AHM's Signal Tower and the Charlotte connection

Kit box image sourced from ebay - Drawing snipped from MR Apr '66

Yesterday's conversation about E. L. Moore's AHM kits also unearthed pictures of AHM's Signal Tower, kit #5821. It's also got a reference to Model Railroader in a little red box: 

Produced from plans and with authorization by MODEL RAILROADER Magazine.

Searching MR's archive suggests that the source was a set of drawings by Bill Stokes called Classic signal tower on the Central of Georgia in the April 1966 issue of MR.

Digging a little further, the Feb '59 issue mentions that Bill Stokes - who looks like he published a few rather decent articles in MR in the early '60s - worked at WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ok, you can see the gears turning in my head: did Mr. Stokes know that other famous model railroader who lived in Charlotte at that time? That's another question we're probably not going to resolve.