By Greg Bassett

Wednesday, May 19, 1971 --

• Officials of the Firestone Plastics Co. and Salisbury-area government and business leaders introduced themselves to each other Tuesday in a luncheon at Shawen Inn. Firestone is building a $2.5 million plant in the Northwood Industrial Park. The plant will take sheets of vinyl plastic film and print on the material. The product will be used for wall decorations and other uses. Firestone officials said the company based in Akron, Ohio, has 11 product divisions and manufactures about 45,000 products, from seat belts to hoses to fabrics.
• Salisbury property owners will be subjected to a 4 cents property tax increase when the city’s new budget takes effect July 1. After several budget deliberation meetings, the City Council was unable to make any substantial changes to Mayor Dallas Truitt’s $3.8 million budget. A prime contributor to the additional expense line is a mayor and council decision to provide a 4 percent across-the-board pay hike to municipal employees. Barring any last-minute changes, the tax rate will go from $1.29 per $100 of assessed value to $1.33.
• New officers were recently installed for the Salisbury Moose Lodge No. 654. They are Charles F. Smith, governor; Charles Grove, junior governor; Howard Mitchell, prelate; Robert Coffin, senior trustee; James Skiles, treasurer; Russell Smith, secretary; William Revelle, sergeant at arms; Pete Tippett, outer guard; Olin Tarr, three-year trustee; William Wells, inner guard; and David Goslee, past governor.
• Artie Donovan, former Baltimore Colts tackle, will be in Salisbury on Friday to meet local residents and help the American Cancer Society meet its $13,500 cancer fund goal for Wicomico County. The former football great will be at the Super Clean Carwash on South Salisbury Boulevard from 3 to 5 p.m., during which time all proceeds from car washes will be donated to the county cancer drive.
• The Wicomico County Council has agreed to buy land at Old Quantico Road and Quantico Road for a new county Extension Service building. The council will pay $9,000 for the property. Bids for the building have not yet been drafted, but the county has reserved $100,000 in its capital budget to initiate the project.
• Robert Lawrence “Larry” Layton of Salisbury has been named Brandywine College of Wilmington’s 1971 “Outstanding College Athlete.” Layton is completing his freshman year at the college, where he is captain and No. 1 player on the tennis team. He won seven of nine singles matches in his collegiate debut this spring. In scholastic and college play, he has won 40 straight matches.
• Ogden Nash, the Baltimore poet, author and humorist who regularly visited Salisbury, died Wednesday of Kidney disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Nash, 68, was married to Salisbury native Francis Rider Leonard and would frequently stay at a Tony Tank residence owned by her relatives, the Hugh J. VanderBogart family.
  
  
• Wicomico County Council members will hold a public hearing Thursday in the Circuit Courtroom of the county courthouse on Administrative Director Robert A. Deacon’s $12.209 million fiscal 1972 budget. Among the spending objectives are new tennis courts for Mardela and Pittsville High Schools; the courts had been in the school board’s capital budget but were removed in a final draft.