welcome Center should get $100,000 annually, rather than $75,000.
Several members of the northeast commission suggested that the legislators should be handled with care when making new funding requests. by CNB