By Staff
Ashley B. Futrell Jr.President &Publisher
Quiz answers don’t provide entire stories
It was pizza that Mike Voss would have a Vanceboro restaurant hide in the bushes for pickup after West Craven football games.
I should know.
I stole one.
Today’s Daily News contains the answers to the 35-question Centennial Quiz that has challenged our readers over the past couple of weeks. Some questions, like the Mike Voss pizza odyssey, cry out for further explanation.
In the late 1980s, Mike was the editor of the company-owned West Craven Highlights and covered West Craven High School football games. I was the chairman of the Washington City Schools Board of Education, and I usually attended all Washington High School football games, both home and away. This convergence led to a particular West Craven-Washington game in Vanceboro.
Mike made the mistake of bragging to his colleagues in the Daily News newsroom about the special relationship he had developed with a Vanceboro restaurant. Mike would eat supper at the restaurant prior to the football games, and then have a pizza hidden in the bushes at closing time for him to pick up after the game.
I attended the football game, and unlike Mike, who needed to conduct interviews with players and coaches after the game, I could leave after the final horn. That timing allowed me the opportunity to search a particular group of bushes in Vanceboro before Mike could arrive.
Needless to say, when Mike entered the newsroom, he was fuming. According to Mike, some scoundrel had stolen his pizza. Those of us waiting for him would have laughed, but we really couldn’t. Our mouths were just too full at the time. But we did offer Mike a couple of slices of “our” pizza that we had saved for him.
Which brings me to the other Mike.
Normally, all the circus we ever need takes place inside of the Daily News newsroom. And for a couple of years in the 1980s, there was no better ringmaster than Mike Hughes.
Mike accepted his first newspaper job with the Daily News straight out of East Carolina University. A bright and talented reporter with a mischievous wit, Mike kept both his co-workers and Daily News readers entertained during his tenure. Then one day, the real circus came to town.
Mike was assigned to write a feature story about the circus. Never content to merely report on his assignments from afar, Mike accepted an offer to be a part of a celebrity race to promote the event.
It was then that Mike Hughes made Washington history, winning the race from his perch high atop an elephant. And this storied competition did not take place on some remote circus grounds. In a scene sure to warm the heart of my friend Hood Richardson, the elephants were literally charging down Stewart Parkway.
But Mike Hughes was not the greatest character ever to be issued a Daily News press pass. That auspicious title surely belongs to Steve Ward.
Steve, who was obsessed with all things Scottish, legally changed his name to Stefan Duncan. He kept a contribution jar on his desk to help finance a dream trip to Scotland. And many times he wore a Scottish kilt to work, complete with a presentation sword.
Yet it was when he didn’t wear his kilt that he could really be frightening.
Steve (or Stefan) was as gentle a soul as could be, but his appearance was downright menacing. He was Blackbeard incarnate, without the lit candles in a beard. He had long, black hair, a thick, black beard, dressed in black from head to toe and walked with a limp and an imposing cane, the result of an automobile accident.
In 1992, I was flying quite a bit out of Warren Field. I received a tip from some of my friends at the airport that Ross Perot, in the midst of a presidential campaign, was going to make an unannounced stop in Washington to visit Fountain Powerboats to check on the progress of a boat he was having built.
This would be a big scoop, and the Daily News would be the only media present for Perot’s secret visit. I grabbed my camera and the only reporter in our newsroom at the time, the guy with the Johnny Cash fashion sense: Steve Ward.
Steve and I headed to Warren Field. After more than an hour of waiting for Perot’s jet to arrive, I became restless. So, I decided to crank up my little Cessna 150 and fly around the pattern for a while. I left instructions to radio me when Perot’s jet had landed.
The transmission some 30 minutes later was not what I expected. A frantic Robbie Walker was on the radio. Did I have a reporter, all dressed in black, at the airport to interview Ross Perot? If so, I better get back on the ground as soon as possible. Perot’s jet had landed, and the Secret Service had departed the jet in advance of the presidential candidate to secure the area. And by secure the area, I mean to grab my menacing-looking reporter and pin him down in a conference room at the airport under intense interrogation.
I assured Robbie that despite Steve’s appearance he was indeed a reporter for the Daily News. I landed just about the time Ross Perot arrived into the lobby and about the time Steve was released from Secret Service custody. Mr. Perot could not have been more gracious, laughing with us about the case of mistaken identity, posing for my pictures, and yes, allowing Steve to interview him briefly. The Daily News indeed had its front-page scoop. And while Ross Perot lost his bid to become president of the United States, he did end up with one fine boat. And Steve Ward learned that, believe it or not, a kilt was his best sartorial choice.
And finally, it was a working still that was built in the Daily News pressroom. It was the mid-1970s, and I was a student at Duke University. A fraternity brother of mine mentioned that he was studying the distillation process in his chemistry class. I offered that an employee of the newspaper was a former bootlegger, and an idea was born that the employee would be asked to provide a drawing of a moonshine still that my fraternity brother could take to class for extra credit.
I was planning on being home for the weekend, so I would call ahead and then pick up the drawing during my visit. To my amazement, the potential artist instead reverted back to his previous occupation, building an operating still in a pressroom closet. After I took a couple of pictures to carry back to Durham, the still was unceremoniously destroyed.
Today, 35 years later, I still buy my homemade sauce by the gallon from the same erstwhile moonshiner. But now, the liquid in question is tangy barbecue sauce. I really do try to draw the line on illegal activities.
Unless, of course, it involves pilfering a Mike Voss pizza.