SENC Spring 2016

sTAMPEdE of ThE cEnTury

SE SPRING 2016

North Carolina

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E H T E N I V O B

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SouthEast North Carolina

Spring 2016

Spring 2016

SouthEast North Carolina

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Editor’s NotE:

Food fight in Southeast N.C.

SE North Carolina www.sencmag.com Issue No. 6

Staff / Credits / Contributions PUBLISHER Jim Sills EDITOR Todd Wetherington ASSOCIATE EDITOR Trevor Normile PRODUCTION/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Becky Wetherington CONTENT & PHOTOgRAPHy Jacqueline Hough Nadya Nataly Trevor Normile Gary Scott Todd Wetherington CONTRIBUTINg PHOTOgRAPHy Andrew Craft Kia McMIllan Bryan Pinkey Paige Rentz Zach Frailey ADvERTISINg Becky Cole Alan Wells Evelyn Riggs Gary Scott

Deep in the heart of Ag country, it’s not uncommon that we find ourselves slogging through farmers’ fields, writing about corn, strawberries, livestock—anything that grows really—in our day jobs at the Duplin Times newspaper.

The farmers of Southeast N.C. are also responsible for much of our country’s exports, keeping the U.S. competitive in the world. In this issue, we tell the stories of a lovable llama farm near the town of Bolivia, and of Simply Natural Creamery, a dairy farm in Ormondsville.

Finally, we recount an interview with Ed Emory of North Carolina Farm Families, a group created to defend farmers from organizations that have (in NCFF’s eyes) unfairly attacked growers under the guise of environmental advocacy.

A plain fact: no benefit comes without cost. Groups argue that the hog industry is ruining water quality in Eastern North Carolina, but in light of the coal ash spills affecting the state and the lead contamination in Flint, Mich., perhaps we are fortunate that animal waste is the most public risk to our waterways here.

Still, that’s a cop-out, isn’t it? Anything that can be done to keep animal waste controlled should be done, in all instances. Southeastern North Carolinians are children of the rivers and sea as much as children of the fields.

This new NCFF effort brings up something much more difficult to rationalize—the use of farmers as ammu-

CIRCULATION Lauren Guy SUBSCRIBE: Four issues (one year) $19.95 plus tax lguy@ncweeklies.com

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North Carolina nition in what has unfortunately become an ongoing, far-reaching struggle between interest groups and Big Farmer.

And it’s a confusing fight at times. I remember a brief to-do over drinking water a few years ago, when researchers proved that bacteria from hog farms ends up in the ditches here. But we don’t drink from the ditch, and bacteria is often more likely to enter our drinking water from our own septic tanks, a problem the Department of Agriculture has been addressing in the region with block grants.

But what happens when animal waste does enter the waterways? Farm interests remind us constantly about the industry’s strict regulations, but they also admit that, for all their training, farmers are not HazMat operators, and that they do occasionally make mistakes. Problem is, those mistakes can cause fish kills and algal blooms in the waterways.

Regardless, farmers were born to work the land, not to shoo activists off of it.

This is America, attacks on the system are fair game. But asymmetrically attacking growers themselves is uncivil and has no place in Southeast North Carolina.

I see new solutions on the horizon.

Equipment for cleanly converting animal waste into energy will hopefully become cheaper as time goes on.

Maybe getting that technology into farmers’ hands would solve problems on both sides—assuming of course this struggle isn’t just another political proxy war, the flavor of which Americans have grown so exhausted nationwide.

CONTACT senc.ads@nccooke.com senc@nccooke.com 1.910.296.0239

Trevor Normile, Assoc. Editor

ON THE COvER Illustration, Becky Wetherington 4

SouthEast North Carolina

Spring 2016

Mystery Photo

Where in SENC is this?

Where in Southeast North Carolina is this?

A quick explanation, in case it’s needed: Every quarter, SE North Carolina includes a cropped-down version of a landmark or scene in one of SENC’s many signature communities.

Try and guess where and what this structure is.

Hint: It used to be a government building where people could buy things in one of SENC’s largest cities.

Today, it holds a museum inside.

See page 76 for answer

Where we are this spring!

These local areas are featured in this edition of SE North Carolina.

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Ormandsville ............ 18 Goldsboro.................. 11 Kinston....... 10,11,31,36 Fayetteville .. 5,11,54,76 Pink Hill ............... 11,69 New Bern ..... 9,11,47,64 Oriental ................. 47,62 Pollocksville ............... 50 • Duplin County .......... 14 Marshallberg ............ 31 • Kenansville .......... 31,64 Smyrna ...................... 68 • Magnolia ......................... 44 Wallace ................................ 11 Camp Lejeune............................ 9 Burgaw ................................. 11,31 Cerro Gordo .................................... 69 Bolton ................................................ 69 Wilmington ............................ 10,11,47,68 Carolina Beach ........................................... 9 Bolivia .......................................................... 22 Kure Beach ................................................... 10 Fort Fisher ...................................................... 38 Southport .......................................................... 69 Spring 2016

SouthEast North Carolina

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SE WINTER

What they said

Letters

2016

arolina North C

CE AUDIEN THER’Sgy on the stage O N A H EAC ativity and psycholo Rel

More performing arts information, please In reference to the “Feedback” request on page 54 of the winter 2016 edition, I would like to offer two suggestions.

Include a renewal/subscription coupon. I have neither a telephone nor e-mail. I had to have a reference librarian at the Onslow County Library find your mailing address, so I could send this renewal.

The Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts article got me to thinking that the addition of a performing arts section would be good for the magazine. It could include the upcoming performances scheduled for Thalian Hall, Kenan Auditorium, and other venues in SENC. Richard L. Houghton, Jr. Jacksonville *(Editor’s Note: A subscription coupon can be found on page 29. This will be included in future issues as well.)

LET US HEAR FROM YOU:

Send letters to SE North Carolina at senc@nccooke.com, or mail to Editor, SE North Carolina, P.O. Box 69, Kenansville, NC 28349.

Spring 2016

Hands-on

e rt featur Three-pa s in the on trade ry 21st Centu

m the Voices fro d dark lan dles

rid ing the Unravel Swamp of Green

y sanctuar We shell toration Oyster res s in the continue ar River Cape Fe

Interesting stories abound Really enjoyed the stories on the Green Swamp and Frank Lucas in your winter edition. Even in our rural, backwoods corner of the state we’ve still got some interesting characters and stories. Keep up the great work!

Eddie Reynolds Richlands

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Contents Spring 2016

In Every Issue

Features

62

Stampede

14 N.C. Farm Families Hog producers push back

35th Parallel

18 Simply Natural

50 Pollocksville Bypass

22 SundMist Pastures

54 Fayetteville Veterans

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62 Been Here and Gone

Behind the creamery curtain

A llama love story

SE-Snapshots

9 New River Fishing Ban

Unexploded ordinance poses boating hazard Our Picks: Seasonal Angling

47 Pier 33

Wilmington’s outdoor music venue is Port City Marina’s newest attraction Our Picks: Juke Joint Gems

Less traffic, more opportunity?

Battle for compassionate care

31 Lenox China

Kinston’s high-end eatery ware honors Pope Francis Our Picks: We Made That

Fading into the future

Silhouettes

22 70

Fashion

The scoop on subscription boxes

36 Kinston Baseball

Fans frantic for pro action

72

38 Fort Fisher Hermit New Hanover’s legendary loner

Murmurs

“Daring Beyond the Blackwater”

10

44 ‘Bonecrusher’ Smith A scholar and a champion

Events

Check out Play Dates for upcoming events in Southeastern N.C.

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78

Folk

Sound and Motion

Spring 2016

SouthEast North Carolina

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Spring 2016

SE Snapshot

SE PICKS: Seasonal angling

North Carolina

Fishing ban proposed for portions of New River

Camp Lejeune officials site concerns over unexploded ordinance in waters

L

ast January, officials from Camp Lejeune met with dozens of commercial fishermen at the Sneads Ferry Community Center to discuss and exchange concerns about possible risks in a part of the New River.

At issue is a 2012-2014 study that turned up more than 7,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance and debris from the waters alongside Camp Lejeune’s K-2 range.

Fishermen were told anything from shoulder-fired rockets to artillery shells to live bombs could be on the bottom.

A Camp Lejeune spokesperson said unexploded ordnance was found in a stretch of the river between Stone Bay and Grey Point.

Camp Lejeune officials proposed shutting down an eight and a half mile portion of the New River, which could cost fishermen thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

For now, the base says it will put up signs warning against activities that would disturb the bottom of the river — activities such as clam raking, crabbing, and anchoring.

“We’re soliciting public feedback to determine the next steps ahead as we try to mitigate this hazard,” said Camp Lejeune Public Affairs Director Nat Fahy.

“Our position is very simple and that is that these are not federal wa-

ters, the waters don’t belong to the military, they are state waters,” said Jerry Schill, president of the North Carolina Fisheries Association.

“Camp Lejeune cannot enact restrictions in these waters. That can only come from the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE).”

Cape Hatteras

Striped bass migrate to Cape Hatteras in winter, where anglers can expect to catch fish weighing 25 pounds or more during a routine day. The fish are concentrated around Oregon Inlet within a mile or two of the beach.

Carolina Beach

You might have to fight the crowds... but the flounder you’ll catch in June will be worth it.

The deep waters of the Cape Fear River and artificial reefs just offshore make this an ideal flounder habitat. The flounder arrive here by the dozen in June. Best part...you’ll have a tasty dinner for later. One popular way to fish in Carolina Beach is right from the shore, which requires little effort or expense.

Brice’s Creek

Commercial fishermen along the New River may soon find themselves barred from portions of the river due to unexploded ordinance near Camp Lejeune.

The base is currently compiling concerns and information and will make recommendations to the ACE. The base has not determined any specific timetable to proceed further or decided what final action will be taken on the matter.

SE Spring 2016

Brice’s Creek is a tributary of the Trent River, and has long been venerated as one of the best summer and fall fishing spots in New Bern. The stream runs deep into the Croatan National Forest, and there are many secluded spots along the way that are perfect for fishing.

Some of the types of fish to be found in this stream include largemouth bass, catfish, sunfish, pickerel and gar.

SouthEast North Carolina

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Play dates Upcoming things to do in southeastern North Carolina SE Pick

Annie Moses Band: Rhapsody in Bluegrass

Ongoing!

SATURDAY, APRiL 30, 7:30 p.m.

The Bones of: Sculptures by Dustin Farnsworth

Thalian Hall, 310 Chestnutt St., Wilmington

Varying times, ongoing through June 5 at Cameron Art Museum, 3201 S. 17th St., Wilmington. Admission $3-$8.

Exhibit of rising artist, Dustin Farnsworth inspired by 19th Century architecture of a theatre. Visit cameronartmuseum.org.

Admission $22-$40. Utilizing a style that unifies audiences, both young and old, connoisseurs and roots enthusiasts, jazz aficionados and bluegrass buffs, the Annie Moses Band is sure to impress.

Visit thalianhall.org.

Gardens of North carolina

9 a.m. ongoing, July 4 at Tryon Palace.

Duffy Exhibition Gallery, N.C. History Center, 529 S. Front St., New Bern. Free.

Exhibit on the gardens and landscapes of North Carolina from kitchen gardens to farms and flower beds to early landscaping.

Visit tryonpalace.org.

Sand in the Streets Outdoor concerts

6 p.m., ongoing through Aug. 25, Pearson Park, 301 N. Queen St., Kinston. Free.

Live performances by The Entertainers, June 9; Legacy Motown, June 23; Pizazz, July 4; Jim Quick and the Coastline Band, July 14; Mikele Buck, July 28; Too Much Sylvia, Aug. 11; Band of Oz, Aug. 25. Visit downtownkinston.com.

She Tells a Story

10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Tuesday-Sun and 10 a.m.- 9 p.m. Sundays ongoing through Sept. 11 at Cameron Art Museum, 3201 S. 17th St., Wilmington.

Admission $5-$8. Celebration of the work of 50 artists from the permanent collection, while connecting the art forms of visual and literary arts. Visit cameronartmuseum. com.

Ring of Fire:

The Music of Johnny cash

Willie Nelson and Family

TUESDAY, MAY 24 7 p.m. (DOORS OPEN AT 6 p.m.)

Greenfield Lake Amphitheater, 1941 Amphitheatre Drive, WIlmington Admission $72-$99. America’s favorite outlaw makes a return trip to the Port City. www.greenfieldlakeamphitheater.com

ALSO cOMiNG TO GFLA

Peter Frampton MONDAY, MAY 30 • 7 p.m.

Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre

Dinosaurs Roar to Life

9 a.m. ongoing through Sept. 12 at N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher, 900 Loggerhead Rd., Kure Beach.

Admission $8.95-$10.95. Pre-historic experience featuring the new exhibit of life-sized animatronic beasts that are guaranteed to wow visitors with their realistic roars of life. Visit ncaquariums.com/fort-fisher-exhibits.

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SouthEast North Carolina

Admission $57.50$89.50 TRAMPLED BY TURTLES, Wed., May 18 Admission $30.00-$40.00 SiSTER HAZEL, Friday, May 13 Admission $25.00-$30.00 THE cLAYPOOL LENNON DELiRiUM Thursday, June 9 Admission $35.00-$40.00

www.greenfieldlakeamphitheater.com Spring 2016

May 12-15, 18-22 Cape Fear Regional Theater, 1209 Hay St., Fayetteville

Admission $22-$28. The story of Johnny Cash through his music. More than two dozen classic hits—including “I Walk The Line,” “A Boy Named Sue.” For show times visit cfrt.org or call 910-232-4234.

Heritage Day SAT., MAY 21 11 a.m.

Liberty Hall, 409 S Main Street, Kenansville Free.

Discover and share the memories as tales of yesteryear are told throughout the grounds by the well-informed historians.

910-296-2175.

Festivals!

Shari kane & Dave Steele

FRiDAY, MAY 20, 6:30 p.m.

Trent River Coffee Company, 208 Craven St., New Bern Admission $8-15. An acoustic blues duo, Shari and Dave maintain an upbeat, energizing approach to blues, gospel, swing and ragtime. Visit downeastfolkarts.com.

13th annual N.c.

Blueberry Festival June 17-18

Mamma Mia!

TUES., WED., MAY 3-4, 7:30 p.m.

Cape Fear Community College

Humanities and Fine Arts Center, 703 N. Third St., Wilmington Admission $45-$95. The story-telling magic of ABBA’s timeless songs propels this enchanting tale of love, laughter and friendship. Visit cfcc.edu/capefearstage

Downtown Burgaw. Free.

Pender County celebrates its most famous crop under the shady comfort of the courthouse and downtown. www.ncblueberryfestival.com.

SE Pick

N.c. Black Film Festival / April 28-May 1 • Varying times at USO/ Community Arts Center, 120 S. Second St., Wilmington.

Admission $5-$60. Four day juried and invitational festival of independent motion pictures by African-American filmmakers will showcase features, shorts, animation, and documentary films. blackartsalliance.org.

SATURDAY, FEB. 13 8 p.m.

Crown Complex, 1960 Coliseum Dr., Fayetteville

kem and kenny ‘Babyface’ Edmonds FRIDAY, MAY 6 • 8 p.m.

Crown Complex, 1960 Coliseum Dr., Fayetteville Admission $45-$100. Grammy nominated singer-songwriter, Kem, and 11-time Grammy Award winner, Babyface, will headline The Ultimate Mother’s Day Celebration.

Visit crowncomplexnc.com.

Wilmington Wine and Food Festival / May 5-8 • Varying times, at Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design, 503 Market St., Wilmington Varying times, at Bellamy Mansion Museum of History and Design, 503 Market St., Wilmington

35th annual Barbecue Festival on the Neuse / May 6-7 • 9 a.m. at 400 N. Queen St., Kinston. Free.

Barbecue, food competitions, shopping, wine garden, children’s activities, and more.

Visit bbqfestivalontheneuse.com.

carolina Strawberry Festival / May 8-9 • Downtown Wallace

Friday night “Strawberry Jam” street concert with beer and wine garden; Saturday, strawberries, ice cream, vendors, live entertainment, carnival. www.carolinastrawberryfestival.com

Wilmington Greek Festival / May 13-15 • Historic downtown Wilmington

Young Frankenstein

MAY 6,7,13,14• 7:30 p.m.

MAY 8,9 • 2 p.m.

New Bern Civic Theatre, 414 Pollock St., New Bern Admission $10-$20. The electrifying adaptation of Mel Brooks’s monstrously funny film that will leave you in stitches. Visit newberncivictheatre.org

Sweet Honey in the Rock FRiDAY, MAY 13, 7:30 p.m.

Paramount Theater, 139 S. Center St, Goldsboro Admission $35-$38. An adventurous and diverse mixture of blues, African, jazz, gospel and R&B music, with excursions into symphonic and dance theater. This ensemble educates, entertains and empowers its audience through dynamic a cappella singing and American Sign Language interpretation for the deaf and hearing impaired.

Visit goldsboroparamount.com.

Spring 2016

Admission $3. The Greek community of Wilmington, NC shares its culture, faith and heritage. This festival will include authentic Greek food, music, and dancing, plus cooking demonstrations and a market place. Visit stnicholasgreekfest.com

Rose Fest / May 21 • 10 a.m. at 100 S. Central Ave, Pink Hill. Free.

Celebration of the town of Pink Hill with special performance by Bryan Mayer, 4EverAll, Close Range, Eight Track, and more. Visit rosefest.org.

Blues and Brews / June 4 • 4 p.m. at 225 Ray Ave, Fayetteville

Admission $75. One day festival where you can taste over 100 of the finest beers around and jam to the hottest blues bands. Visit cfrt.org/blues-and-brews.

SouthEast North Carolina

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SouthEast North Carolina

Spring 2016

SE Stampede

North Carolina

N.C. Farm Families

14

A new effort from North Carolina Farm Families wants to stand up for farmers who, they believe, have been unfairly targeted by interest groups.

The NCFF group states its case.

Simply Natural Creamery

18

Ever wonder how your milk and ice cream get to the local grocery store?

Visit the only dairy farm east of Chapel Hill to learn the secrets to one of the state’s creamiest delicacies.

SundMist Llama Farm

Spring 2015

22

These wacky llamas on a storybook farm in the town of Bolivia love attention.

Read about how Vicki Sundberg and husband David Smith began their journey with these captivating camelids, and what it takes to raise them.

se • stampede

Fury in the slurry!

N.C. Farm Families hopes to repel attacks from interest groups.

Farming’s a dirty business.

Story: Trevor Normile Photos: Bryan Pinkey, Trevor Normile

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SouthEast North Carolina

Spring 2016

A

passenger riding past the chicken houses and hog slats of eastern North Carolina may be afflicted in one of three ways: 1. “(Inhales deeply) Ah, smells like home.”

2. “(Gags) Dear God, do you smell that?”

3. “(Sniff-sniff) Smell what?”

The long, low-slung warehouses dot the countryside like sanctuary houses to farming efficiency, pumping out millions of pounds of American meat for eat and export.

That industry, one largely of chickens and hogs, is worth about $2.8 billion in Sampson, Pender and Duplin counties alone, according to the 2012 Census of Agriculture.

But production almost never comes without some form of pollution, and for livestock growers, it’s animal waste. Very, very much animal waste.

So it may not come as a surprise that an industry as smelly and profitable as Big Farmer might attract negative attention.

With companies like Smithfield Foods (owners of hog giant Murphy-Brown LLC, which holds contracts with two-thirds of North Carolina’s hog growers) and House of Raeford headquartered in the region and millions of tons of feces produced by grower operations annually, a war has been waging on the fields of legality and morality between interest groups and producers nationwide. And the flat fields of eastern North Carolina have become that war’s Tel Megiddo.

Legal fights are nothing new to the industry. Since 2013, lawyers with firms from Missouri, Georgia and nearby Salisbury, N.C. have been pursuing lawsuits against Smithfield Foods on behalf of residents living near farms, alleging that the odors emanating from the operations were degrading their quality of life.

Plaintiffs included 25 people living in the town of Wallace, on the border of Pender and Duplin Counties.

Then, affidavits filed in that case claimed lawyers were shopping for clients, signing dead people to their petition and using unethical contracts to keep clients from dropping out of the lawsuit.

The Salisbury law firm, Wallace & Graham, was allowed to stay on the lawsuit for petitioners, while out-of-state firms were dismissed by the court.

Since that time, Wallace & Graham has stopped returning calls for comment.

More recently, in 2015, lawsuits involving more than 500 plaintiffs in southeast counties claim that odors from spray fields, on which farmers spray hog waste as crop fertilizer, caused them breathing problems and burning eyes.

Filed by Wallace & Graham against Murphy-Brown, it was joined by lawsuits filed by non-profit Earthjustice against the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources on behalf of the N.C. Environmental Justice Network, Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help (REACH) of Warsaw, N.C. and the Waterkeeper Alliance, a collective of environmentalists interested in waterway preservation.

In the sport of fencing, a “Beat” is defined by a sharp, controlled blow to the middle, or “weak,” of an opponent’s blade, knocking it to the side.

An intentionally brazen display, its purpose is to provoke a reaction of startlement or anger, to create an opening through which to strike.

Continued on page 16

Spring 2016

SouthEast North Carolina

15

Recently, the fight has drawn in the families who operate the farms, with the Waterkeeper Alliance often connected in some form.

Among the wide-ranging focuses of the Alliance, a network of local and national advocates, is the hog industry of North Carolina. News accounts have documented flyovers of livestock operations by the Alliance and film crews affiliated with the group setting up on right-of-way areas near the farms—both actions legal, if perhaps upsetting to growers.

Last year, an Alliance film crew questioned by a member of the press, stated their film project was about “how we need more sustainable options, but meat isn’t going anywhere.”

Edward Dail, the farmer who initially observed the film crew near his land in Kenansville, said, “In the past, they’ve told me they were filming a documentary, but how many years does that take? I’d like to know how they’d feel if someone stuck a camera lens in their bedroom and filmed their property.

They don’t have much respect.”

Further, Alliance

launched a billboard campaign last year to “raise awareness” in North Carolina about industrial hog operations, which it claims “are disproportionately placed in low-income communities and communities of color and are wreaking havoc on the state’s environment and waterways.”

So, to parry the beats of groups like the New York-based Waterkeepers, another organization has emerged as advocates for the growers themselves.

They’re called North Carolina Farm Families (NCFF), and their logo is probably stuck to a muddy farm truck near you.

With 28 years working with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension (20 of those as Duplin’s extension director), Ed Emory, president of North Carolina Farm Families, has watched the multi-billion dollar industry explode in southeast North Carolina.

“During that time, I saw the growth of the hog industry in our county and I saw what farmers have to go through to meet regulations and become educated on how to manage their operations,” he says.

“With that I got a good understanding of what farmers do to grow a good safe product but also take care of animals and do so in an environmentallyresponsible way.”

That growth has manifested in 80 percent, Emory says, of the region’s hog farms being family-operated. Inside the farms, workers tend to hogs (or chickens, or turkeys) that are raised under contract to companies like Smithfield Foods.

The NCFF, Emory says, is there to “stand up and speak out” on behalf of the families getting sucked into the fight, as in the case of Alan and Kristin Hudson, a couple who manage a family farm in Berlin, Maryland, a community just west of Ocean City.

The Hudsons were sued in 2010 by the Waterkeeper Alliance for keeping (what the Alliance believed was) a pile of chicken manure outside their chicken houses. The problem was, inspectors found it was refined human sewage sludge from nearby Ocean City, not chicken litter.

At first, the Maryland Department of the Environment intended to fine the farmers, but later dropped the fine.

Despite that (and adding to the sensation of the lawsuit), the Waterkeepers persisted. E-mails surfaced from the group in which local members expressed interest in spinning the case to continue the suit, but it instead was seen as a fight between out-of-state interest group lawyers and a small family-run farm, albeit one that grew chickens for poultry giant Perdue.

Tactics like those concern Emory and the NCFF. He says the group has had “several” farming families named as potential litigants, having “been given notice they could possibly be sued in the future.”

An inquiry attempting to contact those growers has not yet been returned

by Smithfield Foods.

It’s an undisputable fact—farms support the livelihoods of countless North Carolinians. Since (by the accounts of those who lived through it) the North

Ed Emory is president of N.C. Farm Families, an organization representing hundreds of small farmers and their families that was founded to counter the aggressive tactics of an alliance of active environmentalists that have targeted factory farms, particularly in southeastern North Carolina.

American Free Trade Agreement of 1994 caused much of the cottonsupported textile manufacturing to dry up and the tobacco buyout of the early 2000s (coupled with decreasing numbers of American smokers, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records), farmers had holes to fill.

So farming families filled them with pig manure.

“If you back up and look at Duplin County, the reason we have the economy that we have, it’s because of the poultry and hogs and beef that have gone along with that,” Emory explains.

“That has allowed a lot of farmers to stay on the land to keep farms in their families and have something they can pass down generation to generation.”

It works like this: pigs live on the farms, their manure goes into lagoon ponds, and then onto the fields. The fields grow grass, the cows eat the grass, we eat the cows and the pigs. Poultry too is a staple, and some power plants, such as the currently-offline Coastal Carolina Clean Power plant in Kenansville, can burn the chicken dirt to make electricity.

But not all of that animal waste is recycled, and that’s what worries advocacy groups (or “interest groups,” as Emory calls them).

For example, the Waterkeepers allege that the hog industry hurts the region’s waterways, with excess nutrients such as nitrogen contributing to fish kills and algal blooms. The group contends that pork company Murphy-Brown has failed to comply with what it calls “demonstrated groundwater hazards” at some of its North Carolina hog facilities.

“For every day that Murphy-Brown fails to act, the waterways of eastern North Carolina are threatened by waste from swine farms owned and operated by Murphy-Brown,” states Travis Graves, Lower Neuse riverkeeper, in a press release from the group.

When asked about manure concerns, hog interests often respond by stating that hog growers are the most heavily-regulated in agriculture. Emory too points to the highly-stringent International Organization for Standardization protocols industrial livestock

farmers must meet to produce their meat.

“We had some of our regulatory folks who were a little over-zealous in developing these rules that farmers have to follow,” Emory explains.

“The farmers took that in stride and [they] follow those regulations, although they’re very heavy. You would not believe the amount of records they have to keep. Rainfall every day, amounts of

water used and drained onto crops has to be documented. Everyone who manages [a farm] has to test and go to yearly educational events and are subject to inspection by state at least once per year.”

Emory says flat-out that the NCFF “have the facts on our side” and that the farms are “not a threat to the waterway.”

But to state it so simply would be disingenuous.

It’s true, hog farms are strictly regulated, but so are nuclear weapons—and if nuclear weapons weren’t a “threat,” the global Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 1991 wouldn’t have been necessary.

That’s not to say hog poop is akin to impending nuclear apocalypse (despite fairly aggressive assertions from the interest groups), but it is a threat.

On February 29, the Mark Davis farm, facility #31243 of Magnolia, N.C. reported its facility discharged 1,000 gallons of swine waste. The slurry entered a drainage ditch that flowed to the Yokey Creek. That’s public record; any time a hog operaSpring 2016

tion loses 1,000 or more gallons of untreated waste water into surface water, North Carolina General Statutes require them to notify all local news outlets that cover the county where the spill occurred.

That means swine waste, which contains nitrogen, phosphorus and bacteria that didn’t naturally belong in that volume in Yokey Creek, entered the water.

Those materials are believed (again, according to the CDC) to cause harmful algal and cyanobacteria blooms that contribute to fish and shellfish kills.

Emory does concede that these things happen, but says farmers, due to strict modern educational requirements, are generally good stewards, and points out that discharge events are relatively rare, considering the amount of hog manure produced in the area.

“In no instance, can a farmer release water into a waterway [intentionally],” Emory says.

“When something like that happens, the person who owns those pigs immediately de-populates that farm and they mitigate, do anything they can do.

“If you think about the number of farms in the area, that we just had one to do that, and since we’ve had all this rain, it’s really remarkable.”

Emory points to municipalities, which he says “have been dumping water straight into the rivers. “They pay the fines and keep on doing it.”

Still, the NCFF’s fight isn’t necessarily over the environmental concerns posed by groups like Waterkeepers Alliance. Emory says he believes the groups’ endgame is to wipe out the hog industry. The group at large states its focus is on waterway protection, despite comments from its film crew about the meat industry.

“We have to look at the total picture,” says Emory.

“I think the future’s bright, and I think if we’re successful in getting our message out, we’re going to help everybody understand how important it is to have farm families in North Carolina.”

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Pay attention to the

Contributed photo

COW

behind the curtain Story: Todd Wetherington Photos: Todd Wetherington Story & Photos: Todd Wetherington 18

SouthEast North Carolina

Spring 2016

Simply Natural Creamery a walk down the

dairy road

o

As Neil Moye looks out over a field spotted with lazy groups of mewing bovines and muddy patches of early spring grass, he adjusts the brim of his cow emblazoned baseball cap, shakes his head and works his face up into a squinty grin.

“Yeah, sometimes I’m not even sure how it happened; but here we are,” he chuckles.

Moye is discussing the decision he made years ago that turned what was once a part-time hobby for his children into a sprawling, decidedly full-time working dairy farm and creamery, the only one of its kind in North Carolina east of Charlotte.

Located in the rural Greene County community of Ormondsville, Simply Natural Creamery is the brainchild of Moye and his brother, David, both longtime row crop and livestock farmers. The brothers decided to venture into the world of dairy production after Neil purchased two small breed Jersey cows for his sons, Brantley and Daniel, in an attempt to teach the boys the value of hard work. As it turned out, Moye ended up creating an entirely new business venture for himself and his family.

“We put the cows out behind our house in a little two stanchion barn and the kids just fell in love with them.

Jersey cows are more docile, so they were easier for them to handle. As the kids grew, they decided that they still wanted to work with cows, so we decided the only way we could do that and stay a viable business was to grow and actually put in a dairy operation,” Moye explains.

In 2009 the Moyes began farming dairy with 35 head of cattle. In addition to their easy going temperaments, the choice to use Jersey cows had another, more profitable benefit — their milk is among the most richly flavored and popular on the market.

“The milk that Jersey cows give has 40 percent more calcium protein. It’s a higher quality milk, and it tastes better because it’s 20 percent higher in butterfat. Not only is it better for you, but it tastes better,” notes Moye.

If they were going into the milk production business, the Moyes decided, it made sense to handle the processing side of the venture as well.

“We kind of knew when we started that we wanted to handle that aspect of it, where we could actually market under our own label and have a locally raised product that didn’t have to travel hundreds of miles up and down the road to get to the consumer,” says Moye.

In the summer of 2014, the family began construction of a creamery, which opened in October of that year.

According to Moye, everything other than the creamery’s concrete pad was built by members of a local Amish community.

“That was something to see. They came in on a Monday at lunchtime and they finished on a Friday afternoon.

They built this whole building in a week.”

With the completion of the creamery, the Moyes began handling the entire dairy processing and distribution system, from raising their own cows, to processing, bottling, and delivering their products.

“We even grow our own feed, so from beginning to end we do everything,” says Moye.

A glimpse behind the curtain

The creamery also offered the Moyes an opportunity to delve into another, newer business opportunity— agritourism, a practice which has grown in popularity as more and more small, family-owned farms in the region have struggled to stay economically viable.

Loosely defined, agritourism is any service or activity provided on a working farm with the purpose of attracting visitors. While walking through manure strewn fields and watching cows being milked may not be most people’s idea of a fun vacation day, North Carolina farms have become increasingly popular tourist destinations.

“We decided to start doing tours. We did some walking tours right to begin with after we opened in 2014 and then, as we realized how popular it was going to be, we wanted to keep that going,” says Moye.

According to Simply Natural Creamery’s Marketing Director, Michael Fulcher, the tours are also a good way to educate the less agrarian minded among us about the realities of a working dairy farm.

“Most people don’t realize where their milk comes Spring 2016

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from,” he says matter-of-factly. “We decided to start tours to educate, especially children to start with, but adults as well on what it takes to get milk and where it comes from. From March until the end of November, between our weekly tours and our weekend hayrides, we had over 10,000 people; about every week in April we’ll have 500 people, mostly school kids. On the weekend it’s so popular that we have a hayride every hour on the hour.”

The Moyes recently built a party room in front of the creamery where they host birthday celebrations and show videos about the milking process.

“We want it to be a destination for families to come and hang out for a while,” says Fulcher. “During the week for the school kids to come out here, we want them to learn about the cows, what it takes to milk them, to process it and bottle it, so when they go to the grocery store and they see Simply Natural Milk, they’ll know where it came from.”

Hard numbers about agritourism are hard to come by, but according to a recent study conducted by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, 54 percent of the state’s agritourism venues saw an increase in visitors over the last two years. Of more than 600 farmers surveyed, 78 percent believed that agritourism was “important” or “very important” for their farm operation.

A survey by the N.C. Cooperative Extension, meanwhile, found that 91 percent of farm visitors said they would visit the farm again, indicating “opportunities for farms to build loyal repeat customers.”

Top: Young calves are kept separated from the adult cows for a month before being turned loose to compete with their herd mates.

Above: A sign advertising Simply Natural Creamery products hangs at The Filling Station in Kenansville.

Left: Simply Natural co-owner Neil Moye surveys his stock of Jersey dairy cows.

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Spring 2016

Down on the Farm

“A lot of people think cows are milked one time a day and they think you can milk them anytime you want to. Our cows are milked 365 days at five in the morning and five in the afternoon, that’s our milking schedule. They don’t take vacations, they don’t take holidays, they have to be milked on Christmas day just like they do any other day.”

Moye is sitting in his office, calmly explaining how, even at this late date, a surprising number of people have little idea how their dairy products get from the farm to their local grocery store. While it’s not literally a 24-hour-a-day job, notes Moye, it’s pretty close.

Simply Natural Creamery actually consists of two distinct operations: the dairy, which involves the milking process and the growing of grain for the cows’ food; and the creamery, where the milk is processed.

The cycle begins with the newborn calves, who spend 24 hours with their mothers before being moved into calf hutches.

After four weeks, the calves are placed into group pens where they compete with their herd mates at the feeding trough. After the female calves are fully grown they are impregnated and begin producing milk. The males are sold for beef or breeding.

Like all modern dairy farms, the Simply Natural herd is milked using automated machines that can extract from 16 cows at a time. The milk is then pumped over to an on-site processing center, where it goes through the pasteurization process before being bottled and put in a large walk-in cooler.

Moye estimates that Simply Natural Creamery currently handles about 55 percent of its own milk processing, with the rest being shipped out to larger volume production facilities.

“It will probably take us another 12 months or so to get to where we actually utilize 100 percent of the processing ourselves,” he estimates.

The creamery currently offers 19 different dairy products, and 40 different flavors of ice cream, most of which can be sampled in the creamery’s store. The products can currently be found in the chain stores Piggly Wiggly, Fresh Market, Lowe’s Food, Harris Teeter, and Carlie C’s IGA, as well as grocery stores, restaurants, and convenience stores throughout the southeastern corner of the state.

While Moye said he doesn’t see the dairy side of his business expanding too far beyond its present scope, he recognizes that agritourism offers a nearly unlimited opportunity to grow beyond the confines of a traditional farm.

“We would probably like to keep the dairy on a smaller scale; 160 or 170 cows would probably be about as much as we could do. But I think we would like to grow the agritourism side. We’ve been talking about the idea of expanding across the road and putting in some type of water park for the kids in the summertime and maybe putting in a restaurant also.”

Moye said his two sons, the same ones who once sat in his backyard milking their pet cows, now work on the dairy farm.

His daughter, Holly, handles the creamery’s bookkeeping.

“You gotta look to the future, and that’s what we’re trying to do with the creamery,” says Moye. “If there’s such a thing as a secret to what we’re doing, that’s probably it.”

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Top/Bottom: The Simply Natural Creamery store also houses the processing and bottling operations.

Middle: The creamery’s dairy cows are milked using automated state-of-the art machinery that can extract milk from 16 cows at once.

Spring 2016

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Vicki Sundberg’s dream of owning a llama farm is realized in Brunswick County

SUPER ALPHA of the HERD Story: Jacqueline Hough Photos: Trevor Normile

T

This is a love story.

Years ago while she was in the military, Vicki Sundberg attended a show where sheep dogs were competing in herding exercises. The show also featured another, more unique four legged animal—a llama.

“And that llama stole my heart,” she remembers. “Just flat out stole my heart.”

And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, one that eventually resulted in the creation of SundMist Pastures in Bolivia, which Sundberg operates with her husband, David Smith.

Sundberg was in the Air Force for more than 20 years and retired as a lieutenant colonel. But she knew as long as she was in the military, she wouldn’t be able to commit to an animal like a llama.

“You never know where you are going to

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Vicki Sundberg and her husband, David Smith, settled near Bolivia after retirement to operate a llama farm, Sundmist Pastures, home to five llamas.

Spring 2016

“I love every single one of them. Each one of them is in my heart.”

—Vicki Sundberg

Spring 2016

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By nature, the llamas are gentle creatures

be,” Sundberg says. “It’s hard enough having a dog or cat in the military.”

Sundberg knew when she retired she would move to Wilmington with her husband to be near his children from a former marriage. So the dream was put on hold.

One day while at her last duty station in Washington, D.C., her stepdaughter called to tell her about a llama she had seen in front of her house pulling a cart.

Sundberg says she asked her if she had been drinking.

It turned out that the owner of the llama was Barbara Johanssen, who lives on the north side of Wilmington. Johanssen trained her llama to pull a cart.

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Johanssen ended up becoming Sundberg’s inspiration for her own llama farm, acting as her llama mentor.

But before Sundberg purchased her first llama, she established some criteria.

She needed to be educated enough about llamas to know what do in case of an emergency. She had to find a veterinarian who knew how to treat camelids, the family of even-toed ungulate mammals to which llamas belong.

Llamas are the distant cousins to the alpaca, both of which originate from South America.

“These aren’t dogs or cats,” Sundberg stresses, as she sits felting a hat out of llama fiber. “These aren’t horses or goats.

Spring 2016

It takes knowledge to really take care of these very special animals.”

After meeting all of her criteria, Sundberg was able to purchase her first two llamas.

One thing Sundberg learned early on: llamas are herd animals that can, literally, die of loneliness if not surrounded by others of their kind.

At the time, Sundberg and her husband were living in Southport and had just enough acreage for two llamas.

Though the animals don’t need as much room to roam as horses, they still need ample space.

“A backyard is not sufficient,” Sundberg explains.

who greet each other by sniffing noses.

Eventually, the couple purchased the property in Bolivia, which allowed them to bring in more llamas.

Currently, the Sundmist Pastures llama family consists of Noelle (official greeter), Sanibel Sunshine (alpha of the herd), Trev (the comedian), Queenie (the grand dame), Pipsissewa and Mooch (the accountant, who keeps track of the others).

“I love every single one of them,” Sundberg said. “Each one of them is in my heart.”

Llamas don’t bite, scratch or even have upper teeth. They only have lower ones, which they use to snip off blades of grass at lawnmower height.

Sundberg says llamas are also more environmentally friendly than horses.

She noted that horses have hoofs that tear up the ground while llamas don’t.

“I rotate pastures rather than use chemicals to keep the parasites out of them,” Sundberg says. “I have rain barrels; my llamas drink natural rainwater.

I use solar powered fans in the summertime to keep the llamas cool.”

By nature, the llamas are gentle creatures who greet each other by sniffing noses. Noelle, who was born on Christmas Eve, is the pack’s official greeter, as she’s the most likely to approach visitors and sniff their noses.

Llamas live to be about 20 years Spring 2016

old. The oldest at SundMist Pastures is Queenie, at 23. Queenie came to SundMist through Southeastern Llama Rescue while pregnant and gave birth to SundMist’s resident clown, Trev.

“People will get llamas and they will think they are cute, fluffy and sweet,” says Sundberg. “And they think they are like dogs or cats.”

Sundberg says the hierarchy within the herd is critical to its survival because the leader, or alpha, is the one who keeps the team cohesive.

Sundberg says she doesn’t know how llamas choose their order amongst themselves. The llama at bottom of the pack is the one who is sacrificed to save the SouthEast North Carolina

25

I Don’t Think So Vicki Sundberg proudly points out many of the awards won by her prized llama herd in competitions and parades.

SUPER ALPHA

The Black River the North Carolina Farm Families pointed out try, is coun hog gh throu Black River, running right Cape the and , state the in s river est one of the clean s “simply Fear Riverkeeper immediately said that’ untrue.”

So, who’s right?

an Farm Families gets its information from lina Caro h Nort The ce: sour ble relia independent, ) Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ ing — which rates the Black River an “outstand r.” wate resource And what’s the Riverkeeper’s source?

Well, it’s himself.

d water After a storm in January, he says, he teste surely per rkee samples from the river. But the Rive after taken tests say both knows the EPA and DEQ . liable unre storms are so.

Hog farmers ruining our rivers? I don’t think Sincerely,

Marisa For North Carolina Farm Families PAID FOR BY NC FARM FAMILIES

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SouthEast North Carolina

NCFF_Duplin Times _3.6X9.75.indd 1

Spring 2016

3/14/16 9:47 PM

Continued from page 25

herd, she notes.

Recently, a llama named Kinnickinnick, who was at the bottom of the Sundmist herd, passed away at 20 years and six months old. Sundberg says she isn’t sure what the new order within the herd will be but, for now, Sanibel Sunshine is still top llama and Mooch is still number two.

Llamas are desert animals, who prefer cold winters with lots of snow. Southeastern North Carolina heat can be rough for them, says Sundberg.

“Many llamas have died here in the Southeast,” she says quietly. “People aren’t vigilant in the summertime. Heat kills these animals.”

The best way to help llamas survive the dog days of the South is to shear them once a year, says Sundberg. And when it’s really hot, she hoses down their bellies.

Sundberg stresses that she doesn’t sell llamas or breed them, but she does harvest fiber from their coats.

Sundberg shows off a rug, which she calls a herd blend, made with fiber from her llamas. Also in her living room is a handmade llama figure named “Joybelle,” made from PVC pipe and llama fiber. It took Sundberg two years to make the head and one year to make the body using a technique called needle felting, which consists of using a single, barbed needle to tangle and compact the fibers. If done correctly, it can form three-dimensional felt pieces, such as hats.

Llama hair can also be spun into yarn. Sundberg says many people who are allergic to wool are unaffected by llama or alpaca fiber because it does not contain lanolin, which is secreted by wool bearing animals.

In addition to caring for the llamas and making items from their fiber, Sundberg and her herd also participate in shows.

Llama shows consist of two categories—“halter” and “performance halter,” and animals are judged on their “eye appeal.” Judges decide which llama is best in confirmation, in shape, in style and in health. “I call it the beauty contest,” says Sundberg.

Sundmist Pastures llamas compete in the performance

classes, which judge the handler and llama as a team, usually as they negotiate obstacles of various types.

Sundberg says she also uses llamas for public relations. She mentions that her animals have been featured in local Christmas parades, the North Carolina Azalea Festival parade and the Columbia, S.C. Saint Patrick’s Day parade.

In Sundberg’s barn, the “bragging wall” is covered with ribbons, plaques and newspaper articles. Looking over the awards, Sundberg shows off a special fourth place award Queenie won at her very first llama show at the Georgia National in Perry, Ga. The judge told Sundberg she was probably the oldest llama he had judged.

“I was so proud of her,” Sundberg says.

“It’s not the grand champion, it’s not number one, but for her that’s awesome.”

Moochie, which Sundberg describes as her performance llama, has plenty of awards and accolades. In 2013, Mooch received the SSLA Obstacle Performance and SSLA Driving awards. In 2015, he was awarded first place in Performance Driving from the International Llama Registry Universal awards program; Trev was awarded second place in performance driving.

On the farm, Sundberg has built an obstacle course for her llamas to practice.

The course is also used to train llamas who have been rescued.

“When I get new llamas, ones who come through the rescue system,” she explains, “I get them ready for turning over to a forever home.”

Sundberg says the training is refreshing for her as well, because it helps to establish her status with the pack.

“If I’m not super alpha, I’m somewhere down in the pack and that is not a good place to be,” Sundberg says with a laugh.

SundMist Pastures does not have set hours but if people show up, they are welcome to visit the llamas.

“We love sharing our animals,” Sundberg says. “But we prefer if visitors call in advance.”

There is no cost but donations are welcome and are used to offset the cost of caring for the llamas.

For more information about SundMist Pastures or to visit, call 910269-1422, 910-253-5612 or email at SE homesweethome_3@yahoo.com.

Kinston-Lenoir County

Visitor & Information Center

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

“Make us your first stop in Lenoir County” 101 East New Bern Rd., Kinston, NC 252-522-0004

Kinston-Lenoir County Parks & Recreation Department 2602 W. Vernon Avenue, Kinston NC 28504

252.939.3332

Spring 2016

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SouthEast North Carolina

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North Carolina

Snapshots

Lenox makes china fit for a pope The story of the gold-trimmed dishes designed for Francis’s visit

L

enox China is known for producing high-end eating ware, but it doesn’t get much higher than the boss of the Catholic Church.

The Lenox plant in Kinston, a 40-acre complex built in 1989 that produces enamel dot, etched, color and microwave metals, is the only fine bone china factory in the United States, according to Lenox.

It’s a natural assumption then that the Kinston plant, which produces almost all the company’s top china patterns, would make a set commemorating the visit of one of the most important men in the world.

So, when Pope Francis visited the United States last year, his Holiness was given a set of custom china, made in the Kinston Lenox plant.

Francis has presented himself as a People’s Pope, foregoing many of the material perks that come with Papal affluence: His ring, silver. His vestiges, plain. His quarters, the guesthouse.

Well, the papal guesthouse.

Anyway, Lenox didn’t hold back in their effort to honor the Pontiff.

Fashioned from fine bone china, Lenox produced a line of spectacular plates and cups bearing a line drawing of Francis, hand outstretched to a dove.

The pieces also included the pope’s coat of arms and hand-painted gold accents, applied with a brush.

Even more exclusive were a set of commemorative bowls, one which was to be given to Francis, one for Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and two more

that will remain with Lenox.

Lenox states that its tableware has been used in the White House, in the vice president’s official residence, more than 300 U.S. embassies and more than half the country’s governor mansions.

Here’s how it’s made: Lenox mixes bone ash, china clay, ball clay, flint and

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Handcrafted out of wood and based on early Twentieth Century designs, the boats boast a high level of craftsmanship and—since they’re electric-powered—are nearly silent.

The craft range from 15 to 22 feet in length and are intended for simple comfort and classic style.

Mojotone Mojotone of Burgaw has been building guitar amps and pickups for about 20 years.

They also supply vintage replacement parts for amps and guitars—Mojotone pickups have even been used by the likes of world-famous guitarists Johnny Winter and Paul Waggoner.

The company also produces speaker cabinets, about 1,000 shipped to boutique manufacturers per month.

Mojotone also makes DIY amplifier kits for the tinkering musician. Rock on.

Guilford A commemorative plate is shown with the bowl made by Lenox China’s Kinston plant to honor the visit of Pope Francis in 2015.

feldspar together into a muddy, concrete slurry.

Then, the mix is filtered, applied to molds and extracted on its way to the kiln—each one inspected on the way.

The extreme heat of the kiln hardens and whitens the clay into china tableware. It’s then decorated and ready for a new home—like the Vatican.

SE Spring 2016

Guilford Performance Textiles is a global supplier of fabric for clothing, medical uses and transportation.

The company is owned by Lear.

If you’ve purchased an American car or truck in the last few years, chances are its interior fabrics were made in Kenansville.

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No matter how you slice it...

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910-298-3346 Spring 2016

SouthEast North Carolina

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SE Silhouettes

North Carolina

Fort Fisher Hermit

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Kinston Baseball

36

Nearly 44 years after his death, Robert Harrill, known to many as the Forth Fisher Hermit, continues to captivate the imaginations of North Carolinians. From his makeshift home in an abandoned WWII bunker, Harrill turned a life of heartache into a work of art and became a local celebrity.

Historic Grainger Stadium hosted baseball teams for over 60 years, until the crack of bats and smack of rawhide on leather fell silent in 2011. Now fans are clamoring for more of America’s Pastime.

Bonecrusher Smith

Spring 2015

44

As an young man, Magnolia native James “Bonecrusher” Smith had two goals: to finish school and to “whip somebody.” With a college degree and a heavyweight championship belt to his name, Smith looks back on a life of focused anger, fearless determination, and TKOs.

‘Play Ball!’

Historic Grainger Stadium in Kinston was built 67 years ago and has not staged professional baseball since 2011.

The Texas Rangers and the city of Kinston were supposed to have a deal to bring a high-A Carolina League club to the stadium in 2017, but the deal fell apart late last year. (Photo by Zach Frailey)

Story: Michael Jaenicke

K

Kinston native Charles Smith remembers seeing blossoming left-handed flame thrower Ron Guidry mow down hitters before he became a Yankee great.

Longtime Goldsboro resident and Buckeye State native Harry Noble hasn’t felt attached to his boyhood Cleveland Indian team after going to its Minor League affiliate in southeastern North Carolina for more than a quarter of a century.

The “missing” also strikes a chord for the family of McCord Ford, which until three years ago had six annual mid-summer outings at Historic Grainger Stadium.

With his four grandchildren now Little Leaguers, it costs more and is a longer trip since the Kinston Indians vanished to Zebulon in 2012.

Since the departure of the K-Tribe, fans across the region have felt like they have 36

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been waiting too long in the on-deck circle for a professional baseball team in a stadium that has housed up-and-coming players for 10 Major League teams since 1949.

“With all the history that’s been seen here ,it’s sad this city and area doesn’t have professional baseball anymore,” says Smith, who was a season ticket holder for more than a decade.

Noble also feels as if he’s been rained out of his baseball fix.

“People tell me to go to Durham, Myrtle Beach or Zebulon, but that would be more like watching someone else’s team, not my team,” he says. “There’s an empty hole that was filled by the Indians for as long as I can remember.”

Ford agrees, and says he was initially excited last year when a deal was announced between the Texas Ranges and the City of Kinston to bring a high A-level club to Grainger Stadium in 2017.

“It looked perfect and sounded like Spring 2016

a done deal, but now it’s just more of the same as we wait for things to turn,” Ford says. “But I really think local officials played it right. Yet here we sit without a team and in the waiting mode.”

The Rangers’ plan was to purchase the high-A franchise in Wilmington, Del., and move it to Kinston, but the deal hinged on Wilmington’s Main Street Baseball buying a AA team in Binghampton, N.Y., and shifting it to Wilmington. Instead, Binghampton was bought by Evans Street Baseball, which said it would keep the club in the Empire State.

Yet hope remains the Rangers will bring a team to Kinston. The club had discussions about it during Major League Baseball’s winter meetings in January.

Texas is unhappy with the player development at High Desert, a California League club that has a contract that will expire after the end of the upcoming season.

High Desert is one of three “hitter-

Fans scream for return of professional baseball in Kinston friendly” parks in the league. The previous two years the club’s windy and home run derbies entertained fans during Indians games. park has led the minors in runs per game at nearly 14 and home runs That most parties involved in bringing professional baseball to per game — nearly three dingers per night.

Kinston have taken a “mum’s the word” public stance disturbs some Kinston City officials responded to every attempt to get a deal avid baseball fans. It could be better than spreading misinformation or completed with the Rangers, including a possible agreement to put up spinning the rumor mill, but it doesn’t cut it for true fans. No com$1.6 million— over time —in improvements to Grainger Stadium. ment has been the standard line used by all parties.

While Kinston still had two years of debt service left on its last “I think the best part of this is that if and when a new team comes stadium improvement, City Manager Tony Sears said it could be there are fans hungry to see baseball in Kinston,” notes Smith. rolled into a new plan, One of the reasons the Indians left for Zebulon was because of the facilities upgrade needed at Grainger Stadium. While exact details of the improvements were not available, some were obvious.

They included the following: • renovating the sub-standard visitor’s clubhouse or building a new clubhouse and have visiting teams use the clubhouse currently used by the home team; • constructing an indoor batting cage area so that even when games are rained out, the club could practice; • building a new concession area or restaurant; • finding additional parking and striping and resealing the current lot; • purchasing a new PA system; • repainting the grandstand and installing ceiling fans; • replacing lighting fixtures, but not the poles, and • adding padding to the concrete outfield wall.

Grainger Stadium opened in 1949 and has a seating capacity of 4,100. It housed Coastal Plain teams (summer collegiate baseball) twice and Carolina League clubs twice, the latter of which was an association between the Cleveland Indians and the K-Tribe that started in 1963. The Indians’ time in Kinston included 17 playoff appearances and five Carolina League titles.

The stadium has a seating capacity of 4,100 and has been a place The Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, and Atlanta where 10 Major League teams have used as a farm club.

Braves had brief affiliations with Kinston before the Indians’ second association, which spanned from 1985 to the club’s departure to Zebulon.

“Look, we’re no experts on the inner doings of the game, but we The constant trademark of Kinston teams was that the K-Tribe put do know that there is an audience for it. Fans all over the region will as many fans in the seats of Grainger Stadium as most Carolina League support and embrace it. It’s an affordable option to the working class clubs, albeit having one of the smaller ballparks in its league. The city people who don’t have the money nor the time to see a Major League owns the stadium and leased it to the team. game.”

Kinston also survived a series of ownership changes during Noble says America’s Pastime shouldn’t be thought of as past histhe 1970s. tory.

For fans, it’s likely they miss the game and faces around it.

“It doesn’t take a genius to look at the great stadium, look at how Steve Gaydek is one of those fans. Gaydek was so obsessed fans are still attracted and find a way to make it happen again,” he says. with the atmosphere at the stadium that he attended every “It’s a good move for the city, the area and whatever Minor League game during a 20-year period, even though he lived 35 miles teams that come here.” from the ballpark.

Ford revised a quote from the movie “Field of Dreams” to sumAnd then there’s the lighter things that helped make Grainger marize the position of fans.

Stadium the landmark it is. Bobblehead figurine giveaways, be“If you bring us a team, we will come,” he says. “Really, it’s as tween-inning gags by mascots, fireworks, thirsty Thursday specials simple as that.”

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SouthEast North Carolina

Spring 2016

Celebrity Hermit North Carolina’s love affair with The Fort Fisher Hermit continues unabated Written by Gary Scott Photography by Fred Pickler

Nearly 44 years after the controversial and mysterious death of Robert Harrill, his life and lore as The Fort Fisher Hermit continues to captivate North Carolina.

Harrill took up residence in an abandoned World War II bunker on the beach at Fort Fisher in southern New Hanover County in 1955. He became a celebrity of sorts and in the 1960s, he was recognized as the state’s number two tourist attraction—behind only the USS Battleship North Carolina. It is said that more than 100,000 people made the sandy trek from U.S. 421 over the dunes to see The Hermit and how he lived during his 17 years there.

Harrill was found dead June 3, 1972; it is widely speculated that he was roughed up, perhaps even murdered in the middle of the night.

People, though not nearly as many, still visit the site of the bunker where Harrill lived, surviving on fish, trapping other animals, and living off donations of those who came to gawk.

He might have started out a hermit, but he didn’t end up that way.

Harrill’s life before 1955 had its share of misfortune and tragedy. His mother and two brothers died during a typhoid outbreak early in his life, and he grew

up under a domineering, tyrannical stepmother, according to an award-winning documentary produced in 2006 that chronicled his life and death.

That documentary, The Fort Fisher Hermit: The Life & Death of Robert E. Harrill, was aired on public television stations across the nation, including the University of North Carolina network. The hour-long film, produced by Rob Hill of Common Sense Films of Wilmington and narrated by Barry Corbin, explores Harill’s life through a series of interviews, photographs, and 8 mm film footage. It is available on youtube.com, or can be purchased through a web site that celebrates everything about Harrill, www. thefortfisherhermit.com.

As an adult, Harrill married, going from venture to venture trying to support his family.

The family was upended by the suicide of his oldest son. His wife, becoming distraught over Harrill’s lack of business success, left to take a housekeeper’s job in Pennsylvania. She later divorced Harrill and married the man whose household she managed.

A crazy old man has moved into a bunker at Fort Fisher Harrill is said to have hitchhiked, at age 62, to Fort Fisher from his hometown of Shelbv, near Charlotte, in 1955. He

took up residence on the beach there in an abandoned World War II bunker. Local historian and author Tom Edwards said, “He looked like Ernest Hemingway or maybe could have been a Henry David Thoreau.”

“People looked at him like he was an animal in a zoo or an actor on stage,” said Fred Pickler, a former crime scene technician with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.

“In a sense, he was an actor.” Pickler came to know The Hermit well over the years, photographing him often and getting to know him well at the beach bunker where Harrill lived.

According to the film, Harrill lived like a survivalist, even without the skills of a survivalist. He existed mainly by fishing and tending his small garden, but also trapped small game for food.

In his later years, the Hermit accepted money for autographs, and would willingly allow self-portraits, shirtless, to be made with visitors as mementoes of their time spent.

Ava Gardner, with her driver and large Cadillac in tow, was once seen “performing” for The Hermit. She left abruptly when she was spotted

by Pickler.

Harrill said someone in a Volkswagen was trying to kill him Not everyone was so enamored with The Hermit’s presence at Fort Fisher, though. It was widely held that developers wanted him gone from the beach. They feared he would stake a claim to the unclaimed land

“Everybody loves a lover, Everybody loves me, Come let’s have a little fun, Down beside the sea.”

“People adopted him locally and would bring him food, water and clothing,” said Edwards.

Another local who befriended Harrill and visited somewhat frequently, Bunni Parker of Carolina Beach, said in the film, “He loved roasted marshmallows … He found his true calling: publicity.”

Harrill, in a vintage film clip, said, “I’ve never lived alone (since coming to Fort Fisher). Seventeen thousand people come in here every year.”

He also complained that people were in and out of his beach home all the time, at all hours of the day.

“They call me a hermit,” he said.

“But a hermit wouldn’t talk and mingle with people (like I do).”

Pickler said in the film that actress

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Harrill learned to deal with the local wildlife that came to join him in his bunker. Here, he handles a skunk.

that might prevent its development.

Others, in a rougher time of the 1960s, saw Harrill as an oddity.

The Hermit was beaten by punks on several occasions. They attempted to steal money he was said to have hidden close to the bunker. He was even kidnapped once and pressed charges against his kidnappers, according to Harry Warren, a former Fort Fisher Museum director.

Those elements were the basis of speculation about Harrill’s death in 1972. Originally the New

Spring 2016

Hanover County Sheriff ’s Office ruled his death as the result of a heart attack, but that didn’t square with Pickler, who investigated the scene immediately following Harrill’s death. Pickler advocated for an autopsy, which was never performed.

Harrill’s 79-year-old body was found boarded up in his bunker, bloody, wet, muddy and sandy early on that Saturday morning in June 1972. He had numerous cuts on his body, likely from some of the many oyster shells on the beach and in the nearby marsh. In a 2001 report in the Wilmington Star-News, Edwards, a self-professed Hermit researcher, came up with a likely scenario of what happened.

The news report said, “Four young men found [The Hermit] in the bunker, sleeping in his sleeping-bag cover. They grabbed it, dragging him outside. He ran into the marsh. One man ran after him.

They struggled. Then the hermit went limp. He’d suffered a heart attack. They dragged him back to the bunker ... They fled.”

Edwards said of Harrill’s assailants, “We know who they are, that’s enough.” He said the four still lived in the area at the time of the report. A number of his fellow “hermit heads” knew the men’s names, Edwards said in the newspaper story.

In the film, Pickler said he recommended an autopsy, but a Sheriff’s Deputy, a Mr. Blanton, told him, “Get your ass back in the car and go back to Carolina Beach and don’t tell us how to do our job. It ain’t worth our time, effort or energy ... unless you want to pay for it.”

Harrill’s family only learned of the controversy of his death about seven years later. An investigation was conducted after his son Edward pushed for it, but the case officially remains as unsolved to this day.

Continued on page 42

The life of The Fort Fisher Hermit has inspired many, from the thousands who visited while he was alive to more modern day “Hermit Heads.” Many a student in Southeastern North Carolina in the 1960s and early ’70s went to see Robert Harrill on school field trips. Others went on their own as tourists on vacation, while some locals made regular trips to the bunker where he lived on the beach, befriending him and helping him survive.

In the years since his death, a number of Hermit organizations have sprung up to commemorate his life and death. Here are a few:

The Hermit kept a detailed diary of his life on the beach.

• www.thefortfisherhermit.com A website for Common Sense Films’ 2006 documentary about The Hermit, his life, a blog, with Hermit T-shirts, coffee mugs and more available for purchase.

• The Hermit Society, founded by Michael Edwards, who authored four books about Robert Harrill, maintains a Facebook page.

The bunker where he lived remains empty as a monument to Robert Harrill.

A car was left at the beach as a place for Harrill to sleep.

• In 2012, a play was brought to the stage on The Hermit of Fort Fisher. Written by David Wright, managing director of the Paramount Theatre in Burlington, the play originally was staged there, some 200 miles from the Fort Fisher beach where The Hermit lived. In 2013 and 2014, the play was staged with an 18-member cast at the Cape Fear Playhouse in Wilmington by Big Dawg Productions, and again at the Brunswick Theatre in Southport. In 2015, the play was staged again for five days, this time at the Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre in Wilmington.

• A book, “The Reluctant Hermit of Fort Fisher,” published in July 2014, illustrates the life of Robert Harrill through the lenses of photographer Fred Pickler (who also provided photos used here in SE North Carolina magazine this month), and the words and graphics of Daniel Ray Norris, president of SlapDash Publishing in Carolina Beach. Order the hardcover book at www. carolinabeach.net/hermit1.html

A gentle man. He made us think.

In the years since, Robert Harrill’s fame still runs deep.

Edward Harrill spoke about his estranged father after his death. “He made people think. He’s still making me think today.”

Gehrig Spencer, another Fort Fisher museum director, said, “He was very intelligent.

He’d read almost all the time.

He just wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle.”

Harrill, The Hermit, told visitors to his bunker he was writing a book, and wanted to open the “Common Sense University” one day with the funds from its sale. The book never materialized, but the

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nearby North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, inspired by Hill’s documentary, developed “The Fort Fisher Hermit School of Common Sense,” which is a presentation at the aquarium that includes a showing of the film and a selfguided walk to The Hermit’s nearby bunker.

Today, the bunker is a memorial—still frequently visited—dedicated to Harrill’s life as The Fort Fisher Hermit.

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se • silhouettes

WorlD cHamp WitH

Magnolia’s James Smith was heavyweigh

Story: Bill Rollins Photos: Contributed

J

ames Smith grew up poor in the railroad town of Magnolia, one of six offspring of sharecropping parents.

But he used some harsh lessons of childhood to propel himself to success, first as a double college graduate, then to unique glory in the boxing ring.

Fifteen years after high school, Smith scored a first-round knockout of “Terrible” Tim Witherspoon to become heavyweight champion of the World Boxing Association.

The first world titleholder with a college degree is in the N.C. Boxing Hall of Fame, and in April he was inducted into the James Kenan High School Athletics Hall of Fame.

James Smith, a self-described “little, scrawny kid,” was one of six children, and grew up chopping firewood, lifting hay bales and sacks of peanuts, stacking bags of fertilizer, and cleaning and preparing vegetables to sell at his dad’s produce business. He ate homeraised chickens and hogs that he and his family slaughtered on site.

A huge factor in rising from those humble, Duplin County beginnings to worldwide fame was learning to control his anger and channel it productively.

Whippings That started, more or less, at the old P.E. Williams Elementary School in Magnolia. And at home.

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Smith’s first-grade teacher, annoyed by his fussing, whipped him with a fan belt off an old car.

She also sent a note home.

“In those days of corporal punishment at school, if you got a whipping there, you got another one when you got home,” Smith, who turned 63 on April 3, said recently from his home in Myrtle Beach.

“I decided two things right then—that I was going to finish school, and that when I grew up, I was going to whip somebody.”

Control and channel.

He graduated in 1971 from James Kenan, where he played only basketball because his parents feared he might get hurt playing football.

Of his basketball career, he said, “I was big, 6-foot-4 and about 195 pounds, and I just pushed them out of the way to get rebounds and score.”

Higher sights Smith graduated in 1973 from James Sprunt Institute (now Community College) in Kenansville with an associate’s degree in business administration.

He also played basketball there, but gave it up the next year at Shaw University in Raleigh, where he earned a bachelor’s in 1975, also in business administration.

“I had been thinking,” he said, “what can I do to be the best at something, or the first at something?

“And I heard a voice over my shoulder: ‘I am the greatest!’” Muhammad Ali was in his head.

SouthEast North Carolina

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BoNEcr

H a collEgE DEgrEE

ht boxing’s world champion 30 years ago

rUSHEr!

“It was just a dream,” he said, “but every success starts with a dream.”

He knew he could get into boxing in the Army, so he joined up. “I had a great trainer, Herb Ruffin,” he said, “and before it was over, I had my ‘first’—the first world boxing champion with a college degree.”

Smith made short work of his first amateur opponent at his Army post, Leighton Barracks, Wurzburg, Germany.

“I knocked him straight out of his shoes,” he said.

Bonecrusher He was soon touring bases and cities in Europe. His style was to rush in and go for a quick knockout.

One night during a fight, according to a boxing magazine story, a fan yelled out, “Bonecrusher!”

Smith says he nicknamed himself — every fighter had one — but he didn’t deny that story.

The punishing, 6-foot-4 headbuster with an 82-inch reach left the Army with a 35-4 amateur record and turned pro.

And what did his football-denying parents think? “I think they were okay with the way it turned out,” he said.

It certainly started poorly.

Smith didn’t crush any bones, or even rearrange them, in his first pro fight, a loss by technical

knockout (TKO). But then the Duplin County native reeled off 14 straight wins, six by knockout (KO) and six by technical knockout (TKO, the result when an opponent can’t continue).

The 14th was a 10th-round knockout in London on NBC of British heavyweight Frank Bruno (21-0), who led solidly on points.

That fight showed all of Smith’s strengths and weaknesses, according to a boxing journal: “He couldn’t box with the best, but he had a great chin [could take punches] and had world-class power in both hands.”

The Bruno win was his first big break, because it was part of the world unification title series and qualified him for a shot at the International Boxing Federation crown in September 1984.

Trouble was, that title was held

by Larry “The Easton Assassin” Holmes, who was 45-0 with 18 straight title defenses. Smith lost by a TKO, but not until the ring doctor stopped it in the 12th round on a bad cut.

Enter Don King But a first-round TKO over Mike “Hercules” Weaver on CBS in April 1986 inspired him to go to Las Vegas “uninvited,” he said, to see the Larry Holmes vs. Michael Spinks fight for the International Boxing Federation title—promoted by Don King.

“I signed an exclusive contract

James Smith was the World Boxing Association champion for four months in 1986, having defeated Tim Witherspoon in a lightning 2:12-first round knockout. At left, center photo is of Odell (as he was known then) with the rebound, as a basketball star at James Kenan High School in 1971.

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with King] to fight the winner,” Smith to not last even one round, fought cauFirst-round blitz said, “who Don thought would be his tiously, incurring point deductions for On December 12, 1986, at Madison fighter, Holmes.” Instead, Spinks won the excessive holding. There were cascades of Square Garden on HBO, Smith exploded fight. boos throughout much of the match. Tyfrom his corner. A crashing blow from a “So now Don doesn’t have a champison tried everything he could to get in one huge right hand staggered Witherspoon on, but I have an exclusive contract with good shot. He could not. In the closing to one knee in the opening seconds. Three him. I sue him and he sues me for breach seconds, Smith landed the best punch of knockdowns followed quickly, and what of contract.” the fight. turned into a bonecrushing mismatch was The mess swirled on until early Decem“It was hard to hit Tyson,” says Smith. stopped at 2:12 of the first round. ber, when King called Smith, who was “Hey, I hit Tyson! Mike was knocking them Smith said later, “It was unbelievable. I training for another fight. out in the first round.” got him in trouble fast. I beat him from “He said, ‘Bonecrusher, I’m going to Smith paid a dear price for how he pillar to post. I got mad and started throwoffer you a lot of money to end all this conducted the fight. Tyson—who became ing heavy leather upside his head [and] between us — another world title fight,” the unified champion in June 1988—and knocked him out in the first round for [the said Smith.

King refused to even let Smith fight on a World Boxing Association title].

“I asked him who would I fight, and Tyson undercard afterward.

“I can’t tell you how that felt.” he said Witherspoon. Well, I knew WithSmith landed only one more fight Ringside HBO analyst Larry Merchant erspoon was fighting Tubbs the next against a true contender, getting KO’d week, but [King] said Tubbs had

by Donovan “Razor” Ruddock in to withdraw. So I would have one 1989. week’s notice for my second title shot, He fought on to the age of 46 in against a guy who had outpointed me 1999, when he suffered a TKO in the a year ago. eighth round against an even-older “I was mad at King and mad at Larry Holmes. boxing.”

The fight was in Fayetteville, and Smith said he felt the rematch with James “Bonecrusher” Smith took his Witherspoon was a setup, a charade, 44-17-1 career record and 32 knocka fight he wasn’t supposed to win. outs, climbed between the ropes for “It was only the second time in one last time and came home. my life that I was that mad,” he said.

“But I took the fight on faith, and After the ring again, channeled my anger.”

In 1995, Smith helped start the Smith likened it to the time as a N.C. Boxing Commission, and served 10-year-old in Magnolia when, he as its first commissioner. said, “God put upon my heart to start Now, he works primarily at two running, and I would understand the passions — influencing youth and reason later. I stepped out on faith Today, “Bonecrusher” Smith lives in Myrtle Beach, helping retired prize fighters. The latand started running. I was like the S.C. He helped found the N.C. Boxing Commister takes form as a boxing museum in movie character, Forrest Gump. I ran sion and served as it’s first commissioner. He also Myrtle Beach. founded a non-profit charity, “Champions for everywhere looking for ‘Bubba.’”

The other, his nonprofit ChamKids,” and more recently authored his first book.

Witherspoon was having his own pions for Kids, Inc., also in Myrtle troubles with King, roundly “celBeach, was started in 2004. It influebrated” as the most successful, yet bomences youngsters to stay in school and called it, “a monumental upset.” bastic, underhanded and cut-throat prostart a path to achievement, and also raises Smith had reached a pinnacle in his moter in boxing. money to provide college scholarships to profession, advancement in the HBO/ Analysts said Witherspoon hadn’t the disadvantaged.

Don King-promoted unification tournatrained properly. That might have evened Partly to that end, Smith recently pubment to determine a universally-recogup the match with Smith, who had been lished a book: M.A.D. Make A Decision. It’s nized champ. in the early stages of training for another autobiographical, including lessons from fight in the Bahamas — but not a title the times he was able to channel his anger Swift comedown fight. positively. It also has looks inside his big Bonecrusher’s fall was swift, four Witherspoon (25-2, 17 KOs), almost fights and his dealings with Don King. months later, no doubt because his second 30, was still a big favorite over the 31“Whether you are a world boxing and last unification bout and first title deyear-old Smith (18-5, 6 KOs) on the Las champion, businessman, student or whatfense came against World Boxing Council Vegas books. ever, life is full of setbacks,” said Smith. champion Mike Tyson (29-0) in Las Vegas Then came Bonecrusher’s own Fight of “Our success depends on what we do four months later, March 7, 1987. the Century. next.”

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Snapshots

SE PICKS: Juke Joint Gems

Pier 33’s outdoor music venue to provide more options for entertainment

First concert was held on St. Patrick’s Day in northern downtown Wilmington

M

arch 17 was the date of the first concert held at Pier 33’s outdoor music venue in Wilmington for the Sham Rock and Roll St. Patrick’s Day Party.

It featured regional cover band The Swingin’ Richards and a variety of St. Paddy’s Day attire.

Organizers said it would be the first of many events at the venue, which will serve as special events center and concert venue for up to 5,000 people.

Recently, a 70-feet long, 30-feet wide band shell was put in place. It will be topped with a metal roof and covered in canvas to become the site for a variety of events such as car shows, drive-in movies and festivals.

Concertgoers will also be treated to a view of the Cape Fear River and the Battleship North Carolina.

The venue is part of the 27,000square foot concrete Pier 33 in northern downtown waterfront Wilmington, located between the Wilmington Convention Center and PPD’s headquarters.

Pier 33 is a waterfront mixed-use development proposed along with the Port City Marina in downtown Wilmington.

Nearby two restaurants—Black Finn Ameripub and Vida Mexican Kitchen y Cantina are being constructed near the space.

Blackfinn Ameripub offers salads, burgers, pasta and other items along with craft beers and signature cocktails.

Vida Mexican Kitchen y Cantina will

Rusty Nail Saloon Open since 1957, Wilmington’s Rusty Nail Saloon is all about the blues. You’ll find no fancy cocktails or elaborate bar rites here, just a down home watering hole featuring some of the finest and funkiest bands in region.

The Brown Pelican

The Pier 33 outdoor music venue can accommodate up to 5,000 people. It will be the site for festivals, car shows and more.

bring its specialty Mexican fare, handcrafted cocktails, an extensive list of tequilas and signature Skinny Margaritas.

Both are projected to open this summer.

All of this is part of the Port City Marina, which serves as a gateway for boaters to Historic Downtown Wilmington.

It is a protected deep-water marina on the Northeast Cape Fear River with 134 boat slips with 70 more to be added in the future.

And due to start construction in the fall of this year is Pier 33 apartments. It will feature a mix of 300 studios, one, two and three-bedroom apartments, 32,000 square feet of ground floor retail space and the future home for the offices of Port City Marina.

One of the newest additions to New Bern’s downtown bar scene, The Brown Pelican features an eclectic mix of local and regional bands on the weekends. With its mix of high end adult beverages and no nonsense (hotdogs) cuisine, the bar is a favorite stop during the town’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl and the upcoming Bernaroo Music and Arts Festival.

The Silos What’s not to like about a restaurant/music club/ art deco museum housed inside twin metal silos? Located in the riverfront community of Oriental, The Silos’ album cover and vintage instrument festooned walls and outdoor bandstand match the music obsessed staff’s dedication to providing an eye popping, ear tingling night out. Don’t sleep on the lobster ravioli dyed in octopus ink either.

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SE 35th Parallel

North Carolina

Passion 54 and Compassion

Two stories, two different views of the struggles faced by the community of veterans that call Fayetteville home.

From a tragedy averted by love and understanding, to one woman’s struggle to provide housing to those in need, the stories are as compelling as the issues are complex.

Pollocksville Bypass

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Defying the panic that grips many small communities when the world threatens to pass them by, the citizens of Pollocksville have kept their eyes on the positive: less traffic and (possibly) new opportunities.

Been Here and Gone

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Southeastern North Carolina’s timeworn structures are fading from view, eroding before an onslaught of indifference and the modern mania for the new. Like ghosts lingering among the Technicolor present, they stand as reminders of the fate of all things.

Spring 2015

We’ll be j

se • 35th parallel

POLLOCKSVILLE FOLKS LOOKING FORWARD Story: Trevor Normile Photos: Trevor Normile, Todd Wetherington

A

woman standing outside the Trent Family Restaurant smoked on her Marlboro Light (excuse me, “Gold”) while the wind whipped at her ruddy, chilly cheeks.

“What?!” she shouted when asked about the U.S. 17 bypass, pulling an earmuff away.

The woman, who didn’t give her name, said she and her husband were stopping through Pollocksville for lunch on their way south to Jacksonville.

The New Bern residents were fed up with the trek and the many speed limit changes between the two cities.

Customers flowed into and out of the little red restaurant at a pace that might have overwhelmed the single waitress inside, Christine Phillips, had she not apparently had the stamina of a much younger woman.

Apologies to the patrons in there that afternoon—Phillips did finally take a short pause to speak about the coming bypass, once the drinks had been served and orders taken.

“I don’t think it will really affect us. If anything, it’ll bring us business while it’s being built. Older people, they’re used to driving their own route somewhere. We’re not going to change how we get to and from, it’s just going to be less traffic for us to get to where we want to go,” she says over the din of the diner.

Phillips, thanked for taking just a moment from her work replied, “no problem, the Sun Journal already interviewed me just a few days ago.”

What are the odds that the same woman would be

N.c. DoT mAp

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ust fine, thank you.

TO LESS TRAFFIC, BETTER OPPORTUNITY WHEN NEW U.S. 17 BYPASS IS COMPLETE

JAY BENDER, pollocksvillE mAYoR interviewed on the same topic, just days later? Not as bad as you might think in Pollocksville. With a population a little over 300, it’s like much of Jones County—quiet, old, sparsely populated. Probably the most recognizable landmark in town, the restaurant is 60 years old and reopened in December under new management.

Phillips isn’t a Pollocksville resident herself. She lives about a half hour south in the Onslow County town of Swansboro.

Highway 17 is part of the quickest way between the two, and she no doubt travels the road often. Yet, working at a familyowned restaurant in a small town, she’s not so worried about traffic being diverted away.

“I don’t really think it’ll hinder us, I don’t think it’ll hurt us any.”

She has a point. It’s a refreshing one, one that’s hard to hype with headlines, a quality that often means one’s words are closer to the truth. Occam’s Razor and all that.

Of course, not everyone will agree with Ms. Phillips. Some have shouted their concerns over the U.S. 17 project coming to fruition in Jones County. They say that speeding up traffic

cHRisTiNE pHillips, wAiTREss and moving it away from the towns will deprive them of business, the way it has in many Southeast N.C. communities.

The funding for the $143.3 million project was finally secured in 2013 and the work was awarded to Balfour Beatty and E.V. Williams last June. The project will widen U.S. 17 to four lanes and include bypasses at Belgrade, Maysville and Pollocksville. Proponents say the bypasses will increase safety and access for Jones County residents.

Some have wondered aloud how the bypass will affect business in these little villages. Pollocksville Mayor Jay Bender wonders back: what business?

“There’s been so much talk about the bypass and all of a sudden it was here. The concern was, it was going to drive all of the business away. I said, ‘No, let’s look down the street.

There’s not any business,’” Bender says, sitting in his office at Pollocksville Town Hall.

“We lost our only bank. Our largest propane dealer in the United States, Jenkins Gas Co., born and bred here, sold out ... they’re looking to do something with their building.”

Again, refreshing in a region full of little towns trying to

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hype what they have. Biggest frying pan this, oldest parade an overpass at White Oak Road in Onslow County, drew that—any detail that can help their small town punch through fire when it was closed and traffic detoured to nearby Gibson the white noise, they dearly hope, could bring some dollars.

Bridge Road in February. After a nor’easter blew through and And here are two people who think, maybe, it wouldn’t be flooded the largely unpaved road, N.C. DOT announced it so bad. would build a second alternate road for drivers to use while the This U.S. 17 project isn’t breaking news. Bender says it’s overpass was being constructed. been part of the regional conversation for a long time, at least Bender, Pollocksville’s mayor for the last 34 years and coas long as the Trent Family Restaurant has existed. The highway owner of a local grocery store, said his kids left town for work, connects military bases, ports, businesses and people on either but some nieces and nephews found a way to stay put. side of Jones County, which just 10,000 people call home. The Pollocksville isn’t a metropolis, but it is quite charming. It’s largest town there, Maysville, has about a thousand citizens. a little river village with a waterfront and a town hall built from Specifically, this project, designated R-2514 by the N.C. the town’s repurposed train station (itself built in 1893 and Department of Transportation, refers to 16 miles of U.S. 17 decommissioned in the 1960s). Everyone in the diner knows that will be widened and moved west of if you’re from there or not, regardless the Jones County communities. Since of whether they are from there, or not.

N.C. 58 also comes to Pollocksville from It’s a place you probably wouldn’t have the west, an interchange will be built business in, unless you were assigned to directly near town. Maysville will get exits write about it.

There’s noT a loT of for beachward drivers going east.

Bender draws some allusions bebusiness here. ThaT doesn’T tween “It’s been a long time coming. Jones U.S. 17 and the railroads that County was probably one of the most mean iT can’T come, buT my once supported industry in the region. difficult parts of the bypass to get apHe sees opportunities in the changes argumenT was, we haven’T proved because of some of the envicoming to the area. ronmental issues. You’ve got rivers that “I’m seeing a prime opportunity for really diverTed Traffic To have to be crossed, you’ve got wetlands,” a Bojangles, a Sheetz or a Speedway ruin The business, because [gas station]. To me it’s going to be the Bender explains, adding that the town is a member of the Highway 17 AssociaThere wasn’T anyThing here commercial center of Jones County and tion, a group that collectively pushes for Pollocksville’s going to benefit from that.

To sTarT wiTh. improvements to the highway.

It just won’t be on Main Street of old “We went through the biggest mess Pollocksville,” he says. with the wildlife folks, endangered wood“So there’s not a lot of business here. peckers, you name it. And then there was That doesn’t mean it can’t come, but the money, combine all of that, it was tremendous. With some my argument was, we haven’t really diverted traffic to ruin the really hard work and persistence by a lot of people, it was esbusiness, because there wasn’t anything here to start with. sentially approved a couple of years ago and the contracts were “... There have been some concerns raised,” he continues. let last June to do the whole project.

“I kind of look at it as opportunities to do some things dif“And this was a change because originally the plans called ferently. First of all, by looking at the maps, the area just adfor one section to be done ... in the 16-mile corridor and it was jacent to Pollocksville is going to have the commercial—the to be done separately because of the money, but N.C. DOT major—interchange of the project. All these other locations board members came together and folks looked at the budget. are going to just be minor exits. This is going to be a two-leaf It’s close to a 200 million [dollar] project and it’s all going to be clover intersecting Highway 58 with two stoplights. We don’t done; if you go down toward Jacksonville, they’re doing work have any stoplights, and all of a sudden we have two stopbetween here, they’re doing work on the site near New Bern.” lights.”

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to complete such Bender’s under no illusion that a Sheetz could provide the a project without affecting someone’s life, somewhere. Homjobs needed to move families into the town. The challenge, he eowners had to be bought out for room to build and adjustsays, is to find ways to bring people into Pollocksville because ments still have to be made to the existing road—one portion, they want to be there, not because they’re forced to drive 52

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HEAL THE LAND OUTREACH MINISTRIES Continued from page 55

him, the power of God hit him and veteran diagnosed with PTSD, hadn’t knocked him to his knees,” Wright says. been on his prescribed medication for “He began to cry and cry out to three months.

God.” A few days later, Wright says, Boone At that time, Wright asked for others came back. He learned that sometimes in the church to come and embrace the Boone would blank out and rip his man who’d walked armed into their house apart. Coming out on the other service. end, Boone often didn’t remember “When they did that, he began to cry anything. on their shoulders,” Wright remembers.

“This is what PTSD does,” Wright, a “It was a moment that was so power- veteran himself, says. ful. God came into that room and The reverend served in the 82nd arrested that man’s Airborne Diviheart.” sion for more Wright asked than 20 years. He Boone to sit on trained men and the front pew until saw their pride as “‘I came out to do somehe finished the they transformed thIng real bad. and the message. At the from civilians to lord just told me to come soldiers. time, neither man knew the police With his In here and allow you to were on their way. military backpray for me.’” gregory As Wright ground, Wright preached, the was elected in boone told rev. wrIght. police arrived and November 2013 wrIght saId, “It was a mostood in the back as the District 7 of the foyer. Once ment that was so powerful. representative to Wright finished, the Fayetteville god came Into that room Boone stood up, City Council. Afwent to the altar ter he was elected, and arrested that man’s and gave himself he was assigned heart.” up to Jesus Christ. to be the liaison Wright says he for veterans of the quietly told the city. man that he’d scared a lot of people by Wright says he has been involved bringing a gun into the church. Boone with everything from “Fort Bragg to reached for the microphone and apolohomeless veterans along with retired gized for frightening everyone. veterans associations.”

“He said ‘I came out to do something He’s also been a pastor for 31 years. terrible tonight,’” Wright recalls.

Wright says he named his ministry “‘I came out to do something real “Heal the Land” because God gave him bad. And the Lord just told me to come a vision of “thousands and thousands” of in here and allow you to pray for me.’ people who were hurting.

And he said he was giving his life to “He told me in the vision to go and Christ.” heal the land,” he says.

Boone then gave himself up to the “Anything could have happened that police, who took him to a mental health night. But the Lord stepped in. And the facility. It was determined that Boone, a presence of God took control.”

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Gregory Boone

At the time of SE North Carolina’s interview with Wright, Boone was in jail, having violated his probation due to the gun incident. His probation stemmed from charges of injury to personal property and driving while impaired.

But he’s since joined Heal the Land Outreach Ministries. He returned with his wife and said he wanted both to be baptized at a later date. Wright often visits him at the jail and went with him to a court hearing.

“I am going to stick with him throughout the whole process,” Wright maintains. “I want this brother to be a success story. I want him to succeed and overcome his demons or his failures and mistakes in life.”

Unfortunately, Boone’s case is not a rare one, especially among members of the military.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 7 to 8 percent of the population will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. About eight million adults experience PTSD during a given year—only a small portion of those who experience traumatic experi-

Ever since he was a child, the Rev. Larry Wright has always wanted to help others.

As a minister, a veteran and a city councilman, he has devoted his time to helping veterans, the homeless and others through various activities in Fayetteville and Cumberland County.

ences, but not an insignificant number by any metric.

Pain, danger, fear—whether experienced as a victim or as a witness—can attribute to the condition.

In the military, where people like Boone are exposed to danger on a much greater scale and with greater frequency than the general public, those statistics are higher. Veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom experience PTSD at a rate of between 11 and 20 percent, according to the VA. Wright too says there are thousands of others like Boone, who may have fallen on hard times and have made mistakes. Regardless, the reverend says, salvation exists for them too.

“God still loves those people. It doesn’t matter what color you are or what your gender is. God still loves you and there is still hope.”

Ever since he was a child, Wright says he has been determined to help people.

In addition to serving in the military for two decades, Wright has also been active for many years in the Fayetteville veterans and religious communities.

He’s been a city representative for the faith community concerning gang and youth violence; president of the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Ministerial Council; and chairman of the board for the Homeless and Hunger Stand Down of Fayetteville. Wright was also named the winner of the 2012 Religious Leader

Award.

“I did a lot of speaking engagements, attended a lot of the meetings and brought the information back to the city council members so we could have a better grip on our veterans across the board,” he says of his work.

Wright also spoke about his duties as director of the Homeless and Hunger Stand Down, an outlet for various agencies to come together to provide the homeless with information and resources.

“It was not only to feed them [for] one day, but to develop relationships with those people that they could get assistance and help all year long,” Wright explains.

Before becoming a city councilman, Wright also worked with the National Association for Black Veterans to help veterans who don’t understand the system, or who are not informed or educated about the benefits to which they are entitled.

Wright stresses that he will continue to work with Boone, the young man full of fear and pain who walked into his life on December 31. As soon as Boone gets out of jail, Wright says he will help him get enrolled in the Veterans Administration process — and get him the medication that he needs.

Wright say he learned that Boone was working a minimum wage job and just barely surviving at the time of the Spring 2016

New Year’s Eve incident. His wife had been diagnosed with a critical illness too. When he walked into the church, the lights had been turned off at his home.

“He was just in a bad way,” Wright says. “A lot of people are looking for help and can’t find help. They are looking for relief and can’t find relief.”

Wright says he is making preparations to do a citywide revival, which will be based on the New Year’s Eve incident.

“I am going to go to the heart of the city,” Wright says.

According to Wright, he ran for office because he believes the church has to get out into the community, and move beyond the walls of the building that, he says, have kept them confined and ignorant to what is going on around them.

“Faith without works is dead,” he asserts.

Despite the obvious issues, Wright says Fayetteville and Cumberland County provide more resources for veterans because of Fort Bragg.

As a veteran, Wright says he understood the plight of former service members. When a soldier leaves the disciplined environment of the military, it takes an adjustment to get back to civilian life.

“Some soldiers fall through the cracks,” Wright says.

“They don’t make it. Some just need more help than others.”

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JUBILEE HOUSE Continued from page 54

and devoted hours of work to the veterans support project.

Marshall’s passion, her personal and emotional investment in the women she helped and the homes she tried to provide for them, is evident. Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, she may have gotten in over her head with the clerical and technical aspects of operating a nonprofit.

The original Jubilee House was Marshall’s family residence dating back to 2005. She recalled a few visits to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) where she and her family would encounter veterans who were facing personal complications. Deciding to extend a hand in support, Marshall decided to offer temporary living space to individuals.

“I’d meet a woman at the VA and if she was homeless and needed help, I’d invite her to come (into our home) and then from there we [would] connect with services, make suggestions, ensure she was making appointments at the VA, and take it from there,” said Marshall.

“We met people, usually women with children, and we brought them home. My son and my daughter, I owe them a debt of gratitude because they had so many people that came in and out of their lives.”

Marshall said in 2010 she pulled funds together, including her personal money, to buy a VA foreclosure home to provide an off-site living space for the veterans, which became the Jubilee House. Her intent was to continue to connect the veterans to vital services.

“We were able to find a way to help the women veterans. We were making strides in the community for a population, who as far as we knew, nobody was reaching. We felt real good about the difference that we were making,” said Marshall.

58

People who saw the transformation of the Jubilee House on national television and believed in the services offered to the veterans were shocked to discover that Marshall was having problems keeping the houses she managed.

At one point, local news media reported that the Jubilee House was without utilities, while other reports shed light on struggles to pay the utilities. Then came news that the non-

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SouthEast North Carolina

“We Were able to find a Way to help the Women veterans. We Were making strides in the community for a population, Who as far as We kneW, nobody Was reaching. We felt real good about the difference that We Were making.”

—barbara marshall

profit was under investigation by the state of North Carolina.

By December 2015, Steps and Stages, the parent nonprofit that managed the three homes located on Langdon Street (Jubilee House), Enfield Drive and Gilmore Street, was already in the midst of a yearlong investigation by the Attorney General’s Office and the office of the Secretary of State. The investigation came to a head in the summer of 2015, when threats of dissolving the nonprofit and closing the homes were made by the offices.

Marshall was expected to comply Spring 2016

with an enumerated set of conditions to prevent the dissolution of Steps and Stages. Those stipulations meant Marshall had to produce financial records, organizational records, an active and verified list of the nonprofit’s board of directors, service logs, proof of a secured certified public accountant, receipts of financial contributions, and records of residents dating back to 2008.

Marshall was accused by the state Attorney General’s Office and the office of the Secretary of State of commingling assets between the nonprofit and herself. The offices claimed their investigation revealed a number of inconsistencies, including falsified financial and operational documents. Other accusations included abusing and exceeding the authority conferred by law, including failing to make decisions through a board of directors, and failing to abide by conflict of interest bylaws.

Matters became even stickier for Marshall when it became public knowledge that her solicitation license was expired and county taxes were still outstanding on the Gilmore Street and Enfield Drive homes.

Marshall was reticent to speak about any of the issues surrounding the homes and did not answer questions regarding the legal matters that had been reported.

During her interview with SE North Carolina, Marshall said she was determined to continue to support women veterans and advocate for them. How she planned to do so was unclear, but her passion seemed intact.

For now, Marshall appears to have broken off all contact with the media.

During the course of this article, several attempts were made by phone to speak with Allan Rogers, the attorney who at one point represented Mar-

shall, but he never returned the calls.

Other attempts were made to contact Attorney General Roy Cooper and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, but neither was available nor returned calls. The interim board of directors of Steps and Stages was also unavailable to make statements.

Although, at least for the foreseeable future, Marshall appears to be out of the picture, the work she began for the areas under-served veterans continues. On Feb. 25, 2016, Family Endeavors was chosen to run the Jubilee House, dissolving Marshall’s Steps and Stages nonprofit.

Family Endeavors is a nonprofit providing support to veterans throughout the state and a number of counties

Laressa Witt

in southeastern North Carolina. Its services extend to Bladen, Brunswick, Carteret, Columbus, Cumberland, Duplin, Lenoir, New Hanover, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender, Robeson, and Sampson counties. The federally-funded pro-

gram in Fayetteville has already been working in the community by helping to decrease homelessness among veterans in the area.

Laressa Witt, Family Endeavors N.C. program manager, explained that the first task was to stabilize the three houses and bring them in line with federal safety standards. According to Witt, when the Jubilee house was built it did not meet certain safety standards, such as a having a sprinkler systems or an egress from the upstairs portion of the home in case of fire.

“It’s going to be quite costly (to get the house up to code),” Witt said.

“We’re going to have to put in quite a bit of capital to bring that up. The estimates are about $100,000 for the

The Jubilee House on Langdon Street in Fayetteville is one of three structures Barbara Marshall helped get off the ground to provide housing for homeless veterans in the Cumberland County area. Two others are located on Gilmore Street and Enfield Street. The Jubilee House was chosen for rebuilding in 2011 as part of ABC-TV’s “Extreme Makeover” home remodeling series.

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JUBILEE HOUSE

Continued from page 59

sprinkler system; we’re not sure if that’s the case. We’re hoping it might not be that much, but we’re not 100 percent sure.”

The missions of Family Endeavors and Steps and Stages were very closely aligned, Witt said. The difference in the missions appeared to be where Marshall serviced mainly women veterans, Family Endeavors’ focus is to support and address homelessness of all veterans.

At the time of her interview, Witt said Family Endeavors was just beginning the process of transferring the Jubilee House and the other two properties into their nonprofit organization.

The houses will be a part of the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program at Family Endeavors, which helps homeless veterans take steps into sustaining housing in a 90 day period, while connecting the veterans to services and program they may be eligible for.

It may be that the Jubilee House failed to meet Marshall’s vision—for what reasons, the public can only guess without cooperation from the other parties involved in its demise.

And it may be that it set the stage for someone to take the cause even further.

“We’re here to get veterans housed so they’re not homeless,” Witt said.

“Barbara Marshall and I have always had a very warm relationship; a respectful relationship. I haven’t had any problems with her. I can’t speak to what she has done or not done, but I will say that running a 501c3 (nonprofit) has a lot of legal requirements. There are a lot of fiscal controls to make sure that it’s running ethically and above the law. I just know that Family Endeavors does that and I can’t speak to what was done or not done.

There is a lot to it.”

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Barbara Marshall, the founder of Jubilee House in Fayetteville for homeless female veterans, is stopped by Cumberland County deputies, preventing her from entering the shelter after she was removed as director of the charity that operated the house.

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BEEN HERE AND GONE the fading structures of se north carolina

It all goes to dust, eventually.

They’re everywhere now, maybe they always were, the irrelevant works of the past, cobbled together from sand and stone and brick as if to defy the unceasing tide of the world. Day upon day they gather in plain view, unseen, fading before the bright, the new, the modern, like sepia revenants among the Technicolor present.

Some were doomed simply by their location (location!, location!, location!) while others have merely outlived their usefulness, their intended purpose no longer relevant to 21st Century profit margins, fashion edicts or calculations of convenience.

The change can be seen far from our glittering cityscapes, in the crumbling tobacco barns framed by shining new solar fields, in the highways rerouted around the frayed remains of once bustling downtowns, in chamber of commerce boards left holding their heads and grasping for new ideas to revive the empty storefronts, empty sidewalks, and empty-eyed young men on the corner.

Eventually, the shuttered restaurants and deserted hotels become indistinguishable from the plastic flowers and crosses along the roadsides.

These structures have been swallowed by modernity, by indifference, by corporations reaching their numb, brittle tentacles into small communities and towns. It’s there in the plywood sign across the front window at Town ’N Country grocery in Oriental, spray painted with the sardonically angry (Thanks, Wal-Mart!; Welcome to Oriental) and the sadly pleading (Please come back!

Meat Gone. Love The People.) And just down the road, the plain plastic sign on the big box express store that put the local grocery of 42 years out of business and then closed up shop two months later: “THIS WALMART STORE WILL BE CLOSING.” 62

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Change, of course, is a process neither malignant nor benign, simply inevitable. And in time’s inexorable scheme, stasis can destroy just as surely as the wrong action, only more slowly. Standing before the vine draped folding seats and leaf carpeted stage of Kenan Memorial Amphitheater in Kenansville, it’s difficult to reconcile its vault-like stillness with the boisterous sturm und drang of the historical drama “The Liberty Cart,” which played there throughout the 1970s.

Was there actually a time when families sat together, outside, and enjoyed idealized tales of their ancestors, two centuries buried?

However improbable, the amphitheater holds an air of expectation within its classic contours, as if to say, “All is not lost here; time remains.” Those words are long since consigned to the wind for many such abandoned historic sites.

Last January, real estate developers in the city of New Bern imploded a 150-foot-tall white silo, the last vestige of a longclosed fertilizer factory. In a matter of seconds, one of the tallest structures in the city was reduced to a few yards of concrete, twisted steel, wire and dust. Windows shattered nearby and the city shuddered for miles from the reverberations of the impact.

Of course, whatever is planned for the riverfront site will surely draw more tourists, and their vital lucre, than the mold and graffiti covered relic that was destroyed. Mourn for the loss of the antique and handmade, the rare and unreconstructed, but these things are as they should be. Let them have their time, wither and be replaced. Not simply the way of all flesh, but the way of all things.

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Spring 2016

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The inside scoop on

Personalized monthly gifts delivered: it’s better th Story: Nadya Nataly

Photo: Trevor Normile

At some point or another, everyone’s seen the commercials for ShoeDazzle, a pair of shoes a month; Blue Apron, ready to cook recipes with all of the pizzazz; or even the newest marketing tactic for the fitness fanatic by Adidas, the launch of Avenue A—all subscription box services that promise to deliver high quality products for a fee every month to the doorsteps of subscribers.

It’s like Amazon on steroids. Just what we need, right? The excitement when a delivery service pulls up with another brown box, ready for you to open and see what’s inside. Order once and these new and different products keep on coming as long as you want them to.

SE North Carolina decided to go subscription box happy and try out several of the products available. Here’s a snippet of what we’ve been able to sample: Fitness enthusiast dream come true Bulu Box

Whose panties are these?

SplendieS

Often referred to as the box of healthy discoveries, Bulu Box delivers on its promise of providing monthly samples of four to five new products of premiere brands. There are two types of subscription box options. Bulu Box Original contains a sampling of health and nutrition samples like sports nutrition, gym gift cards, DVDs on health topics, and healthy snacks. Bulu Box Weight Loss includes healthy snacks, fat burners, energy aids, fitness gear and other tools.

When trying to test out or find nutrition or weight loss products without buying them at full price and getting to test them out, Bulu Box is the way to go.

Buying underwear just got super simple. Every month, Splendies surprises subscribers with three underwear. Different in color, design, and style, there’s no telling what will arrive; boy shorts or thong, the element of surprise is always exciting. Splendies carries size S-3X. Instead of shopping for a slew of panties at once, break up the expense and make it feel like it’s a birthday gift every month for the next 12 months. Receive bright, bold, and sometimes lacy underwear. Splendies also gives an option of creating a personalized package each month just in case bikinis are a preference over thongs.

Cost: $10 Website: bulubox.com

Cost: $13 Website: splendies.com

Globe In is ideal for the curious person whose ever been intrigued by artisan products from around the world. Every month, a handwoven basket filled with goodies inspired by products from around globe along with stories of the artists who made the pieces and with the Cost: $19.94 impact the subscriber makes with the subscription is delivered. Past Website: globein.com themes include a the World Kitchen which brings a fez mini Tagine from Nabeul, Tunisia, kitchen towel by el Tun In Antigua, Guatemala, pure ground vanilla by Lafaza from Madagascar, Inka Salt by Natierra in the Sacred Valley Of Peru, coconut sugar from Java, Indonesia, coffee by Boca Java in Nicaragua, palm leaf basket from Oaxaca, Mexico.

Other themes include the cozy box with a marquet fair trade scarf from Thailand, the bathe box with lemongrass citrus African black soap from Togo,and the wander box with mosquito repellent from South Sudan and morigna bar from Ghana, plus other goodies. Travel the world from home.

every basket has a story GloBe in

ending up with an Hey, everyone has their thing. Some folks just really, really like socks. even number of socks The coolest thing about this subscription

service is the unique sock patterns designed and manufactured by the Sock Club. Every month a one of a kind pair of socks are sent at random as they Cost: $12 choose what pair to send. They guarantee a new style every month and never the same Website: sockclub.com design twice. The option to buy socks a la carte is available on their website.

The Sock cluB

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subscription boxes

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Shaving for kisses dollar Shave cluB

dear handsome glam man BeSpoke poST

Cost: $1, $6, or $9 Website: dollarshaveclub.com

Cost: $45 Website: bespokepost.com

The men’s monthly subscription box is not like most because it actually lets you preview the box’s content and theme before it is sent out. It allows the subscriber to skip out on the month if not interested in the contents or theme. Their claim to fame is offering “coveted” men’s products at exclusive prices.

To access the boxes a subscription is not necessary, but plan to pay $55. The idea of Bespoke Post is to allow men to discover something new and fun with a modern and sophisticated twist. The quality of the products speaks volumes on Bespoke Post’s commitment to provide appropriate essentials for any scenario the classy man may encounter.

Join the lingerie party adore Me

Cost: $39.95 (every sixth set free) Website: adoreme.com Lingerie should be something that appeals to an individual’s sense of style and comfort; after all glamour truly starts with what’s underneath clothes.

Sometimes finding the perfect ideal yet alluring set of bras, panties, or lingerie can be a challenge. Adore Me is changing the way women buy lingerie through their monthly service. Receive a chic bra and panty sets, sleepwear, corsets, lingerie, swimwear, and sleepwear. Designer type quality with sizes from 30A to 44G and XS-6XL; a little something special for all.

Shave time or shave money. The subscription service that encourages shaving with a fresh new blade every time it’s time to shave. Each package brings stainless steel blades with enough cartridges for the month. The service also allows for the option of buying other men’s shaving and grooming products. Packages can also include Dr. Carter’s shave butter, post shave cream, and repair serum, along with other high quality skin products by Big Cloud.

Messy hair? Don’t fret, there’s Boogie’s hair products for every hair and every style imaginable — the boyfriend can now stop using his girlfriend’s products. #Finally

Gourmet dinner for two, please. plaTed

Spaghetti again?

Boycott boring food and have whole-wheat Cost: $24 pizza with mission Website: plated.com figs, caramelized onions, and taleggio cheese. Wait, but who keeps figs and taleggio cheese in the fridge to begin with? Plated! Offering encouragement and inspiration in the kitchen to all, the box comes packed with all of the ingredients to make salmon cakes, or even pork tacos al Pastor without having to make a special trip to the grocery store to buy additional ingredients. Everything they send is exactly what they say will be used. The recipes are simple and easy to follow. Best of all, they’re delicious.

Fun snackin’ for all Graze

can’t curry on alone. raW Spice Bar Cost: $6

Website: rawspicebar.com

Somewhere in that spice cabinet, there is a little bit of hope that tonight’s green beans will have a little more “oomph.” Raw Spice Bar helps break the norm by sending three new types of seasoning every month to add to food along with four types of recipes to try. Shitake powder to add to soup bases, pasta sauces, or as a rub on meats promises to deliver an umami punch of intense flavor. Remember those green beans? Raw Spice Bar sends a delish recipe along with Sichuan peppercorns to add a little numbing, tingly heat, know as as ma la (numbing heat) with a citrus flavor to regular green beans.

Fancy meals in a dash, literally. For the price, tasted buds will be thankful.

Spring 2016

Cost: $11.99 Website: graze.com

Imagine eating jelly doughnuts every day without getting jelly on your shirt and at half the calories, 130 to be exact. Seriously. Enjoy apple and cinnamon flapjacks and cinnamon pretzels, too. Infusing different recipes to replace the chips and candy, Graze offers personalized boxes of delicious, yet nutritious snacks of pure fruits, almonds, raisins, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds.

Delivered at home or office, the box brings a little bit of something for the entire office crew.

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se • murmurs

Daring Beyond the

Blackwater Fiction & Illustration by Trevor Normile

L

ester clapped his dust-caked hands to his mouth and shouted his daughter’s name, hollering every syllable.

“Vic-tor-i-a! Slow down!

That rebar’s sharp! You’re gon’ get hurt!” he yelled as the child clamored down the crumbing concrete to the river below.

“Saw-rry!” her tiny voice returned.

Climbing down the ruined overpass, the father met his daughter on a flattened pylon. The smoke rising from the banks of the Cape Fear could be seen for miles around.

Considering the events of the past few years, it wasn’t such a bad thing.

As a child, Lester’s education concerning the end of the world came from television— films showing mankind wiping himself from the face of the planet in one glorious, cataclysmic rampage of destruction, the end-all, be-all of humanity.

But The Shift reminded him more of that old Tom Eliot poem, about the world ending with a whimper.

It seemed like Man had grown out of his apocalypsin’ phase, and this was all that was left.

Lester might have written part of the poem down to make a bit of money.

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He might have been the only one for a hundred miles who even knew it. He was certainly one of the few middle aged men in his quarter who could read particularly well.

As he climbed down, Lester remembered riding along the overpass as a child.

“Maintenance right-sizing,” they called it, the abandonment of this part of U.S. 17 that ran west of the city, 30 years ago.

“Weewmin-tin’” is all anyone knew to call it any more.

Villages to the south and west had dried up since not just electricity, but all energy, had become so damned expensive.

Save for a few farm communities in the northern railroad towns, all the business moved to the port.

That was 25 years ago, but things don’t change very much now, not the way they used to.

The markets that were once a mere shopping destination for well-dressed tourists are again the lifeblood of the port, dirty and bloody and smelly and full of diseases and humans and all kinds of interesting things.

And the smoke—it wasn’t the ruins of an interstellar invasion (we heard back: they just weren’t interested)—it rose from

Spring 2016

the port cooks, grilling up lunch for the traders and salvagers and metal recyclers.

“The dag-gon fish’ll still be there in a few minutes,” Lester told his child, sucking air from the climb down.

A foam cup floated by as the duo sat down and dangled their feet into the river.

The slow, painful descent into a world without electrons didn’t fix the way fathers and daughters palled around, it just let it be—again—the way it was intended.

The nine-year old tied off her pole’s hook and gently fished the cup out of the water.

“For bait,” the girl said, as she put the cup down and pushed some orange hair behind one vaguely mulatto ear.

Victoria and Lester Stillwell were the only people in sight this far up the coast.

Victoria spent the morning telling her father in near-whispers about the week’s school lessons, while Lester minded the fishing poles. As Victoria talked her father saw flashes of her mother, a tall, slender Nubian woman 10 years his junior.

She took off when Victoria was just a toddler, on a sailed catamaran the couple built from sealed-up Porta-Pottys and half a stripped-out Volvo station wagon. The wind-and-diesel-powered jury-rigged

“

se • murmurs

”

There comes a time when a man must go out into the sun and act with daring.

Even more courage must be measured away by the man who dares and fails and dares to dare again.

salvaged navigation instruments affixed snugly into the wooden dashboard, was planned and executed in Stillwell’s mind before the first preciously expensive nail was hammered.

Neighbors joked that Stillwell might have been divinely inspired. Perhaps he was privy to some upcoming Biblical flood. Perhaps he just had more money than sense.

It didn’t matter. Lester knew his lighter, more aerodynamic beast could speed through the ocean or crawl through the river. Whether a day’s harvest of albacore on the Atlantic or some titanic catfish on the river, the L.S. Victoria could handle it.

On the first warm morning of spring, the duo set off for the ocean. There comes a time when a man must go out into the sun and act with daring. Even more courage must be measured away by the man who dares and fails and dares to dare again.

The craft danced across the water as its namesake, strapped in the fisherman’s throne, screamed and kicked in the ocean spray.

Bucking from wave to wave, the Victoria caught the wind under its stunted wings and pounced like a fox on snow when its pilot pulled back on the boat’s inverted controls.

Progressagainsparked Lester’s imagination and

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he was as his daughter, giddy with joy.

That afternoon, with the boat drifting along far from the shore, they cast their lines from the thrones.

Victoria, now a year older, had grown into the fishing. Nibble, nibble, yank, reel.

Hold the pole high to keep tension on the hooked end.

Tired now and less talkative than she had been a year ago, Victoria seemed content to sit quietly with her father.

Setting a tuna in an inboard cooler, Lester pondered his creation, which had become much more than a simple boat, a set of plans. Progress, again, finally.

Spotting a fin in the distance, he thought about the big fish beneath.

Humans aren’t like sharks, growing until they die. Ask any shaman: humans could only have come from the sky. Like the sun they grow, burn and fade. Lester had forgotten what the glow of life felt like within him.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, sweetapie.”

Stillwell knew what was coming.

They’d putter off north to explore. He promised.

“Why did Mama leave?” she asked instead.

“Why did Mama leave?” he answered.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know why. I suppose she left because she wasn’t happy with what she had.”

The knots were forming again.

For heaven’s sake, they hadn’t even eaten lunch yet. The gentle rocking of the boat churned with his guts.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Victoria.”

“Let’s stay on the ocean awhile longer.”

“Yes ma’am.”

SE

Spring 2016

SE

North Carolina

Downtown Wallace, NC Creative Concepts Art of Hope* Evan Jewelers* Treasure House

Where in SENC is this?

The Market House, Fayetteville Market Sq., Fayetteville This month’s mystery photo: The Market House of Fayetteville is a National Historic Landmark built in 1832 to function both as city hall, and a town market.

If that seems strange, it’s not as uncommon as you might think—the famous Faneuil Hall of Boston, Mass. served a similar purpose, and Wilmington’s Thalian Hall still does double-duty for local government and the arts.

Today, the Market House holds a museum on its upper level and the massive clock face keeps time for passersby.

The Market House was built on the site that held the old North Carolina state legislature building during the late 18th Century, which was later destroyed by a large fire in 1831.

The ground floor was used for market space, the upper floor for town hall.

According to a 1989 article in the Fayetteville Observer, the current clock was installed in 1925, purchased for $920, about $12,500 in today’s money.

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Graham Drug Co.* Honeycutt Pawn and Variety* Shoe Outlet and Hospital Southern Treasures

* Find us on Facebook !

Pink Hill, NC

Your Hometown Pharmacy handling all your healthcare needs.

107 West Broadway • Pink Hill, NC 28572 Ph: 252-568-3161 • www.realopinkhill.com Spring 2016

Travel planner SE

North Carolina

LENOIR COUNTY

Our corner of North Carolina offers much more than just scenic beauty...

Here are some great places you can appreciate for the good foods, good times, history, and oldfashioned SENC hospitality!

KENANSVILLE

Kinston-Lenoir County

Visitor & Information Center

OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK

“Make us your first stop in Lenoir County”

BEULAVILLE

No matter how you slice it...

PIZZA VILLAGE

Is Still Beulaville’s Favorite Restaurant!

101 East New Bern Rd., Kinston, NC 252-522-0004

Kinston-Lenoir County

Parks & Recreation Department

Daily Lunch Buffet, Monday ~ Saturday

2602 W. Vernon Ave., Kinston, NC

811 W. Main Street 910-298-3346

252-939-3332

ONSLOW COUNTY

WALLACE

www.muscadineharvestfestival.com

910-271-0030

VOICE OR TEXT

12th annual

2016 North Carolina

Muscadine

Festival

DUPLIN COUNTY EVENTS CENTER

KENANSVILLE

sePt. 23-24 Muscadine grapes, North Carolina wines, music, dancing, good tiMes! See our ad on page 43!

Country Store & Restaurant We offer multiple venue locations for everything from family cook-outs to elegant weddings. We have a large covered shelter, a large banquet room, and The Barn.

The Barn is our newest upscale venue for weddings and other events.

Thursday & Friday 4:30-8 p.m Saturday 4:00-8 p.m.

1600 Haw Branch Rd. Beulaville

Call for Details 910-324-3422 www.mikesfarm.com

MAY 13-14

GET THE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL

APP!

DOWNLOAD IT TODAY FREE AT THE APP STORE FOR I-PHONE OR GOOGLE PLAY FOR ANDROID!

SE Folk

North Carolina

I

Sound and Motion Story by Todd Wetherington Illustration by Becky Wetherington

t begins with the cutting of a cord, the severing of a tie between two worlds — the soft uterine world of sleep and dreams, and this other too bright, too defined reality.

And you think, this must be some manner of witchcraft more than biology, that a mere nine months could produce... this.

And then you’re turned out, back into the world, with this helpless, squalling ball of muscle and bone and translucent flesh, to begin gathering the necessary and ridiculous things of its life, to mix with the necessary and ridiculous things of your own lives. And you wait for him to transform one day or night or sunlit second, to become a creature that you can laugh and rage and protest life with; someone who... understands.

But that’s the future. Here and now you’re faced with a child that won’t sleep. So you remember: sitting on the floor of your parents’ bedroom, you’re six, maybe seven, and the music is moving like smoke through the house….and so, in desperation, you put on the same album (Emmylou Harris), the same song (Poncho and Lefty) and your son, Dylan, this raw burst of life and confusion, instantly quiets down, his small blue hands tracing the air like the conductor of a spirit symphony.

You remember: moving down the highway at night in the back of your father’s Oldsmobile, summer air through a half cracked window, the wave like motion of the car and a Beatles 8-track playing into infinity. So you take Dylan on night rides, and he smiles, stares out

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the window and sleeps.

And it all floods back: your father lying on the couch with his eyes closed, the music of Hendrix or Neil Young on the turntable, shaking his head in wonder. “When I grow up,” he mumbles “that’s what I’m gonna do.”

When you’re older you discover that music, hidden away in closets, at the bottom of bookcases, and sit staring at the album covers, the inside sleeves, taking in the smell of mildewed cardboard and vinyl. You listen to the Beatles again, especially “I am the Walrus”

(“Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye”!!) and you know you’ve found a portal to other worlds, that there are mysteries here that can never be fully understood. Who would want to?

But that’s the past. Your father’s albums are now mingled with your own.

Maybe they’ll fascinate the grandson he never met the way they once entranced you. Maybe music will expand Dylan’s world, unlock the textures and shadows of his own heart.

Spring 2016

Maybe, someday, it will save his life.

For now there’s the calming effect of white noise; the sound of rain; the slow frazzled guitar textures of My Bloody Valentine; the rhythmic, automated soul of Kraftwerk. Bach and Chopin.

Now, at three months old, Dylan is a world of sound unto himself: grunts, moans, bleets, screams, gurgles, burps, snores and, almost, laughter. He creates his own music — the rude music of life.

And who is this changeling, someone new each day, each hour? The shifting of tectonic plates; the merging of weather systems; floods and eerie calms. The violent upheavals in those blue/grey eyes, like cut glass at the bottom of a pond, reflecting its depths back at you, holding the sky, your face, the world.

And here you are, rocking him as you walk, singing to him.

The smells of sour milk, tiny fingernails making tiny scratches on his soft skin. You hold his chest to your ear and listen, his face to yours and watch.

And you come to know that life is not a circle at all, but a kaleidoscope of constantly changing patterns merging into one another, shapes reappearing and then fading again: my wife’s nose, my eyes, long fingers from someone long forgotten...It all comes back again, like a river of song, moving and merging with the ocean and the sky and falling to earth again as someone new, who will join with life and create their own patterns, their own sound and motion.

And you won’t be able to stop him or save him from this world anymore than you were stopped or saved. So you hold him and watch him watching you, and you say remember, remember….

SE

OUR STANDARDS ARE HIGH The Hog Production Division of Smithfield Foods can attribute its success, in large part, to the hard work of its 5,000 employees. We offer competitive wages and a robust benefits package. We aim to promote from within and to give employees a chance to advance their careers through training and educational opportunities. Jobs in our industry can be demanding.

To maintain a supportive work environment for our employees, we emphasize safety and training. We offer a diverse range of career opportunities, not only in production operations. It takes many different skill sets to support our organization. Our goal is to hire the right people for the right jobs at the right time.

Our workforce is enhanced with a variety of perspectives and experience, enhancing our company’s competitiveness in an increasingly diverse and interconnected world.

OUR SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES ARE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF WHO WE ARE AT SMITHFIELD FOODS AND AS SUCH WE ARE COMMITTED TO THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:

One of the keys to success for Smithfield’s Hog Production Division is the business relationships we have with our independent farmers. Responsible for the day-today care of our animals, these contract growers are as important to us as our own employees and we value our relationships with them.

• • • • • •

promoting sound animal care taking care of our employees producing safe high quality pork sound environmental management practices supporting our communities creating value and success

WWW.SMITHFIELDFOODS.COM P.O. BOX 856, WARSAW, NORTH CAROLINA 28398 HOG PRODUCTION DIVISION (910) 293-3434

Spring 2016

SouthEast North Carolina

79

Life insurance is more than a policy, it’s a promise.

(910)296-1486 www.ncfbins.com Matt McNeill LUTCF Agency Manager roy.mcneill@ncfbins.com

Teddy Bostic

Agent Matt McNeill Kenansville

Dean Johnson

Nick Bell

Agent Kenansville

Agent Kenansville

dean.johnson@ncfbins.com

nicholas.bell@ncfbins.com

LUTCF Agent roy.mcneill@ncfbins.com teddy.bostic@ncfbins.com

An Authorized Agency for

Doug Pierson

David Jones

Agent Agent *North CarolinaBeulaville Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. Beulaville

Agent Beulaville

NCLFNP41000

Lynn Mobley

*Farm Bureau Insurance of North Carolina,doug.pierson@ncfbins.com Inc. lynn.mobley@ncfbins.com *Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co., Jackson, MS *An independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

david.jones@ncfbins.com

Duplin County Farm Bureau

308 N. Main Street • Kenansville, NC 28349 151 Crossover Road • Beulaville, NC 28518 THIS ARTWORK CANNOT BE ALTERED, REVISED, RESIZED OR REBUILT BEYOND CHANGING THE AGENT PHOTO OR CONTACT INFO. CONTACT MADGENIUS WITH ANY QUESTIONS AT COOP@MADGENIUSINC.COM

(910) 296-1486 (910) 298-8400

NCLFNP41000

www.ncfbins.com *North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. *Farm Bureau Insurance of North Carolina, Inc.; *Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co., Jackson, MS *An independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

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