■ Continued growth at Wildwood Park adds attractions to ENC, Page A3
■ ENC making strides to retain workforce talent, Page A5
■ Murals join public art movement in Greenville, Page A7
■ Wrestler works to make sports a global language, Page A9
■ Worst-case scenarios part of job for field medics, Page A10
■ Eyes in the sky help high schoolers paint picture of pollution, Page A12
This is our third progress edition since restarting the annual section in 2020.
We were putting the finishing touches on our first edition
about this time three years ago when world began shutting down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We wondered then if some of the forward-looking
We invited leaders and institutions to write about ways they are helping the make life better in eastern North Carolina. Here’s what they had to say.
infrastructure to support growth
The City of Greenville is thriving. Our population is growing. New businesses are popping up. New development is taking place. And there has never been such a variety of events and activities for residents and visitors to enjoy.
Throughout it all, the City Council continues to focus on our vital infrastructure including street restoration, stormwater management and the continued development of parks to meet the needs of our growing community.
One of the things I hear about most often is street conditions, and we have made it a priority to address those concerns. Over the last three years, the city invested $7 million in our annual pavement management program to improve city-maintained streets. We are scheduled to spend $3.1 million in 2023 for micro paving, crack sealing and new asphalt and milling.
Additionally, the city invested almost $7 million in our annual stormwater maintenance contract over the past three years and is planning to spend $1.5 million on stormwater maintenance in 2023. In just the past year, we have serviced more than 4,000 feet of stormwater pipes through 13 projects throughout the city.
Other improvements are on the horizon. Later this year, the city will begin the first phases of projects funded through the federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development Grant. These projects include greenway, sidewalk, streetscape, and street improvements that will transform safety, accessibility, and connectivity in Greenville’s urban core.
Like others, however, we also face the challenge of cost escalations moving forward. Maintaining a sustainable balance of spending on essential services and the quality of life in our community is as difficult as ever, but I am confident in the city leaders and staff who will help us navigate through these challenging times.
I am excited about where we are as a city and anxious to see where we are going.
PJ Connelly is mayor of Greenville
ECU Health: Innovative strategies aim to recruit, retain nurses
Nurses are the backbone of any health care organization but especially so for ECU Health, the nine-hospital academic health system serving the 1.4 million people who call eastern North Carolina home. At a time when health care as a whole is undergoing rapid transformation, so too is the nursing workforce. That is why ECU Health is investing in new ways of recruiting and retaining high-quality nurses who serve the region.
ECU Health’s nursing strategy is focused on adjusting to the current reality and anticipating the future of the workforce. According to a recent Kaufman Hall Workforce Report, the COVID-19 pandemic caused one-third of nurses to leave their
See PROGRESS | A14
expectations set out in that first section, Vision 2020, would be realized.
Thank goodness we perservered, and based on the reporting for this section, our communities continue to make progress.
Inside you will find a range
of stories that outline efforts on workforce development, economic development and quality of life, including pieces from community institutions and leadership about their progress. The stories show the deep well of innovation,
enthusiasm and professionalism in eastern North Carolina.
We hope you find it all enlightening and interesting and as heartening and inspiring as we did.
BOBBY BURNS, executive editor, APG-ENC
Grifton residents are thanking a fatherdaughter duo for restoring a grocery store to the town years after flooding left them without one.
Ayden residents Buddy and Sandy Huggins stepped in after watching the neighboring town struggle to rebuild after being hit by back-to-back natural disasters. In December, the pair and their team of employees completed a lengthy renovation and opened the downtown Food Pride to the public.
The store is located on Queen Street in a building that formerly served as a Dollar General and daycare, the owner said. The Huggins emphasized the importance of the new location, as the previous store on South Highland Boulevard was prone to excessive flooding.
The town’s Piggly Wiggly, flooded after Hurricane Floyd in 1999, was damaged again by flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. It underwent renovations and reopened as Tropicana Supermarket in November 2017 only to flood again during Hurricane Florence in September 2018.
Sandy Huggins said the new store is not at-risk should another storm hit. After settling on the idea to reintroduce a grocery store to the town, the two acquired the Queen Street building at a foreclosure auction and spent the following months stripping the floors, installing cash registers, assembling aisles and organizing their inventory.
Despite some renovation delays, the Hugginses were prepared to work and come with years of experience in the industry. Buddy Huggins has owned several convenience stores and ran a garage among other business ventures. When the idea first took hold to open the store, he said he was investing in the community and his
daughter.
“I was supposed to be retired, so I’m leaving it to her to run,” he said.
Sandy Huggins grew up working in her parents’ stores and is excited to fill this void in the community.
When the store finally opened in late December, residents showed they would support it. Customers said they enjoy the accessibility and the atmosphere of the store.
“The staff is friendly and helpful every time I come in here,” said shopper Ashlee Wilmer. She intends to continue supporting Food Pride over stores in neighboring Ayden. “Most things I can get here. There are a couple of brands that we like to stick to that I don’t see yet, but most things they have covered.”
For customers like Wilmer, shopping at the new location has been a breeze, but the store is still working to meet everyone’s needs.
Buddy Huggins in January detailed the ongoing effort to get the
store SNAP and WIC authorized. “We’re still waiting to hear back from the USDA. It’s been weeks and they still haven’t gotten us set up with the system we need to accept SNAP and WIC. Once they approve us as a grocery store, we will be set, but it has taken way too long.”
This delay left a sizable number of households unable to purchase food from the store while on a fixed budget.
“That said, it’s a small world. We just found out that the agent we’ve been talking to is the mother of one of our guys in the
meat department. Maybe that will help us. We just want everyone to know that we are working on getting it figured out. This is affecting a lot of people,” Buddy Huggins said.
In the meantime, the Food Pride team worked to keep the shelves stocked with locally-sourced products like ENC Honey, fresh produce, meat and poultry, snacks, cleaning products and more.
“The response has been great so far and we look forward to serving the community going forward. That is what we are here for,” Sandy Huggins said.
By Nathan Summers Sta Writer
In the next five to 10 years, one of the city’s newest parks could well be one of its greatest treasures and a focal point for outdoor activities and events.
Wildwood Park, off of U.S. 264 Bypass just north of the Tar River, is growing in leaps and bounds and in the future will be accessible on both sides of the highway and even be connected to River Park North.
For those in charge of planning and overseeing that growth, the park built on a 365acre expanse of land adjacent to the river and on a lakefront parcel is a means of connecting people with the outdoors, watersports, fitness and other activities.
for the park, which opened in late 2021, include connecting the east side of Wildwood with a second stretch of lake on the west side of the highway, a conduit that will ultimately facilitate its meshing together with other parks and activities.
A development plan for
really nice playground.”
Director of Recreation and Parks Don Octigan sees Wildwood as a place that offers things that no other place in the area can. He said one of the driving forces behind the planning for the park is to encourage people to get outside and experience nature in different ways.
When you’re out there walking the trails at Wildwood Park, it does not feel like you’re in Greenville, North Carolina. I feel like that’s a great thing, where you can ride fve minutes, 10 minutes to Wildwood Park and walk the trails. It’s very relaxing, and it just provides a lot for the community.
Don Octigan Greenville Rectration and Parks DirectorAs spring swings into full bloom, Wildwood continues to expand, and many of the park’s new additions will be ready this spring. Nearing completion right now are a $1.15 million, 2,000-squarefoot welcome center being built by Hudson Brothers Construction, as well as a playground. A bicycle skills course and BMX pump track should be done later this spring, according to city parks planner Mark Nottingham, and the Chris Smith Mountain Bike Trails will be completed this summer.
“That’s something that’s unique,” Nottingham said of the BMX course. “I don’t think there are hardly any paved pump tracks this side of I-95 and there’s probably only a handful in the state. There are about six miles of single-track mountain bike trails with several different loops that go throughout areas of the park that otherwise you wouldn’t have access to.
The longer-term plans
the park that started back in 2019 provided a platform not only to attract people to the facility immediately with its opening phase but also a means for putting ideas for the future of the park into a working blueprint.
Those plans were shaped by a good deal of public input, according to Nottingham, and many of them are coming to fruition now.
“One of the most requested amenities at our parks is restrooms. The welcome center provides permanent facilities, and they’re kind of expected to support the types of events that we want to have out there in the future,” Nottingham said. “It also includes a large storage room so we can store materials and things we need for events out there. It also has an office space so we can have a dedicated staff out there pretty much full-time at the park.
“The playground is something that all kids expect at any park. And it’s a large park and we’ve invested quite a bit into a
“When you’re out there walking the trails at Wildwood Park, it does not feel like you’re in Greenville, North Carolina,” Octigan said, noting the substantial support and vision from Grady-White Boats owner/CEO Eddie Smith, as well as former rec and parks director Gary Fenton, truly made the park possible. “I feel like that’s a great thing, where you can ride five minutes,
10 minutes to Wildwood Park and walk the trails. It’s very relaxing, and it just provides a lot for the community.”
Octigan said the development plan for the park, and particularly the ideas and input from citizens, has been vital in creating the fast-developing
park.
“It’s really something the residents and citizens can buy into because what’s going out there is what the community requested,” he said.
So far, Nottingham said that walking the trails and fishing in the lake have attracted lots of regular
Wildwood visitors.
Wildwood’s main facilities are located on the east side of the park, directly on the water. A kayak launch and floating dock were part of the first phase of the park, and city officials hope they will
From page A3
steadily get more and more use as people discover the easy access the park offers not only to the lake but also the Tar River — a short canal connects the river and Wildwood’s lake.
“Looking onto the water is a huge part of the park, especially since that body of water is connected to the Tar River. One of the goals of the city is to really activate the Tar River and get people closer to the water and highlight that resource. So having Riverside Recreation (canoe and kayak rental service) out there to offer watersports is huge. We’re trying to get people to stay in Greenville for recreational needs. Say they’re on the river; instead of driving down to Washington, they can pull into Wildwood Park and use our playground and facilities.”
The latest project in the works at Wildwood is a boardwalk, bridge and trail connection, which began this month.
The current trail at Wildwood doesn’t make a complete loop around the lake because of its connection to the river, but that won’t be an issue for long thanks to a 600-foot boardwalk and a pedestrian bridge over the canal between the river and the lake to complete that loop.
Even greater access to the expanse of land is coming when a raised sidewalk connection is completed underneath U.S. 264, allowing visitors to walk to the 185-acre west side of the park,
where there are already more trails and an even larger lake.
“That will give access over there for bicycles and pedestrians,” Nottingham said.
“The immediate goal for the end of this project is that it should take about a year total to complete all of those elements. That was the most expensive piece of Wildwood Park so far.”
Nottingham said when the boardwalk and bridge were planned on the east side, the same firm designed an additional
boardwalk connection that would link Wildwood with the trail system at River Park North.
“Five or 10 years from, or hopefully even sooner since that is already designed and permitted, we could build that boardwalk connection so that Wildwood Park and River Park North would
be connected by trails,” he said.
“It’s going to open up over a mile worth of trails and get us very, very close to River Park North,” Octigan said. “That trail system is going to be key in the future in helping to create a really awesome nature experience for park users.”
Over the last decade, screenwriter and director BJ Emerson grew tired over watching the same story play out over and over again — not in film, but in real life.
The scenario would go something like this: Emerson would hire interns from East Carolina University to work at his company, Buzzadelic, near campus. He and his staff would work with students to hone their skills in video production, graphic design and web development. Then the students would graduate and leave town, taking their talents with them.
It wasn’t that Emerson had permanent, full-time positions for all of them at his digital marketing and advertising agency. He just didn’t like that nearly every story seemed to end with someone leaving Greenville in search of greener pastures.
“Greenville equips people but then they leave,” Emerson recalls thinking to himself. “We have all these students that come through. How do we keep good people? What keeps them from staying here?”
Andrew Herdman, an associate professor of management in ECU’s College of Business, said those can be complicated questions. He should know. Herdman, a former human resources executive at Mayne Pharma pharmaceutical company, has viewed the problem from both an academic and an industry perspective.
“For folks coming to the market, either as a student and staying or maybe being recruited into the market, ultimately there’s going to have to be compelling opportunity here,” he said. “It’s a pretty complex problem.”
In his pharmaceutical industry role, Herdman recalls the frustration of hiring graduates to fill chemist roles or other key positions, only to have them leave for opportunities in Research Triangle Park or other larger cities within the first few years.
“Hanging onto that talent was an ongoing challenge,” he said, describing employee retention as “an uphill push” for students who came to ECU from out of the area. “Typically you could recruit from the university and then what would happen is they would give you two to three years.”
To help improve its odds, Herdman said, his former employer began to direct some of its efforts toward younger talent that was home-grown. Rather than trying to recruit workers to come to the area, the Mayne Pharma Scholars program focuses on training eastern North Carolina students for jobs that will keep them here. High school students selected for the program receive a full scholarship for two years at Pitt Community College.
“If you want to retain the local talent and keep the kids
in place, ultimately you have to adopt a bit of a build mentality,”
Herdman said, “impressing on a young person that they can build a career here.”
Pharmaceutical companies are not the only industries venturing into the deep end of the talent pool, where workforce development is a longer process.
Pitt County Schools in 2022 announced the first four recipients of the PCS Educator Fellows Scholarship, which provides up to $20,000 in financial assistance for select graduates from the county’s public high schools who agree to teach in the local school district.
Since 2018, numerous local businesses have taken part in Grow Local, a partnership between Greenville-Pitt County Chamber of Commerce, Pitt County Economic Development Commission and the Greenville-ENC Alliance. For the annual event, businesses and industries open their doors to show Pitt County Schools students that there are a variety of careers available to them close to home.
When he graduated from Ayden-Grifton High School, Josh Potter recalls having a number of friends who could hardly wait to leave eastern North Carolina. But he didn’t
feel that way.
Potter, a Beaufort County native, had lived in Pitt County since he could remember. He had deep roots in the area and wanted to remain near family. So after obtaining an associate’s degree from PCC, he accepted a position as a videographer at a local television station, although the starting pay was less than it was in larger markets.
“A lot of people think movies
community is probably the reason I never really thought about leaving.”
Emerson believes a sense of community is key to retaining workforce talent, whether it’s home-grown or recruited.
“There are two things that potentially you need to keep good people here,” he said, “one would be opportunity and the other would be community. If you’re missing one or the other, they’re going to leave.”
ECU graduate Nick Leach, one of Emerson’s former interns at Buzzadelic, had no intention of remaining in Greenville after he finished school. So after receiving his degree in film and television production, the Minnesota native moved with his wife to Colorado in 2019.
just how many businesses are headquartered here, big businesses and small businesses. There’s a lot of opportunity here that I didn’t understand or see before.”
Over the last three years, Leach, who works as a digital marketing specialist at Practicon, has established connections in the community that have made Greenville begin to feel like a place that he could call home long-term.
Herdman said that sense of connection, which goes beyond the workplace to include social activities and entertainment, as well as educational opportunities for children, is what creates a community that he calls “sticky,” one that people don’t want to leave.
“It’s interesting the lines,” he said. “Where does the industry’s responsibility pick up? Where does the secondary education, the high schools? How do we become this destination employment mecca? I think the answer to that is it’s integrated across all these institutions. It really requires sort of a unified effort.”
Emerson believes part of that effort involves companies like his being willing to open their doors to provide internships for students, even those who do not play to remain in Greenville.
“It’s going to take a change in mindset of investing in these students, regardless of what they’re going to do when they graduate,” he said. “Long term, that will have benefits for our economy and our community here.
“You’ve got to be intentional about it,” Emerson said. “If you see these students as, ‘That’s just more traffic for Greenville,’ that’s not a good start. I think long term that’s what it’s going to require to change the community.”
In recent years, both Emerson and Herdman say they have seen progress in Greenville and Pitt County having more staying power.
and big sets,” Potter, 32, said. “There’s not a lot of that going on around here.”
After nearly a decade in the industry, Potter had made enough connections to open his own video production business as a way to advance his career without having to move his growing family.
“I knew I didn’t want to go to Atlanta or California or whatever. I knew I wanted to stay here,” he said. “The
“When the pandemic hit in 2020, we were both the last ones in and the first ones to go,” Leach, 27, said. “There weren’t any jobs available, and living expenses out there are impossible.”
His wife’s eastern North Carolina roots brought the couple back to Greenville, where they planned to regroup before moving on to Orlando or Los Angeles.
“We didn’t really think we were going to stay,” Leach said. “But when I came back, it was eye-opening to see
“It’s probably in the last two to three years that more have either stayed or come back,” Emerson said. The growth of the YouTube business created by Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, is one example of increased opportunities for ECU’s film and television production graduates, he said. Emerson sees Donaldson’s celebrity as attracting a secondary market for YouTube business in the region, much the way that Dave Mirra’s presence drew BMX enthusiasts in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Herdman said development in the downtown area also has helped make the city more attractive to young professionals.
“The uptown area from the time I got here until today is completely unrecognizable,” he said. “All of that is transformative, and it’s been incredible to watch. I think we’re just getting started. There’s a lot of positive, forward momentum.”
“We’ve got a long way to go,”
If you want to retain the local talent and keep the kids in place, ultimately you have to adopt a bit of a build mentality … impressing on a young person that they can build a career here.
Andrew Herdman, an associate professor of management in ECU’s College of BusinessPhoto by Willow Abbey Mercando Potter edits video at his desk in Greenville. After nearly a decade at a local television station, he opened his own production studio to advance his career without having to move his growing family.
Industries with jobs to fill often look to community colleges to help prepare skilled workers. But when community colleges working to help satisfy those industry demands have seats to fill in those training programs, where do they look for students?
One answer is high schools, and not just graduating seniors. In recent years, students barely old enough to drive a car have been able to get on the road to obtaining certifications and licenses leading to careers in technical industries.
Since 2018, the Technical Academy, a partnership between Pitt Community College and Pitt County Schools, has been teaching high school juniors and seniors the tools of indemand technical trades in areas including air conditioning, heating and refrigeration; architecture; biotechnology; and electrical and industrial systems.
“With everybody that’s retiring in some of these fields, it’s really opened up a large gap,” PCCPCS Technical Academy Director Lynn Griffin said. “We need students to learn these (skills). These are good-paying jobs.”
Beginning as a pilot program with two area high schools, the academy has grown to include students from all six of the county’s traditional public high schools as well as the early college high school on the PCC campus. In five years, the program has seen more than a fourfold increase, from 16 students in the inaugural year to 78 this semester. Already, the Technical Academy has already attracted attention from other North Carolina community colleges
interested in launching a similar partnership with high schools in their area.
“When we started this, it was very unique,” Griffin said. “These programs were really low-enrollment programs. (But) there are so many jobs.”
High school senior Brent Dickinson is in his fourth semester of
Academy is different because it is designed to offer areas of study not available on high school campuses.
“They were selected based on business and industry need as well as what we were not offering in the high school,” she said. “It’s just a great partnership.”
Technical Academy also differs from other high school programs at PCC, including Career and College Promise and Pitt County Schools Early College High School.
study in air conditioning, heating and refrigeration technology. But a few years ago, when he was getting started at Farmville Central, attending community college during high school wasn’t even on his radar.
“When I went into high school as a freshman, I had no clue what I wanted to do in my future,” he said. “This was a bit of an opportunity that was presented to me that I couldn’t put down … not only to explore this field of work but also to go ahead and start getting college credits at the same time as high school credit.”
Dickinson was aware of career and technical education classes available at his high school, but none really captured his interest.
“Automotive and welding and carpentry were offered at the high school already; I kind of wanted to take something that was different,” he said.
While public schools in Pitt County offer a range of CTE courses - from computer science and culinary arts to welding and woodworking CTE Director Beth Ann Trueblood said Technical
Unlike CCP students, those enrolled at Technical Academy attend for free, with no student fees, not even for books. Transportation is provided from their high school to the college. Online classes are not available.
“These courses are hands-on courses,” Trueblood said. “It’s really important that they are face-to-face with the instructor so they can learn those things.”
Unlike early college students, Technical Academy students remain enrolled at their high school. Students attend classes at PCC from 9-10:50 a.m., returning to their high school campus for lunch, afternoon classes and extracurricular activities such as sports.
Technical Academy is not structured for students to obtain an associate’s degree during high school. It generally takes three semesters beyond high school to complete that. From there, students can join the workforce or opt to transfer to a four-year college or university to complete a bachelor’s degree.
“This is really jumpstarting their education,” Griffin said. “They earn certificates along the way. When they finish that degree, they are ready for the workforce and usually have someone knocking on their door before then.
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Herdman said. “Ultimately the thing that helps the most, and it’s a chicken and egg scenario, is you’ve got to create the workforce and give industry confidence that they can build, they can expand, they can grow here and satisfy their workforce demands. Success breeds success, but we’re moving in a positive direction.”
Some of them are actually getting jobs in the field while they finish high school.
“When you have students that are focused and really think ‘This is what I want to do,’ they’re going to work extra hard.”
Dickinson enjoys the fact that students are expected to perform at a college level although they are still in high school. If Technical Academy classes are not filled with PCS students, then seats are made available to students from private schools or home schools or to adult learners pursuing the same area of study.
Dickinson, who plans to complete his associate’s degree at PCC, will need a few semesters after high school graduation to finish.
“This gets me started,” he said. “I’m grateful to have been presented with the opportunity to take this program and go on ahead and get college classes done and out of the way, and go on ahead and get a jump start on the career that I want.”
Trueblood said that students who do not plan to complete an associate’s degree generally need only one semester of study after high school to receive a certificate of completion in their area of study.
“Our goal is to give these students the tools so that they can go out and get a job,” she said. “We’re looking at our business partners and what their needs are so that we can educate the students and give the students what they need so they can go
to work.”
Meanwhile, the growth of Technical Academy has PCC considering whether or not the program will eventually need its own dedicated space on campus.
“The long-range goal would be to grow these programs and add additional programs that are not offered at the high schools,” Griffin said. “We just want students to have other opportunities, and Pitt County Schools wants them to have other opportunities as well.”
Applications are accepted from high school students the spring of their sophomore year. For more information, contact Lynn Griffin at LVGriffin010@ my.pittcc.edu or call 252493-7653.
Our goal is to give these students the tools so that they can go out and get a job. We’re looking at our business partners and what their needs are so that we can educate the students and give the students what they need so they can go to work.
Beth Ann Trueblood Pitt County Schools director of Career and Technical EducationPhoto by Taylor Stubblefield/Pitt Community College Students participate in a biotechnology lab experiment at the Technical Academy at Pitt Community College. The academy, which offers four areas of study to high school juniors and seniors, is a partnership with Pitt County Schools. Photo by Taylor Stubblefield/Pitt Community College Students from different area high schools attend classes in one of four areas of interest as part of the Technical Academy at Pitt Community College. Since it started in 2018, the program has grown from 16 to 78 students from high schools across Pitt County. File Photo/APG-ENC Business development director Sarah Fuchs leads Farmville Central’s culinary arts and hospitality class on a tour of Greenville Convention Center as part of Grow Local in 2022, a program designed to introduce local students to businesses in their community where they can work after high school and/ or college. Photo courtesy of MrBeast Advocates say the growth of the YouTube business created by Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, is one example of increased opportunities for ECU’s film and television production graduates. Donaldson, on the set of one of his YouTube videos above, is partnering with ECU to train a certified content creation workforce.
Bursts of color are radiating throughout downtown Greenville and Dickinson Avenue, capturing the attention of pedestrians and drivers alike.
Loop around Reade Circle and a woman made up for a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration watches over a taco stand. At Cotanche and Fifth streets, the thrill of deep space travel is on view. And at Fifth and Evans streets, a bountiful garden filled with plants, flowers, birds and insects reminds people that diversity creates a flourishing environment.
The three images are among 17 murals in downtown Greenville and surrounding neighborhoods. Adorning both public and privately owned buildings, the murals are part of a growing effort to create public art displays.
“Murals add a sense of place,” said Holly Garriott, executive director of Emerge Gallery & Art Center. It is home to the Pitt County Arts Council. When the center, working with Don Edwards of University Book Exchange, launched the Five Points Archway Mural Project in 2015, Garriott saw the corner of Evans and Fifth street as the “front porch” of downtown Greenville and the arches on the Starlight Cafe wall a blank canvas that no one really noticed.
“Now (the mural) brings a sense of place to the area, a sense of community,” Garriott said. “People talk about it. Everybody has a different opinion, but it creates conversation. Overall, it makes us a unique place for the people who live here and the people who come and visit as well.”
The promotion of public art has always been an important priority for Garriott and Emerge. It started in 2006 with the DownEast Sculpture Exhibition, a juried competition for indoor and outdoor pieces. This year’s competition, which started March 3, has 16 pieces displayed not only in Greenville but in Ayden, Farmville and Winterville.
“Public art is the most accessible, visual type of art and all of us interact with it,” Garriott said.
“That’s why I love public art so much. Our entire community can interact with it.”
And they don’t have to buy a ticket, she said.
While the sculpture exhibition drove growth in public arts, the mural scene was a little slower taking off.
Garriott said Emerge and the Arts Council had numerous programs underway and didn’t have the staff or time to create more projects.
That changed in 2020, when COVID-19 shut down indoor activities, sending people outside.
That year also saw mass protests involving the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
Locally, a group broke away from a protest march and vandalized several buildings in downtown Greenville, including breaking windows at the Emerge gallery.
Garriott and other Emerge leaders used
the incident to bring attention to black culture and history.
Brazilian-born artist Jun S. Vasconcelos joined other artists in painting boards that covered the broken windows and doors.
The private sector started responding.
Tobias and Kelly Boutilier, owners of King’s Deli, were one of the first business owners to add a mural to their building, a spaceship.
The Boutiliers chose a spaceship because they liked the work of Taylor Wolfe, who specializes in space-themed art and pet portraits.
“It’s very exciting. It brings a little more color, more creativity. It highlights that our town is interested in the arts and supports the art community,” Kelly Boutilier said.
The couple ran into a problem because the business’ name was incorporated into a contrail of the spaceship. City officials said including the name made it a sign, not a mural. The couple offered to pay a sign fee, but officials said the name had to be relocated to another part of the design. The couple had Wolfe remove the name.
The Boutiliers also coown Starlight Cafe with Tobias Boutilier’s parents, Alan and Susan. The older Boutiliers opened the cafe more than 20 years ago, settling at their current location, 104 W. Fifth St., in 2002.
Shortly after the restaurant opened the Boutiliers reached an agreement with the city that allowed them to use Merchant’s Alley, which runs between the restaurant and what is now the State Theatre, as a patio. The family turned it into a garden setting by adding plants and the work of local artists.
Catherine C.E. Walker, a professor at East Carolina University’s School of Art & Design, offered to do a mural for the area. She painted a collection of plants found in local gardens and woodlands to match the plants and herbs grown by the Boutiliers. “It enhances the garden that was already established,”
Kelly Boutilier said
The murals are creating a nice atmosphere and a sense of community in downtown Greenville, Tobias Boutilier said.
“Downtown had a bad reputation for a long time,” he said. “People said it was dirty and dangerous. I think the beautification makes it more inviting and friendly to come down here to
walk around, go to all the different stores and check everything out. Enjoy the community.”
The City of Greenville in late 2020 gave the Pitt County Arts Council permission to paint a mural on the Dickinson Avenue building that
Street side, and “A Great Place to be Outside,” located on the Fourth Street side.
More murals began appearing on public spaces and privately owned structures such as Eppes Recreation Center and the fence along the
Downtown had a bad reputation for a long time. People said it was dirty and dangerous. I think the beautifcation makes it more inviting and friendly to come down here to walk around, go to all the diferent stores and check everything out. Enjoy the community.
Tobias Boutilier Greenville restaurateurhoused a Time for Science (now the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences) and The Art Lab. “A School of Flying Fishes” was the first outdoor mural allowed on Greenville city property.
The city then authorized two murals for the Fourth Street Parking Deck in 2021. “Bubbles,” located on the Cotanche
800 block of Fifth Street near the offices of NC Civil.
The city then watched the creation of a twostory mural on the side of the Taft Building on Dickinson Avenue.
The approximately 10,000-square-foot mural that depicts a woman wearing makeup associated with Dia de
los Muertos was done in conjunction with the opening of Amante Tacos & Spirits, an outdoor restaurant located at the intersection of Dickinson and Reade Circle, said Thomas Taft Jr., the owner of the building and restaurant.
“I had always been interested in exploring (public art), given that you had a lot of vacant or semi-vacant buildings and land around downtown and Dickinson that could be great easels for this type of art,” Taft said.
Taft said he ran with the idea when someone suggested the Taft building wall facing Reade Circle would make a great canvas.
Taft reached out to Clark Hippilito a Raleigh artist who he kept up with through social media. Hippilito and Brandon Qualls, the owner of Red Bird Restaurant Group and manager of Amante, came up with the concept.
“It was such a cool and striking image and we realized we had a lot of space to fill,” Taft said.
Although it was done in conjunction with Amante, since the mural didn’t
show the restaurant’s name, they didn’t need the city’s permission. It took about two weeks to complete.
“It was very much done by hand right there on the side of the building,” Taft said. “We were blown away. It was above and beyond what we expected. I knew we had done something right when we got phone calls complaining about it.”
The boldness of the art apparently offended some people’s sensibilities, Taft said. “We took that as a badge of honor.”
More people enjoy the mural than complain about it, using it as a background for photo shoots and pausing to admire it during walks, Taft said. “We want a public space and want people wandering in and out of it enjoying it,” he said.
The murals are introducing multiple artists to the community.
Since participating in the Emerge window covering project, Jun S. Vasconcelos has painted three murals in downtown Greenville, one at the Side Bar - Drinkery + Kitchen on Dickinson Avenue, the Evans Street Car Wash at 14th and Evans streets and a two-story painting on the former Ken’s Furniture building near the intersection of Ninth Street and Dickinson Avenue.
Vasconcelos describes his murals as modern art that reflects movement. “He wants people to interpret the art the way they want to interpret it,” said Bonnie De Vasconcelos, his wife. That doesn’t mean his work is without meaning.
The carwash mural is about keeping balance in life and keeping the connection between who you are in your heart and your mind, he said.
“He likes to paint a lot with connectivity as the idea,” De Vasconcelos
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said. Vasconcelos said he often feels people in the United States aren’t connected, choosing instead to live in individual worlds.
“This is his way to hopefully bring people together to connect and think together,” De Vasconcelos said.
Vasconcelos connected to the Greenville community while working on his murals, especially the car wash project, he said.
People rolled down their windows and asked questions and offered comments while they waited at a stoplight.
When Vasconcelos’ family moved to Greenville from Brazil, he took a job in roofing to make money. The murals allow him to continue the art career he previously had.
He’s appreciative that his clients give him the freedom to do what he wants.
Vasconcelos said the interest people have shown in the murals has convinced him the community should host an international competition featuring muralists from across the world.
Garriott said it’s an idea that the arts council is interested in exploring but it would take a lot of coordination and a lot of funding.
“We can always start locally. Who knows what the future holds for that,” Garriott said. Garriott and the arts
council are interested in placing murals outside the downtown/Dickinson Avenue area.
One of those locations is the Magnolia Arts Center, 1703 E. 14th St., next to the Perkins Complex baseball field. The center had to board up a number of windows after they were repeatedly broken by stray baseballs. It was decided the panels could serve as murals.
The Youth Public Arts Project, which provides arts education for youth ages 8-17, is currently painting panels that
will cover the center’s windows facing the baseball field. The panels will show baseball scenes.
The city is scheduled to put up the painted boards in April.
The arts council currently is undergoing strategic planning and an area of focus is spreading public art across the
county, Garriott said. The Town of Farmville already has 12 murals that are part of its Art Trail.
The Ayden Historical and Arts Society has obtained grant funding for a future mural, she said.
A Winterville businessman has reached out to the arts council to discuss having a mural on
a building, Garriott said. “We’ve had a number of private businesses reach out to us to come out to consult with them,” she said. “If somebody is interested in knowing how to get a mural on a building or wants to come to us to learn some resources we are very receptive to do that.”
South Central’s Zainab Hijawi is proving that wrestling is for everyone, no matter your gender, race or faith.
While girls’ wrestling will not officially become a North Carolina High School Athletic Association sport until next year, that has not slowed down Hijawi, who continues to be a model of sports’ inclusivity.
The freshman, who is of Muslim faith, has been breaking down barriers since the first day she stepped on the mat, but she almost did not stick with the sport.
“At first, I felt like, ‘That’s it,’ it was too much pressure,” Hijawi said during a tournament in January. “This sport is very mental, so at the beginning my mentality was not as strong and I was not ready.”
However, with the support of her brother Mustafa, who is a senior on the team, her mom, her coaches and her teammates, she stuck with it and has since fallen in love with the sport.
“That’s what made me stay in the sport and now I’m planning to stay for a while,” Hijawi said.
One of the many obstacles Hijawi faces in the gym is a lack of competition, as her faith prohibits her from wrestling against boys, so she is left on the bench until an opposing team enters a match with a girl for her to wrestle.
One opportunity to take the mat came in a tri-match at D.H. Conley on Jan 19, as the first bout of the night pitted her against Mia Glaspie of Southern Wayne. With the continued support of her team and family, the Falcon secured a second-period pin of Glaspie, helping her team nail down a narrow 42-36 victory.
“It felt amazing. My teammates, they’re so supportive and everything, and I didn’t want to let them down,” Hijawi said.
Despite being unable to wrestle in every match, Hijawi’s presence in the gym can always be felt.
For the remainder of Thursday’s win over Southern Wayne and a match against the host Vikings in which she did not have a bout, Hijawi could be heard cheering on her teammates from the bench.
She stressed it is important to her to return the support that her teammates have for her when she is on the mat.
“I want to make them feel special out there and make sure they know what to do.
I know they’re strong and I know they can do it,” Hijawi said.
Alongside the mental obstacles she faced when first taking to the sport, Hijawi had to be approved to wear her hijab on the mat. She said just like the other barriers in her way, she
fought through, stressing that you have to fight for what you want and that it will not be handed to you.
“It wasn’t easy to be out on the mat with my hijab and the clothing I wear under the singlet. It took a lot of explaining, a lot of dedication, I had to break a lot of stereotypes,” Hijawi said.
Mustafa is the main reason his sister got into the sport this season. He started wrestling last year as a junior, and as his siblings watched him fall in love with the sport, he thought it would be great to share the experience with them.
“It has been the best thing. I get to share the same love and joy of the sport directly with my sister,” he said.
He added that their shared love for wrestling will not stop after he graduates, as he plans to continue competing in college, and they will continue to work together to improve their skills.
Zainab said it has been a great experience learning and growing in the sport alongside her older brother.
“I feel honored to have my
brother in the same school and we can wrestle together. It’s just great,” she said.
Their mother, Fatema Salem, who can be seen at the edge of the mat taking pictures for every Falcon wrestler at a match, emphasized her main role as their mom is to support them in whatever they choose to do.
“It’s my job to support
them and to make sure they can wipe out the obstacles along the way,” Salem said.
“With Zozo, she has to break a lot of boundaries and a lot of stereotypes to be in this sport wearing her hijab.”
While Hijawi has overcome a great deal in her first year in the sport, she noted stereotypes are still the biggest obstacle she faces.
“Fighting the stereotypes is amazing, showing that I can do it and to not judge me on how I look,” Hijawi said.
The idea of overcoming those challenges and being a role model to younger athletes means everything to her.
She stressed it does not matter what gender, race or beliefs you have, you can still be successful in whatever you strive to do.
“It’s a pleasure to be a role model for other people. That’s my main thing is to make people believe who you are. Faith, gender, it doesn’t matter, just go out there and be strong, be yourself and be confident,” Hijawi said.
Her mother added that sports should be a global language like music and that everyone should be able to find their spot.
“Zozo was lucky enough to hold this responsibility of showing other girls that no matter what you look like, no matter what you believe, and no matter what your background is, it should not define you,” Salem said.
Not even one full season into the wrestling, Hijawi knows it will be vital in teaching her valuable life lessons.
She said the sport gives you thick skin and makes you not only physically tough, but also mentally strong and confident.
“At first, you might not be confident or have the best mentality, but it’s all mental, it’s all just telling yourself that you’ve got it and if you keep it in your mind that you can do it, then you can,” Hijawi said.
It’s a pleasure to be a role model for other people. That’s my main thing is to make people believe who you are. Faith, gender, it doesn’t matter, just go out there and be strong, be yourself and be confdent.
Zainab HijawiPhotos by Craig Moyer/The Daily Reflector South Central’s Zainab Hijawi celebrates after pinning Southern Wayne’s Mia Glaspie during a match on Jan. 19. Hijawi looks to make a move during her bout with Glaspie. South Central’s Zainab Hijawi cheers on a teammate as they work for a pin during the match against Southern Wayne. Hijawi, top, controls Mia Glaspie of Southern Wayne during their bout. South Central’s Zainab Hijawi, right, and Mustafa Hijawi, second from right, greet Southern Wayne during the captains’ meeting prior the match.
Zac Womack was watching Monday Night Football at his home when a situation on the field caused him to perk up, along with countless other viewers. His athletic training instincts kicked in, even though he could only watch.
Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac event on the field during an NFL game this past season. The scene was a shock to anyone watching. The look on the players’ faces was enough to make any stomach do a flip and it didn’t take long to realize that the 24-year-old defensive back was fighting for his life.
Hamlin made a routine tackle in a Jan. 2 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, got to his feet and tried to take a couple of steps before he slumped to the ground. Medical staff working the game raced onto the field and administered CPR. It was reported that they were able to regain a heartbeat there on the grass before he was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.
“I was watching it live and happened to be watching at the right moment,” said Womack, the head athletic trainer for East Carolina’s baseball team. “I saw the play happen and one of the athletic trainers that ran out from the other team kind of made a face and turned around and went right on his walkie-talkie.
I thought, that’s not right, like, you don’t see that happen. And then they went to commercial and I’m thinking something’s wrong.
“When they came back and once you see the athletes’ faces and all that, they’re panicking, you know it’s serious. But the medical staff is trained for that so they’re in there and knowing that with the
type of preparation they put into it, they’re going to do everything they can to get that athlete back. In this case, bring him back to life.”
Womack is in his 15th year working as a member of ECU’s athletic training staff. He attended undergrad at ECU from 1996-2000, then got a job working with the New York Yankees minor league system for seven years after college.
He returned to ECU in 2008 to help the program develop an arm care program with an aim to limit arm injuries. The Greensboro native has worked with the baseball team ever since.
Training for and being prepared for scenarios like the one that the medical staff working the BillsBengals game had to respond to for Hamlin’s injury is part of the job.
Each of ECU’s 14 certified athletic trainers prepares for situations just like that. The trainers specialize across the Pirates’ 18 athletic programs throughout the year, but each know the basic lifesaving tools.
Some trainers work multiple sports, but many are specialized and deal with specific sports. Football, for instance, a sport with more than 100 athletes, has four certified trainers.
Womack said that the athletic training staff meets every month to go over case studies and the situations that have happened during that time with the goal of being proactive.
The meetings help keep everyone fresh and alert.
Womack also said that he learned early on to never be afraid of reaching out to other athletic trainers or medical personnel to seek additional information.
His college roommate is the head trainer for the Carolina Panthers, and Womack has another friend and ECU grad who is the
trainer for the Chicago Cubs.
So this is never a solo game, he said. Crowdsourcing information is important, such as reaching out to other professionals as well as in-house professionals for new ideas.
“If the basketball trainer has a shoulder injury or an elbow injury, he might reach out to me,” Womack said.
“And in baseball, I don’t see a lot of ACL (injuries) so if I have an ACL, I may go to the women’s basketball athletic trainer or to women’s soccer where they see a lot more ACLs and pick their brain. So, yeah, we’re always utilizing each other.”
Injuries are as integral to sports as scoring points, playing defense and winning and losing.
It’s a part of the game that athletes and coaches have reckon with. Having an understanding that the risk of injury is embedded in the process is a negotiation of sorts with the mind and body.
Rahjai Harris, an ECU running back, suffered a season-ending knee injury while performing a move that he had done thousands of times before. Harris tried to make a cut during a rushing play to avoid a South Florida player homing in on a tackle when the Pirates’ sophomore landed awkwardly. He never returned to the field and was lost for the year.
Later in the season, ECU receiver C.J. Johnson was placed on a backboard and was moved into the back of an ambulance after landing awkwardly on his head at the end of the Pirates’ road game against Cincinnati.
It was a scary moment as medical personnel and trainers huddled around the receiver for a large chunk of time as they worked to stabilize his head and neck before risking moving the athlete.
“He landed kind of bad on his head. It was weird on his neck there,” ECU quarterback Holton Ahlers told reporters on the field after the game. “Definitely praying for him. The game of football is serious, but there are other things that are serious, too.”
“We as a staff each preseason go over spine boarding, helmet removal for the neck or broken back on the field, just to kind of be ready for it in the case that happens,” Womack said. “We have our AEDs that we trained for, and we are certified in CPR and first aid for emergencies like that. We do physicals so we know who has sickle cell or who has asthma. If I know a kid that’s had heart conditions in the past or asthma, I kind of look out for them a little bit more in certain areas and protect them. Basically, just keep that knowledge in the back of your mind at all times.”
The Hamlin injury, while scary, was a teaching moment for those in Womack’s position as well as for school administrators and even parents.
Womack said that every facility on ECU’s athletic campus has an AED, including weight rooms and practice venues. Each space is also equipped with oxygen tanks. Every sporting event and every
practice on campus has access to the life-saving device, and baseball is adding one to its indoor hitting facility as well.
“I imagine if you look at the number of AED sales and CPR courses that were offered after Damar Hamlin, I bet it went up like 200 or 300 percent because, unfortunately, it took something like that to happen to somebody for people to really see it and take it seriously,” Womack said. “We prepare for that all the time. And now, common fans and viewers see that and say, ‘Okay, well, what’s my kid’s situation like at the high school if that happened?’”
The NCHSAA handbook states that “all head and paid coaches must be CPR/ AED certified prior to first practice date. CPR/ AED courses that satisfy this requirement should include some hands-on, in-person skill presentation and evaluation, regardless if part of the course is online or entirely in-person.
It is recommended that all coaches of each sport/ activity take and pass the NFHS First Aid for Coaches course, be CPR/ AED certified, and be present at all contests and practices. Head coaches coaching in a contest without certification of this requirement is a $500 fine.”
The NCHSAA also outlines a cardiac safety program. It states that all NCHSAA member schools must include the following components: An appropriate number of AEDs on campus relative
to athletic facilities, and an AED maintenance program.
While a step in the right direction, the reality is that the lower levels of athletics don’t have the capability to be as prepared as necessary.
“The NFL and even most Division I athletic departments have that ability, but if you’re at a high school, you just hope that you have one athletic trainer on the sideline,” Womack said. “And for that one athletic trainer, it’s going to be hard for them to hold the head right and do everything else while waiting for EMS to get there, especially if the person’s not breathing or has no pulse.
“So if you’re at a middle school or at a little league baseball or softball game and something like that happens, you hope there’s an AED around and that somebody knows how to use it. They’re not always as fortunate to have NFL sideline medical staff or a Division I staff.”
Still, the awareness and level of preparedness is much higher than even five or 10 years ago. Medical and training staffs are much more plugged into preventative care and knowing the signs of issues before they become a problem.
“I look at things I did five or 10 years ago and kind of laugh at it like, what were we thinking?” Womack said. “I always say that if you’re doing the same thing as an athletic trainer that you did five years ago, you haven’t learned anything and you haven’t developed.”
I always say that if you’re doing the same thing as an athletic trainer that you did fve years ago, you haven’t learned anything and you haven’t developed.
Zac Womack head athletic trainer for East Carolina baseballThe image, taken from a video, shows ECU receiver C.J. Johnson being carted off following an injury at the end of the Pirates’ game against Cincinnati. Johnson was taken to the hospital out of precaution due to a potential head or neck injury, was examined, deemed OK and then returned to Greenville the next day. Photo by ECU News Services Zac Womack, head athletic trainer for East Carolina baseball. Photo by Associated Press Buffalo Bills’ Damar Hamlin walks on the field before the NFL Super Bowl 57 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023, in Glendale, Ariz.
Avideo game developed in part by an East Carolina University psychology professor is showing promise in treating impairments faced by middle school students with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder.
ATHEMOS is the video game brainchild of Brandon Schultz, associate professor of psychology at ECU. The game is currently available for free on the university’s Digital Marketplace. Schultz collaborated with Dr. Steve Evans, co-director of the Center of Intervention Research in Schools at Ohio University, on the project. The single-player game lets students engage in space battles and exploration, all the while gathering information that continues the narrative and helps them win. It is the informationgathering phase where hard skills are taught and where teachers or coaches can then explain to students that, amid the fun of fighting drones or solving mysteries, the organizing they were required to do for success in the game has tangible benefits. Keeping order is something that can be done not just in the depths of pixelated space, but in their classrooms and at home. The game is modeled on the Challenging Horizons Program developed by Evans, which according to the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder website is a school-based treatment model for middleand high-school students with ADHD which targets social and academic hurdles
those students must face.
Prior to his time at ECU, Schultz interned with Evans and got to see the impact Challenging Horizons had on students. At that time there was a focus on ADHD intervention at the elementary school level, but Schultz said when students transitioned to middle school they were met with struggles.
“They were completely falling apart,” Schultz said. “These were kids that were maybe getting by in elementary school with Bs and Cs but by the time they got to middle school it was Fs. That had long-term repercussions for dropping out in high school and anything down the road you can imagine. It predicted a lot of bad outcomes.”
The two spent five to six hours a week working with students in Virginia through an after-school program where they helped organize their book bags and binders while working on social skills and problemsolving. Those social tools were for students who found themselves arguing with students and peers as a result of their ADHD, Schultz said.
The program worked for students, teachers and parents, Schultz said, but funding was a serious issue. A cost-benefit analysis by one of Evans’ students estimated that an afterschool program would cost $1,896 per student per year.
“We’ve got 30 kids who need this, this stuff adds up,” Schultz said. “The school can’t dole out $67,000 to start an afterschool program.”
That’s when the two started looking into alternatives and where
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Schultz put forth the idea of an interactive game. The professor has played video games since the days of the Atari 2600, an interest that continues to this day. He said his fan perspective helped him in understanding what is fun for a playerwhat works and does not work.
“Imagine a video game where you’ve got to plan out your weeks in advance, collect information and organize it into categories,” Schultz said. “Then one step further you have to identify main ideas and supporting details like you would when you take notes in class. That’s another skill that kids with ADHD really struggle with, organizing your ideas.”
“Brandon loves video games and has ever since I’ve known him over 20 years ago,” Evans said.
“It wasn’t a surprise to me when in one of our conversations he started talking about video games as a way to help kids learn these skills even better. I think it was a good, viable, creative approach.”
Schultz drafted a concept for ATHEMOS, Evans said, and after years of submitting grant applications, Schultz said the project netted $1.4 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to build and test. 22 students under faculty supervision coded ATHEMOS at the Game Research and Immersive Design (GRID) Lab at Ohio University, with Schultz in direct communication along the way.
Testing began last year as the game underwent a pilot study with one group of middle schoolers in Greenville and another in
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Ohio, Schultz said. Some students were randomly selected to use ATHEMOS and the others underwent a traditional Challenging Horizons program. While data is still preliminary, Schultz said he is impressed by what it shows so far.
“Both groups benefited,” Schultz said. “We compared it to an active treatment, and that active treatment did work. But the video game condition outperformed it on some outcomes, not all, but some. On every other outcome it kept pace with it.”
Even more, students had fun playing it. Schultz said that satisfaction surveys showed ATHEMOS was close to ratings seen in standard recreational games on a benchmark scale based on surveys of casual video game players.
“We’re just under it, like within striking distance of it, which is unheard of,” Schultz said. “There are some cool educational games out there, but we’re begging kids to play them. The term of art in this field is chocolate-covered broccoli. They take one bite and decide ‘this is not good.’”
It helps that most of ATHEMOS is recreational, Schultz said; flying, battling drones, interacting with non-player characters and
other norms for a space adventure. Evans said that makes the repetition required to learn skills more accessible and enjoyable.
“I think for anyone to learn new skills, it takes a lot of repetition and feedback,” Evans said. “It’s the same thing when you’re learning to read, or learning how to play golf. You need a lot of practice, a lot of reps and it helps to get feedback to know what you’re doing right or not.
“What ATHEMOS does for the Challenging Horizons Program is it gives kids more chance to not just have practice, but to have practice that’s fun and engaging and something they want to do.”
Schultz said having direct input from instructors also prevents teachers from needing to work even harder to educate students with ADHD. He said ATHEMOS aims to replace ineffective practices like accommodations for students with ADHD, such as having a set of textbooks to take home and a set to leave at school to circumvent disorganization. While accommodations work, they do not teach, he said.
“We end up lowering the bars of expectations,” Schultz said. “What we’re trying to do instead is
teaching skills that will actually overcome the impairments of ADHD. We might not cure the symptoms, but we want to cure the impairments of ADHD.”
A critical response to ATHEMOS has been strong, with the game netting a silver medal in the 2022 International Serious Play Awards and coming out a finalist in the 2021 James Paul Gee Learning Games Awards. Now, the team behind it is using the details from the pilot study to finalize and market the game.
BreakAway Games in Maryland, a developer of serious games that has seen many training and educational games receive awards, has seen ATHEMOS and Schultz plans for them to market it. The studio would give the game a polish and make it available affordably to be used at middle schools along with Challenging Horizons curriculum for teachers and coaches.
Schultz was clear that he’s not marketing the game to make money.
“We’re not looking to make millions of dollars here,” Schultz said. “We’re just looking to get it out the door and let people use it to have it help.”
AD.H. Conley High
School
student is channeling his love of the environment and knack for technology into programs that raise awareness and visibility for areas that are being overtaken by trash and debris.
As communities across the region work to address problems like litter and illegal dumping, 17-year-old Kean Dao and fellow student Sunook Yoon have founded Environmental Droners and created the Litter Locator smartphone app to provide residents with a clear visual picture of their not-so-clean environments.
Both are members of Love a Sea Turtle, or LAST, an environmental stewardship program that provides leadership development and service learning opportunities to students. Dao credits his mentor Dan Sokolovic, LAST’s leader, with helping him find ways to make an impact, and he recently was recognized with $5,000 from the Prudential Emerging Visionary program to continue his efforts to keep the planet clean.
Through Environmental Droners, Dao and others take photos and videos of litter to document and share online. Seeing footage of pollution earlier in life made the issue tangible for Dao, he said.
“I think people underestimate the amount of plastic pollution within our world today,” Dao said. “From all the people filming these polluted areas, especially pollution islands in the middle of the ocean, it’s crazy to me. That’s horrifying. Looking at all these images of terrible sightings of pollution have helped me join in on (documenting) and help people understand.
“It’s not just sunshine and rainbows when you look out your windows. There are places in this world that are very trashed and we need to do something about it.”
That in part led Dao to join up with LAST, long before he ever picked up a drone in his freshman year of high school. Dao said he brainstormed with Sokolovic and Yoon, landing on a drone as an innovative way to document large swaths of litter.
Environmental Droners has continued to grow and now sees membership in countries like South
I think people underestimate the amount of plastic pollution within our world today. From all the people flming these polluted areas, especially pollution islands in the middle of the ocean, it’s crazy to me. That’s horrifying. Looking at all these images of terrible sightings of pollution have helped me join in on (documenting) and help people understand.
Korea and Spain, Dao said. He credits that to his involvement with The Starling Collective, defined on GivingTuesday’s website as a worldwide grassroots leadership group committed to collaborative sharing of best practices to drive systemic change.
The success and innovation of the program resulted in Dao being named the 2023 Prudential Emerging Visionary in February. The $5,000 award he said will go back into Environmental Droners. The Visionary program is a collaboration between Prudential Financial and Ashoka, a social impact organization, and supported by the Financial Health Network according to a news release. Dao was among 25 recipients and will attend a three-day summit in April at Prudential’s Newark, New Jersey, headquarters.
Dao is also eligible to participate in a pitch-off where he could win an additional $10,000 in funding. That money can help expand the footprint of Environmental Droners, Dao said, and the initial $5,000 will be used to purchase drones
for members in Spain and South Korea.
“I’m excited to go to the summit to meet with other like-minded leaders to see if they’re willing to do Environmental Droners and to see what can I learn from them,” Dao said.
That kind of commitment to a cleaner planet is of interest to Pitt County Manager Janis Gallagher. In January Pitt County kicked off its Litter Free For you and Me campaign as a way to spur the public into acting on taking control of litter issues in the area.
Gallagher said the county wants to spread awareness through the video campaign before bringing down heavier enforcement such as fines. The county is also working with local fourth-grade classes in a challenge format, where the class that collects the most litter will receive a pizza party.
“To the extent we can get every age group engaged in a Litter Free For You and Me mindset, whether that’s fourth graders in our litter challenge or a high school who’s looking to really make an impact in their community, I am thrilled to hear it,” Gallagher
said. “I would love to engage and partner and share ideas so we can do our part better and so we can enhance the success and impact that this D.H. Conley student is able to make through his efforts.”
Areas like Old River Road see a great deal of trash dumping according to Gallagher, who said that litter damages community pride and has further fiscal impacts. So far the campaign has made a noticeable impact in that section of the county.
“(The litter free campaign) will have impacts in an economic development and recruitment aspect,” Gallagher said. “When we bring people in internationally to determine if they want to move a business to Pitt County, oftentimes their first impression is our beautiful landscapes.
“(The campaign) is about taking pride in our community, about finding a common, shared vision and meaning and goal.”
When he isn’t trying to save the world, Dao is also a varsity tennis player, a member of multiple honors societies and involved with the Future Business Leaders
of America at D.H. Conley. He said that he wants to pursue a degree in business and marketing from North Carolina State University and merge his growing penchant for technology into the business sector.
Eastern North Carolina matters to Dao, he said, calling his home “the best of the 50 states.” As a resident and a fan, he wants to see people step up and make an impact.
“I think Earth is all we’ve got,” Dao said. “The world is an amazing place because of the
amount of things it provides humans. I think humans take it for granted and it’s up to us to pay it back.”
Gallagher agrees, adding that the battle requires patience and that people should not expect a litter-free community overnight. Residents can help too, she said.
“Every little bit helps,” Gallagher said. “Picking up one thing here or there makes a difference. It’s a mindset, it’s a culture, and we want our home to be reflective of the pride we have in our community.”
Kean Dao of Environmental Droners
When he arrived to Martin County just over a month ago, Steve Biggs brought something uncommon — a new vision that is seen through the eyes of experience and knowledge.
While Biggs is new to his role as economic development director locally, he has more than two decades of experience recruiting business to eastern North Carolina.
After spending 21 years in neighboring Bertie County, Biggs made the decision to move to Martin County in February, citing an opportunity to meet new challenges, but to continue to push regionalism as the best path to growth.
“After a short search, it was evident that Martin County was on the move,” Biggs said. “Having worked with former Martin County directors like Jason Semple, Marvin Davis and Jim Ward for several years, I knew that they had built a great program here.
“With their staff, their EDC board and, certainly, the county commissioners and county management, I knew Martin County was a place that I wanted to be,” he said of making the decision.
As he settles into his new role, Biggs is finding the work exciting — mostly because there are new projects awaiting in Martin County.
“Because all projects are different, it makes them all exciting,” Biggs said. “Also, there were some projects that were being worked on that I hope can be sited here with a little more encouragement.”
The main goal, of course, is to provide growth and opportunity for the county.
“There are some manufacturing projects, along with retail opportunity, that hopefully will come to fruition to create solid growth and opportunities,” he said.
Since his introduction in Martin County, Biggs has stressed the need for regional thinking and development. The reason for that is obvious, he says.
“As the old saying goes, there’s strength in numbers,” he said. “If you have 16 county developers calling North Carolina or federal senators and House members versus one, it makes a big difference,” Biggs said. “Several years ago, we had a strong regional group of developers that met on a monthly schedule. We shared each other’s problems and accomplishments.
“We helped each other solve those problems and celebrate the accomplishments,” he continued.
Biggs said that time was one in which there was growth on a regional basis in the northeastern region.
“We had several business and industry partners throughout the region that helped with lobbying, expenses of trade shows, infrastructure and so much more,” he said. “At that time, northeast North Carolina had continual good growth in manufacturing because we all worked together for the betterment of the region. So, certainly, it has been proven over and over again that regionalism works.”
Not only has the concept of regionalism worked in the past, it has promise in the future.
“I have spoken to several developers all over this region — from Dare, Hertford, Halifax and other
There has been so much groundwork done in the past to make Martin County a great place to relocate or build a new business or industry. Just having all the infrastructure of electricity, water, sewage, natural gas, superhighways, industrial park and rail is a big deal.
counties — that would like us to try that approach once again,” Biggs said. “Also, we have had regional business allies that would like to bring back that approach as well.
“As I have said for 22 years, what’s good for Martin County is good for other counties in our region and vice versa,” he said.
Martin County has a lot to attract business on its own, including a beautiful natural landscape, a thriving economic center and an industrial park.
Biggs said the industrial park certainly helps the county.
“Any time you have a site-ready industrial park, that puts you well above the curve,” he said. “The N.C. Rail Park here in Martin County is a shining star. The draw is, all of the infrastructure is in place. As industries are looking to site their company on shovelready sites, all they have to do here is start building … we’re ready.”
The industrial park is just one of the many draws in Martin County. Biggs said he is excited about what he has seen from all the stakeholders in the county.
“I personally think Martin County has numerous things that will draw business here,” he said.
“I have already witnessed the good people of Martin County working together. Having attended county commissioner meetings, EDC board meetings and airport board meetings, it seems to me that everyone is working toward the same goal of making Martin County the very best it can be.
“With interstate quality highways, being halfway between the Morehead City port and the ports of Virginia and our proximity to Raleigh and the Outer Banks, I think we are positioned in the perfect location for growth,” he added.
Biggs said that work will lead to having everyone working together and that is important.
“As with any economic development program, you have to have unity,” he said. “I can honestly say that with my short time here, I’m excited about the unanimity that I have seen.
The commissioners and the EDC board have been very supportive of things
that have been discussed pertaining to good, clean economic development growth. I truly believe that each one of these people have a servant’s heart. These ladies and gentlemen are ready, willing and able to help any way possible to make Martin County a better place.”
Those same people have welcomed Biggs to the county in a way he has been happy to see.
“In my few weeks here, I have been so excited about the reception that I have received,” he said. “The people of Martin County have been so gracious and friendly. The one statement I keep hearing is ‘if I can help in any way please let me know.’ That means a lot to know that the citizens want to be involved in improving where they live.”
The other thing that is helping with the transition is the groundwork that has been laid before his arrival.
“There has been so much groundwork done in the past to make Martin County a great place to relocate or build a new business or industry,” Biggs said. “Just having all the infrastructure of electricity, water, sewage, natural gas, superhighways, industrial park and rail is a big deal.
“And having the support of all agencies working together is something someone had to step up and make happen and they did,” he added. “We take these things for granted on a dayto-day basis, but if they were not here it would be all but impossible to be marketable.
“Believe me, I have been in communities that the EDC and downtown committees or tourism and the chamber didn’t play well together and the end result showed,” he added. “I’m thankful that is not the case in Martin County.”
Biggs said he was pleased to be working in Martin County and would be glad to help in any way he could.
“Again, I am thankful for the opportunity to be working in Martin County,” he said. “At any time this office can be of assistance, I would encourage people to feel free to contact us. Our only goal is to help improve the quality of life for the citizens of Martin County.”
Greene County made strides when it opened a state-of-the-art operations center and kept going from there.
The center that opened in March houses its Emergency 911 Communication and Dispatch Center, Greene County Emergency Services, Transportation Department and the Veterans Service Offices.
The 56,000-square-foot facility formerly served as the National Guard Armory before undergoing extensive renovations. The county received $2.1 million in grant funding to renovate the building including over $840,000 from the N.C. 911 Board and contributions from the Golden Leaf Foundation.
In November, Summit Design and Engineering Services and Greene County Government were awarded the 2023 Grand Award of Engineering Excellence by
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nursing roles, with many choosing to become travel nurses instead. This new nursing outlook means ECU Health has to evaluate what nurses are looking for from an employer and transform accordingly.
The travel staffing program, implemented in 2022, is one of the many nursing innovations ECU Health started with the goal of attracting, retaining and developing team members and nurses in particular. The program offers staffing options, decreases dependency on external travelers and provides unique, flexible options for the ECU Health team. The travel nursing program features 13-week assignments. It combines flexible work schedules, the stability of a local staff position and the opportunity to transition to a longterm position and keep seniority.
“We are passionate about investing in the future of our nursing workforce because our mission demands it,” said Dr. Trish Baise, who joined ECU Health in January as the organization’s first chief nursing executive. “We can’t deliver highquality care without high-quality nurses. It is imperative for us as an organization to ask our nurses what they want out of their nursing experience, and then create programs and initiatives with those desires in mind. The travel staffing program, among other great ideas, is a great example of this mindset.”
The travel staffing is still in its infancy but the early results have yielded positive feedback. To date, ECU Health has received more than 1,000 applications for the travel staffing program with more than 400 nurses already hired. ECU Health has even expanded the travel staffing program to include allied health positions. All said, ECU Health leaders hope it will continue to be a helpful tool in ensuring highquality nursing for the region both now and into the future.
Learn more about
the American Council of Engineering Companies of North Carolina for renovating the building, which also serves the new meeting space for the Greene County Board of Commissioners.
The town also welcomed a leading electronics manufacturing company, Precision Graphics, in November. The company produces circuit boards and other electronics for customers in several sectors including robotics, industrial, automotive, telecommunications, aerospace and medical. Officials said Greene County secured a partnership with the family-owned, New Jersey-based company through its membership in the North Carolina Global Transpark Economic Development Region.
The facility is a $5.1 million investment and will create 70 jobs with
nursing innovations like the travel staffing program at careers.ecuhealth.org/ pages/vidant-health-travelstaffing-program. From ECU Health
David Hodgkins: Future looks bright in Farmville
The future continues to look bright in Farmville with continuous progress toward making the town an attractive place to live and visit.
In 2022, Farmville celebrated its 150 years of incorporation with a grand sesquicentennial celebration that started in 2021.
Fundraisers were held including the return of a highly anticipated auction. The town’s First Friday celebration kicked off the New Year and Sesquicentennial Celebration in January 2022 with live music and fireworks. On Feb. 12, 2022, the day of its incorporation, the town held its Sesquicentennial Parade. A Black and White Gala also was held to celebrate the 150 years and a plaque, debuted at the town’s Christmas parade Dec. 10, 2022, also was created to memorialize the town’s celebration.
Farmville also launched a rebranding campaign that both reflected its long history and looked toward the future, allowing for a more updated and progressive look for the town. The campaign includes a modern logo encompassing Farmville’s past history, new signage at the town’s entrances, Farmville Town Hall, including the Farmville Police Department, and new murals featuring the new logo at the town’s Splash Pad.
New banners also were installed in January 2023, with more of the rebranding campaign to be seen later this year.
After much work, Farmville also put into place its updated comprehensive land use plan. This plan allows the town to plan for future growth as well as its already established businesses and homes and provides a guideline for how future growth will occur. This plan both optimizes the town’s assets while allowing for continued, high-quality growth.
Improvements also were
salaries averaging more than $41,000. CEO Alec Weissman also vowed to make contributions to local charities for the next year to show his gratitude for the community’s ongoing support.
Building Envelope Erection Services (BEES), a Snow Hill glass facade fabrication and installation business, also completed a $1.25 million expansion at its Nahunta Road facility in April and promised to add 17 new jobs.
Greene County in August also received a $175,000 from the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority to support the expansion of a building in Stantonsburg occupied by H&T Trucking Inc. The company, which transports grain, animal feed and live animals for local integrators and farmers, plans to add 2,250 square feet to the existing facility with help
made in town including the completion of several water, sanitary sewer and stormwater projects in south Farmville.
Farmville Parks and Recreation also was busy with improvements at several parks, including updated basketball courts at Bennett and J.Y. Monk Park, a new pickleball and sand volleyball court at J.Y. Monk Park, and ADA improvements at J.Y. Monk Park and Farmville Municipal Park.
ADA improvements were also made downtown with ramps being added to all downtown sidewalks making the town more accessible for all residents and visitors.
Farmville’s Art Council and the Farmville Public Library continue to be a draw to the town. In 2023, the library had an increase in visitation and library card sign-ups with more than half of the new registrations coming from within Pitt County and beyond.
The Farmville Arts Council expanded its building, the Paramount Theater, while continuing to provide quality programs for Farmville and all of Pitt County.
David Hodgkins is the town manager of Farmville Pitt County Schools: Focus on teaching excellence ensures success for every child
Pitt County Schools is transforming the teaching profession for educators across the county, serving as a model for initiatives across the state for what a long-term career in teaching can entail.
For the past seven years, PCS has been a state and national leader in the implementation of multiple formal teacherleader positions, offering teachers the opportunity to expand their influence by leading their peers and positively impacting the learning of students across entire grade levels and even schools.
In addition to this expanded influence, these teacher-leaders receive supplements between $1,200 and $10,000 for serving in these advanced roles — in addition to state bonuses and the regular local supplement.
As verified by a thirdparty evaluator, teachers are remaining in Pitt County at a higher rate than they have in the past. In addition, they report greater satisfaction with their jobs and at their schools, they are making more money than they
from the Existing Business Building Grant. This project is expected to create 31 jobs, with an investment of $162,589 by the company.
Greene County officials and the meat processing company HM Alliance Inc. announced in February the company’s plans to renovate and operate a facility in the Arba community. HM Alliance Inc. acquired the former Lakeview Packing Co. facility of approximately 49,000 square feet and 50 acres. The company is a joint venture of Highland USA, a subsidiary of the South Korea-based Highland Group, and Mercator Inc. of Raleigh. The plant, located at 602 Lakeview Road southwest of Snow Hill, will process pork and poultry into small pieces in the form of semi-finished products, the announcement said.
Greene County Schools in September learned it will receive $50 million in state lottery funds to replace Greene Central High School. The school system is among nine districts to share more than $300 million in new state lottery-funded grants for school construction, renovation projects and other capital improvements.
Details are forthcoming on what will be multi-year plans for Greene Central, but $50 million will have a great impact, Superintendent Frank Creech told the Board of Education.
The town of Hookerton celebrated the opening of the Hookerton Recreation Park in April. Town residents now enjoy renovated tennis and basketball courts and the addition of a pickleball court. The town also added a paved track, corn hole boards, horseshoe pits, a shelter and new playground equipment. The playground features multiple slides, spring riders and accessible swings.
The project came together after the town was awarded a total of $390,800 in grants from the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund
in expanding and we began the new year with 10 active projects.
and the Land & Water Conservation Fund. The park is located at 484 Morris BBQ Road in Hookerton and is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The town of Snow Hill received a $300,000 grant from the North Carolina Parks and Recreation Authority in late August to add a splash pad to its recreational facilities. Town manager Todd Whaley stated the town has a total of $600,000 available to invest in recreation after receiving an additional $300,000 from State Capital Infrastructure Funds. The splash pad will be tentatively located on Southeast Second Street and earl plans include a breezeway with a rest area and, if funds permit, a walking trail and turf playground.
have in the past, and their students are learning at increasingly higher rates.
Administrators reported that teacher leaders in the district “provided a gracious space for our teachers so that they could share and figure out how to become better educators” and that these advanced roles “gave the teachers something to look forward to and to be rewarded for doing well.”
Teachers in the district report they have been “beyond impressed with the quality of instruction and information” received through the district’s teacher leadership programs, calling it, “the single most important training they have had as an educator.”
By improving the lives (and livelihood) of educators in the district, Pitt County Schools is positively impacting the surrounding community and culture. Students are better prepared for the future, and everyone benefits.
After nearly three years of full operation, the Greenville Eastern North Carolina (ENC) Alliance, a 501(c)3 publicprivate partnership, is just getting started. As with any new organization, it takes time to establish a foundational base on which to build programming. The Alliance staff continues to ramp up activity and produce measurable outcomes for our citizens.
The year 2022 was a successful period for economic activity for the state of North Carolina and the GreenvillePitt County MSA. Our organization met and engaged with more than 30 site selection consultants, and we attended multiple industry trade shows to promote Greenville and Pitt County. Consultants were provided with information on our community as well as workforce and training opportunities. Our team also hosted six site visits for companies interested
Despite macroeconomic headwinds, our metro maintains strong fundamentals while making progress on closing economic disparities within the community. There is still much work to be done to ensure all areas of Pitt County benefit, and the Greenville ENC Alliance is committed to collaborating toward solutions. The nation’s small and mid-size communities that really thrive are the ones that unite organizations, resources and focus behind a common set of initiatives.
Our organization is wrapping up the joint Greenville-Pitt County economic development strategic plan. While a primary aspect of the plan will provide an operational roadmap for the Alliance, the effort was also geared toward finding areas of collaboration with partners. We engaged organizations such as Pitt County Economic Development, GreenvillePitt County Chamber of Commerce, ECU, and PCC. Our efforts included conducting more than 70 meetings, sharing 300 surveys, leading three steering committee workshops and hosting an investor and stakeholder breakfast to solicit feedback.
To generate goals, we took an analytical approach to benchmarking sustainable economic growth by studying our peer and aspirational communities. We will combine this information with a thorough target sector analysis and real estate assessment for site and building development planning purposes. We’re excited about our collaborations and engagement with the community and look forward to all that’s to come in 2023. To learn more about the Greenville ENC Alliance’s economic development efforts, please visit www. encalliance.com
Josh Lewis is president and CEO of the Greenville Eastern North Carolina (ENC) Alliance.
ECU: University building partnerships for a better tomorrow
The Pirates of East Carolina University are on a mission. Its worldclass faculty and staff are training ECU’s 27,000 students for exciting careers and instilling a
mindset of service while providing remarkable opportunities for participation in research and campus activities. Along with student success and public service, the mission centers on regional transformation, and ECU is creating partnerships that will truly make a difference. They range from a housing consortium to address affordable housing needs and a new children’s advocacy center in Mount Olive to a collaborative project to improve access to digital technology and literacy, resources and skills training for residents in 29 eastern North Carolina counties. But we’re not stopping at I-95.
Children and adolescents with mental health care needs throughout the state will benefit from a new partnership with the United Health Foundation to expand the North Carolina Statewide Telepsychiatry Program’s services for youth. In North Carolina, children experience significant challenges accessing the care needed to address their mental health. This partnership will help connect youth with mental health services in areas with provider shortages.
ECU’s international presence was also recognized as one of four institutions nationwide to receive the Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization by NAFSA: Association of International Educators. The award acknowledges a comprehensive effort to send ECU students abroad through programs like ECU Tuscany, to bring international students and scholars to ECU, and to pioneer virtual global programming through Global Partners in Education, an ECU-led network of more than 50 universities worldwide participating in virtual exchange courses across multiple departments.
Through its 87 bachelor’s, 69 master’s and 18 doctoral degree programs, ECU is preparing the workforce — and the leaders — of tomorrow for our region, the state and the world.
From ECU News Services
The Town of Ayden formally adopted “Que Marks the Spot” as its marketing campaign in July. The branding committee first presented the idea to the board in December 2021 after consulting with residents, business owners and ECU business professor Michael Rudd. The committee formulated the idea by surveying the community about what they loved most about the town and the overwhelming answer was its barbecue roots.
“Que marks the spot for so many beautiful qualities and attributes that have sprung up through the heritage of barbecue. Que marks the spot for world-renowned barbecue, but it also marks the spot of a welcoming community, a great place to raise a family, craftsmanship, quilting and so much more,” said committee member Gwendolyn Yiznitsky, owner of Gwendy’s Goodies.
In May, the campaign was used to promote the return of the annual “Kings of Q” BBQ Cook Off and Festival. The barbecue event along with the annual Collard Festival and the Christmas Town celebration all saw resurgent post-pandemic participation.
Ayden broke ground for the Eastern North Carolina Food Commercialization Center in November. The ceremony marked the next step for the 24,000-square-foot center that will be located in the Worthington Industrial Park in Ayden. The center is expected to draw farmers, food manufacturers and entrepreneurs from Beaufort,
Edgecombe, Greene, Lenoir, Martin, Pitt and Wilson counties. Construction is expected to begin in June.
Keith Pervis, owner of Greenville Produce Company, has been overseeing the project for several years, working with the Town of Ayden, the Greenville-ENC Alliance, ElectriCities, the Miller School of Entrepreneurship at East Carolina University, North Carolina State University and the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Commerce to complete the project.
Mayor Steve Tripp said three studies were conducted that projected the center will create 30 jobs and $11 million in income within the first two years in operation. “Over eight years, it would create over $900 million in economic growth in this area. The facility alone won’t do the $900 million, it will be done synergistically with other cities coming here and partnering with us and causing the economy around us to grow too.”
CMI PLASTICS EXPANSION
An Ayden company that makes plastic packaging for Pokémon cards, pharmaceuticals and a variety of other products announced this month is expanding a facility it built in 2007 by 60,000 feet
CMI Plastics is investing $5 million into its facility on Pepsi Way off of N.C. 11 to expand its recycling and manufacturing capabilities and improve service to a growing customer base, Stephen Hasselbach, the company’s chief executive said Tuesday after the announcement was released.
The expansion will increase the plant’s size
to 130,000 square feet, Hasselbach said, allowing it to add equipment and warehousing space.
It will strengthen logistics, tooling and manufacturing while ensuring a consistently high-quality product and the highest level of service for the company’s partners, he said.
It has job-creating potential that could bolster the existing full-time workforce of 70 by a dozen people.
BIG DEALS IN BETHEL Pitt County Economic Development recognized Bethel’s Package Craft as the 2022 Pitt County Industry of the Year in October.
Package Craft, part of The Royal Group, a division of Schwarz Partners, crafts creative point-of-purchase packaging and custom corrugated packaging systems for customers in a variety of industry segments. It serves customers in eastern North Carolina and surrounding areas of Virginia and South Carolina.
“Package Craft is a great example of how local manufacturers are doing big things for our economy. Not only have they expanded, adding more tax base and jobs, they have increased capacity to provide a critical resource to the supply chain,” said Kelly Andrews, Pitt County Economic Development director. “The positive economic effects of their investments cannot be fully measured, but they are significant.”
As corrugated boxes have been vital to supply chains throughout the pandemic, Package Craft recently completed an expansion to accommodate larger production capabilities and growing customer needs. The expansion includes an additional 20,000 square feet of production area and the addition of cutting-edge machinery.
Package Craft employs 47 people, a 15 percent increase over last year’s headcount.
Townspeople also celebrated the expansion of the Bethel Youth Activity Center into the former Southern Bank and Trust location. Garrie Moore, founder of the after-school program, said the move will allow it to maintain the old ABC store across the street to serve adults with programs including GED testing and health assessments. Through a partnership with PCC, the center began hosting workforce development programming.
Also with help from PCC, the Bethel Senior Center was able to install eight new desktop computers to offer new ways for seniors to connect to each other and to the internet.
FARMVILLE BRANDING
The Town of Farmville in September began a rebranding campaign aimed at updating the town’s image and increasing its digital presence. The town and the Farmville Group, an economic development partnership, consulted Scott Laumann, a graphic artist and marketing specialist, to develop the campaign.
The effort included creating a new logo, launching the VisitFarmvilleNC website to showcase the town’s restaurants, shops, historic locations and recreational facilities and introducing new signage, street post banners and clothing featuring the updated logo.
The logo was unveiled in a mural painted on a building at the Farmville Community Splash Pad in September. It incorporates the original town seal’s shape with an updated typeface and color scheme. It has since been placed prominently throughout the town.
EMILY MONK
DAVIDSON GALLERY
Farmville and its arts community also celebrated the opening of a new gallery
space to serve its thriving arts scene in September. The Emily Monk Davidson Gallery is located in the building next to the historic Paramount Theater and serves as an exhibition space for the visual arts and a lobby during intermission of the council’s theatrical productions.
The Farmville Community Arts Council had begun conceptualizing the gallery three years earlier but initially struggled to fund the project. The council was able to finance renovations to the century-old building after receiving a federal Community Development Block Grant with support from the town. The $350,000 renovation, also made possible by community support from benefactors like Monk Davidson, created an opening between the theater and gallery and included adding accessible restrooms.
TOWN CELEBRATIONS
An end to pandemic restrictions also helped the town return to some normalcy and celebrate big events like its 150th anniversary. Townspeople capped the year-long Farmville Sesquicentennial celebration with a parade down Main Street on Feb. 12, 2022, the date the town was founded in 1872.
After a two-year hiatus, the Farmville Dogwood Festival made a triumphant return in April with Mayor John Moore calling it “the best one in the festival’s history.” The annual event honoring the state flower drew crowds of locals as well as visitors from surrounding counties and other states.
Townspeople also celebrated the completed renovations to the home economics building at the Historic H.B. Sugg School in November and the completion of the Nathan R. Cobb Sr. Foundation Pavilion in September. The renovated Sugg
building will be used to host activities for Farmville’s senior population, and The Pitt County Health Department will offer services at the site. The pavilion, 3876 S. Main St., beside the Farmville Community Center, will provide citizens access to an open space for hosting outdoor gatherings, entertainment, youth events, retreats, family gatherings, officials said. It features a large sheltered space, a catering kitchen, storage space and restrooms.
WINTERVILLE WORKS
Winterville’s business district started 2022 by celebrating Tie Breakers’ much-anticipated opening of its second location. The local burger and beer joint officially opened on Railroad Street in February with a ribbon-cutting celebration. The opening followed the opening of what’s become another local favorite. Meating Ground Cafe opened in December 2021 in the Food Lion shopping center on Old Tar Road and build a loyal following through 2022.
Not far from Meating Ground, supporters of Aces for Autism gathered at a 21-acre site on Worthington Road in October to break ground for a multi-million dollar campus to serve students with autism.
The town also opened the first traffic garden in eastern North Carolina at Hillcrest Park in October. The garden is a bike and pedestrian safety skills project that was created in partnership with BikeWalk NC, AARP, Pitt County Parks and Recreation, ECU Health and other community groups. It features painted roadway elements like crosswalks, bike lanes, railroad crossings and a traffic circle that help kids learn how to navigate roads as safely as possible.
Investments like our Water Treatment Plant expansion, Liquified Natural Gas Plant expansion, and building transmission redundancy into our Electric system help us to make sure we are ready to provide these vital services to customers now and in the future.
As a public utility, GUC is constantly reinvesting in our systems to ensure you continue to have the safe and reliable power, natural gas, water, and wastewater service you have come to expect.
GUC – here for you now, and in the future.
Plymouth Mill employees volunteered to restore areas along the Roanoke River in Plymouth, improving the health of the river and beautifying the community’s green space.
In 2020, the Plymouth Mill contributed approximately $50,000 in grassroots giving to local communities.
The Plymouth Mill supports over 330 local jobs.
The Plymouth Mill is self-sufficient in meeting electricity needs for the facility, with nearly 100% of the mill’s energy coming from renewable sources. Domtar’s Plymouth Mill has an estimated regional economic impact of $634 million.
