CMYK Friday Night Football Ticker ... Warren County 22, Northern Vance 17 … South Granville 26, J.F. Webb 8 … Man held for beating ex-girlfriend
U.S. August jobless rate at 9.7 percent
Coalition leader Reed seeks redemption
Local & Nation, Page 4A
Business & Farm, Page 5A
Faith, Page 1C SATURDAY, September 5, 2009
Volume XCV, No. 208
(252) 436-2700
www.hendersondispatch.com
50 cents
Special I-85 tangles, both northbound and south Granville accident projects Woman thrown manager from vehicle in
serious condition
Position shared with foundation still not filled
By WILLIAM F. WEST
Daily Dispatch Writer
By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
The city of Henderson continues to remain without a special projects manager. City Manager Ray Griffin told the Dispatch that advertising has not yet begun for a replacement. The City Council, in preparing a frugal budget that took effect on July 1, agreed to allocate $27,600 for the city’s half of the special projects manager position. This is provided the Embassy Square Cultural Center Foundation provides the same amount. The council, in budget deliberations, cited a need to have contacts in Washington, D.C., and in Raleigh and a need to obtain grants. During the June 8 budget session, local government watchdog Lewis Edwards said he believed that funding the special projects manager position and that Henderson
Dispatch photos/ASHLEY STEVEN AYSCUE
What was first reported as a five-car accident tied up traffic on Interstate 85 just south of Satterwhite Point Road in the northbound lane Friday afternoon. The number of people injuried and the extent of their injuries was not known at press time. That accident occurred at around 5:30 p.m., about 90 mintues after another multi-car accident had tied up southbound I-85 traffic for some time in the vicinity of the Andrews Avenue/N.C. Highway 39 interchange. Below, a firefighter talks wth witnesses from the southbound I-85 accident. At left, traffic backs up to the north as vehicles wait for the crash to be cleared from the southbound lanes so travel can resume. Henderson police said a report on that crash would not be filed until Saturday.
Please see MANAGER, page 3A
Index Our Hometown . . . . . 2A Business & Farm. . . . 5A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . 6A Light Side . . . . . . . . . 7A Sports. . . . . . . . . . 1-4B Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . 1-5C Comics . . . . . . . . . . . 6C Classifieds. . . . . . . 7-9C
Weather
Please see ACCIDENT, page 3A
VGCC kicks off 40th anniversary celebration College chartered as Vance County Technical Institute From STAFF REPORTS
Today Sun ‘n’... High: 86 Low: 58
Sunday ...clouds High: 87 Low: 65
Details, 3A
Deaths Henderson Russell J. Buesker, 39 Bettie D. Person, 72 Warren Willie H. Hargrove, 80
Obituaries, 4A
CREEDMOOR — A 23-year-old Oxford woman on Friday evening was in serious condition at Duke University Medical Center after being injured earlier in the day in a one-vehicle wreck on N.C. 50 on the Granville County side of the Granville County-Wake County line. Erin Gore, who was not wearing a seatbelt, suffered a blackout while driving a 2006 Chevrolet Equinox north on the hilly, two-lane highway between Old N.C. 21 and Beaver Dam Road, state Trooper Mitchell Gordy told the Dispatch. The vehicle went to the left of center and off the pavement, Gore came to, overcorrected, the vehicle overturned and Gore was ejected, Gordy said. “She ended up in the roadway” and the vehicle went to the right and came to rest upright in a ditch, Gordy said. “She’s got some pretty severe injuries” to her head, neck, back and ribs, along with lacerations and road rash, Gordy said.
Vance-Granville Community College turned 40 years old on Friday, kicking off a series of celebrations to mark the milestone and rededicating itself to service to the people who will walk through the buildings’ arches over the next four decades. The first of four Student Appreciation Days was held at the college’s main campus between Henderson and Oxford. Future appreciation days will follow at each of the three satellite campuses, and the activities will spill over into October with an anniversary ball and a festival. It is a time for “Reflecting on our past, looking ahead to our future,” noted President Randy Parker in his remarks to a gathering of school trustees, administrators, instructors, students and guests.
“We should all be grateful to the forward-thinking people who founded Vance-Granville Community College,” Parker said. “It was not one person or even a small handful of people. It was a collective effort by so many people in Vance County, later followed by the people of Granville, Warren and Franklin counties. They worked together toward a common goal – a better future in which all the people of our area could access higher education and obtain better jobs and opportunities. “In 1969, these leaders faced a time of economic change, just like we do today. They responded with hope and determination,” he said. Citing a recently discovered copy of minutes from a Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce meeting 45 years earlier, Parker traced the college’s origins. The official request for a college was made to the state in 1968, he said. “The request stated that the county wanted ‘a low cost Technical Institute that will provide local industries, both new and old,
with workers who have been trained in some actual vocational skills that will provide the highly skilled workers so much in demand by our local employers,’” Parker said. The state department of community colleges gave the OK and the General Assembly made Vance
County Technical Institute an official member of the statewide system on July 1, 1969. Friday’s celebration day fell on the 40th anniversary of the issuance of the official charter. “By rededicating our outstanding facilities, we declare that they are set
apart for activities that are special and extraordinary – teaching, learning, starting new careers and making dreams come true,” said Parker. “We re-commit ourselves to serving all the people who walk through Please see VGCC, page 3A
Daily Dispatch photo
VGCC President Randy Parker, left, and Board of Trustees Chairman Donald Seifert prepare to cut the cake at a reception celebrating the 40th anniversary of the college on the main campus Friday morning. Vance County Technical Institute was officially chartered on Sept. 4, 1969.