Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point triad-city-beat.com March 23 – 29, 2016
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Electile dysfunction PAGE 10
Thai v. sushi PAGE 20
Quinn’s tenpins PAGE 24
Not dead yet PAGE 16
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March 23 — 29, 2016
Southern Culture on a Friday afternoon
UP FRONT 3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 6 Commentariat 6 The List 7 Barometer 7 Unsolicited Endorsement
by Brian Clarey
NEWS 8 Church parking 10 Electile dysfunction 12 HPJ: Poor in High Point
OPINION 14 Editorial: Another one gone from the tent 14 Citizen Green: Goodbye to Ralph Johnson and Earline Parmon 15 It Just Might Work: Trump mission 15 Fresh Eyes: Earline Parmon remembered
COVER 16 Postmortem: Not dead yet
CULTURE 20 Food: Thai vs. sushi 21 Barstool: Lady brew
21 22 Music: Tyler nails it 24 Art: Quinn Dalton on bowling
FUN & GAMES 26 March Madness Mecca
GAMES
SHOT IN THE TRIAD 28 Hill Street, Greensboro
ALL SHE WROTE 30 Hooray for Hollywood
27 Jonesin’ Crossword
QUOTE OF THE WEEK It’s true there was some black support of Bernie, but it takes a lifetime of those kinds of alliances and relationships that pay off in a primary. It took Obama time and effort to dislodge some of that support for Hillary — sooner or later the historical nature of the Obama campaign got traction and he outpolled her. But she didn’t lose that affection, those relationships. And they came back into play in 2016. — Ferrell Guillory, UNC journalism professor and director of the university’s Program on Public Life
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Scotty, shirtless and barefoot, allowed his big toe to bleed out for just a minute before daubing the fresh wound with cocktail napkins, squeezing it shut and cinching it tight with good duct tape. Things can get slow at the Blind Tiger in the early Friday afternoons, not like the old days on Walker Avenue, when Doc could open the place at 3 p.m. during the first round of the NCAA Tournament and have the stools full before he made it back behind the bar. Today, Scotty hosed the blood off the patio concrete before Southern Culture on the Skids began to load in their gear at the Blind Tiger to an empty room. It’s got to be the hundredth time they’ve played Doc’s club, under its different venues and ownership structures. The band’s been touring relentlessly and uninterruptedly for almost 30 years on this circuit — I swear I caught them the first time back in 1989 at Tipitina’s in New Orleans, playing with a trio from Philly called Baby Flame Heads. Their lead singer was an ethereal woman who played a tiny toy upright piano. I remember my roommate bought the T-shirt, remarkably stupid even for the standards of the day, and wore it all the time. I was relatively new to the South, and I probably dug into their fetishization of its most cherished icons — banana pudding, sweet tea, trailer parks, bouffants — for all the wrong reasons. After the show, 19 and wild-eyed drunk, I asked Rick Miller about the genesis of the song “Eight Piece Box.” “Finger-lickin’ good!” I believe was his reply. Almost 10 years later, I would be pelted in the eye with a piece of fried chicken during a SCOTS show at the Howlin’ Wolf, also in New Orleans, while they played a rendition of that very same song. Drummer Dave Hartman, sitting now at the bar at the Tiger, doesn’t really want to talk about the chicken. He wants to talk about “Weird” Al Yankovic, who was set to direct a video for a song called “House of Bamboo” off the band’s 1997 album Plastic Seat Sweat. “Did you know [‘Weird’ Al]’s had the same guys in his band from Day 1?” Hartman asked in amazement. The video was to be a parody of “Gilligan’s Island,” Hartman said, with Miller as Gilligan and bassist Mary Huff as Ginger. They cut the album in September 1996, set the budget in December. But the plan did not survive a January 1997 head-cutting at their record label, Geffen, after which nobody left at the company seemed to have heard of them. Hartman shrugs it off. That was years ago. Since then, he reminds, the Pixies have gotten back together and then broken up again. He takes the stage and the band works a soundcheck, running through three songs for the empty room. After 30 years, SCOTS is still playing on Doc’s stage. And though the industry has become unrecognizable, the players come and gone, their sound remains the same.
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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
CONTENTS
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March 23 — 29, 2016
CITY LIFE March 23 – 29 ALL WEEKEND Black Watch @ UNCSA (W-S) The Black Watch regiment, one of the oldest in Scotland, was deployed to Iraq in 2004, suffering heavy casualties. In this play, directed by Bob Francesconi and written by Gregory Burke, the plot actually was born out of interviews Burke conducted with soldiers who served with the regiment. The New York Times called the play “one of the most richly human works of art to have emerged from this long-lived war” and “an essential testament to the abiding relevance — and necessity — of theater.” There will be four performances in the Catawba Theatre Thursday through Saturday; tickets can be purchased at uncsa.edu/performances.
WEDNESDAY Bookmarks Presents: Brian Panowich @ Reynolda Branch Library (W-S), 6:30 p.m. Forsyth County Libraries and Bookmarks welcome a fresh voice in Southern fiction in Brian Panowich, a firefighter from east Georgia, who visits Winston-Salem for a discussion and book signing of his debut novel, Bull Mountain. The book was named one of the top 20 best books of 2015 by the Amazon.com overlords, so it must be decent at least; its juicy premise involves a criminal empire saga in the mountains of Georgia and good ol’ brother-pitted-against-brother drama. Find out more at bookmarksnc.org.
THURSDAY “Building a More Inclusive Society” @ Wake Forest University (W-S), 7 p.m. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “Until there is peace between religions, there can be no peace in the world.” It’s in that pursuit that Naeem Baig, president of the Islamic Circle of North America, visits Wait Chapel to speak about his work in the American Muslim community and the importance of interfaith dialogue. Among impressive line items on Baig’s resume is his leadership in a recent national billboard campaign dispelling negative stereotypes about Islam. The event is sponsored in part by Wake’s Muslim Student Association. The event’s free, and you can get more details at events.wfu.edu.
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by Joanna Rutter
SUNDAY
Easter in Old Salem @ Old Salem Historic District (W-S), 9:30 a.m. Celebrate Easter like it’s 1772 (sans hoopskirts and powdered wigs, unless you’re into that) this weekend as Winston-Salem’s Moravian past comes fully alive for this revered holiday. A full schedule of traditional Easter activities awaits, including a bring-your-ownbasket egg hunt in the Salem Tavern Meadow at 10:30 a.m. and traditional Easter hymns played on a Tannenberg organ. Tickets and info can be found at oldsalem.org/easter.
Shakir Khan and Harshad Kanetkar @ Triad Hindu Temple (GSO), 1 p.m. If celebrating a Western holy day isn’t your scene, the India Association of the Triad welcomes you to experience the traditional music of the sitar and tabla, just in time for Holi, the Hindu festival of colors. (If you don’t mind a schlepp, there’s also a big Holi festival in Gibsonville’s Grove Winery earlier in the day, too.) Khan and Kanetkar have both toured internationally, so it’s a rare thing to have them in northeast Greensboro for this significant holiday. Find more details at triadhindutemple. com.
Easter Egg Hunt @ High Point City Lake Park, 10 a.m. Expect chaos and glee at this big Easter weekend family to-do. The hunt for 3 and unders begins at 11 a.m., ages 4-7 begins at 11:45 a.m., and ages 8-10 begins at 12:30 p.m. Your kids may momentarily lose their minds with joy from free train and carousel rides. Emotionally prepare yourself: chances are, you will probably see at least one giant costumed and slightly creepy Easter bunny. The event will be held rain or shine. More info at highpointnc.gov.
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SATURDAY
TUESDAY Black Violin @ High Point Theatre, 8 p.m. Classically trained violinists Kevin Sylvester and Wilner Baptiste combine the classics with a hip hop, jazz and funk to create a unique and unexpected sound — so unexpected, in fact, that they named their latest album Stereotypes, as in, the stereotypes about both classical music and black musicians they are dismantling with style. Grab tickets at highpointtheatre.com
Poetry Reading: Brenda Marie Osbey @ UNCG Elliot University Center (GSO), 11 a.m. Poet laureate emerita of Louisiana, New Orleans native, and bilingual poet and essayist Brenda Marie Osbey will read from her newest collection All Souls. Her poetry often explores themes of colonial history and race (“tread the slavebricked streets of my own city/ the wastes of downtown streets where/ children/ sell themselves for fast-food meals of ground meat and grease”). The reading, hosted by the African American and African Diaspora Studies program, will be held in Claxton Room. Osbey will sign books afterwards. Visit aads.uncg.edu for more info.
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games
Lack of training, communication, interpretation and understanding of the laws and our US Constitutional rights seem to be huge issues here as well. I would tell you more… but you would not believe it if I did. Good article here. MiMill, via triad-city-beat.com No prophet honored in his hometown The tactics that the city used against [the Rev. Nelson] Johnson and his organization are as insane as they are true; they’re also highly effective: designed to make your blood boil — you’ll see should they use them on you [“Fresh Eyes: Honor the prophet… the time is now!”; by CJ Brinson; March 16, 2016]. Al McMullin Walle, Greensboro
All She Wrote
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6 possible presidential election outcomes by Brian Clarey
1. Trump v. Clinton
Smart money says the top of the ticket in 2016 will belong to Hillary and the Donald, who have been stacking delegates while Bernie Sanders has been drawing crowds. In a Hillary/Drumpf contest, Trump’s voters would likely be more energized while Hillary could lose Bernie voters if they decide to stay home. Conversely, a lot of people who would ordinarily be lukewarm on Hillary could come into the general election energized to try to defeat Trump.
2. Trump v. Sanders
If Bernie runs the table on the rest of the Democratic primary season, we could see a real matchup between passionate constituencies and, as far as outcomes go, a total toss-up. The two have more in common than the way they say yooge: Both represent solid factions of their parties, each of which has the potential to splinter off into another political party. National polls have Sanders beating Trump, but Hillary enjoyed greater support in the key swing states so this one’s a gamble as well.
3. Cruz v. Clinton
Okay, let’s say Cruz somehow manages to swipe the nomination fair and square from Trump by winning the remaining primaries, securing the necessary delegates and the blessings of the Republican National Committee. Then he’ll have to face off against a well-managed Hillary team, who might start to look pretty good even to Bernie’s supporters against the theocrat from Texas. Remember, there are still some Americans who believe Cruz is either the Zodiac Killer or the frontman for Christian metal band Stryper.
4. Cruz v. Sanders
Try saying it out loud a couple times: “President Bernard Sanders.”
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’LL FIND...
Shot in the Triad
Games
Losing our way in North Carolina I am heartbroken for this great state [“Editorial: Losing faith in NC”; March 16, 2016]. Excellent editorial! Should be required reading for all North Carolinians. Keep up the terrific journalism, TCB folks. ARK3000, via triad-city-beat. com
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5. Contested Republican convention
It would be difficult for the Republican establishment to take the nomination away from Trump, who despite his vulgarity is winning delegates all over the map. But the modern GOP has been known to change rules it doesn’t like pretty much at whim. And taking the nomination away from Trump risks havoc at the convention in Cleveland in July. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, after what’s sure to be a debacle, any GOP candidate won’t win without Trump’s people. A brokered GOP convention would be a clear green light for either Bernie or Hillary, as would a third-party run from Trump or a more mainstream Republican candidate.
6. Contested Democratic convention
Back in February, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told CNN that his party might be headed for a contested convention in July. If that’s the case this year in Philadelphia, all bets are off. A contested convention brokered convention — a drawn out, state-by-state electoral process that hasn’t really happened in either party since 1952 — might be just what this country needs. But let’s get real: Hillary would never let it get to that.
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Performing Arts Center
WFIQ/ Bailey Park
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Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
The thing is, they almost did. In watching Carolina win the ACC tournament this year, I found great pleasure in the fast-paced, play-yourheart-out style of basketball that the NBA is often lacking. But even though the conference is stacked with phenomenal teams this year, the tourney looked like a knockoff of the real deal when I let the NCAA matchups consume me this weekend. For me, basketball lost its glow, its unbridled excitement after MJ’s reign in the ’90s. It’s a joy to watch Steph Curry play, entrancing even, especially when he drains a long three, breaks a defender’s ankles or sinks a buzzer-beating bomb. But the NCAA tournament — with moments like Texas Tech’s humanly impossible double-digit comeback in 44 seconds to send a game into overtime, then another, and ultimately a win — is hypnotizing, magical, dazzling. The unthinkable happens, and then it happens again and again and again. That may be visible in individual NBA players, but not a team, not every single play. The NCAA tourney, I’m now convinced, is the greatest expression of what makes basketball the greatest game on earth. Except, of course, for Michael Jordan.
Games
and never looking back. I’ve watched a fair amount of college basketball since then — not by locals’ standards, just compared to my past consumption. Even while taking classes at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, I root against the Blue Devils. I attended part of the ACC tournament last year, both the men’s and women’s, and this year saw UNC play at the Dean Dome for the first time (I cheered against my home team again, watching Carolina slaughter UNCG). Thanks to our former sports writer, Jeff “Jarf” “Da God” Laughlin, I watched a chunk of last year’s NCAA tourney, but 2016 is the first time I immersed myself in it. With 20 minutes before the opening tip-off, I filled out my first bracket, with little reason behind my choices. Somehow I picked a few big upsets, like Northern Iowa who won the first round with an insane half-court bomb, Hawai’i — which I was delighted to learn later goes by the Rainbow Warriors — and also Gonzaga and Arkansas-Little Rock. Like everyone else, I didn’t expect Middle Tennessee or Yale to win. But I also called some stupid upsets that never arrived, forecasting that Kentucky would lose in the first round and St. Joseph’s — an 8-seed school I’d never heard of — would knock out top-ranked Oregon in the second bout.
Fun & Games
by Eric Ginsburg Big surprise, I know: Local North Carolina White Guy Loves College Basketball. But it wasn’t always so. I grew up a strict adherent to the cult of Michael Jordan. We’re talking a life-size cardboard cutout, Space Jam sleeping bag and a dogged commitment to practicing turnaround jumpers and threes on the neighbors’ driveway hoop. The only pro basketball game I’ve ever attended, I cheered against the home team in the nosebleeds of the Boston Garden, pulling instead for my man Michael. He, of course, delivered. I long ago gave up on the dream of playing in the NBA, the only professional aspiration I remember holding as a minor, but meeting Michael Jordan is still tops on my personal bucket list. (Seriously, I’m still trying to devise a way to exploit my title as a journalist to end up in the same room as him — maybe there’s hope thanks to the Greensboro Swarm.) I eventually transitioned to watching the rise of the Red Sox and Patriots, and the only sport I truly love started fading into the background. When I moved to North Carolina 10 years ago, locals quickly informed me that I needed to pick a side in the state’s college basketball obsession, and I kind of pitied them for lacking real (read: pro) teams to cheer for. But again, I followed Michael Jordan, picking Carolina
Culture
The greatest sport’s highest expression
Cover Story
Readers: Y’all chose Bailey Park and the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, just like Ginsburg, with almost 50 percent of the vote going to the project on downtown Winston-Salem’s east side. The Tanger Performing Arts Center and LeBauer Park, a similarly overlapping project in Greensboro, took a quarter of the electorate despite campaigning from Downtown Greenway folks, who took 14 percent. High Point received absolutely zero votes. The other options garnered negligible support.
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Opinion
Jordan Green: I’m tempted to vote for the Downtown Greenway in Greensboro because it’s an utterly unique asset that can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of income and because it literally radiates from the fringe of downtown 360 degrees, with the potential to spur development with increased urban density. But I’m going to have to go with the mixed-use ballpark development in Winston-Salem because the mix of retail, a grocery store and new residential rooftops augurs the kind
Eric Ginsburg: Wake Forest Innovation Quarter and Bailey Park. Have you been there? If you had, you wouldn’t be arguing with me. It’s like Union Square and Lebauer Park combined, and unlike the baseball project Jordan chose, it’s actually in a downtown. It certainly helps that it went up so quickly, especially in comparison to the Downtown Greenway (which would be my second choice).
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News
Brian Clarey: The performing arts center/Lebauer Park. The last few years in the Triad have seen a boom in projects designed to spur economic development and improve quality of life. All of those on our list are worthy, but I’m going to go with Greensboro’s new performing arts center and attendant park, which will activate an entire quadrant on the north end of downtown. I’m not sure how the booking will go for the new venue — execution is often the weak spot in ventures like this — but already, months away from completion, the park adjacent to the Cultural Arts Center looks promising.
of vital, urban development that is well underway in Charlotte and Raleigh, but really hasn’t been seen in either of the two big Triad cities yet, with the exception of a few scattered condos.
Up Front
This week we asked about the most transformative projects in downtown Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point. According to our editors and readers, Winston-Salem comes out on top.
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Most transformative downtown project?
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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NEWS
Neighbors, church tangle over planned parking lot by Eric Ginsburg
Neighbors are incensed about Westminster Presbyterian Church’s plans to build a parking lot amidst residential properties, arguing that not only would the plan be ugly and lower property values, but also that it is illegal. When Rich and Tricia Fisher learned that Westminster Presbyterian Church planned to open a youth house next door to it, they welcomed their new neighbors. After all, the Fishers were members of the Greensboro church, located across the street, and believed in it. Rich would pick up the lot, blowing leaves on the property too. He had a key, in case someone left a light on after a Boy Scout meeting or Sunday school session for middle and high schoolers, and he’d pop over to flip off the switch. Tricia once taught a Sunday school class at the house, and their kids spent time there, too. “We were more worried about disturbing them than they ever disturbed us,” Rich Fisher said. The leader of the church had approached the Fishers at the time, letting them know about plans for the youth house before undertaking the venture, and confided in Rich that the church’s proposals were outside of city regulations, adding that they didn’t intend to do anything to the house that would prevent its return to residential use in the future, Fisher said. But that saga began more than a decade ago, and now the Fishers are part of a group spearheading a campaign to stop the church from expansion. Church leadership has changed, as have plans for the lot and another next to it. In the process, the Fishers quit the church. The root of the current conflict, which is far from resolved, is a plan to add a parking lot as part of city-mandated overhaul of renovations to the youth house. Opponents contend that Westminster Presbyterian Church has intentionally deceived residents and the city, arguing that the parking-lot plans break the law and set a dangerous precedent that would allow for church sprawl into neighborhoods throughout
the city. In a statement on its website, the church says it is following city instructions and will add landscaping to beautify the lot, adding that the building itself will look much the same from the exterior after required renovations. “Hamilton Forest is our neighborhood,” the statement reads. “We’re the original neighbor, having called this home since 1859. When a new street was added next to our chapel, we requested that this new street be called Westminster Drive. “We are excited about upgrading our youth house and continuing with our growing youth ministry,” it continues. “We are committed to make these proposed changes with as little impact on the community as possible.” But some neighbors aren’t buying it. Jim Mahoney, who lives next door to the proposed parking lot with his wife Linda, said nobody knew about the plans for the lot until Linda saw a surveyor on the property and inquired about what was happening. The church was trying to fly under the radar, Mahoney said. And Fisher agreed — when neighbors learned about the plans for additional parking, they were “alarmed,” and though they collectively approached Westminster, the church’s initial reaction was “We don’t have to meet with you,” Fisher said. Mahoney and Fisher said that the church operated the youth house for several years without making required coding changes until 2008, when the city informed the church that it couldn’t continue utilizing the space unless specific changes were implemented. The church dropped plans for renovations at the time, they said, but ignored direction that the space couldn’t be used. When the neighbors learned about possible expansion plans next to the house and complained to the city in 2014, the city stepped in and halted use of the space unless several upgrades were made to the property, Mahoney and Fisher said. Mike Kirkman, the city-planning manager, more or less confirmed this narrative, though he said he isn’t com-
A neighbor’s sign opposing the parking lot adorns a yard across the street from the main Westminster campus on West Friendly Avenue.
pletely clear on the historical timeline. Kirkman said Westminster didn’t proceed with a 2008 permit request, but the city didn’t investigate continued usage until 2014 when complaints arose, adding that the city operates on a complaint basis. Neighbors argue that the youth house should be classified as an “accessory use,” a legal designation that requires religious institutions to keep certain activities and buildings on adjacent properties. Because the house is across the street, this argument essentially says any church use of the building should be a non-starter, let alone further development plans. But the church says that the youth house can be considered a “separate religious assembly,” and the city approved it as such in late 2015. That designation requires a certain number of parking spots per square footage of principal worship area, Kirkman said. “From the city’s perspective, ownership doesn’t in and of itself say it’s principal versus accessory use,” he said, adding that a good comparison might be college campuses with satellite properties or a church that also operates a mission church. A principal use, separate religious
ERIC GINSBURG
assembly requires “significant changes” to the building to make it handicapped accessible, safer and parking accessible, Kirkman said, adding that a determining factor is whether the space can function as an independently used space. Mahoney calls the designation “a fiction.” “If you buy Greensboro’s new theory that we can’t tell people what a religious assembly is, if you buy that, it means any church in the city can move any function in there, move it across the street and call it a separate religious assembly.” Fisher said the law is written to restrict accessory use for a reason, and that dubbing any related activity as a separate religious institution is a bogus way to skirt the law. “It’s written that way to prevent a church or religious assembly from taking over a neighborhood,” he said, adding that churches already have free rein with any contiguous properties but shouldn’t be allowed to hop across the street. Calling the youth house a separate worship space requires a parking lot, Fisher said. “But who will park there?” he asked, pointing out that parents will drive to attend their main church and drop
before the board of adjustment next week, but is now postponed until April, Kirkman said. From the city’s perspective, their goal is to make sure the plans meet the requirements for the property to be used in a safe manner, he said. Neighbors like Mahoney and Fisher are hoping that, with the help of a lawyer and community support on their side, they’ll win their appeal. Neighbors are open to a compromise with the church, Mahoney said, but the way things have unfolded, there’s a lack of trust. “They haven’t kept their promises in the past,” he said. “They haven’t communicated with us at all and they certainly aren’t a good neighbor.” That’s not always how Fisher has felt; he seems disappointed in his former church. “The youth house was not a real problem for must of us, and you know we live right next door to it,” Fisher said. “Unfortunately they used it in violation of city code for a number of years. What seems odd to us all is they own the two houses at the back of their parking lot. [Westminster] could easily convert one to the youth house.”
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of their middle schoolers at the youth house. That drives home the neighbors’ argument that the youth house isn’t a standalone religious facility, but rather is woven into the parent church. The Fishers and Mahoneys aren’t alone; signs opposing Westminster’s plans dot the neighborhood and a website called stopchurchsprawl.com projects their grievances. Neighbors have retained a lawyer to help fight the plans before the city’s board of adjustment. Mayor Nancy Vaughan is a member of the church, but said she hasn’t kept up with the plans or the current controversy. “I hate to say it, but I’m kind of a lapsed member at the moment, but this is my home church,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of knowledge about it because I haven’t been at church lately and it hasn’t come before city council, but I will say this is an issue we’re finding with a lot of other churches. I know that the church wants to be a good neighbor and if there is room for a compromise, I know they’ll do it.” Vaughan added that the church did open up a second campus in north Greensboro to alleviate some of the crowding at Westminster, and said she can “certainly understand” why neighbors would be concerned. Councilman Mike Barber is a member of the church too, she said. Barber couldn’t be reached for comment before press time. Church member Cam Creech, who chairs Westminster’s property committee, said there are no plans for the church to expand beyond the existing plans, adding, “We have what we need for our growing congregation.” “In order to do the changes that the city requires, we have to have on-site parking,” Creech said. “We will need adjacent parking for 25 parking spots. It’s a condition of us updating and getting the youth house so that it can be occupied and used.” Creech said the lot won’t be “a bulldoze job,” and encouraged people to look at images on the church’s website that show what the site will look like. “We tried to be very upfront with neighbors and the community,” he said. “We can’t do anything yet because the neighbors have appealed the city’s decision to allow this.” The issue had been scheduled to go
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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Council seat hangs in balance as election board counts provisionals by Jordan Green
The tabulation of absentee ballots narrows margin in South Ward city council race to one vote as the local board of elections contends with a deluge of provisional ballots. Carolyn Highsmith’s lead in the razor-thin contest for the Democratic nomination for the South Ward seat on Winston-Salem City Council narrowed from four votes to a single vote on Tuesday, with the Forsyth County Board of Elections’ decision to approve late absentee ballots. The three-member local election board voted on Tuesday to approve 460 postmarked absentee ballots received by mail on the day before the March 15 primary, which were not counted as part of the initial tabulation of unofficial and incomplete results on election night. The board also considered an additional 126 absentee ballots that were received on election day or the next day that lacked postmarks. On a split vote with the two Republicans prevailing over the board’s lone Democrat, the board elected to disapprove 101 mail-in absentee ballots that were received on the day after the election, reasoning that the law states that absentee ballots may not be JORDAN GREEN South Ward city council candidate Carolyn Highsmith (front row, center) watches the Forsyth County Board accepted after the date of the election. of Elections count absentee ballots, along with opponent John Larson (back row, center). Elections Director Tim Tsujii said it’s safe to infer that the ballots were placed staff table across the meeting room, but ty Board of Elections to also vote to week. He explained that when voters in the mail on election day considering his subordinate didn’t have the vote extend the certification deadline. move but their voter registration has not that they arrived on the following day. count, so the group ping-ponged back. When the board reconvenes on been updated, the board of elections Fleming El-Amin, the Democratic The final outcome of the race Thursday, the three members will conredirects them to vote in the precinct board member, argued that the board remains up in the air, with almost a sider 946 provisional ballots. Tsujii said where they resided 30 days before the should “favor” the voters considering thousand provisional ballots yet to be only 47 of those were related to voters election and automatically updates their that the mistake was made by the US counted. Tsujii told the board that not having photo ID, a requirement imvoter registration. Some voters choose Postal Service. his staff had been overwhelmed by posed by a 2013 omnibus elections law to vote a provisional ballot in the pre“I think you make provisional ballots, and overhaul by the Republican-controlled cinct where they appear rather than go a really good point,” at Tsujii’s request, the General Assembly that went into effect to their proper precinct to vote. Secretary Stuart Russell board voted to extend the for the first time with this year’s primary. Tsujii, who formerly worked for the Forsyth County said. “But the General deadline to Thursday to Tsujii said seven of those voters filled Guilford County Board of Elections, was overwhelmed finalize the provisional Assembly should address out a “reasonable impediment” declarawas hired to head the Forsyth County it. We’ve got to follow the ballot count and certify tion allowing their votes to be counted. elections office only a month before the with provisionlaw.” the result. Tsujii said state The remaining 40 were required to primary election. al ballots in the The new tabulation Elections Director Kim appear at the board of elections no later “With this being my first election in and its impact on the March 15 primary. Strach notified elections than Monday to present photo ID in Forsyth County, I took the opportunity South Ward race passed staff in all 100 counties order for their votes to be counted; most to assess our performance and would without mention before that state law allows likely they were not counted. like to recommend some changes,” Tsuthe board adjourned for an extension of the “Anecdotally, a significant number of jii told the board. “Some of the changes around 2 p.m., prompting reporters and deadline. He said other urban counties [the provisional ballots] is due to voters I have in mind are to improve on certain representatives of the two campaigns to across the state experienced similarly wanting to choose a different party procedural practices, and there are swarm over a staff table. In the confuhigh numbers of provisional ballots, ballot and precinct transfers,” Tsujii said some efficiencies that could be improved sion, Tsujii directed them to another and that he expected the Wake Counin an interview with Triad City Beat last as well.”
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tions of the matter. Lonnie Albright, the assistant county attorney, said it’s up to the state board to determine whether to refer the matter to the Forsyth County District Attorney for possible prosecution. Tsujii also reported to the three local board members that an individual who was not registered to vote in Forsyth County appeared at a polling place on election day and filled out an application for a provisional ballot, and the ballot was mistakenly fed into the ballot counter. He told the board members that the ballot cannot be retracted and there was no action they could take, but he thought they needed to know. “Omigod,” Highsmith gasped from the audience. To make the episode even more strange, state law provides that when a ballot is cast, a voter’s registration is automatically updated, and consequently the individual is now on the county’s voting roll. It’s curious process when someone registers to vote by casting an unauthorized ballot.
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Tsujii will present his recommendations on Thursday. The March 15 primary election saw long lines in several precincts, with relatively high turnout, although not quite as high as the watershed 2008 presidential primary. Voters at the polling place at First Alliance Church on the south side of Winston-Salem waited up to 90 minutes to vote. The final upload of votes from First Alliance Church at 12:47 a.m. erased Larson’s 13-vote lead, putting Highsmith up by four votes. Tsujii said the delay was caused by virtue of it being the chief judge’s first experience closing an election. He added that Forsyth County’s experience was not unique, with Mecklenburg County posting results at 1:24 a.m. and Guilford County tabulating past 11 p.m. “I’m going to look into efficiencies in how we handled election-night results because the chief judges are responsible for bringing back supplies and results,” Tsujii said. “I’m going to look into improvements and efficiencies. Going back to your question about staffing, I think that is a concern that I need to address.” Tsujii told the board on Tuesday afternoon that his staff still needs to process 380 out of the 946 provisional ballots. The board went ahead and made some decisions about some of the ballots that have already been processed, sometimes discussing individual ballots in painstaking detail. Tsujii presented four cases to the board in which individual voters voted twice. In two instances, the voters voted in early voting and then returned to the polls on election day and cast an additional provisional ballot. The other two voters, who share the same address in Kernersville, appeared together at the Kernersville early voting site on March 7 and voted at 1:15 and 1:16 p.m. respectively. Then, they returned to the same early-voting site and voted by provisional ballot at 2:05 p.m. and 2:09 p.m. The board voted unanimously to retract the provisional ballots of all four voters so that only one of their votes would count. All four voters are registered Democrats. The board also voted to direct Tsujii to contact the voters and cite the statute spelling out that voting twice is a felony, and to inform the state Board of Elec-
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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HIGH POINT JOURNAL
City faces dual challenges of poverty and downtown revitalization by Jordan Green
The city of High Point is confronted with dual needs of attacking concentrated poverty and finding a catalyst project to bring revitalization. The relationship between the two needs can get complicated. The number of housing units renting for less than $500 decreased by nearly half, from 2000 to 2010, Community Development Director Mike McNair told High Point City Council on Monday. Over the same period, the population increased from 85,839 to 104,371, with non-white residents’ share surging from 39.4 percent to 46.4 percent. McNair’s presentation included a map of so-called “racially concentrated areas of poverty,” with a minority concentration above 50 percent and poverty higher than 40 percent that covers major swaths of east-central portions of the city and then sweeps through the southwestern quadrant. It overlaps significantly with another map of the core city produced for a housing market segmentation study conducted last year by the Center for Housing and Community Studies at UNCG. The housing-market segmentation study map shows a continuous band coded red for “extremely weak” that stretches through the central parts of the city roughly from Meredith Street in the east through the central business district and down through the southwest area to Ward Avenue. The study characterizes the red zone as having the lowest home values, the highest vacancy rates, the highest rental rates, substandard homes and vacant lots. “They tend to go hand in hand,” McNair said of racially concentrated poverty and weak housing markets. Along with Rockford, Ill. and Baltimore, High Point was recently selected by the nonprofit Center for Community Progress for a scholarship to receive free technical assistance from a national team of experts over the next six months. The assistance in High Point will be focused on improving the city’s code enforcement system and developing comprehensive strategies to address non-housing needs of residents with
Assistant City Manager Randy Hemann discusses the value per acre of different kinds of properties. A map of the core city shows the area with an “extremely weak” housing market in red.
code violations. McNair noted that the UNCG study recommended different strategies, depending on the relative strength or weakness of housing markets in different areas. “You’ve seen that probably riding around certain neighborhoods that there’s one bad house that sticks out,” McNair said. “And if you can do something with that bad house, the neighborhood will look a lot better. You get into some of the red areas you’ll see a preponderance of problem properties, we’ll call them: burnouts, dilapidated houses, high grass. Those we’ll need to sort of target on a proactive basis — go out and look for them and find them and do something with them. “We know we have these large racially concentrated areas of poverty leading to food desserts, low homeownership rates, low employment rates,” he continued. “We’ve got all these blighting influences and we have these concerns of commu-
nity safety. These are actually issues that we hear out in the community. Neighborhoods tell us this. Liquor houses are a big thing, drug houses, prostitution, block parties.” The highest priority of his department is fully staffing the code enforcement division, McNair said. He told council members that the city offered one prospective code enforcement officer a job last week and is trying to track down references for another candidate who was recently interviewed. McNair said staff wants to get a resolution of support from city council and to work with the city’s legal department and the UNC School of Government to make the maximum effort within the constraints of state law. He added that the city might consider using the nuisance abatement law to address properties with repeated code violations and a history of criminal activity. Language in state law referencing conditions “inimical to the health of the community”
JORDAN GREEN
provides ample latitude for the city to craft policies to creatively address blighted properties, McNair suggested. “As you step up code enforcement, you’re going to have more appeals,” said at-large Councilman Latimer Alexander, who was one of the few council members to respond to McNair’s presentation with questions or comments. “What can we do other than just back your play?” McNair noted that any condemnation proceedings would still require a public hearing. “It’s the appetite that you all want to have as elected officials to really address the community issues,” City Manager Greg Demko added, “because it’s not going to be easy.” A companion presentation by Assistant City Manager Randy Hemann on “values and vision” for revitalizing the city in some ways reinforced McNair’s presentation while cutting against it in others. Hemann challenged council
review. As an example, he pointed to Sheraton Towers, a luxury hotel designed by William Lee Stoddart and built in 1920. Converted to a retirement community in 1982, the building is now valued at $5.3 million per acre. At-large Councilwoman Cynthia Davis challenged Hemann’s assertion that the city needs to strategically pick areas for revitalization that are likely to bring the highest return on investment. “I’m really concerned that everybody get a slice of the pie instead of just a few,” she said, noting that the areas coded red for an “extremely weak” housing market in the UNCG study have been in decline since the 1960s. “Most of the money we’ve been spending is in the red, is it not?” Hemann replied. “My question to you would be, if that’s the case and you haven’t seen the results that you want and that’s where we’ve been investing, then what about the thought of, would it be more successful to invest on this edge here and push that line that way?”
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members to consider what city investments would provide the highest yield and stabilize areas in decline. “You’ve got to have a catalyst,” Hemann said. “You’ve got to assemble the land. You’ve got to offer incentives. You’ve got to have a plan — a detailed, by-the-block plan. And you’ve got to have somebody take that first step to incent it. And I think we’ve got to have a catalyst project in our downtown that helps with that. Once you get it started, it becomes self-perpetuating. There will be others that want to join in.” Based on a review of selected properties on the city’s tax rolls, Hemann said density is the most important factor for High Point to increase its tax base. He contrasted the $845,122-per-acre value of a Walmart store on North Main Street with an un-restored two-story building in downtown, which holds a value of $1.5 million. Attracting investors to renovate downtown buildings with retail on the first floor and apartments at the upper levels could make a significant difference in tax revenue, he said. High-rises create even more tax value per acre, according to Hemann’s
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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OPINION EDITORIAL
Black like GOP Black Republicans in North Carolina are about as rare as buried arrowheads — you occasionally hear about people finding them, but so few of us have ever had the pleasure. Here in the last days of the Southern Strategy, though, it made a kind of sense for the NC GOP to elect an African American as chairman. But Hasan Harnett’s rise in the state party was not without incident — earlier this month, Harnett claimed on Facebook that the party headquarters had “disabled” his email. And on Monday the NC GOP released a memo detailing a “no confidence” resolution on Harnett, with a vote to censure him and place “severe emergency restrictions” on his activities. The charge: “gross inefficiency.” Some of it has to do with the convention. The party claims Harnett tinkered with the fee structure for the convention in May, and that he didn’t tell people about it early enough. They also accuse him of wasting staff and volunteers for activities not sanctioned by the party’s central committee, the “allowing to be posted on public blogs articles regarding the internal affairs of the NC GOP,” trying to remove party leaders without due process and causing “concern and expense” from actions taken regarding the NC GOP website. In short, he’s been acting like a Republican. The final charge, “creation of an uncertain and disrespectful environment,” contains the most loaded language of them all. They might as well have called him “uppity.” Because the problem with black Republicans is that, to some practitioners of the faith, their very existence goes against the party line. Many — not all, but many — Republicans are uncomfortable with African Americans in positions of leadership, which is evident by the way the party has almost unilaterally treated our first black president. Tone-deaf to the techniques of racist oppression, they create alternate rules for blacks, like the one that says President Obama shouldn’t nominate a Supreme Court justice, or the one that says Harnett’s vote of no confidence stemmed, in part, “because he has fallen well short of his own fundraising goals and promises.” Of note is that former NC GOP Chair Claude Pope left the organization $84,000 in debt when he stepped down in 2013 — without the added incentive of a no-confidence vote. And the notion of Harnett’s timely “disrespectful” behavior rings hollow, considering that Politico has been writing about rumors of his demise since September 2015. Back then, Niger Innis, another black Republican, told Politico that Harnett’s efforts to work with the old guard of the NC GOP had been rebuffed and that the chair’s demise was imminent, though inadvisable. “Is the Republican Party ready for the repercussions of attempting to force failure upon the first black chairman of North Carolina?” he asked. In September, the answer was, apparently, “Not quite yet.”
CITIZEN GREEN
Goodbye to Ralph Johnson and Earline Parmon I’ve been feeling nostalgia lately for the spring of 2008, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton waged an epic battle for North Carolina’s delegate votes in the presidential primary. That’s when I first met by Jordan Green Ralph Johnson. Sharon Hightower (now a member of Greensboro City Council) had recruited me to moderate a pair of candidate forums for a group called the Guilford County Unity Effort. I remember Ralph Johnson pulling into the parking lot in a small pickup truck on that gorgeous spring evening in 2008, probably grabbing a sheaf of papers before ambling into the church gymnasium at New Light Baptist Church. He ran a home remodeling business, and it seemed as though he had just come from a job site. We had candidates for lieutenant governor and state treasurer coming to the candidate forum, and Johnson’s sense of righteous indignation impressed me. After introducing himself, I recall him saying something like, “We’ve got to hold these politicians accountable, Jordan.” Politics can often seem like an arena of fakery, gamesmanship and self-serving puffery. Johnson and Hightower did real work in the community, including mobilizing citizens to keep the White Street Landfill closed, and they had the clout to call elected officials to account. For a young journalist with a healthy suspicion of authority, it seemed natural to make common cause with these two; they were links to the community I wished to serve. Of course, when they ran for office — Hightower was elected to city council in 2013, and Johnson to the state House in 2014 — my relationship with them by necessity took on a new distance. It absolutely shook me when I learned about Johnson’s death after midnight while wrapping up work on an election in which he had just gone down in defeat. Johnson’s passing comes as a cruel blow to me because his presence feels tangible and of the moment. Far from being a person out of a different era, it seems as though Johnson should be gearing up for the next fight. So too with Earline Parmon, the former state lawmaker who also died on the March 15 primary. Although Parmon had retired from the state Senate in early 2015 to serve as US Rep. Alma Adams’ outreach director, her tenacious work in Raleigh remained very much of the political moment, from fighting for compensation for eugenics victims to decrying Republican cuts to unemployment and asking tough questions
about Health and Human Services Director Aldona Wos’ failure to deliver food-stamp benefits to eligible citizens. Making the rounds from polling places to campaign parties on primary day, it was impossible not to run into people who had been profoundly affected by Parmon. John Holleman, who was campaigning for his brother Norman’s reelection bid as register of deeds in Forsyth County, said he considered Parmon as being like a sister. They had served together on the Forsyth County Commission in the early 1990s, and Holleman recalled with delight how the two had attended a reception on a yacht in Seattle together. A man with a substantial appetite, Holleman had been descending a flight of steps with a heaping plate in his hands when a wake heaved him upwards. Holleman told me that Parmon kidded him: “John, I’m gonna call the Winston-Salem Journal and tell them you’re drunk on a yacht.” More seriously, state Rep. Ed Hanes told me: “She was a leader of people, period. Who’s next? Is it [Sen. Paul] Lowe? Is it me? Maybe someone we don’t even know who it is. That’s our responsibility — to be that person that steps up.” The way I got to know Earline Parmon couldn’t be more different than how I became friends with Ralph Johnson. I challenged an electioneering scheme involving a campaign flier handed out during the 2012 primary that misleadingly referenced a slate as “the Democratic candidates,” implying that their opponents were not Democrats. Although Parmon disavowed any involvement with the shady political action committee that produced the fliers, the fact that her campaign workers were handing out the fliers indicated otherwise. During a tense phone conversation I had to tell her I didn’t think her account was credible, and she heatedly asked me if I was calling her a “liar.” The true testament to Parmon’s character is that her warmth and common touch made me forget that we had ever had any disagreements. That’s an admirable political skill, and many elected officials today would do well to learn what she knew so well — how to make adversaries into friends. I will always remember running into Parmon at a get-out-the-vote event at a park in East Winston in the spring of 2014. It was my first major outing with my then 7-month-old daughter. Parmon took her out of my arms and made goo-goo noises at her. “Count on Earline to make a baby smile,” said state Rep. Evelyn Terry, who was standing nearby. That’s only a small reflection of Earline Parmon’s substantial abilities. Winston-Salem will miss her, and I will, too.
Trump mission trips
Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
Jonathan Michels is a freelance journalist based in Winston-Salem. He is working on a grant-funded documentary history of social justice activism in North Carolina.
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Visit triad-city-beat.com to read an extended version of this interview.
Opinion
Q: What was life like growing up in Winston-Salem during both the height of the tobacco industry and Jim Crow segregation? A: As a youngster growing up, RJ Reynolds was one of the basic industries in terms of the economy. It used to be referred to as “Papa Reynolds” because it was paternalistic in that the leaders of that company decided on what would happen in Winston, when it would happen and how it would happen. I lived a couple of blocks on East Fourth Street from the [Reynolds] headquarters and many of the surrounding factories. I woke up in the mornings smelling menthol, went to sleep smelling menthol. All my life, growing up, that’s a memory I will never forget. I remember the black signs and the white signs. One of my most vivid memories [was] when Eisenhower was running for president [and] he came to the train station. Even then when you went down on the platform, black people were herded this way and white people that way. [There] was a water fountain in there that said “colored” and “white.” I rebelled against that and many times would drink out of the white fountain just because they said I couldn’t. I do remember because of Jim Crow getting books at school that had no covers. Many of the pages were torn out. We always got the short stick of education. In spite of that, our parents and the leaders knew that education was the key to changing Jim Crow and segregation. I very much remember Jim Crow and the impact of segregation on this city and throughout the South. Q: During the 1940s, tobacco workers at RJ Reynolds organized to form Local 22, an interracial labor union, led mostly by African-American women. What impact did Local 22 have on the African-American community and how did its members shape your own perspectives? A: The black women at RJ Reynolds, after having worked in horrible and devastating conditions for so long, just decided that they [not only] had a right to work but they also had a right to decent and clean, healthy working conditions. They knew about unions
in the North and how they made a difference and you were able to negotiate for certain rights and certain benefits. Knowing they had to be providers for their families, don’t quit the job but try to make it better. They knew that trying to bring a union into Winston-Salem particularly at RJ Reynolds was like David taking on Goliath. They were fed up and they weren’t going to take it anymore. Together, they could make a difference. Everything I am in terms of my community involvement, my political involvement is because of [social justice activists like] Velma Hopkins and Mazie Woodruff. They were caring women, they were strong women and wanted to make a change. I started going to meetings with Miss Hopkins. She sort of embraced me and mentored me as a youngster. I had gone to Goler [Metropolitan AME Zion] Church on East Fourth Street when Dr. [Martin Luther] King was there and the church was crowded. Miss Hopkins saw me trying to get in and she pulled me in up front. All these things just endeared me to her. I just followed her. I learned from her. I sat under her tutelage and saw how strong of a black woman she was, in every aspect whether it was voting rights or jobs. I remember Mazie Woodruff and Velma Hopkins going to the board of county commissioners. Can you imagine black women standing up and questioning them? One particular time it was about closing [Kate B. Reynolds Memorial Hospital], the only black hospital in Winston-Salem. We called it Katie B. Some legislation had been changed without any input from the community that actually changed the focus of that hospital. I went with Miss Hopkins and Mazie Woodruff and a couple of other women. They [got] up talking and there were all white men sitting there. I would just be cowering. I would be so scared because they didn’t mince words. They would say, “You can’t continue to do black folk like this.” Miss Hopkins had such an impact on my life. It’s who I am today in terms of my belief system, my value system and my moral system and standing up for what’s right without fear of being intimidated. I don’t know of any aspect of life making it better for the African-American community that she and Mazie didn’t touch. I had the honor and the pleasure of serving with Mazie Woodruff as a county commissioner. I can’t really say how awesome that was.
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by Jonathan Michels In 2013, I interviewed former state Sen.Earline Parmon about the legacy of a landmark interracial labor union in Winston-Salem called Local 22. Many of the union leaders were by Jonathan Michels African-American women who pushed for economic, gender and racial equality at the height of segregation. Parmon’s sudden death last week at age 72 reminded me of our brief conversations and the importance of documenting the history of our community.
Up Front
I know I’m not the only one looking at the statistics rolling in after each state primary, bracing myself against the next wave of red bar graphs, and wondering: Who are these people voting for Donald Trump? The rest of us are disapby Joanna Rutter pointed. Some of us are angry. And we are all afraid. So we re-post, and “like” each other’s statuses, and re-tweet with depressed commentary. But we’re shouting into a vacuum. The thing about Trump supporters, to which non-Trump supporters are slowly catching on, is that none of these people are on our Facebook feeds. We purged them long ago. They are the Americans that progressive culture turned into a joke: the people who own arsenals of guns for self-defense, the fliers of Confederate flags, those whose manufacturing jobs have been outsourced to other countries, leaving small towns in ruin. Scorning them only seems to confirm what they believe about the current status of the country. These supporters are anything but a joke now (and never should’ve been). But we may still have time before November to reverse their brainwashing with a format many of their demographic will understand: a mission trip. A mission trip, in theory, is cross-cultural communication to offer assistance and share an ideology in the hopes of bettering lives, right? So why couldn’t we employ that kind of thought sharing where Trump’s support is thickest? All we’d need is a 15-passenger van and enough PB&J for a long weekend. We could ship out from the Triad to crucial states like Ohio and Florida, or simply rural areas of North Carolina with large pockets of Trump support, to visit with people, listen to their fears and share facts. The key element would be to have multiple ethnicities, religious traditions and sexual orientations represented on the team. Ralph Waldo Emerson put Trump’s platform into words 150 years ago: “Fear always springs from ignorance.” It’s harder to be afraid of something once you understand it better. Imagine a Syrian college student speaking about his immigration experience to a rural classroom, or a gay couple giving an elderly hetero couple’s garage door a fresh coat of paint while chatting about how they fell in love. And instead of holding church services, we could hold informational meetings about how a few Jihadist extremists are not equivalent to a billion or so other peaceful Muslims. Trump’s supporters are just as afraid as we are of having their freedom taken away. Simply sharing knowledge and spreading cross-cultural understanding may be the missing key to dispelling that fear before November and beyond.
Earline Parmon, a link to the legacy of Local 22
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IT JUST MIGHT WORK
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March 23 — 29, 2016
Not dead yet
by Brian Clarey • Illustrations by Jorge Maturino
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WHO SHOWED UP
16
On Tuesday, March 15, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton enacted a magnificent five-state sweep over Sen. Bernie Sanders in that day’s primaries, capturing Florida by more than 30 points, pulling off squeakers in Illinois and Missouri — which she won by twotenths of a percent — and taking Ohio by 14 points.
In North Carolina, Clinton defeated Sanders by nearly 15 points, with strong support in Guilford and Forsyth. Donald Trump had a big night, too, maintaining his frontrunner status by claiming the Republican nomination in four of five states, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich taking his home state and Trump’s closest rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, winning none. In North Carolina, Cruz lost by just 40,000 votes, significant considering more than 20 percent of Republican primary voters chose neither Trump nor Cruz — a pool of about a quarter-million voters. And Cruz took Guilford and Forsyth counties by 5 and 3 points, respectively. Cruz is still alive. So, for the moment, is Sanders. This year, the picture comes off as unusually fuzzy. The polls seem unreliable; the national media shows bias, particularly in the cases of Trump and Sanders; and traditional voting patterns are breaking up. And while the March 15 primary may not have brought a final clarity to the proceedings in what has become the most bizarre and unpredictable presidential election season in generations, it did provide some more points to plot on the trendlines, and gave us some idea of how North Carolina may go when the general election arrives.
The data in this election is skewed somewhat by the historic year of 2008, when Barack Obama energized voters on his way to become the first African-American president of the United States. But the 2008 primary makes a fine point of comparison with 2016: two-term presidents on the way out, with established legacy candidates and political upstarts vying for the nominations. But in North Carolina, 36.9 of registered voters turned out for the 2008 primary, while this year we hit 35.4 percent, just a hair above 2012’s 34.7 percent turnout — when Obama had locked up his re-election nomination and Mitt Romney had all but secured the bid from the GOP. The North Carolina primary fell on May 8 in 2012; the earlier date this year gives it more significance in the national picture. In 2008, the NC primary fell on May 6, by which time McCain’s nomination had been more or less set by the Republicans, though he had yet to select Sarah Palin as his running-mate. Still, about 500,000 voters took the Republican ballot in 2008. Three times that many — more than 1.5 million — voted on the Democrat ballot in North Carolina. Obama beat Clinton by 15 points in the Old North State in 2008. Oddly enough, Clinton took in fewer votes in her 2016 victory — 616,758 in unofficial results — than she did in 2008, when she pulled 657,699 in her loss to Obama. That can be explained by a significant drop in excitement among Democrat voters since 2008, with about 400,000 fewer ballots cast statewide, a pattern that holds in Guilford and Forsyth. Meanwhile Republicans more than doubled their numbers from 2008. Statewide in 2012, about 10,000 more Republican ballots were cast than Democratic ones. But the Triad’s urban counties tell a different story. Guilford saw 37.7 percent turnout, up from 2012 but down from 2008. But Republican voters surged in the county, casting 20,000 more ballots than in 2008, and 3,000 more than in 2012, while Democrats cast 25,000 fewer than in 2008. Democrat ballots still outnumbered Republican ones in Guilford by about 15,000.
It was a similar story in Forsyth, where turnout was above the state average and Republican participation in terms of actual votes doubled from 2008 to 2012, and jumped by another 15 percent in 2016. That year, Democrats cast more than 60,000 ballots in Forsyth. This year, they cast just 42,135, about 700 more voters than the GOP in 2016. Republican primary participation in Forsyth has hockey-sticked since 2008, when just 18,000 or so were cast. More than 37,000 showed up in 2012. Still, even Sanders in his loss to Clinton got more actual votes than Cruz, who carried the county in the Republican race. In Guilford, he got 8,000 more votes than Cruz, and Hillary got almost as many as Cruz and Trump combined. Ferrell Guillory, UNC journalism professor and director of the university’s Program on Public Life, called Clinton’s 2016 numbers a “political warning sign.” “It’s hard to compare and contrast particular years,” he said. “[But] a couple things are relevant. “In 2008 you had the great rush towards Obama; the excitement about the Obama campaign elevated turnout,” he said. “And in 2008 you didn’t have Trump vs. Cruz — the Republican primary was settled by May, so the real attention in the state was on the Democrat side. So 2008 was in many respects a distinctive year. “Having said all that,” he continued, “that [Clinton] got fewer votes in 2016 than she did in 2008 tells you she still has work to do in North Carolina coming into the general election.”
HOW HILLARY WON
To look at Clinton’s 2016 primary map is to see a picture of near-total dominance. Sanders managed to win just two coastal counties — Dare, covering much of the Outer Banks, by 300 votes, and New Hanover, home to Wilmington, by just 36 votes. A strip of mountain counties in the west broke for Sanders, handing him decisive victories in the counties of Madison, Jackson and Buncombe — in Asheville’s home county he took all but two precincts. Clinton lost but a single county in the interior of the state: Orange, home to Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough, as well as a large university, by a mere 550 votes.
some of that support for Hillary — sooner or later the historical nature of the Obama campaign got traction and he outpolled her. But she didn’t lose that affection, those relationships. And they came back into play in 2016.” In exit polling results, Clinton took 80 percent of the black Democrat vote in NC. In Guilford County, G74 is a bellwether precinct at Bluford Elementary School: 94.5 percent black and 84.5 percent Democratic. Obama took it in 2008 when turnout was above 50 percent. Clinton carried 80 percent of the vote this year. Hillary also prevailed in G42B, the Friends Home at Guilford senior residence, which is 99.7 percent white, 71.1 percent female and 56.6 percent Democratic. She took about 65 percent of the vote — which admittedly was just 124 votes. This indicates that excitement is down among seniors and women, but that Clinton enjoys strong support among these groups. She won JEF1, the precinct at McLeansville Baptist Church, rural and mostly white, with about a quarter of voters registered as unaffiliated and the rest split between Ds and Rs. Clinton lost this one in 2008 by 3.5 points, indicating that she absorbed more of the Obama voters than Sanders. And she demonstrated facility with females both black and white by winning G69, Bennett College’s precinct which skews majority female and black, and G41A at Guilford College, majority female and white. But turnout was down from 2008 across the board, indicating a waning enthusiasm from women in general and black women in particu-
lar — at least in relation to 2008. Except in G29 at Lewis Recreation Center, which is majority white and female, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans two to one. Turnout has gone up 5 points since 2008, hitting 33.7 percent in 2016. Sanders won the precinct by 25 points. The former mayor of Burlington, Vt. proved a tenacious contender.
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On the map it looks like the one waffle square where the syrup won’t reach. She did this despite having a minimal presence in the state, with offices in Raleigh and Charlotte — she sent her husband, Bill, to stump in the Triad while she personally wooed the bigger cities before the primary. That triage extended outward, as she focused her campaign on bigger states of Florida and Ohio, banking on deep party ties in North Carolina to carry it. Endorsements from people like US Rep. GK Butterfield and Democratic House Leader Larry Hall, Dan Besse and other members of Winston-Salem City Council and Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan may have trickled down among Triad Democrats. And she seems to have carried women and African Americans as well. As previously noted, Clinton got fewer votes in this year’s victory than she did in 2008’s loss. In 2008, she ceded the African-American vote to Obama; Obama led with women voters overall as well. In 2016, Guillory said, “black voters “certainly helped Hillary Clinton.” “Look at her history,” he said. “She lived in Arkansas, and was part of Bill’s potency there and when he ran for president he solidified his alliance with black voters. [Hillary] was part of that New South, biracial movement. It’s true there was some black support of Bernie, but it takes a lifetime of those kinds of alliances and relationships that pay off in a primary. It took Obama time and effort to dislodge
HOW BERNIE STAYED RELEVANT
Make no mistake: Bernie Sanders took one on the chin last week. He lost the night’s biggest prize, Florida, by more than 30 points, taking just nine counties. He lost Ohio by 14 points, and a close one in Illinois by about 2 percent. Even Missouri, where he had been leading all night, flipped to Clinton in the wee hours. Of these states, Florida and Ohio are winner-take-all, meaning all delegates go to Clinton. In the other states, Sanders received a proportional amount of delegates. His 14-point loss in North Carolina won him 45 delegates to Clinton’s 59. As of press time, before Tuesday’s primary in Arizona and the Utah caucus, he was behind in pledged delegates 830 to 1,147. Sanders’ unlikely path to the Democratic nomination would have to include wins this week, a large margin of victory in April in Wisconsin, where Fivethirtyeight puts the race almost even, and a close race in New York, where Clinton is heavily favored, on April 19. Good showings in Pennsylvania and Maryland could fuel his campaign until the June 7 California primary, with more than 10 percent of all Democrat delegates in play. He’d need to show pretty big there, too. Sanders scored predictably well in the college precincts, garnering more than 90 percent at UNCG and 76.2 percent at NC A&T University precinct. Sanders doubled up on Clinton at Precinct 405 in Forsyth County, Sims Recreation Center near Winston-Salem State University, suggesting that age is more of a determination that race in Sanders voters. In Guilford, his victories drove a wedge through Clinton territory that began in the eastern part of the county and
Guilford GOP
Guilford Dem
Forsyth GOP
Forsyth Dem
Trump’s support in Guilford (yellow) centered on suburban and rural precincts. Cruz (purple) dominated. Kasich fared better in the city.
Sanders’ support, in beige, drove a wedge through the county and picked up some Republican-leaning precincts on the outskirts.
Kasich took many of the Republican precincts in Winston-Salem, leavoing the rest for Trump and Cruz.
Bernie’s suppot centered on the southeast portion of Winston-Salem, an island in a sea of Hillary.
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Cover Story
March 23 — 29, 2016
publican voters, still more than 125,000 Republican ballots left this race blank. More Republican voters took part in the governor’s race than the one for Burr’s US Senate seat. And incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory took in about 200,000 votes more than Burr, clocking more than 80 percent of the vote in Guilford and Forsyth along the way, indicating a strong position for the incumbent governor in the fall. Apathy down the ticket was more evident on the Democrat side. In the governor’s race, Attorney General Roy Cooper beat Ken Spaulding by more than two to one, but Democratic candidates collected 40,000 fewer ballots than their Republican counterparts in the race. And more than 100,000 Democrats who cast ballots in the presidential race declined to vote in this one. In the Senate race, where Deborah Ross prevailed with 62 percent of the vote, 155,000 Democrats who showed up at the polls declined to vote. Sanders voters, in particular, seemed to eschew the undercard races. The undervote in his biggest precinct, UNCG, was around 17 percent for both the Senate and governor’s races. The undervote becomes particularly important in the US Senate, because 34 of the 100 seats are up for re-election, 24 of them belonging to Republicans. The GOP currently has an eight-seat edge in the Senate, and will need to increase engagement in these races to maintain its advantage.
drove through the center of Greensboro, breaking 70 percent in the southern end of downtown Greensboro and Lindley Park. He picked up six High Point precincts, two in Summerfield and one in Jamestown, plus three precincts on the eastern edges of the county. In Forsyth, Sanders captured the vote on the south side of downtown Winston-Salem, with his largest margin of victory coming at Precinct 405. He also took Precinct 021 at the Belews Creek Fire Station, which is 92 percent white with about twice as many Republicans as Democrats, by 14 points. In rural Precinct 092 at Macedonia Baptist Church which has a similar demographic profile, Sanders won by 18 points. While Sanders was able to break patterns in his support, his returns also gave some insight into another phenomena prevalent in this election: the undervote.
BURR AND THE UNDERVOTE
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US Sen. Richard Burr easily won his Republican primary against three challengers with 61 percent of the vote. His nearest opponent, Dr. Greg Brannon, captured just 25 percent. Burr landed more than 622,000 votes, almost 200,000 more than Trump and about 6,000 more than Clinton in her bid for the Democratic delegates. But though this race attracted a high percentage of Re-
CRUZ TAKES THE TRIAD
Sen. Cruz lost to Trump by just four points in North Carolina last week, winning 22 of 100 counties, including a small band of mountain territory in the west and a stretch of counties in the interior running from Forsyth to Dare. His biggest win came in Bertie County, with 52 percent of the vote, taking Trump by almost 14 points. Cruz won all the western precincts in the rural edge Forsyth County and most of the east, the county’s most heavily Republican areas; Trump’s precincts cut through the middle of the county. Very few Republican ballots were cast in most of the city’s precincts, but Kasich had the most impressive showing in Winston-Salem, pulling precincts in the south and west. He logged 286 votes in Precinct 803 in Buena Vista, populated with high-income, country-club Republicans, i.e. the establishment. Cruz won Guilford by about 2,000 votes and 2 percentage points, splitting precincts in Greensboro with Trump and, to a lesser degree, Kasich. Cruz’s precincts included ones in Summerfield, Mcleansville and other mostly white, rural areas. He got his largest Greensboro totals in G27 at Greensboro Day School and G32 at Claxton Elementary School, bellwether Republican precincts with strong voter turnout. Cruz’s path to the nomination is even more of a longshot than Sanders’. He’ll need to win all of the remaining Republican primaries by an average of eight points each — tough in races with three contenders — or he’ll have to
hope for a contested convention, which hasn’t happened since 1952. And that in itself would cause turmoil among Trump voters, a malcontented lot who just might stay home if their candidate isn’t on the ballot, and could incite even more unpredictability if Trump decided to run as an independent.
THE TRUMP FACTOR
Donald Trump took North Carolina by yooge margins in the south and the east, winning by double digits in most counties and losing, in most instances, by just a few points. It was enough to win the state by about 50,000 votes — fewer than 4 percentage points, because Cruz won the counties with the biggest populations. Interestingly enough, Trump did the best in low-income
over by Cruz in the Republican primary in Guilford and Forsyth. In other words, wherever Trump mined the most votes, Cruz won even more.
WHO WILL WIN NORTH CAROLINA?
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counties that were heavily African American, collecting the white vote in those precincts. His best total, more than 60 percent, came from Columbus County in the south, where he took every precinct; Clinton won the Democratic race there by 25 points. Sanders, with just 31 percent of the votes, was only outdone by Trump by 160 votes. Of the 22 counties where Trump scored more than half of the vote, 13 of them are described by the American Communities Project as “African American South.” In the general election, counties like these are likely to go Democratic. Guillory, the UNC professor, underscored the racial makeup of the modern GOP. “The Republican primary is almost exclusively white voters,” he said. “The Republican Party has become a vehicle for white voters’ aspirations and attitudes and political leanings…. The party has a cleavage between college-educated, professional, affluent men and women, and its high school-educated workers, blue-collar men, and they are the ones who have tilted largely towards Trump. “These are the sons and daughters of the Reagan Democrats,” he continued, “and Jessecrats — the old Jesse Helms Democrats.” Trump also did well among counties described by the ACP as “Graying America” — Brunswick, Carteret, Cherokee and Dare. Among these, Brunswick has the most black people at 11.4 percent; Cherokee has the least at 1.2 percent. Put together with Trump’s strong performance in Columbus County, it becomes difficult to make generalizations about where Trump’s support comes from. In the Triad, most of his wins came from outside the cities, but he managed to find some support in urban precincts. Forsyth County’s Precinct 081, at Oak Summit United Methodist Church, is 39 percent African American and 53 percent white. Trump won by more than 8 points with 182 votes. But Sanders got more votes than Trump there, even after a 35-point shellacking by Clinton. Trump’s true Greensboro stronghold is in the precincts of the northwest, but even in the most conservative part of the city his victories couldn’t match the totals of Clinton or Sanders on the Democrat side. But perhaps the most telling point is that Trump was completely covered
Despite all the data provided by the 2016 North Carolina primary, the picture remains unclear until each party names its nominee, which on the Democratic side could come by April, but because Sanders still has a copious war chest he may decide to see it through to California in June despite slim odds. In the general election, Clinton has the numbers but Sanders has the passion. But while it seems intuitive that Clinton voters would go with Sanders were he to get the nomination, the same may not be as easily said for the Sanders constituency, some of which has had an increasing hostility towards the Clinton campaign as she keeps racking up wins. On the Republican side, it would be hard to take the nomination away from Trump, but it seems that the party may be planning to do just that with talk of a contested convention. There’s even talk of an independent, conservative movement if Trump takes the mantle. If Trump gets the nod, he could very well win North Carolina, a swing state that is expected to lean right. His voters might not break for Cruz, or whomever the GOP might enlist to run. But Republicans in the population centers voted against Trump in the primary, so the state could stay red again with a similar margin to 2012, when Mitt Romney won it by 2 percent in his losing bid against Obama. If Trump gets pushed out and runs as an independent, all this math goes out the window. Or North Carolina could go blue like it did in 2008, the first time since Carter won it in 1976. In his first election, Obama turned North Carolina blue on the strength of a surge in voter turnout and a coalition of young, black and educated voters, though he lost it to Mitt Romney in 2012. So just as always, the fate of North Carolina depends on who gets on the ticket… and who shows up to vote. Jordan Green contributed reporting and analysis for this story.
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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CULTURE At Basil Leaf, Thai trumps sushi by Eric Ginsburg
W
hen I wrote about Xia Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar last summer, several readers pointed me to Hakka Chow, another Asian-fusion restaurant in Winston-Salem. But as soon as that piece came out in November, other residents said I’d missed the mark. The real treasure, they argued — at least for Thai food — stood across the parking lot at the Basil Leaf. Xia no longer occupies a storefront on the south side of downtown Winston-Salem, having recently been replaced, and let’s just say Hakka Chow wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. But Basil Leaf, located in the same shopping center off Hanes Mall Boulevard, deserves the adoration it receives. Since my friend Camilo moved to Winston-Salem a few years ago, he’s made the trek to Basil Leaf for flavorful, authentic Thai food, calling it easily his favorite in town. He returned with our friends Cade and Andrew — two newcomers who also live in the Camel City — and me last week, and we found it hard to disagree with him. We all considered the massaman curry Camilo ordered, labeled as brown curry on the menu, but with a desire to sample the breadth of the menu, we branched out. Cade, a vegetarian who’s a fan of Downtown Thai and who also compared the food to ERIC GINSBURG The lad nar, seen here with chicken, comes with more veggies than the dishes my friends fare from restaurants in his native Chicago, chose his ordered, including two vegetarian entrees. standby pad kee mao, or drunken noodles with chili, carrots, bell peppers, fresh basil, onions and broccoli. coconut, tamarind and peanut-flavored mustache as a If anything I’d come back on a Tuesday, when certain Drawn to the curries, Andrew made a last-second badge of honor after finishing. sushi rolls are $5 and the five sakes — again a nod switch to the panang, a sweeter option with kaffir and I can see why — the filling brown curry that comes to the popularity of Japanese cuisine — are similarly lime leaves. with potatoes has long been my favorite Thai meal, marked down. Knowing I wanted noodles, I went with the lad nar, a not too hot and a little thicker and even-keeled than But I did not leave with regrets, only wishing we’d pan-fried, rice-noodle dish with broccoli, mushrooms, its counterparts but just as flavorful. And Basil Leaf’s tried the duck with red curry sauce specialty or the poo baby corn, zucchini and carrots, all doused with a thin version does the curry justice. pad pong (deep-fried soft-shell crab) with kari sauce, brown gravy. Camilo added pork to it: not exactly a protein comtwo of the restaurant’s pricier specialties. Or maybe The lad nar, with its assortment of colorful vegemonly associated with the dish, which is thought to be next time I’d go for one of the 10 stir-fries that we tables and added chicken, may have been the most Muslim in origin, but still tasty. missed entirely, especially the gingery pad khink with photogenic of the bunch, and it was certainly delicious. We tried a variety of beers too, from the more stanherb sauce or another with eggplant. The fat, wide noodles clung together a little, and I dard Sapporo to the Singapore lager called Tiger and I know I won’t have any trouble convincing the guys scooped out clumps with meat and veggies with easily the different yet similarly basic Vietnamese Export 33. to come with me. apportioned balance in each bite. None are about to wind up on any By the time I tried Cade’s, he’d hipster beer blogs, but Cade and I already added a heaping portion Pick of the Week particularly appreciated them afVisit the Basil Leaf Thai & of extra heat, admittedly a nice Stop and smell the... rutabagas ter adding spicy heat to our meals. touch alongside his more neutral Sushi Restaurant at 690 St. Vegetable Garden Basics @ New Garden Landscaping Camilo offered that he’s heard tofu in particular. Don’t get the George Square Court (W-S) & Nursery (GSO), Saturday, 10 a.m. good things about the sushi here wrong idea though – Andrew So you like fresh cucumbers but you’re intimidator see lovethaibasil.com for too, and the sushi chef’s station elected to add tofu rather than ed by seed varieties? Or perhaps your most recent is the first thing you see when you more info. meat to his even though he isn’t crop got ravaged by chipmunks and bugs? Jeremy walk in the door. Like other Asian a vegetarian, and highly recomWarren, nursery manager at New Garden Gazebo, restaurants in the region, Basil mended its role in his curry entrée. will set all your worries to rest by teaching the Leaf has apparently found that providing an array of Each of us felt satisfied with our choices, and having fundamentals of successful vegetable gardening, cuisine is the best approach, though an overlap with sampled all of them, I can say I was happy with their from planting soil to soil preparation and more. countries like Cambodia or Vietnam would make more selections as well. We mostly wiped our plates clean. Warren’s taught classes on sustainable farming at sense. But none of us considered the sushi menu, But only Camilo remarked that he could’ve drank Rockingham Community College, so you know he’s and not because we doubted our friend’s accuracy — his massaman curry like soup, proudly displaying a legit. Visit newgarden.com for details. there’s just no reason.
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Where brewing and Harry Potter meet
News Opinion Cover Story Culture
Leah Adams spends up to 70 percent of her time cleaning, filling and hauling kegs at Preyer Brewing.
See more photos of a brew day at Preyer at triad-city-beat.com.
All She Wrote
the brewery’s smaller-batch equipment, and for now she’s just thankful to be working on this side of the wall at all, gaining valuable experience that will serve her later. Brew days typically take eight to 10 hours, and this day, like her first day, Adams helped Preyer make a batch of the brewery’s blonde ale. She’s more likely to reach for their gose personally, but her taste is all over the map, more about specific beers than styles. Two nights later, Adams was back behind the bar, pulling pints for customers who stared over her head as Calder Preyer’s Tar Heels fought their way to another tournament round victory. This time Adams was cleaner, not caked in what looks like oatmeal, but her expression was the same: all business.
Shot in the Triad
promptu. Preyer pulled out his phone, showing Adams a video his wife sent of their daughter dancing while the two waited for the wort to hit the right temperature. Sometimes they listen to music as they work, while other times Adams quietly stacks empty kegs upside down and hoses them down while Preyer monitors the brew 20 yards away. Often they break the silence by suggesting ridiculous names for future beers, riffing off each other’s ideas. Adams isn’t the only woman working on the brewing side of things in the Triad, but she’s one of a very small handful (though the pool here is admittedly pretty small, comprised in a few cases of one-person teams). She’s also only 23 — 24 in May — a fact that she relishes. Working in a brewery inspires her to want to homebrew, which would give her the chance to experiment and develop her own recipes. Preyer has been supportive, offering the use of some of
Games
feedback on beer she’s helped make. Both are physical and keep her on her feet, but Adams estimated that up to 70 percent of her brewing work is cleaning, filling and hauling kegs. Preyer often refers to himself as a glorified janitor. That’s okay though; the dirty-jobs aspect of the gig entices Adams. As Adams and Preyer worked to empty and clean the mash tun, loading the spent grain into four barrels and then hoisting each one together onto a pallet jack to cart outside, a mounted TV silently flashed scenes from the NCAA Tournament. Below it, on top of a keg, sat Adams’ copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — there’s a lot of downtime in brewing, and Adams aims to read a chapter a day while she waits. (A Harry Potter tattoo, a symbol from later in the series, peeked out from the bottom of her T-shirt sleeve, too.) Other times breaks are more im-
ERIC GINSBURG
Fun & Games
Leah Adams pulled a pair of oversized, yellow rubber gloves up to her elbows before reaching her head and shoulders into the small open door of the mash tun, but it didn’t do her much good. Turning her Greensboro Grasshoppers hat backwards to ease the process, Adams quickly found herself covered in spent grain — leftovers from the brewing process that a farmer will come pick up for feed — anyway. Bits of the excess found its way into her black boots, almost knee-high, as head brewer Calder Preyer sprayed water into the metal tun from a raised platform. Adams started working as a bartender at Preyer Brewing in Greensboro back when it opened in May 2015, but expressed interest during her job interview in one day working on the other side of the wall where the beer is made. In early October, she became the brewery’s second brewing-side employee, serving as assistant brewer to co-owner and head brewer Calder Preyer. She stood out from the start; Preyer remembers that Adams was one of the very first people to reach out after the brewery launched Facebook and Twitter accounts, eagerly inquiring about working there. Adams fell in love with beer and dove into the craft world while working at a bottle shop in her hometown of Raleigh, but she’d spent a year at UNCG and liked the idea of returning to the Gate City, she said, in part because it’s more affordable. She’s always been into art and science, and Adams said brewing is sort of a chance to combine the two. Plus it’s a workout, and really beats the idea of a desk job. Adams still splits her time between the taproom and brew house, which she appreciates because bartending pays better and allows her to interact directly with people who can provide
Up Front
by Eric Ginsburg
Leah Adams is one of the few women working on the brewing side of the Triad’s beer industry. And she’s just 23.
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March 23 — 29, 2016 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Fun & Games Games Shot in the Triad All She Wrote
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CULTURE Tyler Nail makes a sharp U-turn from Americana to a harsher muse by Jordan Green
T
here comes a time when an artist must discard everything he thought he knew, and start fresh. So it is with Tyler Nail, a singer-songwriter who retired his Americana trio — an undertaking with Quique Rodriguez-Pastor and Johnathan Loos — with a final show in Floyd, Va. on March 18. Rodriguez-Pastor and Loos are moving away from Winston-Salem, and Nail had been feeling the itch to do something different for a while. For about a year, Nail and Molly Grace have been writing and performing songs together as the duo Grace & Nails. But it’s the full band Nail is putting together now that most embodies the sharp turn his music is taking. “The full band has a lot to do with disowning Americana,” Nail said, while finishing a chicken sandwich at Krankies Coffee several hours prior to the Floyd gig. “When I came to understand what I interpreted what Americana was to be, I put all my chips in that basket. I got disgusted with that. This band is f*** Americana.” The core of the new band is already established, with guitarist Josh Ling of I, Anomaly and drummer Daniel Faust. Nail is currently shopping around for a bass player and keyboardist. “There’s a side of me that hasn’t been expressed through songwriting and Americana,” Nail said. “I have limitations: I can’t help that my voice sounds pleasant or that I have a traditionally Western sense of melody. I’m trying to find new tools to grit it up, so it’s less about flowers and birds, as it used to be. It will be a harsher sound and it will express a new attitude of “f*** you.” Nail owns a sweet, keening voice somewhat reminiscent of Michael Stipe, with vocal phrasing that bites down hard on his vowels. The dusty, unadorned acoustic guitar playing featured on much of his music to date is threadbare to the point that you can hear his fingers moving over the instrument’s frets. The 26-year-old Nail is a true product of Winston-Salem, having grown up in the blue-collar neighborhood of Ogburn Station, where generations of men worked at Piedmont Concrete. The neighborhood, where his dad still lives next door to the legendary Pulliams Hotdogs & BBQ, has become increasingly impoverished with rising crime, Nail said. The city’s efforts to revitalize the Ogburn Station Shopping Center has become something of a boondoggle, with hundreds of thousands of public dollars invested in Malone’s Family Restaurant, which remains unopened. Nail started writing songs and playing guitar almost by necessity when he was 16. He was a drummer in bands that struggled to find a proper vocalist, and he would often find himself singing by default. When he started writing songs, he decided he needed an instrument with more tonality than a drum set. An artist with a prolific recorded output and catalogue of songs, Nail released his seventh album,
“The full band has a lot to do with disowning Americana,” says Tyler Nail, here in his native Winston-Salem, of his new project.
Under Evergreens, in January. During an interview, he acknowledged that his music adheres closely to the traditional song form, adding, “Words carry the most weight.” He writes for Relish, the Winston-Salem Journal’s weekly arts and entertainment supplement from time to time, and journalism is only one of many creative undertakings that augment Nail’s music. “I mess around with scripts,” he said. “I’m trying to improve my skills as a journalist. I like to write words and personalize them with music. I have been a musician in this town for 10 years. I love music, but music isn’t the sole embodiment of what I do. I’m going crazy with artistic vision. I’m making clothes. I’m exploring photography right now. I’m developing a V-log. I don’t want to say too much about that right now. It’s kind of a show — almost mini-doc.” The multifaceted nature of Nail’s activities can be
PHOTO CREDIT
both a blessing and a curse. Satisfying all his creative drives might promote spiritual wholeness, but the approach doesn’t easily translate into a livelihood. “As a livelihood it’s gotten harder,” Nail said. “And the harder it gets the more I work. I will say that adding more and more outlets to the s*** that I do makes
Pick of the Week Let’s have bizarre celebrations Of Montreal @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), Friday, 7 p.m. Athens, Ga.’s unclassifiable alt-group Of Montreal graces Greensboro with its otherworldly presence. What to expect? A funky live performance, lyrics in cheerfully strange choruses like “Let’s pretend we don’t exist/ let’s pretend we’re in Antarctica,” and a whole lot of whimsy. Visit theblindtiger. com for tickets.
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scrounging and working three jobs. Within the community of artists, there aren’t a lot of people making money, but there are a s***-ton of artists that are making incredible work and it’s very encouraging.” As he takes the next step in his vocation, Nail took pains to emphasize that he’s not retreating. “If I were to imagine what I really want people to understand,” he said, “it’s that as the trio stops existing, the thing that it’s leading to is not settling down, but expanding.”
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me more docile.” Notwithstanding the challenges, Nail has experienced Winston-Salem as a fairly nurturing place to make music. If he has any gripes, they aren’t directed towards the Arts Council of Winston-Salem & Forsyth County, which has supported him with a small grant. The problem has more to do with the lack of audience for original work. “Cover bands are valued too highly,” Nail said. “Original artists aren’t valued enough in the mainstream. I can’t tell you of a place where artists aren’t
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CULTURE Writer Quinn Dalton on finding permission and place by Joanna Rutter
T
he only thing that stood between Greensboro voracious reader as a child with limited hand-eye coorwriter Quinn Dalton and publishing her second dination,” she said. novel, Midnight Bowling, was a decade and a Moving to Kent, Ohio at 13 years old was “life-changhalf of pressure, panic attacks and mixed feelings, ing” for Dalton and her family, largely due to bethaving two children and the heavy lifting of turning a ter-funded schools, she said. She was able to attend short piece into a full-length work. Kent State University for free since her father taught Dalton said she almost “broke up” with the book — architecture there. Dalton chose to write a novella as twice. her senior thesis, and a professor suggested she con“I kept getting stuck at the 200-page mark,” Dalton sider a creative writing MFA program. She didn’t know said. She’d always seen herself as a short-story writer. they existed. “With short stories, you can date around, and if you “I was thinking about going to law school — I was get stuck, you’ve only invested 10 pages or so, and [you coming up with something responsible to do,” Dalton think] ‘This isn’t working out’ and date another story,” said. she said. She moved to Greensboro and started at UNCG’s “A novel is a marriage. You have to show up every creating writing program in 1992 at 21 years old. After day.” earning her degree, she applied to the Americorps VISFortunately, the book — a multi-generational drama TA program, hoping to be “cast somewhere,” only to centered on a teenage bowling prodigy — was pubreceive a call that the program had found her a placelished last month by Durham’s Carolina Wren Press. ment right in Greensboro with Reading Connections. Her choice to commit is evident in the emotional “I was going to leave, because Greensboro was a very strength and complexity of Midnight Bowling. different place then than it is now…” she said. “I was The novel strikes two distinct tones of melancholy expecting this big adventure and felt thwarted!” using the voices of dual narrators: the emotional kaThe challenges of the job — especially interacting leidoscope of a teenager falling in love while grappling with people at both extremes of the class spectrum — with her destiny, and the brewing resentment of a man “definitely opened up Greensboro as a town for me,” harboring Steinbeck-style hatred for his brother. Set Dalton said. Shortly afterward, she met her husband, against the backdrop of ’70s suburban Ohio, the story who worked across the hall in the Guilford Building carries both a stark sadness and a thread of hope that (the circumstances of their meeting had been predicthints at redemption. ed by a palm reader the year before). The intricately woven tale is easily followed thanks Twenty-odd years later, she’s still here. to Dalton’s unassuming prose that only draws atten“I think [Greensboro] is a very nurturing place for tion to itself for glistening observations, like, “Women artists of all stripes,” Dalton said. “It’s really fertile pour themselves out for you, but I didn’t know that ground to be an artist, and it’s just supportive in genyet, standing in the kitchen that morning with Louise. eral.” What I did know was that I wasn’t sorry my brother Dalton names fellow alums Marianne Gingher and was dead, because he’d made his wife do without Julie Funderburk among those in her Greensboro sugar.” support community, and she’s currently co-writing a It’s not obvious from her detailed bowling descripbook with another MFA friend, Julianna Baggot. Her tions that Dalton set out with almost no knowledge local involvement extends to education as well — she’ll about the sport. She took a trip to Ohio bowling alleys be teaching a master class on scenework at the NC for research and watched hours of pro bowling tape. Writers’ Network Conference in April at UNCG. “We get bombarded as writers, ‘Write what you Gingher connected her to other teaching opporknow,’” Dalton said. “My feeling tunities at UNC a few years ago, is, you should be writing what and Dalton especially appreciated Greensboro author Quinn you don’t know. If you don’t know encouraging students questioning Dalton’s newest novel, where you’re going, you don’t take the value of pursuing writing caanything for granted. Any artistic reers, a question that had haunted Midnight Bowling, can pursuit is a journey and your judgDalton ever since she exchanged be found at Scuppernong ment does get better over time.” her law school applications for MFA Books in GSO or online at Dalton, 45, can’t recall a time applications. carolinawrenpress.org. from her own journey when she “Being an artist, [it] felt like hasn’t been a writer. As a kid growit had this self-indulgence to it ing up in Clemson, SC, she would squarely opposed to the Protestant often ride her bike to the library and take her books to work ethic,” Dalton said. Somewhere along “hanging a neighborhood church to read somewhere cool and in there” with Midnight Bowling, though, she managed quiet. to kick that sense of having to justify her art. “[Writing] was a natural outcome of being such a When the earthquake in Haiti hit during her first
COURTESY PHOTO Greensboro writer Quinn Dalton just published her second novel, Midnight Bowling, an intergenerational drama centered on a teenage pro bowler.
term at UNC, she said her class felt useless against pain and suffering. Dalton doesn’t look at it that way. “If you’re bleeding, who do you want, a doctor or a writer? But the answer is both,” she said. “You want someone who can help you survive physically, but you also want someone to bear witness. That’s your value. Just because [art]’s not a matter of life and death doesn’t mean it’s not critical to our existence.”
Pick of the Week Why we march Brother Outsider screening @ Guilford College (GSO), Thursday, 7:30 p.m. A veritable legion of fancy-sounding associations at Guilford joins forces to co-host a new LGBTQ Faith & Spirituality Documentary Dinner Series. First up: a film about Bayard Rustin, a gay, black Quaker who had a significant impact on the civil rights movement. Rustin was a key organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and served as an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. Come learn more about him on Thursday in the Bryan Auditorium. More info can be found on the Facebook event page.
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W
hen my friend Aaron posted on a Facebook sports group, I did a double take. But his post was authentic. He had a spare ticket to the first and second rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball by Anthony Harrison Tournament in Raleigh, and he was giving it away. “Seriously, I really don’t want to go through the hassle of selling it,” Aaron clarified. A flurry of ecstatic affirmatives from yours truly, and I readied myself to head east for a college basketball pilgrimage. You see, while I wasn’t always the biggest “sports guy” on the planet, I’ve always harbored a special love for college basketball. Back in the mid-’90s, I remember watching March Madness — the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, the NCAA, the now less-illustrious National Invitational Tournament — with my dad and his friends in somebody’s den. It made me feel like I belonged to the adults’ gang. The national tournament also coincided with our trips Down East to fish, either for bass around Lake Mattamuskeet or for shad in the Tar River and its blackwater tributaries. Fond memories surround my history with the NCAA tournament; now, I had the opportunity to make memories at the tourney. I awoke on the first Thursday injected with the nervous excitement of a teen about to graduate from high school. It was a similar feeling — the idea that you’re about to embark on a new course in life, but it doesn’t seem real. Zooming east on Interstate 40, that adrenaline
March Madness Mecca kept me positively on edge. Then, I turned onto the off-ramp leading to the PNC Arena, and a banner hanging over the road welcomed basketball fans to the tournament. The reality of the moment hit me like a sock full of nickels to the face, and I must admit I vented my glee by literally screaming out the window and smacking the steering wheel. I met Aaron at the east entrance, and we passed through security, rounded the concourse and found our seats. We had spectacular placement — a few rows behind the basket, maybe 30 feet from the court. The first game between Texas Tech and Butler University didn’t attract too many spectators, and the Butler supporters initially couldn’t compete with the impressive number of Red Raiders fans in the arena. The relatively low attendance surprised both of us. “Why — if you have a ticket for both sessions — why wouldn’t you go to all the games?” Aaron asked rhetorically. “Isn’t this 8-9 game going to be more exciting than a 1-16?” In the case of this game, that was certainly true. The crowd applauded great plays by both sides, swaying with the game’s wavering shifts in momentum, rooting in one moment for the Raiders and in the next for the Bulldogs. But after the Bulldogs led at the half, the arena fell for the underdog and rooted for Butler, even though the game stayed close. “There’s a good chance we see a buzzer-beater,” Aaron predicted. But starting around the eight-minute mark, Butler guard Kelan Martin went on an amazing tear, scoring eight points in 49 seconds and helping the Bulldogs pull away from Texas Tech.
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“See ya later, Texas Tech!” a Butler supporter taunted from a few rows ahead of us. “Classic!” I rooted for Butler, too — I had them going to the Sweet 16 in some of my brackets. After my bracket collapsed on the second day of the tournament, Aaron asked me as Butler faced UVA in the second round, “Don’t you want to see them lose so you can say, ‘This is my inverse bracket?’” “No,” I replied. “I made my choices, and I stand by them.” I also stood by my team, no matter what. Until that weekend, I had never seen the UNC-Chapel Hill Tar Heels play basketball. Football? Yes. Women’s lacrosse? Sure. But Carolina basketball tickets are one of the hottest commodities in the state. As I watched the Heels warming up — saw guard Marcus Paige and forward Brice Johnson up close — I could hardly believe my eyes, and I felt that same disbelieving giddiness as when I turned into the arena. While I was loud and proud and remain Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred, I have to admit something: Heels fans are pricks. Case in point: During the first round, a man approximately as broad as my bedframe dressed in Carolina blue stood in front of me for the entirety of the second half of the first game. He blocked not only my view, but the view of the kid seated behind me and two women two rows back. Maybe I’ll have a better view next year, when the first two rounds will be in Greensboro. Were the self-absorbed Carolina fans and the midnight rocket-speed drive back home to write recaps worth the overall experience? Listen: In my short time as a sportswriter, I’ve witnessed some exciting, important, even historical sporting events. I’ve glimpsed Tiger Woods play in the Wyndham Championship. I caught the ascent of the Carolina Panthers’ best-ever season. I’ve even seen the longest-ever game between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees. None of it compares to this past weekend.
The sweetness of the writer’s first live Final Four experience lasted longer than the decimation he felt after his bracket collapsed.
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Gonna make it to a Benz outta that Datsun Cars & Coffee @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), Saturday, 8 a.m. General Greene Car Club, an affiliate of the Antique Automobile Club of America, hosts a free get-together for car enthusiasts bright and early this Saturday. They’ll sell coffee and pastries, too, in case the sight of a 1927 Rolls-Royce doesn’t perk you up enough. Cars & Coffee will display that splendid Rolls, new Ferraris and everything in between in the Weatherspoon parking lot.
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“Out of the question” Dessert with a hardened layer Phony, for short Mister, in Rio Ayatollah’s decree Man from Manchuria Farm animal with a beard Anatomical duct Name yelled in “Cast Away” Earth mover She for a shepherd Hell, it’s said Some action figures CD followers? Conglomerate
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Answers from previous publication.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 20 21
25 Gift bag padding 26 “Messenger” substance 27 Deviled item 29 Frat vowel 31 Entreat 33 Internet celebrity whose real name is Tardar Sauce 34 Farm female 37 Piques, as an appetite 38 “The sheep says ...” response, on a See ‘n Say 39 “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” co-creator McElhenney 40 Had some grub 41 “Much appreciated,” in a text message 44 Shining 45 Biases 47 Creatures who cause trouble on walls? 48 Ball club VIP 49 String in the attic? 52 Former ABC executive ___ Arledge 53 Swiss mathematician Leonhard 56 Long swimmers 57 Travel randomly 58 Retreating 59 Paint swatch option 60 “Golden” time
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54 Kissing in front of everyone, e.g. 55 Memorize everything involving sugar suffixes? 58 “Falling Up” poet Silverstein 61 Earth sci. 62 Actor Tom of “The Dukes of Hazzard” 63 Lose it, in a way? 64 Bowling spot 65 Numbers ending in 8, e.g. 66 Pro votes 67 Suffix after hip or hoop 68 Yellow Muppet
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1 CBS drama spun off from “JAG” 5 Retired auto racer Teo ___ 9 “That was close!” 13 1966 Grammy winner Eydie 14 “___ stands ...” 15 First state to vote 16 Trap during a winter storm 17 Mah-jongg piece 18 Sketch look 19 Scrunch a sea mammal into a tiny space? 22 A googol divided by a googol 23 “It’s nothing ___ consequence” 24 “The Hunchback of ___ Dame” 28 Stefan who won six Grand Slam singles titles 30 Catching up to, with “on” 32 Put into piles 33 Specter 35 What old mattresses do 36 Big sea waves for a Detroit union? 40 Ocean off Ga. and Fla. 42 Make like a 33-Across 43 For you and me 46 Whom to “take one for” 48 1990s Flockhart TV role 50 Apply, as pressure 51 Campbell’s spaghetti sauce brand
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Hooray for Hollywood
T
he Golden Age of Hollywood was alive and well on Saturday as the Guilford Green Foundation hosted its annual Gala & Green Party at Greensboro’s by Nicole Crews own glamorous Proximity Hotel. The red carpet unfolded for some 500 attendees adorned in finery and cinematic homages to stars past and present. The ghosts of Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepbern and James Dean haunted the lobbies, ballrooms and private VIP bars of the event. Tom Cruise, pantless, made a cheeky reference to Risky Business. Tina Louise gave a gingery wink to “Gilligan’s Island.” Betty Boop was the scoop on the dance floor and Golden Gods gave a nod to Oscar as they paraded through the silent auction where bounty aplenty lay in wait for bidders. Oil paintings, antiques, china, trips and jewels spilled into the downstairs lobby as meticulous waitstaff proffered tiny skillets of gourmet meatballs and duck confit while gourmet sliders and truffle fries sidled up barside. The silent auction evolved into a progressive dinner as stations of lamb, grouper, prime rib and platters of veg filled a ballroom. Wine and spirits flowed like the diaphanous
gowns of an ingenue as Evan Olson emceed the events of the evening and GGF Senior Event Co -chair Jessica Mashburn entertained the troops with more costume changes than Beyonce and Cher combined. Greensboro Mayor and recently-named Director of Guilford Green Foundation Nancy Barakat Vaughan dazzled in a black, sleeveless evening gown as she made brief remarks about the organization that was founded 17 years ago to assist the LGBTQ community. Mashburn said it best when she wrote, “The journey to the present has been paved with scenes of resistance and sorrow, but also pride and progress…. The foundation of our city was built by peaceful people and then grown by soldiers of justice. Guilford Green Foundation was formed by courageous and dedicated members of the LGBTQ community who fought to carry the torch of equality to this moment. To the sound of their voices, GGF will proudly keep moving forward with our mission of uniting community.” The evening was topped off with a dance party at 10 p.m. when the “Sunset Strip” Green Party opened, paying its respects to the event’s origins in a downtown Greensboro hotspot Club Babylon in 1995. It was Boogie Nights meets Strictly Ballroom meets Shall we Dance as Greensboro’s LGBTQ family and friends gathered on the dance floor. One thing’s for certain, this year’s party, themed Everyone’s a Star! — was aptly named.
Frank Slate Brooks, Brad Newton, Lynn Wooten, Paul Russ, Nicole Crews and David Worth.
DAVID WORTH Don Vaughan, event chair Jessica Mashburn and Ogi Overman.
JANET LEIGH CARPENTER
DAVID WORTH Evan Olson emcees with Marilyn nearby.
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DAVID WORTH Mayor Nancy Barakat Vaughan is the Guilford Green’s recently named director.
DAVID WORTH Charlie Chaplin and Marion Davies from the crypt.
The buffet is open.
DAVID WORTH
Event chair Jessica Mashburn as Dorothy.
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GATE CITY VINEYARD CHURCH GOOD FRIDAY
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EASTER @ EASTER SUNDAY
MARCH 27 AT 10:30am
CELEBRATE IT AT THE VINEYARD! Easter weekend is a special time at Gate City Vineyard Church, and we want you to be a part of it! Join us for our two services as we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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For ticket information visit RIVERRUNFILM.COM
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