MONDAY
EARLY DAYS: Locally-filmed movie pays homage to racing. 1C
Board to review Oak Hill plan
May 10, 2010 126th year No. 130
WATER QUALITY: Partnership aims to improve conditions at High Rock. 1B
www.hpe.com High Point, N.C.
GRADE A: Oakland’s Braden tosses perfect game. 1D
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WHO’S NEWS
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Wayne M. Kimball Jr. is a member of the 2010-11 executive board of the Student Government Association at North Carolina A&T State University. Kimball, a junior biological and civil engineering major, is Student Government Association president.
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Grant rewards success. 2A
BY DAVID NIVENS ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
GUILFORD COUNTY – School district officials will take a detailed look Tuesday at how Superintendent Mo Green intends to spend a proposed $6 million federal grant to improve Oak Hill Elementary School in High Point. About half of the annual $2 million grant revenue would go to staff bonuses at $424,000 and supplies and materials at $600,000. An estimated $215,000 would go into a parent involvement program for supplies and contracted services. The Guilford County Board of Education will review the grant application during a 6 p.m. Tuesday meeting in the district administrative offices. Oak Hill is one of the eight lowest performing schools in the state. The district goal is to raise the Adequate Yearly Progress score to 50 percent by the 2012-13 school year, partly by offering a longer school day and year. On end-of-grade testing, only 24.9 percent of students
OAK HILL, 2A
OAK HILL
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Leadership: Patrice Faison becomes principal on June 1. She is a former assistant principal at Ragsdale High School. Staff: The district is taking applications. Seventy-five percent of pre-kindergarten to 5th grade teachers have requested transfers for next year. Reform plan: Each of the 52 school staff members surveyed and a majority of surveyed parents and community members preferred the transformation plan over the more drastic restart or closure alternatives.
Test your newspaper knowledge The High Point Enterprise began as a weekly newspaper, then became semiweekly, then a daily. Decades later it added a Sunday edition to the mix but remained an afternoon paper until what year? Discover all the important dates in the anniversary edition to be distributed during the Memorial Day weekend.
DON DAVIS JR. | HPE
Thomasville poll worker Emma Tate assists voters at the Finch Auditorium voting site.
Anti-incumbency fears don’t materialize greatly in primary BY PAUL B. JOHNSON ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
TRIAD – Heading into Tuesday’s primaries, incumbents braced for setbacks that they hadn’t endured for generations as a supposedly angry electorate would take out their frustrations at the polls. Instead, after the ballots were counted, the vast majority of incumbents across the area and state sailed through to the fall general election. In some cases, where no opposing party candidates filed for office, incumbents who triumphed in the primary virtually assured themselves of another term after Election Day Nov. 2. High-profile incumbents who were challenged in primaries, such as U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-6th, and Republican Davidson County Sheriff David Grice, won
contests by wide margins. With one exception, all area state legislators facing primary challengers finished first comfortably. Across the state, all North Carolina congressional representatives and Republican Sen. Richard Burr won by respectable margins. “When you look at the results, it’s obvious that this threat to incumbency was much more rhetorical than it was actually manifested in electoral action,” said Matthew DeSantis, assistant professor of political science at High Point University. The rise of protest groups, such as the conservative Tea Party and the organization Get Out Of Our House!, which aims to dump all incumbents in the U.S. House, led many analysts to contend that more incumbents than normal will lose this year. But DeSantis said early 2010
NO CONTEST
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Economy could influence political outcomes in the fall. 1B
Area state legislative candidates who face no opposition for the fall general election:
primary results in North Carolina, Indiana and Texas don’t reflect that development yet. In Republican primaries in the three states, conservative voters supported the incumbent or GOP establishment candidates, DeSantis said. On Saturday, however, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, lost his party’s nomination at the GOP convention. Another reflection of the lack of voter outrage against incumbents is low to moderate voter turnouts, such as the 14 percent turnout Tuesday in North Carolina, DeSantis said. The lack of strong opposition candidates in most races also hurt the effort to turn out incumbents, said Sam Moseley, chairman of the political science department at North Carolina A&T State Uni-
• Sen. Jerry Tillman, RRandolph and Senate minority whip • Sen. Phil Berger, RRockingham and Senate minority leader • Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Davidson • Rep. Larry Brown, R-Forsyth • Rep. Jerry Dockham, R-Davidson • Rep. Harold Brubaker, R-Randolph • Rep. Pat Hurley, RRandolph • John Faircloth, Republican nominee from High Point for 61st State House District
HIGH POINT – The city is teaming up with a local nonprofit in an effort to revitalize run-down properties and offer residents the chance to own a home. The City Council is considering entering an agreement with Greensboro-based SHARE of North Carolina Inc. to acquire and rehabilitate approximately 10 foreclosed properties. The city plans to use about $800,000 in federal Neighborhood Stabilization funds on the project, which will involve placing renters or buyers who earn 50 percent or less of the area median income in the properties. “Through education that we, the city, and others provide, hopefully these families will be able to purchase these houses within two years,” said Bill Waller, executive director of SHARE (Self-Help and Rewarded Efforts), which provides counseling, homeowner education and affordable housing to low and moderate-income families. “We’ve put literally hundreds and hundreds of families into their first homes, and never had a foreclosure,” he added. “We put them through such an education process
– how to manage money, secure better employment, clean up their credit and impress upon them the value of being a homeowner.” This and similar projects will address the inventory of foreclosed homes in the city, according to Mike McNair, High Point’s director of community development and housing. “You still have properties that for whatever reason have not been listed, so there’s more out there than we are aware of. Actually, it’s been a bit of a challenge finding them,” McNair said. “When the dust settles, we may have 30 or 40 families impacted, and that’s significant.” SHARE, which has built and renovated dozens of homes in the Macedonia, West End and East Central areas, has identified foreclosed properties for acquisition in three zip codes – 27260, 27262 and 27265. “We’re finding we’re able to buy the houses at only 50 to 60 percent of the tax value because the banks just want to get them off their books,” Waller said. “Hopefully in two years, the economy will be better and real estate prices will be up, so these homebuyers, in our opinion, are going to get incredibly good buys.” pkimbrough@hpe.com | 888-3531
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GOING GREEN: New building could earn GTCC another energy design award. 1B
OBITUARIES
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Marie Davis James Draper, 93 Geneva Gray, 95 Edith Williams
Obituaries, 2B versity. “You’re talking about an off-year election, and you need candidates who will stir people up. But they weren’t bringing people to the polls,” Moseley said.
WEATHER
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pjohnson@hpe.com | 888-3528
City teams up with nonprofit to renovate neighborhoods BY PAT KIMBROUGH ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
INSIDE
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AT A GLANCE
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The city’s contract with SHARE of North Carolina Inc. will involve funds from the $2.625 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program money High Point received. The funding is being used to help with the acquisition and repair of properties in areas of the city with the highest amounts of foreclosed homes. Under the program, homebuyers can receive down payment assistance and funding for repair services. Data compiled by the city in the past indicated about 400 foreclosed properties in High Point, with the most in the 27265 zip code, which encompasses north High Point and many moderate to higher-income neighborhoods. The city is also planning to use NSP funds to acquire properties in the Graves Avenue area that will be conveyed to Habitat for Humanity, which is involved in a redevelopment effort in that area.
Mostly sunny High 69, Low 50 6D
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