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Area swimming hole increases security |
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Thursday, 31 August 2006 |
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| Jonathan Williams | | The Appalachian
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by LAUREN LAWSON
News Reporter
One popular swimming area for Appalachian State University students is swirled in rumors regarding legal and safety issues.
The dam off N.C. Highway 105 near Hound Ears Club is a familiar area for students to jump off the dam’s ledge and into the water below.
Signs are now posted that prohibit public parking in the area at the
top of the dam because the lot’s owner, a Hound Ears Club member, has
restricted access.
Watauga County Sheriff’s Chief/Deputy Steve Thompson said the public is still free to visit the dam.
Sheriff Mark Shook also said parking is the only thing to worry about and encourages visitors to the dam.
Sophomore biology and French major Kristin D. Buchner said, during the
first week of school this semester, she went to the dam with eight
friends around 4 p.m. and saw 10 to 15 other people hanging out.
She said there were “trash bags full of empty alcohol bottles and about
three or four males obviously drunk, being somewhat obnoxious, but not
being excessively loud.”
Buchner said after being at the dam for about 30 minutes, two uniformed
police officers and one security guard arrived and told everyone at the
dam to leave and if they were to return, they would possibly be written
a ticket.
Watauga deputies and Boone police offices, however, insist they have
not been telling anyone to leave the dam or river, just the private
parking area.
Daytime Hound Ears security officer Kyle R. Whitmoyer said he didn’t
think anyone from Hound Ears Security had been telling people to leave
the dam and river entirely, just that they should not park on the Hound
Ears member’s property.
One student, while jumping off the highest part of the dam wall about a
month ago, junior accounting major Alex J. Cook hurt his knee on the
bottom of the river and had to be driven to the hospital where he
received 15 stitches.
After two people were seriously injured at the dam, the Sheriff’s
Office advised Hound Ears Lodge and Club owners to post signs in order
to ensure that incidents would not become a liability, McCloud said.
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