TCB Feb. 28, 2019 — Our Fifth Year!

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point Feb. 28 - Mar. 6, 2019 triad-city-beat.com

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Years

Strong

Our writers weigh in PAGE 16

Kappa Alpha regret PAGE 8

Raw sewage PAGE 12

The other KFC PAGE 6

INSIDE THIS WEEK: TRIAD CIT Y BITES, THE TRIAD’S FINEST DINING GUIDE

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

Five years: Show (don’t tell) I laughed a little when I got fired on Election Day in 2013. I put my keys on the desk, pulled my chin-up bar from the doorframe

by Brian Clarey and left everything else behind. A month later, recruiting investors and navigating a few other interesting offers, I got so overwhelmed and depressed I spent an entire day in bed staring at the ceiling.

I would stare at that same spot on the ceiling many times in the months and years to come, on nights when I knew I wouldn’t be able to make payroll the next day, late afternoons when I’d collapse into bed with no more to give, those wee hours of the morning when both nothing and anything seemed possible.

All the cold mornings putting papers on the streets. All the late nights and weekends, writing, selling, plotting.

The fear.

The losses.

And then, once in a while, the wins.

A beautiful, painted sunrise on the delivery route. An enterprise story that

breaks something wide open. An email from a reader. A call from a reader. A shout from a reader in a moving car.

Trump.

I became a publisher all at once on a sunny, late-summer afternoon while driving east on Business 40, after closing my first five-figure sale. My heart hadn’t raced like that since the first time I saw my byline in a real newspaper when I was 24 years old.

In 2016, we found out about our first national award — Second Place for Jordan Green’s political writing — in a ramen joint in Austin, and the release nearly brought us all to tears.

The Last Bad Day. The First Good Year.

Empty desks. New faces. The newspaper covers going up on the wall, one by one. A hundred. Two hundred.

Again. And again. And again.

And still there’s room for more.

Right now it’s the same as always: The night before production, there’s Jordan and there’s me in the newsroom, typing, talking, typing. Outside on South-Elm Eugene Street, the sun goes down and the lights come on. We won’t go home until we’re done.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

There will be a scene where the person portraying Clarey is on the phone with one of his longtime former writers, unconvincingly trying to sell him on his belief that the general public will fill its pants in delight over the clever reference in the name of his new altweekly concept.

-Ryan Snyder pg.18

BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey brian@triad-city-beat.com allen@triad-city-beat.com

ART ART DIRECTOR Robert Paquette

EDITORIAL SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

KEY ACCOUNTS Gayla Price

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sayaka Matsuoka sayaka@triad-city-beat.com

STAFF WRITER Lauren Barber lauren@triad-city-beat.com

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1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 Office: 336-256-9320 Cover illustration by Robert EDITORIAL INTERN Savi Ettinger Paquette: TCB at 5. calendar@triad-city-beat.com

robert@triad-city-beat.com SALES gayla@triad-city-beat.com

SALES Johnathan Enoch

johnathan@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORS

Carolyn de Berry, Matt Jones

TCB IN A FLASH @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1. ©2018 Beat Media Inc.

Yako THE MANHATTAN TRANSFER GI CH

SAUCE BOSS

LOVE LETTERS STARRING BARBARA EDEN & HAL LINDEN

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Show |7:30pm / Doors |6:30pm

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

High Point Theatre Presents� a new exciting season!

Yako March 8, 2019

Show | 8pm / Doors | 7pm

Dream of Jeannie) and Hal Linden (Barney Miller) - present the late A.R. Gurney’s poetic, elegant, and profoundly touching story about the power of the written word. The star power and supreme acting of Barbara and Hal has been holding audiences spellbound throughout the U.S, in this spectacular live performance of Love Letters!

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Gina Chavez invites audiences on a journey of discovery of her own Latin roots through a passionate collection of bilingual songs traversing cumbia, bossa nova, vintage pop, reggaeton and folk, combined with dynamic vocals and sharp social commentary. Backed by a talented four-piece band, this multi-ethnic pop songstress is a nine-time Austin Music Award winner.

THE QUEEN’S CARTOONISTS

RHYTHM OF THE DANCE

PASSPORT

Raleigh Ringers

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BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET 2018 & 2019

THE QUEEN’S CARTOONISTS March 10, 2019

DANCE On a mission of music preservation and music BALLET

Show |2pm / Doors |1pm

March 19, 2019

OF SERENDIP

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THE QUEEN CARTO

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Reliving the epic journey of the Irish Celts education, the six cats of The Queen’s Cartoonists throughout history, Rhythm of the Dance is a two-hour dance and music extravaganza! A gifted offer a tour-de-force of the Swing Era’s zaniest young cast of performers, combining traditional and most creative music, some dating back to dance, music, vocals and costuming, while using the 1920s, and much of which was written for or adapted for classic cartoons. Whether you’re a fan the most up-to-date modern technologies, has of Looney Tunes,N Merry Melodies, The Simpsons, made this the premier performance in its field.

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RYTHM OF THE DANCE

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 Up Front

CITY LIFE Feb. 28-Mar. 3, 2019

by Savi Ettinger

THURSDAY Feb. 28

Art Journal Workshop @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 6 p.m.

Reconsidered Goods hosts a workshop in partnership with the Weatherspoon Art Museum’s Art on Paper exhibit. Learn journaling techniques and fill some pages with stamps, streaks of marker and found objects. Find the event on Facebook.

News

Loretta Lynch @ Elon University School of Law (GSO), 6:30 p.m.

FRIDAY Mar. 1

Mad as a March Hare Hop @ Downtown Arts District (W-S), 7 p.m.

The Downtown Arts District transforms the area between Sixth and Trade into Alice’s Wonderland. North Trade Street Arts hosts an exhibit by Allison Hutchins, Through the Looking Glass, while guests can pose for photos with hats as wild as the Mad Hatter’s.

Find the event on Facebook.

Loretta Lynch speaks as part of the Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series. Lynch served as the first African-American woman to become Attorney General of the United States under President Barack Obama.

Learn more at elon.edu.

Alyson Fuller-Smith @ Scuppernong Books (GSO), 7 p.m.

Alyson Fuller-Smith reads poems from her book Seeing Monica Vitti, along with a short fiction piece called “The Neanderthals.” Her husband, Sam Fuller-Smith, gives a performance to commemorate the release of his album, Am I The Meadow Or The Mountain?. Find the event on Facebook.

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Preyer Brewing welcomes the start of the month with a celebration of local jazz talent.

Drew Hays, both a performer and professor of music, plays saxophone, while Aaron Matson works the guitar. Learn more on Facebook.

The Steel Woods @ the Blind Tiger (GSO), 9 p.m.

Cris Jacobs Band @ Muddy Creek Café & Music Hall (W-S), 8 p.m

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

5th Aniversay

Opinion

First Friday Jazz @ Preyer Brewing Company (GSO), 8 p.m.

Cris Jacobs entertains visitors to Muddy Creek with a set pulling from folk, rock and soul as he plays guitar in a widely-varied concert. Find the event on Facebook.

The Steel Woods infuse folk traditions with modern metal for a seamless blend of country rock. Tennessee Jet, a one-man Americana band, opens for the Nashville-based group. Find the event on Facebook.

Black History Month Finale Show @ Salem College (W-S), 7 p.m.

George Jackson @ Stevens Center (W-S), 3 p.m.

Up Front

Hello Kitty Café truck @ Friendly Center (GSO), 10 a.m.

Sanrio fans can celebrate the brand at Friendly Center with a limited appearance of the Hello Kitty Café. The pink truck serves up themed foods and merchandise all about Hello Kitty. Find the event on Facebook.

News

Big Sip NC Craft Beverage Fest @ the Millennium Center (W-S), 1 p.m.

This festival combines a mac-and-cheese cook off and a craft-beverage fair. Taste samples of more than 100 beers, ciders and other brews, beside mac and cheese dishes from local chefs. Find the event on Facebook.

Mardi Gras 2019 @ the Ramkat (W-S), 7 p.m.

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

SATURDAY Mar. 2

Head to Hanes Auditorium for this annual Black History Month celebration, featuring live performances from the Salem College Ghost Ryders Step Team and Carver High School’s marching band among other local groups.

Proceeds go towards Salem College’s Black student union.

Learn more on Facebook.

SUNDAY Mar. 3

As a part of the search for the Winston-Salem Symphony’s new Music Director, George Jackson conducts a set of Dvořák and Ligeti. Pianist Clara Yang joins to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25. Find out more at wssymphony.org.

5th Aniversay

The Ramkat hosts a Mardi Gras party with live music from Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a New Orleans institution. Cha Wa joins with a blend of funk and New Orleans street music. Find the event on Facebook.

This CommUNITY Sings @ the Carolina Theatre (GSO), 2 p.m.

A community-wide music session brings together singers of all levels at the Carolina Theatre. Professional musicians help to lead the group in a set of five songs total. Find the event on Facebook.

Opinion

Triad Dessert Market @ Foothills Brewing Tasting Room (W-S), 1 p.m.

Spoil your sweet tooth with cookies, cupcakes and other treats as local bakeries fill Foothills’ tasting room with their goods. Vendors include vegan, sugar-free and gluten-free recipes to their desserts. Find the event on Facebook.

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 News

Up Front

Korean fried chicken and more

by Sayaka Matsuoka

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

5th Aniversay

Opinion

A “Coming Soon” sign for Bonchon went up recently on S. Elm St. SAYAKA MATSUOKA in downtown Greensboro.

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I love being Asian.

I love our languages, our tiny bit of melanin that makes it almost impossible to get sunburned, the fact that we look young until we hit 70 (and then we look like centenarians).

But what I love most is our food.

Growing up Japanese-American in Greensboro, it was often hard to find good Asian food.

Sure, there were a few Americanized Chinese take-out places and the occasional Thai joint, but I mostly got my fill from the homemade wok-to-table meals that my mom cooked or from the long list of places we visited when in cities like New York.

It’s only been in the last 10 years or so that Greensboro has really begun to embrace its full potential of becoming a multicultural foodie dream.

Since then more places have popped up, adding to the mainstays like Asahi, Pho Hien Vuong and Seoul Garden. And there’s about to be one more.

Recently, on our way to Mellow Mushroom for date night in downtown, I noticed a “Coming Soon” hanging in a window. It was for Bonchon, the new and improved KFC — Korean fried chicken.

I was hype.

The franchise began in 2002 in South Korea and has since boomed and gone international, with more than 100 locations in the Philippines and 88 stores in the US so far. We actually have the second most stores per country in the world; South Korea can only claim 10!

It’s not that this fried chicken is good; it’s damn good.

These legs and wings are twice-fried, making them less greasy but adding more crunch.

Then they’re hand-painted with a sauce brush. I mean, come on!

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Southern fried chicken. Dames and my mom’s renditions are my all-time favorites. But Korean fried chicken has become a phenomenon because it’s delicious and people know it. Sure, it’s a fad like sushi or bao, but KFC has entered our American culinary dimension and I’m willing to bet it’s here to stay.

Just like the dumplings from May Way or the boba and smoothies from Master Tea, Bonchon will work to introduce another layer of Asian, specifically, Korean cuisine to a more mainstream audience, further entrenching the idea that Asian food is American food.

When we continue to see white, “acclaimed” chefs like Andy Zimmern and Gordon Ramsay opening up Asian restaurants, it’s nice to see that restaurants with Asian chefs and ties can turn a profit.

Judging by the cluttered storefront, it looks like there’s still a while before Bonchon opens its doors, but on opening day, I’ll see you in line.

5. White frat party is latest wound to students of color at Wake Forest (Oct. 8, 2014; by Jordan Green; 50,864 pageviews) Our first viral story concerned a “dress like a black person” party held by the Kappa Alpha Order at Wake Forest University. It was hot enough to give us our first huge day on the website — which, incidentally, alerted us to all sorts of technical issues, but also put us on the radar of the national media. If we had pictures of the event, we would have broken the internet.

Opinion

3. Aunt Bee’s Siler City cathouse

4. New message on a Triad Billboard is generating protest (Feb. 21, 2017; by Joel Sronce; 57, 120 pageviews) Everybody about went nuts when the late Bill Whiteheart, formerly of the Forsyth County Commission, posted on one of his Business 40 billboards a simple piece of text that read: “Real men provide, real women appreciate it.” Whiteheart maintained that it was a paid spot. But protesters stood in front of it anyway. A Facebook group was formed, a formal protest and art exhibit was held and, eventually, the billboard came down, only to be replaced by one that was even dumber.

News

2. Can we stop with this ‘Goodwill Date Night’ thing?

(July 20, 2017; by Jelisa Castrodale; 96, 285 pageviews) Jelisa Castrodale really tapped into something when she dedicated her Triaditude Adjustment column to the absolute evisceration of an internet couple who tried to make viral their Goodwill Date Nights, in which they wore clothes purchased from the thrift store and inhabited characters to go with them for the night. “Their toothy selfies should be distributed as a cautionary tale for what white privilege looks like,” Castrodale wrote. “It’s playing dress-up in second-hand clothes before you cut into a ribeye, giggling to yourself about how you’d never really wear something like that, and there’s no way you’d ever reduce yourself to wearing someone else’s hand-me-downs, ugh!”

(May 28, 2014; by Billy Ingram; 62,902 pageviews) Billy Ingram’s piece about Frances Bavier — aka Aunt Bee from “The Andy Griffith Show” — who abruptly retired from television in 1970 and moved to Siler City. Short version: It did not go well. This one has become something of an office joke that harkens back to the days when we obsessed over our daily pageviews, because it gets hit almost every single day by people doing a deep Andy Griffith internet dive. Still does.

Up Front

1. Local conservative activists prepare for violent confrontation with Islam (Feb. 18, 2017; by Jordan Green; 137,145 pageviews) Triad City Beat’s website, triad-city-beat.com, has amassed more than 5 million hits since we began clocking them with Google Analytics in April 2014. But none got more than this one, in which our reporter described a strange conversation at a conservative political meeting at a Kernersville seafood restaurant, in which Frank del Valle said, “I’m ready to start taking people out.” It got picked up by Reddit, Huffpo, the Washington Post, Raw Story and other national and international outlets.

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

TCB’s all-time best (according to Google Analytics)

5th Aniversay

1/2 off Tequila & $2 Tacos.

WEDNESDAY

Shot in the Triad

TUESDAY

50 cent wings.

Run Club at 6pm & Trivia at 8pm.

Poké Night

Puzzles

THURSDAY SUNDAY

Boozy Brunch www.burgerbatch.com

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 Up Front News Opinion 5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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NEWS

Federal judges participated in fraternity that flew Confederate flag

by Jordan Green A federal judge and the general counsel for Baptist Hospital join the dean of admissions at Wake Forest University in expressing regret for appearing with the Confederate flag as members of the Kappa Alpha fraternity at Wake in the 1980s.

A fraternity at Wake Forest University that claims Robert E. Lee as its “spiritual founder” and conspicuously displayed trappings of the Confederacy produced two federal judges, the general counsel for Baptist Hospital, a prominent local investor and an admissions officer at the university.

Frank Whitney, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush and now serves as chief district court judge for the Western District of North Carolina, posed in a group photograph with a large Confederate flag as a member of the Kappa Alpha Order for the 1982 edition of the yearbook The Howler. Martha Blevins Allman, who is now the director of admissions, can be seen in the same photo.

David M. Warren, a US bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina who was appointed to the federal bench by President Obama, was inducted into the Kappa Alpha Order in 1978 and now serves as a trustee for the national organization.

McLain Wallace, who serves as general counsel for Baptist Hospital, and Kevin Pittard, now an associate dean of admissions at Wake Forest University, posed as members of Kappa Alpha with the Confederate flag for the 1983 edition of The Howler.

Ben Sutton, founder of Teall Capital and formerly the CEO of the sports marketing company IMG College, is listed in the Kappa Alpha roster in the 1980 edition of The Howler.

Allman and Pittard have issued public apologies for posing with the flag, with Allman owning up to “perpetuating harm” and Pittard calling his participation “a mistake that hurt and angered others.”

After being contacted by City Beat earlier this week, Judge Whitney said he too regrets being photographed with the Confederate flag.

“Do I know today that it’s insensitive?

Yes,” he said. “I totally regret it.”

Members of the Kappa Alpha Order, founded in 1865, prominently displayed Confederate flags and portraits of Lee

through at least the mid 1980s. At Wake Forest University and other campuses across the country, they held an annual “Old South Ball,” which celebrated the trappings and values of the antebellum era.

Whitney, who worked as a federal prosecutor for a decade before receiving appointment as US attorney for the Eastern District and then as a judge in the Western District by President Bush, said that members knew the Confederate flag was offensive when they displayed it in the 1980s because black students at Wake told them so, but insisted that for them it was never about race and never intended as a signal of support for the Confederacy.

Whitney recalled that the Afro American Society — which was renamed the Black Student Alliance around the same time — wrote a letter to the student newspaper the Old Gold & Black complaining that the Confederate flag was insensitive to them. As a member of COURTESY PHOTO Frank Whitney, a federal judge, posed with a Confederate flag as a Student Government, Whitney said he member of Kappa Alpha Order at Wake Forest University in 1982. helped put together an Ad Hoc Committee on Race Relations to come to a national administrative office in LexingConfederacy aren’t hard to find. The resolution. ton, Va. fraternity page includes of photo of “We apologized to them as to our Ben C. Sutton Jr., whose name apbrothers dressed in Confederate unimisunderstanding as to how flying pears on the Kappa Alpha roster in the forms. And, more telling, an introducthe Confederate flag was insensitive,” yearbooks, graduated with a BA in 1980 tion to the Greek section of the yearbook Whitney recalled. “We worked out with and completed his law degree at Wake quips: “If the Confederate flags leave them that we would only fly the flag for Forest in 1983. He now serves on the you confused, strains of ‘3, 2, 1, South our photo and at the beginning of the university’s board of trustees. should have won,’ tell you you’re passing weekend when we held the Old South Sutton’s bio on the Teall Capital webthe Order of Kappa Alpha.”

Ball, and we’d only wear the Confedersite describes him as “one of the top or Like other fraternities, Kappa Alpha ate uniform to deliver invitations to the most powerful sports executives in AmerOrder emphasizes its members mainOld South Ball. It was ica,” while noting that he is a member of tain a lifelong bond. The never on campus. We left the North Carolina Sports and National fraternity’s membership Winston-Salem for the ‘Do I know today it Football Foundation halls of fame. Sutmanual notes that the weekend. ton was the chairman and CEO of membership certificate was insensitive?

“The photo, ironiIMG College, described as “the largest issued to initiates includes cally, was a step forward,” Yes. I totally regret college sports sponsorship and media the Latin phrase for Whitney added. “Several company in America.” The company “brothers faithful until years later the KAs elimiit.’ was sold as part of IMG Worldwide death.”

Warren’s continnated the Old South Ball.

– US District Court for $2.4 billion to Silver Lake Capital ued involvement in the It should have happened Partners and WME in 2014. Teall Capifraternity is evidenced by Judge Frank Whitney before.” tal, the company Sutton founded and his listing on the webpage Indeed, the comprochairs, holds ownership interests in the for the Wake Forest chapmise Whitney helped broWinston-Salem Dash and the Sunshine ter as “distinguished alumni,” where he ker led to a run of compromising group th Knight Commander beverage company, along with a bevy of is identified as “36 photos with the Confederate flag from of Kappa Alpha Order from 2001 to other companies in the hospitality, sports 1982 to 1985, with a hiatus in 1986, and 2003.” marketing, wine, agribusiness, tech, real then a final display in 1987 before the Warren, who graduated cum laude estate and restaurant sectors. elite fraternity retired it. from Wake Forest, could not be reached Sutton could not be reached for comThe group photo that lists David M. for comment for this story, but Claire ment.

Warren for The Howler in 1981 displays Sauls Glover, his law clerk in Raleigh, J. McLain Wallace, who now serves as the KA fraternity banner instead of the referred questions to the fraternity’s general counsel for Baptist Hospital, is Confederate flag, but references to the

David M. Warren, in 1981 and today

Kevin Pittard, in 1984 and today

Martha Blevins Allman, in 1982 and today

J. McLain Wallace, in 1985 and today

Robert Pittenger, in 1970 and today

Reeves participated in the Kappa Alpha fraternity at Millsaps College.

On Feb. 20, the Greenville News reported that South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, an early and enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump, was listed as the No. 1 officer for the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity at the University of South Carolina in the 1969 Garnet and Black yearbook.

Richard Watts, who served as president of the Black Student Alliance at Wake Forest University in 1982, recalled that the Kappa Alpha Order frequently displayed the Confederate flag outside their residence hall. Watts served on the Student Relations Committee with Frank Whitney, the future federal judge, although he says he doesn’t remember Whitney.

“We were concerned about the outward symbol of the Confederate flag and Old South Weekend,” Watts

News

Ben C. Sutton Jr., in 1979 and today

Up Front Opinion 5th Aniversay Puzzles

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Shot in the Triad

Wake Forest University yearbook in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Cactus entry notes that Kappa Alpha Order was organized at Washington College in 1865 “under the guidance of Robert E. Lee” and mentions that “an Old South Week, including the traditional ball, was held in the spring.” The yearbook for the previous year shows a bearded fraternity brother dressed in a Confederate uniform and delivering an invitation to the Old South Ball on horseback.

An enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump, Pittenger made headlines for racialized comments on at least two occasions during his three terms in Congress. In August 2017, the congressman defended Trump’s “both sides” comments about the violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. Speaking on WFNC radio’s “Good Morning Fayetteville, Pittenger reportedly said, “It’s a bit disingenuous to me that so much pressure and criticism has been put on President Trump for what he didn’t say, and yet when these things happen on the other side, silence…. You look at the actions of Black Lives Matter and people like Al Sharpton who have not condemned it — we never heard President Obama condemn the violence of Black Lives Matter.”

To McClatchy News, Pittenger clarified: “While I have condemned the white supremacists, I have made no direct connection between Black Lives Matter and KKK. However, there is the reality of hate and violence with Black Lives Matter and antifa, and why should they get a pass?”

And in 2016 Pittenger apologized for a comment he made about protesters in Charlotte demonstrating against the police killing of Keith Lamont Scott. In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Pittenger had said, “The grievance in their minds — the animus, the anger — they hate white people, because white people are successful and they’re not.” He added, “It is a welfare state. We have spent trillions of dollars on welfare, and we’ve put people in bondage, so they can’t be all that they’re capable of being.”

Pittenger could not be reached for comment for this story.

Outside of North Carolina, The Tennessean recently published a photograph of Gov. Bill Lee dressed in a Confederate uniform at an Old South Ball as a member of the Kappa Alpha Order at Auburn University in 1980. Lee told the newspaper: “I can see that participating in that was insensitive and I’ve come to regret it.” The Jackson Free Press has reported that Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

listed in the caption for the Kappa Alpha’s group photo with the Confederate flag in the 1985 edition of The Howler.

The entry on Kappa Alpha’s page notes that brothers were known as “those good ’ole Southern boys” while explaining that the chapter “has remained relatively small in comparison to that of other fraternities, in an attempt to uphold these feeling [sic] of togetherness.” The entry shows a photo of two brothers posing next to a keg with a Confederate flag and portrait of Robert E. Lee in the background, while noting the annual celebration “to honor the traditions of the Old South” and the brothers’ practice of dressing in Confederate uniforms, in which they “upheld the ideas and lifestyle of the period.”

“I should have known in college that the Confederate battle flag is a hurtful and painful symbol, and I regret that I did not fully understand then what I do today,” Wallace told City Beat. “I apologize for perpetuating racism and the hurt that has caused others.”

Kappa Alpha chapters at institutions of higher learning outside of the state have also produced prominent political and business leaders. Among them, Jerry Richardson was inducted into Kappa Alpha Order at Wofford College in South Carolina in 1957. A former NFL player, Richardson established the Carolina Panthers franchise in Charlotte.

Richardson sold the franchise in May 2018 following a report by Sports Illustrated that he made significant monetary settlements to employees complaining of sexual harassment and on at least one occasion directed a racial slur at an African-American Panthers talent scout.

Richardson could not be reached for comment.

Robert Pittenger, a former congressman from North Carolina, was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Order at the University of Texas in Austin in 1967.

Pittenger lost to Mark Harris in the 2018 Republican primary. The state Board of Elections recently threw out the results of the general election and ordered a new election after evidence of fraud surfaced. Pittenger has said he does not plan to run for the seat.

In 1970, Pittenger served as the recording secretary for the Kappa Alpha chapter at the University of Texas, according to the Cactus yearbook. Pittenger’s photo also appears in the Kappa Alpha section of the 1968 yearbook.

There are no Confederate flag photos in the section, but the entry describes a set of rituals and trappings that are nearly identical to those seen in the

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 Up Front News Opinion 5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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recalled. “We never saw blackface, but we heard about it. Our goal was: Let’s talk about it.”

Watts recalled the dialogue with Kappa Alpha as amicable.

“When you talked to individuals who are members of the fraternity, they tried to understand where we were,” said Watts, who now works with the Crosby Scholars Community Partnership, a nonprofit that helps Forsyth County students prepare for college. “I’m not sure they understood all the history and why it’s so upsetting to us.”

By the time Watts attended college, black students at Wake Forest University had risen through desegregated public schools, something that set them apart from previous generations, and a 1982 article in the Winston-Salem Chronicle noted that participation in the Black Student Alliance was lower than in previous years. But black students still spoke out.

“Because of the racially discriminatory policies at Wake Forest, we’ve not gained anything,” Watts told the Chronicle at the time. “Things have not changed.

We still have fraternities that are flying the Confederate flag or having blackface shows.”

Kappa Alpha Order finally prohibited its members from displaying the Con-

federate flag in 2001, according to the national organization. A ban on Confederate uniforms, parades and trappings followed in 2010, and in 2016 the national organization also prohibited social event nomenclature associated with the Civil War period, driving a stake in the Old South Ball.

Jesse S. Lyons, Kappa Alpha Order’s assistant executive director for advancement, said the national fraternity enforces the prohibitions.

The fraternity’s website and current publications celebrate the order’s ties to Robert E. Lee, while sidestepping any discussion of the Confederacy, slavery or white supremacy. The website’s treatment of Lee emphasizes the Confederate general’s family ties to George Washington and holds him up as an agent of reconciliation. “After the Civil War, [Lee] emerged as one of the most important and nationally appreciated figures in healing the divisions of that conflict,” the website says.

Lyons described Kappa Alpha Order as “a moral compass for the modern gentleman [that] promotes respect for others.”

The fraternity’s material on Robert E. Lee focuses almost exclusively on his definition of “gentleman.” The website

quotes Lee extensively on the subject.

“The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman,” Lee said. “The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly — the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.”

Notwithstanding its careful protection of its reputation, Kappa Alpha Order includes Thomas Dixon Jr., who attended Wake Forest, among its distinguished alumni. Dixon is the author of the 1905 novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, which was adapted into the groundbreaking and racist film Birth of a Nation.

“We are a diverse organization with representation from all ethnic groups,” Lyons said, while adding that the national organization does not maintain records of its members’ ethnicity.

Judge Frank Whitney said during his time at Wake Forest University he never considered his participation in the frater-

nity to be an expression of support for the Confederacy.

“The Civil War was fought, in part, to preserve slavery; that was reprehensible,” Whitney said. “The Confederate leadership committed treason. I would never condone and defend the Confederacy.”

Whitney said as a high school student in Charlotte he participated in Revolutionary War and Civil War reenactments, but he said that as a 16and 17-year-old he portrayed a Union soldier.

Born into an elite family, Whitney attended a Sunday School class at Myers Park Presbyterian taught by future Charlotte Mayor Richard Vinroot, according to a profile in the Charlotte Observer. Years later, as a federal judge, Whitney would sentence another Charlotte mayor, Patrick Cannon, to prison time for accepting bribes. The Observer reported that colleagues used terms like “Boy Scout and “patriot” to describe Whitney.

After graduating from Wake Forest University in 1982, Whitney attended law school at UNC-Chapel Hill, leading to a clerkship under David Sentelle, a federal appellate judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. Another former clerk for Sentelle, Neil Gorsuch, went on to serve on the US Supreme Court.

Up Front Frank Whitney’s 1982 yearbook photo in The Howler

tional harm to African Americans. They clearly understood at the time that they were not benign symbols. Wake Forest University was an elite school. These would have been sharp students. They had the intellectual resources to appreciate the significance of them standing before this symbol of hate and violence.”

News

Disclosure: The author of this article led a class at Wake Forest University in the fall of 2017 as an adjunct faculty member.

Opinion

slavery. I knew the Confederacy backed the Crosby Scholars, Watts served as slavery.” But he said that during his years principal of Winston-Salem Preparatory in college he did not realize that the Academy, where he developed a workConfederate flag had been adopted by ing relationship with Martha Blevins Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Allman, the dean of admissions at Wake Forrest.

Forest University.

“That flag has different meaning for “Her and I have a great relationship,” different people,” Whitney said. “It was Watts said. “When I had a minority part of a social ritual; it was a tribute to student, I would call her and she would Robert E. Lee [for Kappa help me get that student Alpha]. I did not know to Wake. She has grown. at that time that Nathan To me, that says a lot Thomas Dixon Bedford Forrest had adabout where she has been Jr., author of The opted the flag as a symbol and where she is now.” of the KKK.” But Ted Thornhill, Clansman, is Whitney said his affinan associate professor among the KA ity with the Confederate of sociology at Florida flag as a student at Wake Gulf Coast University, members who atForest University hasn’t said people like Allman, tended Wake. infected his conduct as a Whitney and Wallace who prosecutor and a judge. profess to have grown “I’d never supported since the time they posed slavery; it’s not anything other than abwith the Confederate flag should be horrent and despicable,” Whitney said. judged in the context of their status as “I do my very best in my job to provide a white students at an elite institution. fair and just courtroom and to be color“I think a lot of folks say, ‘That was a blind in everything I do.” long time ago,’” Thornhill said, “but it Richard Watts said he is inclined to was clearly only two decades past — or accept apologies from people who once a decade and a half — past the modern associated with the Confederate flag, as civil rights movement. These folks would long as they show that they can grow have known these symbols were hateful from their experiences. Prior to joining and that they caused hurt and emo-

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

During his post as US attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina in the 2000s, Whitney made a name for himself by prosecuting elected officials for corruption, including North Carolina state House Speaker Jim Black, US Rep. Frank Balance, state Commissioner of Agriculture Meg Scott Phipps and state Transportation Secretary Garland Garrett Jr. But the most significant case he was involved in, Whitney said in a Constitution Day speech at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2016, was the recovery of North Carolina’s copy of the Bill of Rights, which was stolen by a Union soldier during General William Tecumseh Sherman’s occupation of Raleigh in 1865.

“That’s the most incredible case I’ve worked on in my life, and nothing will ever top that,” Whitney said.

During the hourlong speech, Judge Whitney never says anything complimentary about the Confederacy, while crediting President Lincoln for “instructing Sherman to make sure that the property of the people of North Carolina was not destroyed.”

Whitney told City Beat that during his years in college he understood that the Civil War was fought over “state’s rights,” adding, “State’s rights meant

5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 Up Front News Opinion 5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Millions of gallons of wastewater released in Greensboro in 2018

By Sayaka Matsuoka In 2018, Greensboro sewer lines released more than 3.5 million gallons of untreated sewage onto roads and, often, into waterways. The city experienced 64 untreated sewage discharges, otherwise known as sanitary sewer overflows or SSOs that year. So far this year, the city has experienced 13 SSOs — 10 in January and three in February — amounting to more than 21,000 gallons.

The largest overflows in 2018 occurred in September and October when Hurricane Florence and Michael dumped massive rainfall over the Carolinas.

Combined, the hurricanes caused more than three million gallons of untreated sewage to overflow in the city.

According to the EPA website, SSOs can “contaminate our waters, causing serious water quality problems, and backup into homes, causing property damage and threatening public health.”

The agency estimates that there are at least “23,000 to 75,000 SSOs per year” in the United States.

Based on a 2013 report card by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the oldest national engineering society in the country, North Carolina scored a C on wastewater infrastructure. The country as a whole, scored a D+ in the same category in 2017.

“North Carolina has documented a need of over $4 billion of additional wastewater infrastructure investment needs through the year 2030,” the report stated. “These funds are needed to replace aging facilities, comply with mandated Clean Water Act regulations, and provide as well as keep pace with economic development.”

The report found that at least $271 billion would be needed to “meet current and future demands” for the country’s wastewater infrastructure.

There are more than 1,600 miles of sewer lines and close to 40,000 manholes in Greensboro, according to city data.

The 64 incidents and 3.5 million gallons of discharges in 2018 were an increase from 51 discharges and 91,000 gallons in 2017 and 41 discharges and 794,000 gallons in 2016. Similarly sized cities like Winston-Salem and Durham had 65 and 24 spills respectively during the 20172018 fiscal year.

A graph provided by the city however, shows a downward trend in sewer overflows per 100 miles of line since 2011.

Almost a quarter of the discharges in 2018 in Greensboro were caused by grease build-up in the lines. Debris and

roots were the second and third most frequent causes.

“On Battleground Avenue where we have a lot of businesses that have services, it can produce grease,” says Mike Borchers, the assistant director of Greensboro’s water resources department. “Sometimes the grease traps don’t work or aren’t maintained properly. The grease can clog up the line and when it gets into the system, it can congeal. It comes from homes too. That’s why we tell people not to dump grease down drains.”

Borchers says that most of the time the discharges come out of manholes and spill out into the street. State law requires overflows of more than 1,000 gallons to be reported within 24 hours and for overflows that reach water sources like rivers, streams or surface water to be reported within 24 hours, regardless of volume. Each report includes items like the number of gallons released, location, date, cause of discharge and waterways affected. The equipment used to treat the discharge as well as the result is also included.

According to Borchers, employees respond quickly to reports of sewage discharge and address the problem immediately. If there is build-up in the lines, they use a jet to clean it out and will wash the surrounding area and put lime down to disinfect. In instances where sewage enters a waterway, employees will “flush” the creek by adding more water to dilute it as it flows downstream.

Many of the reports include the North and South Buffalo tributaries as affected waterways. Both feed into the Cape Fear River which starts near the county line between Lee and Chatham county and flows southeast all the way to the Atlantic Ocean at Wilmington.

A 1998 EPA report found that 40 percent of waterways monitored by states were impaired by contaminants typically found in sewage. While the cause was not concrete, the report found SSOs to be a possible contributing factor.

Other environmental impacts of sewage include hypoxia, or decreased oxygen in water, algal blooms, habitat degradation and impacts to wildlife.

Raw sewage contains disease-causing pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, worms and protozoa and can cause illnesses like the stomach flu and even life-threatening illnesses like cholera and dysentery, according to the EPA. The agency lists ways in which people can be

A map of all of the discharges that occurred in Greensboro in 2018

exposed to raw sewage including from drinking water sources, direct contact with areas like basements, lawns or streets, and through eating contaminated shellfish.

A 2006 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that there was an association between SSO events and ER visits for GI illnesses in northeastern Massachusetts.

However, Borchers says the likelihood of residents getting sick from these discharges is minimal.

“The good news for us is that we are at the headwaters,” Borchers says. “That means that the Cape Fear River Basin starts up here in Guilford County. SSOs in most cases, won’t go into our lakes.”

Greensboro gets its drinking water from Lake Townsend, Lake Higgins and Lake Brandt. When SSOs enter lakes, Borchers says the city works quickly to isolate the area and then treat it.

In a few instances in 2016 and 2018, contractors working on the lines accidentally broke the pipes, causing thousands of gallons of sewage to enter creeks that flowed downstream to Burlington. In these events, Borchers says they make sure to contact their neighbor right away.

Eric Davis, the water and sewer operations manager for Burlington says they never really saw an impact from the discharges because the amounts are so small compared to the volume of the streams.

Instead, Davis points to the increased amounts of rain that can impact water quality and cause SSOs. During mid-September last year, more

SAYAKA MATSUOKA

than two million gallons of untreated sewage were released in Greensboro when Hurricane Florence overwhelmed sewer systems. The next month, Hurricane Michael caused another million to be released.

Due to the increasing effects of climate change, scientists predict that both overall precipitation and amount of rain in heavy downpours will continue to increase in the US. According to data from the Applied Climate Information System, North Carolina has seen an almost 30 percent increase in heavy downpours since 1950.

Inflow — which is caused by excessive rain like the instances caused by hurricanes — and pipe failure accounted for approximately 14 percent of the discharges last year. According to the city, the average age for Greensboro’s sewer line is 39 years compared to the country average which is 33. Some of the lines in the city, however, are close to 100 years old. The composition of the lines also varies. The newer ones, Borchers notes, are made from iron but older laterals, or those that connect houses to the street lines, are made of terra cotta or clay.

These are more susceptible to breaks which can cause SSOs. “The clay can crack because the tree needs moisture,” Borchers explains.

“The root system will migrate to where the water source is.”

In addition to fixing and cleaning the lines when there is an incident, Borchers says the city schedules preventative maintenance on its lines and actively rehabilitates old or problem ones.

Up Front

STIP PROJECT NO. R-5725 The N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding the proposed project to improve N.C. 68 from Fogleman Road (S.R. 2129) to N.C. 150 / Oak Ridge Road (S.R. 2137) in Oak Ridge.

The purpose of the project is to increase safety and traffic flow along this section of N.C. 68, which includes intersection improvements at Linville Road (S.R. 2022), Marketplace Drive and N.C. 150 / Oak Ridge Road (S.R. 2137).

The project will also address connectivity for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Project information and materials can be viewed as they become available online at https://www.ncdot.gov/news/public-meetings.

5th Aniversay

NCDOT representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments regarding the project. The opportunity to submit comments will also be provided at the meeting or via phone, email, or mail by March 20.

Comments received will be taken into consideration as the project develops.

Opinion

The meeting will take place Tuesday, March 5 from 4 to 7 p.m. at Oak Ridge Town Hall located at 8315 Linville Road in Oak Ridge. The public may drop in at any time during the meeting hours. Please note that no formal presentation will be made.

News

To report a sewer overflow, call Water Resources Construction and Maintenance at 336-373-2033. All reports of SSOs can be found at greensboro-nc.gov/government/ city-news/city-news/-seldept-27.

NCDOT TO HOLD PUBLIC MEETING FOR PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS TO N.C. 68 FROM FOGLEMAN ROAD (S.R. 2129) TO N.C. 150 / OAK RIDGE ROAD (S.R. 2137) GUILFORD COUNTY

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

“We try to get up to one percent of our system year over year,” Borchers says. “Doing one percent, hopefully we’ll touch all the lines over a 100-year period.

We’re fixing lines that have met their life expectancy or are overworked.”

According to city data, in 2018, 48,421 feet or a little more than 9 miles of sewer lines were rehabilitated at a cost of $5,021,048. This amounts to just .56 percent of the city’s lines, falling short of the yearly one percent goal.

Most of the money to repair and upgrade the pipes comes from residents’ water utility bills, Borchers says.

The department has a $120 million budget each year.

He also says that there are several active and open revenue bonds totaling close to $260 million to help subsidize the repairs and upgrades.

“We try to be as proactive as we can,” Borchers says. “Our goal is not to have any SSOs. It’s not our intention nor do we want them. We want to thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we move forward to address these issues.”

For additional information, contact Brian Ketner, P.E., NCDOT Division 7 Project Engineer, at bkketner@ncdot.gov or 336-487-0075.

Aquellas personas no hablan inglés, o tienen limitaciones para leer, hablar o entender inglés, podrían recibir servicios de interpretación si los solicitan antes de la reunión llamando al 1-800-481-6494.

Puzzles

Persons who do not speak English, or have a limited ability to read, speak or understand English, may receive interpretive services upon request prior to the meeting by calling 1-800-481-6494.

Shot in the Triad

NCDOT will provide auxiliary aids and services under the Americans with Disabilities Act for disabled persons who wish to participate in this meeting.

Anyone requiring special services should contact Samantha Borges, Environmental Analysis Unit at smborges@ncdot.gov or 919-707-6115 as early as possible so that arrangements can be made.

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Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 Up Front News Opinion 5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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CITIZEN GREEN

OPINION

A 5-year arc in the news cycle, and a life

Five years ago, I stepped out on faith to help launch a newspaper that I believed would provide an honest voice for North Carolina’s northern Piedmont in an era of media atrophy, celebrate the region’s culture and hold the powerful to account.

by Jordan Green My first child was only four months old when I decided to leave a stable, decently compensated job to join my friend and colleague Brian Clarey at Triad City Beat. It seemed like a crazy thing to have a child at age 38, but I got a burst of energy that made me feel 10 years younger, and so doubling down on a new, risky venture only made sense.

Even if City Beat had gone down in flames in the first year or two — and thank God, it didn’t — I still trusted that I would land on my feet somehow. One thing I knew is that I couldn’t stay at a job where I was stagnating and constantly fending off an unscrupulous publisher to uphold professional ethics.

Triad City Beat has seen my wife and I through the purchase of our first house; daycare, pre-K and kindergarten for our first child, and the birth of our second child.

The last five years has taught me the unparalleled love of family, with each part holding essential value — lover and partner, children, supportive grandmas. Family has shown me there’s something worth fighting for, and in many ways has hurtled me into a rebellious middle age.

I’ve flourished professionally, but as an observer of the world these five years have traced an arc of disillusionment.

As an investor and key employee at City Beat, I embraced an entrepreneurial zeal that seems quaint in hindsight. For me, the promise of a multicultural New Urbanist renaissance has given way to a hard reality of widening wealth inequality and intransigent institutional racism. Middle age is supposed to bring caution, but for me it’s the opposite: The recognition that life is fleeting demands insistence.

We can’t afford to wait to ensure that all children receive a sound basic education, that young people aren’t churned into a soul-wasting criminal justice system, and that lending institutions don’t systematically shut out people of color from building wealth through homeownership. A human lifespan is finite, so the flipside of incremental gains over decades is a devastating opportunity cost. Nothing is ever fixed, so if we’re not moving forward, then we’re actually moving backwards.

Contributing to alt-weekly journalism inevitably requires paying attention to the things that make cities vibrant — new restaurants, underground music scenes, expanding greenway networks, farmers markets, street murals. Cultural activity sustains our spirits, but sometimes if can feel like a luxury in the face of ICE raids, segregated schools and chronically unsafe housing.

It’s been a jarring experience to be a journalist, or indeed a sentient human being, over the past five years. Maybe the most searing experience for me was attending US Sen. Richard Burr’s election-night party at the Forsyth Country Club in Winston-Salem. As the journalists huddled over

Senior Editor Jordan Green covering a protest against police killing of unarmed black men in Winston-Salem in April 2015.

KATHLEEN RAMICH

laptops at a cramped table became increasingly stricken with the results spooling in, the Republican apparatchiks and partisan fanboys were commensurately boisterous and jubilant. In a perverse way, I identified with the partisans’ gloating schadenfreude over the journalists. They saw it coming; we didn’t.

Nov. 8, 2016 forced me to do a hard reset.

After Trump’s election, I knew I had to focus on the busting seams of the American experiment. Since then, I’ve written about antifascists carrying baseball bats to confront the Ku Klux Klan, an anticommunist Cuban-American zealot publicly declaring his desire to kill Muslims, an antiracist militia, Charlottesville, far-right extremists, and the toppling of Confederate monuments.

In hindsight, the panoply of discontents didn’t begin with Trump. It was there all along with the police shooting of Mike Brown and the uprising in Ferguson in 2014; and the Mother Emanuel Massacre in Charleston and Bree Newsome’s removal of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina state house grounds in 2015.

Hardly anyone gets rich from journalism, but our little band of malcontents at City Beat has found a way to make it work, often to the amazement of our friends in the more legit daily and broadcast sectors of the industry. It hasn’t always been easy or fun. For three of the past five years, I supplemented my income as a journalist with earnings from mowing the grass at my church. Quite the opposite from being a humbling experience, applying myself to physical work became a source of pride. I learned to write with more confidence: Despite my fancy Columbia University degree, no one can tell me I’m an elitist. Our family earns the median income in Guilford County. We know about the strains of paying for daycare and keeping up with a house payment, and we know something of the challenge of sustaining a small business.

And I’ve laughed out loud at alt-right conspiracy-mongers who’ve told me I’ll write whatever lies my corporate overlords tell me to. We own this paper, baby! We’ve paid the price to build a credible platform for independent and fearless journalism.

It’s a cliché to say a newspaper won’t love you back, but this one has given me a livelihood and a life in journalism.

So I say thank you to the colleagues who put in the financing and sweat equity to make this newspaper and to the young writers who carry the legacy forward every day with their brilliance.

Illegal districts, illegal elections, illegal amendments

by Clay Jones

Up Front News

claytoonz.com

Opinion 5th Aniversay

Here at the end of the line, things amendment proposal can be submitted hinge on something we’ve been saying to the people for a vote….” in this space all along: How can we hold It’s important to note that just these elections in districts that have been detwo amendments came before the clared illegal? How can we validate any judge, but that his opinion effectively laws passed by people who have been nullifies the other two that passed — a elected in this manner? hunting and fishing amendment, and On Friday, two of the most recent one about rights for victims of crimes amendments to the state constitution — should any viable party choose to passed last year by voter referenda — challenge them in court. the voter ID bill and a cap on income And it calls into question just about taxes — were removed from the process every single piece of legislation that our by a Wake County supeGeneral Assembly has rior court judge. passed since 2011.

The state NAACP Surely the state GOP and Clean Air Carolina apparatus has some asked for summary judglegal maneuvering in ment on a preliminary the works to challenge injunction of these two Enough is enough. this ruling in the hopes amendments, which of dragging it out even must pass through a longer than it already three-tiered process has — remember, the before becoming law. first three-judge panel to In his opinion, Judge find these districts to be G. Bryan Collins illegal convened in 2016. referenced the illegal districts that have But with this move, the judiciary held, more or less, since 2011, unlawful seems to be saying that enough is racial gerrymanders. From his opinion: enough. And until our illegal districts “Curing this widespread and sweeping are rectified, everything this General racial gerrymander required that over Assembly does will be called into questwo-thirds of the North Carolina House tion. and Senate districts be redrawn. Thus the unconstitutional racial gerrymander tainted the three-fifths majorities required by state Constitution before an

Claytoonz

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

EDITORIAL

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

15

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019 Up Front News

Triad City Beat’s first five years, as remembered by its writers

I love writers.

I love talking with writers about their stories, mapping out ledes and structure. I love sharing the tools I’ve picked up over the years, and catching the gleam in a young wordsmith’s eye when they finally start to get it. I love getting my hands in the copy, smoothing sentences and moving big chunks around, whacking out passive verbs and dangling participles, and otherwise enforcing the rules of good writing.

These are the things that my writers hate.

But they knew that, from the beginning, I was going to be a jerk about the writing.

I’m genuinely touched that so many of our former writers contributed something for our 5th anniversary publication — for free! — and even more so that this newspaper has had such an effect on their lives.

I know it changed mine.

From the beginning, we wanted this place to be different: a safe place to work on our craft while the journalism world was crumbling around us. We all knew that a newspaper could never love us back, but we went ahead with it anyway.

Five years in, we’re still at it — in no small part thanks to the writers who filled our pages with stories.

I love them all.

— Brian Clarey

Kat Bodrie

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

5th Aniversay

Opinion

(Barstool columnist, 2017)

16

The first time I stepped into the Triad City Beat office, I was a total fangirl, having followed Jordan’s edgy reporting, Brian’s insightful editorials and Eric’s foray into local booze culture since they were at another publication. I felt unworthy as I scanned past covers, taped up as bespoke wallpaper, but the guys exuded an energy that made me feel not only welcome, but immediately part of the team.

Over the next few months as the Barstool columnist, I came to learn a few things: Eric has a keen ear for phrasing; Brian successfully skates the edge between crazy and cool; a regular writing practice in journalism can increase one’s comfort in interviewing strangers; and no matter how I once felt, I am worthy of my idols.

Since then, I’ve funneled my craft beer interest into a blog (thegrog.blog), but I’m still keeping up with Brian and crew in their devotion to topics and angles not represented in local mainstream media.

Happy birthday. Y’all still kick ass.

Eric Ginsburg

(Founding editor, 2014-18)

Triad City Beat is, in many respects, why I stayed in Greensboro for so long. But it’s also why I left.

Six months after graduating from Guilford College, I returned from a month-long road trip across America without a job, and little direction. With a degree in history and a smattering of professional experiences — making smoothies at the Juice Shop, babysitting, pretending to be a competent valet and working as a community organizer — I sent out an urgent plea to the “adults” I knew in Greensboro. I offered to do anything; ‘Maybe you need help with yardwork?’ I suggested.

While I waited to hear back, I pestered Brian Clarey for an internship. With some nudging from Jordan Green, who’d read my writing for The Guilfordian student newspaper, Clarey finally let me come aboard in January 2011.

Even though I’d long been pulled towards the alternative press, I’d never considered it as a career. But as friend after friend moved away from the Gate City, working with Clarey and Green enabled me to build a life and a career in the place I’d come to love.

Without that opportunity, I’d likely be doing something far less enjoyable and rewarding, and I would’ve been forced to look beyond Greensboro like my peers.

I never questioned my decision to quit a stable job to form Triad City Beat with Clarey and Green. It wasn’t just the youthful naivete of a 26-year-old; I understood the risks, but we’d built a trust, camaraderie and working relationship that made the jump the right decision. I believed in us, and in what we could build. Plus, if you ever have the chance to leave a toxic employer and hand in your resignation letter at the same time as a colleague, I highly recommend it.

I spent the next four years trying to make Triad City Beat into everything we’d

dreamed of, and more. It quickly took on a life of its own, and that’s because so many of you picked it up and made it yours, leaving your imprint on the shape it would take.

Parts of creating a business and keeping it alive are miserable. I’d love to pretend that I grew to love my delivery route or say that the stress of cutting sections to avoid its collapse brought us closer together. In reality, there’s no neat bow to tie on it. But I don’t regret any of it, and the hard times aren’t why I left. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Triad City Beat — by which I mean not just the newspaper, but the people who embody it — allowed me to leave. It put me on a path to pursue bigger stories and write for bigger publications. It gave me self-confidence and encouraged me to think bigger.

It let me dream even bigger.

It’s also partially responsible for my relationship.

I asked out Kacie Ragland, love of my life, after she came to TCB’s first anniversary party at SECCA. Four years later, we’re celebrating in Brooklyn, where we moved in 2018 and where I freelance full-time. I’d like to think I would’ve found a way to ask her out regardless, but I never would’ve made it as a freelancer — let alone one in New York — without City Beat.

I miss the TCB family and wish I could be there to toast all of you in person, but more importantly, I’m proud of what we built and where TCB is going. It’s so gratifying to step away and see something you helped create flourish, to see new people join the mission and make it their own. TCB will always be an integral part of my story, but what gives me even more satisfaction is knowing that — whether big or small — it’s part of yours, too.

Anthony Harrison

(Intern, 2015; sports columnist, 2016)

To say, “I grew at Triad City Beat,” would vastly undervalue the importance my tenure at the paper played on my personal, creative and professional development.

I stepped into the TCB offices as an editorial intern, partnered with now-associate editor Sayaka Matsuoka. I was then something of a mess, as are many recent college grads — a decent writer, but one without concrete direction for my life or my career.

Two years and two months later, I left a different man.

If you’d told me I’d write sports for nearly two years when I began in journalism, I would’ve laughed in your face. But covering sports and leisure for TCB taught me invaluable lessons about writing: pinpointing the drama of a moment, capturing all the senses, discovering beauty in loss as much as in victory. I look back now and proudly admit most of my best writing was for the sports column.

I also made lasting friendships. Brian Clarey, Jordan Green and Matsuoka, as well as former associate editor Eric Ginsburg, are all such special people who’ve seen me through good and bad.

I would be remiss if I didn’t state that I quit drinking while working for the paper.

The support and encouragement I received from the TCB crew played a key role in my successful sobriety — going on four years without a drop.

Last but certainly not least, I met the love of my life through the paper. Former intern Joanna Rutter and I celebrate our third anniversary on TCB’s fifth birthday.

I didn’t just grow at TCB. I didn’t just make memories I’ll treasure forever — though I’ll never forget attending major-league games at Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium; watching Rhiannon Giddens chug kale soup after a show and making “Weird Al” Yankovic laugh.

I owe my confidence, my principles, my purpose — my life — to the paper.

Joanna Rutter (Intern, 2016)

I earned my confidence at TCB. There’s a strength that comes from telling a true story well and learning the science and art to pitching a story, asking the right questions, pausing in an interview for the right answer, digging online for the missing nugget, writing something unpopular because it deserved to be said.

I got some humility, too. Something about staying up all night on a Sunday to have a story turned in before the Monday meeting, or a story I then had to turn back and edit down some more, for meager clicks and views on a slow week — you really don’t do this journalism thing to feel big.

I found my community again through TCB. Before interning, I had a small sense of

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

belonging to certain neighborhoods, but it wasn’t until I wrote for the paper that I actually knew all three Triad cities well. When you meet a city’s artists, small-time politicians and cultural curators, you really do meet the finest sample of dreamers. It was easy to see the Triad through their eyes.

I lost my faux-liberalism at TCB. That’s not a guaranteed side-effect, but it was the last push I needed further into leftism. TCB is unabashedly progressive, and doesn’t apologize for it, and I needed that.

Lastly, I found love at TCB. This is not guaranteed but it has worked out great for me.

Joel Sronce

News Opinion

You never know when the course of your life might change.

I was waiting at an auto shop, only a couple of months after moving to Greensboro, flipping through a nearby newspaper oddly named Triad City Beat. An ad for an internship caught my eye. A week or so later, during that unsettling purgatory between Donald Trump’s election and his inauguration, I walked into a newsroom for the first time and met Brian Clarey and Jordan Green. A few days later, I was offered an internship, and a couple months on, a position as the sports columnist. The latter was a dream of mine from a young age, and the course of my life did change. My time at City Beat introduced me to the trade, expanded my strengths as a writer, lengthened my worldview and sponsored my fascination with the intersection of sports and politics, an interest that has since led me into graduate school in Chapel Hill, buoyed by a letter of recommendation from Eric Ginsburg. There were plenty of memorable moments in the newsroom.

We’d riff on the day’s events with compassion, awe and laughter. But just as often, it seemed, we’d fall into silence for a moment. Disbelief, uncertainty, anger.

In mid-February I was at once dismayed and proud to read Jordan’s account of the most recent devastating ICE raids, of the activists standing up to them, and of his own call to action to resist the terror imposed on our neighbors. It will take more than Jordan Green to turn the tide of the venerable American traditions of xenophobia, state violence and family separation. But one of the important forces in that fight will be the publications and the journalists who demand that those realities are faced not as only a series of numbers or an analysis of policies, but as indefensible practices we should rail against. I’m grateful to have cut my teeth in that tradition, to have confronted this political moment by their sides. I’m proud of the writers who came before me and the ones who followed. I’m proud that Greensboro has City Beat to call its own.

Up Front

(Intern and sports columnist, 2017)

Danny Wirtheim

Shot in the Triad Puzzles

Watching the Triad City Beat editorial team process the news was a fascinating thing to witness. One of the three editors — while I was interning, it was Brian, Jordan and Eric — would get a piece of news and then announce it to the newsroom. That news would stir around the room as everyone asked questions, trying to find the context that framed it best.

I felt that I could actually see Brian’s brain working as he went through this process.

He would stand next to his desk with an unlit cigarette in his hand as the new information filtered through his constantly-updating model of the world. He would take a few moments to go over each facet of the new information before finally arriving at the lede, the point where this new information would most affect the readership.

I remember meeting Jordan in Winston-Salem to report for a cover story on a new pedestrian path that was to be built. We walked — burnt shoe leather, as the newsroom saying went — and filled our notebooks. We talked to citizens and made notes on the new pathways that were to be built. It feels so mundane, but it was a powerful feeling for me as a recent college graduate to be outside of the university and practicing my skills in a way that was really meaningful to the Triad citizenship.

On another occasion Eric Ginsburg took me court reporting. I learned how to pull files, how to talk to the administration and what to pay attention to. It was something I never learned in college and I admired the way Eric had learned to navigate that system.

Craftsmanship shouldn’t be a new concept, but with the push-notification economy of newspapers today, I think that taking the time to construct real perspectives and burning shoe leather is a bold notion.

When I think of Triad City Beat, I think of real people who actual care about what they’re doing. I couldn’t imagine a better place for developing a sense of craft. Theirs is a model for small newspapers of the future. I wish them the best for years to come.

5th Aniversay

(Intern, 2015-16)

17

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

Ian McDowell

(Freelancer, 2014)

Happy 5th birthday! I’ll always be grateful to Brian for giving me my start and encouraging my attempts at literary journalism, and to TCB for printing my cancer memoir.

Ryan Snyder

Opinion

News

Up Front

(Freelancer and, photographer, 2015-17)

It feels inevitable that there will be some Bukowskian biopic about Brian Clarey, and not only because there are likely hundreds of signed copies of The Anxious Hipster and Other Barflies I’ve Known to be skimmed from used bookstore bins around the Southeast, and very likely the Delta regions. It’s a pretty great starting point at least, because like “The Rock Says…”, the real story gets way, way better after the last page.

Maybe it will be James Ransone. Or Colin Hanks, following in his father’s footsteps in portraying canny, grizzled newsmen. But there will be a scene where the person portraying Clarey is on the phone with one of his longtime former writers, unconvincingly trying to sell him on his belief that the general public will fill its pants in delight over the clever reference in the name of his new altweekly concept.

“Triad City Beat. TCB. Takin’ care of business. It’s an Elvis thing, you know.” I might not get it, but the people who need to will, he promised. “Okay, Brian. You’re gonna do great no matter what.” Cut to his former writer less than five minutes later, taking a seat at a bar in Charlotte’s NoDa district. Emblazoned on the wall is the initialism ‘TCB’, riding a hand-painted lightning bolt across it. I never said it would be a very good movie.

That’s the kind of hubris it takes to go off and start any print publication from the ground up in 2014, let alone an altweekly, with the pivot-to-video circle jerk in full swing. Brian, Jordan and (formerly) Eric have witnessed some of the most iconic weeklies in the trade fold since, not because consumption habits have shifted, but because the moral tenets of ownership have. LA Weekly. East Bay Express. Creative, uh, somethin’. All pillars of culture whose cachet has been siphoned off and diminished by people without the best interests of their communities in mind.

But here you’re holding in your hands a sincere, incorruptible and defiantly anticapitalist (heh) model for media. Its imperatives will always be derived at the ground level for those on the ground. It’s the spiritual kin of protest and boycott; of The LAnd and QC Nerve; of everything that’s right and just with your city, anywhere that may be.

Puzzles

Shot in the Triad

5th Aniversay

Jeff Laughlin

18

(Sports columnist, 2015)

My artistry lies somewhere in a cavalcade of maestros’ teachings, but my use of that artistry lies firmly in Greensboro and Triad City Beat.

My one-line openings and penchant for turn of phrase developed under Brian. My refusal to accept truth handed down from singular authority developed under Jordan.

And my eye for subjects came from Eric. And that’s just the writing aspect.

I couldn’t have survived the weird, collected and overwhelming struggles I’ve seen without having written at TCB; without knowing at least I held a small audience, once.

My whole life I’ve vacillated between wanting attention and refusing power and oddly enough I feel like that vomited out of me in my sports columns a few years ago.

Getting to cover the people who pour their lives into physical entertainment allowed me access to a side of the Triad that most ignore: the parents at baseball games, the small-college coaches, the kids working their asses off in gyms with no spectators.

Triad City Beat were my readers, my editors and my friends who believed in my craft — I didn’t just fill column inches, I was molded to present myself as an authority. This crew does that so exceptionally well without giving themselves any credit.

But most of all, I got to be that professional.

I get to look down at this weird meatsack body that has tried to kill me since the day I was born and hold up the newspaper with my name on the cover. I can hold that until my body wins and there’s not a damn thing it can do about it.

Thanks, TCB. May you outlive us all somehow.

Savi Ettinger

(Intern, 2018-19)

Before sending the email asking about a possible internship at Triad City Beat, I let at least five other people read over what I wrote before I hit send. I’m pretty sure I let someone else hit send, actually.

Although I love writing, I have lacked confidence at times, especially when it involved talking to others. I stuttered my way through thesis presentations and poetry readings in college.

Through being an editorial intern, I’ve been able to cut down on that anxiety. I kept a healthy bit of fear to keep me going, rather than a general worried attitude, especially when it comes to being myself and doing what makes me excited to continue.

I correct people on my name now. I’ve gone by Savi to basically everyone for over three years now, but I used to hesitate with asserting it.

I credit the moment that I was asked upfront what I wanted my byline to be as the moment I began to be more self-assured as a writer. I’ve got a complicated relationship with my legal name and with gender. Getting to choose what name I wrote under seems simple, but it was the first step in me becoming more confident in my writing.

Every week, I got to meet someone new, talk to someone different, experience something I hadn’t before, and most of the time I went to events alone. I used to stay within my comfort zone but being with Triad City Beat helped me look at discomfort as nothing more than an adventure I haven’t yet had.

Sayaka Matsuoka

Up Front News

When I graduated from college almost five years ago I, like many of my friends and fellow graduates, had no idea what the hell I was going to do with my life. College was easy. I had a plan, I knew where to go and what to do for four years. After that, I figured I’d try to get a job with my art history degree (ha!) and make it out in the world. When I failed to get into the one public graduate art history program in the state, my quarter life crisis really began to set in.

That’s when I discovered TCB. I applied for an internship and astonishingly, got accepted. In the five months that I worked at the small, just-starting, altweekly, I learned everything that would change the course of the next few years of my life and beyond.

I learned to interview and really listen to people when they talk. I learned to write, I learned to edit, I learned to have more faith in myself.

When I finished my stint and moved to the Triangle, I had the clips and the confidence to pitch to Indy Week. During my two years in Chapel Hill, I continued to write regularly for Indy and amassed dozens of clips and even branched out to writing a piece for Durham magazine. In between my random service jobs and even a few months working for a larger company, journalism was the thing that kept me going.

It was the constant in my life. On nights when I came home and cried for hours because I felt lost in life and hated my day job (and there were many), being able to find and tell stories was what kept me sane.

When my fiancé and I moved back to Greensboro last summer, I reached out to TCB and began working as a staff writer covering culture. After a few months, I was promoted to associate editor.

Coming back and working for TCB again is a true homecoming for me. I finally feel like I know what the hell I’m doing and love doing it. There’s still so much to learn and I can’t wait.

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

(Intern, 2015; associate editor, 2019)

Opinion

Illustration by Jorge Maturino Former Art Director

5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

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Summit Avenue, Greensboro

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SHOT IN THE TRIAD

Cone Denim White Oak Plant, February 2019.

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‘Revolutionaries’— what goes around.

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EVENTS Every Tuesday

Julian Sizemore and Guest Every Wednesday Open Mic Night Fri. February 22nd Camel City Songwriters

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Opinion 5th Aniversay Shot in the Triad Puzzles

1 Kiefer, to Donald 4 Agcy. concerned with ergonomics 8 Upside-down V 13 It shares a key with @ 14 “... like ___ of bricks” 15 Language family of Czech and Polish 17 Like some bazookas or missiles 19 2001 A.L. MVP ___ Suzuki 20 Org. with a bunch of particle ac celerators 21 Quit at cards 23 Hall’s singing partner 24 “Beware the ___ of March” 25 “I Have a Dream” speech refrain 27 Took in 29 S.F. setting 30 Flower’s protective leaves ©2017 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) 32 Comics explosion sound 34 AC measurements 38 Advice based on feelings 41 Terrier type 42 “And others” 43 UCLA player 44 Ebenezer’s epithet 45 Mel of baseball 46 Got ready to kiss 53 ___ Report (upscale magazine) 56 Absolutely ridiculous 57 Opportunity creator 58 Skin softener 59 Movie house 61 Explanation for weird things going on, or what each theme answer has in common 63 A whole bunch Answers from last issue 64 “It’s either him ___!”

65 Understand 28 Prefix with skeleton 66 University of ___ Dame 30 Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, e.g. (abbr.)

67 Sword used in the Olympics 31 “Everything’s fine!”

68 PGA distances 32 When the time comes 33 Mauna ___ (Hawaiian volcano) Down 34 Stewie’s half-brother on “Family Guy” 35 Redundant statement, in literature 1 Actress Keanan of “Step By Step” 36 Geller who claims paranormal ability 2 Had stock in 37 Railroad stop (abbr.)

3 “Just kidding” 39 Abrade 4 Muffin grain 40 “Ballers” network 5 Group of workers 44 Yuppie’s ride, slangily 6 High esteem 46 ___ de gallo 7 Bracelet spot 47 SAG-AFTRA, for one 8 “___: Miami” 48 “No problem!”

9 “Little Women” author 49 Honored a king, maybe 10 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby 50 “Finding Dory” actor Willem 11 “Oh, What a Circus” musical 51 Assume by force 12 Four for the road 52 ___ d’Or (award at Cannes) 16 Went for 54 Showed disapproval 18 Fashionable 55 Predispositions 22 The Blue Demons of the NCAA 60 NASDAQ rival 26 [whispers] YouTube video genre presented 62 “The Ice Storm” director Ang like this

SUDOKU

Feb. 28 - Mar 6, 2019

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