IMPERIAL CENTER

Charlotte Burns, left, and her sister Emmelene Burns play in the bubble bath ball tub on Aug. 8, 2017, in the Children’s Museum & Science Center at the Imperial Centre. (File Photo)

IMPERIAL centre

By Paige Minshew

Located in downtown Rocky Mount, the Imperial Centre for the Arts and Sciences is one of the premier cultural facilities in the area.

The centre boasts 135,000 square feet of restored and renovated space from the former Imperial Tobacco Company and the old Braswell Memorial Library. The Imperial Centre houses an Arts Center, Children’s Museum and Science Center and community performing arts theatre.

Currently, the doors are shuttered to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the meantime, the public and regular visitors are encouraged to engage with the Imperial Centre through digital programs.

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The Arts Center is designed to educate and inspire people of all ages in visual and performing arts. Alicyn Wiedrich, art curator of the Children’s Museum and Science Center, hopes “visitors are challenged to think about art in new ways.

“I hear people say that ‘art isn’t for them’ or that they ‘don’t know enough about art to enjoy it,’” she said. “Through our exhibitions, interactives and programming, I hope to inspire all of our visitors to consider that art is about emotion, changing your mind, experimentation, asking a question, being transported somewhere else and so much more.”

There are also plenty of opportunities for budding artists to hone their skills. Weidrich encourages these artists to attend opening receptions to meet other artists and speak to jurors.

“Connections like that are invaluable to budding artists,” she said.

Weidrich offers artists workshops that focus on writing an exhibition proposal for the Imperial Centre. These skills are transferable so they can be used at other institutions as well.

Weidrich frequently uses young, promising artists as volunteers in the galleries. Higher level students have the opportunity to work in the galleries and gallery shop. Artists over the age of 18 can also submit their work to the

annual Arts Centre juried arts shows. Artists of all experience levels are encouraged to submit their work.

The Children’s Museum and Science Center features a Live Animal Gallery, Cummins Planetarium, traveling exhibits and interactive permanent exhibits. The goal of the museum’s exhibits and displays is to offer visitors opportunities to learn about the world around them.

The Cummins Planetarium, located inside the Imperial Centre for Arts and Sciences, features full-dome video and laser light shows. The entertainment is intended to educate and inspire audiences to expand their minds and gain an understanding of the amazing world above us.

Stargazing parties and solar viewing activities are frequently hosted by planetarium staff throughout Rocky Mount. Members of the Tar River Astronomy Club, Braswell Memorial Library, Farmers Market and others assist in these parties and viewing activities.

The PNC Live Animal Gallery and Astronomy exhibits are the only permanent exhibits at the Children’s Museum and Science Center. Due to COVID-19, there are no traveling exhibits at this time.

The Live Animal Gallery allows guests to experience the natural elements that make life on Earth possible: air, water and energy in the form of light and heat. Visitors can encounter a variety of animal life inhabiting our planet such as mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, fish, insects and birds. Visitors also can learn about the flora and fauna throughout the Carolinas, from Murphy to Manteo. A mounted black bear, cub, mountain lion and other mounts are also featured.

The Astronomy Exhibit seeks to educate visitors on space exploration, observational and stellar astronomy, planetary sciences, math, physics, cosmology and other celestial topics. The Astronomy Exhibits explore space with a plethora of activities.

Some of the activities in include:

Learning about the lunar cycle by placing the Moon’s phases in correct order.

Matching star patterns with their corresponding mythological characters.

Discovering the true 3-dimensional nature of constellations seen from Earth.

Operating a working kinematoscope (device aimed to present the illusion of motion) and seeing

Rebecca Smith lifts a 21-pound can of soda at the “What’s it Weigh?” display with her mother Megan Smith in the Children’s Museum & Science Center at the Imperial Centre. (File Photo)

“I hope to inspire all of our visitors to consider that art is about emotion, changing your mind, experimentation, asking a question, being transported somewhere else and so much more.”

- Alicy Wie rich

The Imperial Centre houses an Arts Center, Children’s Museum and Science Center and community performing arts theatre. (File Photo)

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Elijah Hodges plays with the Super 4 in Line game on Nov. 28, 2018, in the Children’s Museum and Science Center at the Imperial Centre. (File Photo)

why some stars always remain above the horizon.

Adjusting the energy output of a simulated star to see how temperatures determine star color.

Using a 3D model to discover the arrangement of planets in our solar system.

Noticing surprising differences between the sizes of the sun, Jupiter and Earth.

Having your picture taken in a make-believe Apollo spacesuit or rocket window.

Touching a 5,000-year-old space rock and learning to tell a meteorite from a “meteowrong.”

The Arts Center community theatre offers a variety of productions, including comedies, dramas, musicals and children’s theatre. Because the productions are dependent upon volunteers, they are always needed for all aspects of production including acting, set construction and painting, sewing and altering of costumes, props acquisition, stage management and technical operations. Ushers, house managers and concessionaires are also needed for performances throughout the year.

Due to COVID-19, the community theatre will livestream performances for viewers to enjoy in the safety of their homes.

While the Imperial Centre is closed to visitors, its staff is encouraging the public to continue to engage with it through digital programs. The digital shows available now are a Handcrafted Juried Art Show, Markings of Wildness by Anne Wilson and a Juried Art Show. Also, the Imperial Centre’s Theatre will be live on Facebook every Friday night at 6 p.m. for free, live performances.

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A Year of Growth at Nash UNC Health Care Benefits Community

As chairman of the Nash UNC Health Care board of commissioners, I am pleased to share our progress over the last year for our patients and community. Many have experienced our changes at Nash UNC, evidenced by improved patient satisfaction scores and positive feedback from our community. NC Business magazine featured Nash UNC as a hospital on the comeback trail last year. What does this mean for our community?

It means you can continue to expect superior, high quality services and advancements in care, delivered in a safe and clean environment. Our team has worked to improve quality of care, efficiency, and the patient and family experience. Your hospital achieved these improvements during a year that presented significant challenges and uncertainty due to COVID-19. We made changes to processes and staffing models to keep our patients, staff, and community safe while responding to the pandemic. A COVID-19 Task Force was formed, including senior leadership, physicians, medical staff and the board, to lead our organization during this challenging period of multiple, rapidly changing expectations from a novel illness. Difficult decisions were made with our community’s safety in mind, including implementing visitor restrictions and postponing certain services early in the pandemic. I am proud of our team for working together to develop a solid plan to serve our community effectively in this new environment. Nash UNC is and will remain well prepared to meet the projected healthcare needs of our community during the coming stages of COVID, and to deliver care in a clean, safe environment for our patients and staff.

We are pleased that despite the challenges of 2020, our work with UNC Health and our community partners has expanded our cardiology, ENT, orthopedics, surgical, urology and other service offerings. UNC Cardiology at Nash launched as a partnership between Nash UNC and Boice-Willis Clinic to provide comprehensive community heart care. Our heart and stroke care programs continue to advance, each receiving multiple national awards. Eastern North Carolina Medical Group became affiliated with Nash UNC and UNC Physicians Network. Nash Surgery launched in June, with two well-known community providers and three new surgeons, expanding access to those services. We hired and retained quality nurses, keeping our nurse vacancy rate very low compared to other hospitals.

Nash UNC invested in our community, donating over $350,000 this year through our foundation to local organizations for health education and service offerings. We are partnering with North Carolina Wesleyan College on a new RN to BSN program. We partnered with Nash County Public Schools to provide a sports medicine program for high school athletes. We provided 13 scholarships for nursing students at Nash and Edgecombe community colleges, as part of our Nurse Scholars program. We provided community health education programs, including the Healthy Heart Fair and Breast Cancer Lunch and Learn. Our employees are invested in our community, logging hundreds of community service hours last year. Our CEO, Dr. L. Lee Isley, used television and community visits to detail our strategic plan and share our vastly improved quality metrics, patient experience scores and financial performance, all of which are trending positively.

As we work to overcome challenges from COVID in the coming year, I want our community to know that we are dedicated to your safety and the exceptional health care you deserve. I am excited to work with a remarkable team at Nash UNC and our dedicated staff and partners to ensure our community’s health needs are met now and in the future.