Ledford faces off against Southwestern Randolph on the court. See Page 7
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Coming Thursday
THOMASVILLE
First Bank donates house to low-income housing program.
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119th Year - No. 46 50 Cents
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Panelists discuss State of the Dream
MLK Health Fair to offer free screenings
BY KARISSA MINN
BY ELIOT DUKE Staff Writer
Staff Writer
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out on many issues regarding race and equality for all during the course of his life. Dr. King believed all people should be treated equal and not judged by the color of their skin. This belief wasn’t isolated to where someone sat on a bus or striking sanitation workers. “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane,” Dr. King said nearly four decades ago. Thomasville Medical Center and the Martin Luther King Jr. Social Action Committee are taking steps to ensure those words continue passing the test of time. On Monday, in celebration of Dr. King’s birthday, the two are joining together to sponsor a free health care clinic in the TMC lobby from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. “It’s truly a great way to get the year off to a healthy start and honor the memory of Dr. King,” said Tom Doyle, TMC’s health and wellness coordinator. “The event always identifies someone with health concerns, and that is the reason we continue to co-host the event and encourage participation.” The free health care clinic will offer screenings for prostate cancer, cholesterol, blood pressure, vision and blood sugar. There also will be stroke risk
At the 10th annual State of the Dream Forum held Tuesday, a panel of leaders spoke about Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of equality and the state of race relations today. The forum was held at Davidson County Community College and moderated by Dr. George Jackson, chairman of the Martin Luther King Jr. Social Action Committee. Jackson directed several questions to panelists Dr. John Campbell, executive director of the N.C. Human Relations Commission; Gayland Oliver, founder and president of Century Medical Supplies; S. Wayne Patterson, civil rights attorney; and Jose Manuel Perez, language and translations specialist for Food Lion. Patterson was asked about the impact King’s dream of a beloved community has had on his personal and professional life. He said that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which protects people from discrimination based on age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and color — was based on that dream. It helped Patterson accomplish his own goals, and he said it was still relevant to the students sitting in the audience. “Due to the fact that the struggles in the 1960s occurred, I was able to go to college, like some of you guys are going to college,” he said. “When the creators of the beloved
See FAIR, Page 6
TIMES PHOTO/ELIOT DUKE
Children go through the lunch line at Thomasville Primary School Friday afternoon. The school recently was recognized for its commitment to child nutrition.
Healthy Serving Primary school recognized for commitment to child nutrition BY ELIOT DUKE Staff Writer Thomasville Primary School is receiving national recognition for its commitment to good nutrition. Brenda Watford, child nutrition director for Thomasville City Schools, announced that TPS has been awarded the United States Healthier Choices Gold Award, becoming just one of 650 schools across the country to receive such an honor. “We worked on this for two and half years,” Watford said at TCS’ monthly meeting Tuesday. “We’re just really excited to receive this award because its something we work at all the time.”
In order to be eligible for the award, TPS had to send in its school menus for an entire year, including all the nutritional facts from every label of every food served in the cafeteria. Just meeting the guidelines for the award proved to be a challenge. Guidelines included serving a different vegetable every day with a mix of three green and orange vegetables, offering fresh and different fruits every day, cooking dried beans once a week and supplying 100 percent juices and whole grains on a daily basis. “That’s hard to find because you can’t just go out and find a pack of rolls that’s whole grain,” said Watford. “We’ll do a flour tortilla or cracker that’s whole
grain. You can hardly find those so it has been hard but we’ve done it. Sometimes the kids get sick of all that but it’s a requirement we have so we do it anyway.” Children also can be served only one percent low fat or fat free milk, all a la carte items have to be 35 percent less fat with zero transfat, and be below 10 percent saturated fat with sugars below 35 percent. No item can contain more than 200 calories. “Put all that together and its really hard to find things that the students will eat,” Watford said. “We’re getting better every year but it is a challenge.” The goals of the award are
See SERVING, Page 6
See DREAM, Page 6
Photography studio takes January Business of the Month honors BY KARISSA MINN Staff Writer
For its renovations of part of the old Belk building, Thomasville City Beautification Committee has named J. Westmoreland Photography as Business of the Month for January 2010. Jennifer Westmoreland has been doing commercial photography and image retouching since 2000. In September of 2008, she opened her own photography studio, located at 32 East Main St. above the Shoppes on Main and Monkeez Brew. Westmoreland had visited the upstairs area of Shoppes
on Main, which used to serve as the linens department of Belk, as a potential studio space. She liked the high ceilings and balcony, but she wished there were windows to allow natural light into the room. One day, as she explored with Shoppes on Main owner Eddie Brinkley, they pulled back a piece of plywood to reveal some light streaming in from behind the back wall. “We walked around the back of the building, and sure enough, there were those old factory windows from when it used to be an auto parts sales place before [Belk],” Westmoreland said. “I said, ‘If I can pull
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that back wall down, that’s the space I want.’” It took about a week for her and her friends to take the wall down, she said. It took another month to recaulk the window panels, pressure-wash the wall to reveal the original brick, clean the space out and redecorate. Some plaster still clings to the brick on the back wall, giving it texture and an old-time feel, and daylight enters softly from the uncovered windows. The heating system has been redone and the lighting rewired, using some of the original fix-
TIMES PHOTO/KARISSA MINN
See STUDIO, Page 6
Jennifer Westmoreland stands in her studio inside the Belk Building in downtown Thomasville.
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