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Our Town
ON DUTY
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–Mark Harris, Triangle Float Company owner
MARK HARRIS, 52, HAS WORKED WITH FLOATS pretty much his whole life. When he was a child, his father worked part-time pulling fl oats for a local company, and when Harris got his driver’s license at 16, he joined in. When the fl oat company they worked for no longer had room to store all its fl oats, the owner told Harris’s father that if he built a structure to house the fl oats, he could become a partner in the business. Eventually, his father bought the entire business, and Triangle Float Company has been in the family ever since. “Basically, I was born into it,” Harris says. “Whatever Dad did, that’s what the family did, and so that’s what we’ve always done.” It continues to be a family a air: Harris’s father is now retired, and Harris runs the Wilton-based business on weekends on top of a full-time job in an unrelated fi eld. Harris’s wife, son, daughter, brother, sister-in-law, nephews, and nieces help, too, and they’ve all employed some of the same people for years. e company provides fl oats all across the Piedmont for beauty pageants, dance groups, homecomings, Fourth of July parades, and more. It can be a lot of work. e group constructed all 45 of the company’s fl oats themselves, assembling the wagons with wooden ames and fi berglass covered in sheeting and colorful inge. Materials constantly need to be updated and re eshed, especially during the busy seasons, when a town may want to rent three or four fl oats at a time. But it’s the Raleigh Christmas parade that holds a special place in Harris’s heart. e company normally supplies around 30 fl oats, making it their biggest one-day event. “It takes a lot of preparation,” he says, “and a lot of work on a lot of people’s part.” But continuing his father’s legacy is worth it. “Dad’s only request is ‘Keep it going,’” he says. “So that’s what we do – we keep it going.” –Mimi Montgomery See some of the Triangle Float Company oats at the WRAL Raleigh Christmas Parade Nov. 19; 9:40 a.m.; begins on the corner of Hillsborough and St. Mary’s streets; triangle oat.com
Our Town GAME PLAN
–Danny Liebman, N.C. State Air Force ROTC cadet
College students are busy. But college students in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, like N.C. State’s Tyrique Harris, Danny Liebman, and Jake Page (pictured from left) juggle more, and do it with purpose.
These three Air Force cadets, like their peers in the Army and Navy ROTC programs, are preparing to become commissioned as military officers even as they shoulder a full course-load. Page, a senior aerospace engineering major, always wanted to fly, and knew the military was a good avenue to become a pilot. He says he can’t imagine doing anything else. “I’m totally sold on what the Air Force does and the whole mission,” he says. “I like the atmosphere, the people – everything about it, really.”
Harris, a junior economics major, agrees. “When I got accepted to N.C. State, I wanted to do something else because I can’t just go to class ... something that I can sink my teeth into.”
ROTC requires that kind of commitment. Students are up at 6 a.m. several times a week for physical training; they take ROTC academic classes and leadership labs that include field training and drills. They’re taught the skills they’ll need to succeed in the military, and everyone in the program has a position: Harris is a public affairs officer, sharing the Air Force’s mission via videos, social media, and a website. Liebman, a junior civil engineering major, is a Flight Commander mentoring 12 freshman Air Force cadets, with whose progess he monitors weekly. Page, the Wing Commander, serves as liaison between officers and the cadets, and spends time in strategic planning meetings.
“Time’s critical,” he says. “It’s rough sometimes, but you just get better at managing your time. I would take any cadet out of the Wing and put him next to an average college student, and I think they would way outperform them in the area of time management.”
This month, the cadets are busy hosting a Veterans Day ceremony and run. Their 5K race takes place early in the morning on Nov. 11, and is followed by a ceremony honoring veterans. Prior to the race, Air Force cadets guard the N.C. State bell tower throughout the night in shifts. Standing at attention for an hour in the middle of the night provides some “good thinking time,” says Liebman, laughing; it’s also a testament to the commitment ROTC students are making here in Raleigh. –Mimi Montgomery
Race: Nov. 11; 5:45 a.m.; N.C. State Memorial Bell Tower; ceremony to follow.
Our Town THE USUAL
Top from left: Smith Gaddy, Amanda Gaddy, Carnessa Ottelin, Trey Marchant, Ryan Sabino. Middle: Krista Padgett. Bottom from left: Emma Gaddy, 10, Caroline Gaddy, 7, Luca Sabino, 8, Katie Sabino, and Adeline Sabino, 5. (Missing is meal-share member Vered Seaton.) “We definitely look after each other – for food and for life events.”
–Amanda Gaddy, member and co-founder of a neighborhood meal-share group
Agroup of friends and neighbors in east Raleigh has been sharing meals four nights a week for a decade. “We’re a dinner club, but we don’t eat together,” says Krista Padgett. Her friend and neighbor Katie Sabino saw the idea in a magazine: Since six of the eight were in the original crew, chit-chat is bound to happen. “Sometimes dinner isn’t quite ready yet, so you sit down and have a beer while everything finishes cooking,” says Gaddy. “But it’s like family: Nobody’s offended if you had a bad day and need to just grab your food and go.” A group of people cook for each other and share their meals, grab-and-go style. Padgett says there was skepticism at first. “We said, ‘OK, let’s try it for 30 days and then we’ll regroup.’ And now it’s been 10 years.”
The group of eight – two couples and four singles – has lasted because of its informality, they say. They never did name the meal-share arrangement, for one. And the way it works is simple: Each couple is assigned to cook one weeknight; the singles share a night and cook every other week. Everyone else comes by and picks up their portion.
Pick-ups are between 6:30 and 10 p.m., at each member’s convenience, including the cook. “If you aren’t around and don’t have time for people to pick up, it can just go in a cooler on the porch at 6:30,” says Amanda Gaddy, another founding member. “If you have to work late, no need to let us know as long as you’ll be here by 10” to pick up. Also like family is the depth of the relationships formed. Already, the group was one of friends; but checking in – even just via a prepared bite picked up from a cooler – four days a week for a decade adds up. “Food is the starting place for community,” says Padgett. “We’ve developed a group of people who take care of each other and look after each other.” When the meal-share began, Gaddy’s daughter was six months old. The collective offspring total is now up to four: ages 10, 8, 7, and 5. For each new child, the parents would take a few months off and the group rallied to provide extra meals. They’ve done the same for divorces and major medical operations. “It’s the power of a group,” Gaddy says, and adds that her kids don’t know any other way. “They’ve always had at least six other adults, other than their parents, who are keeping track of them and invested in them and on the list to pick them up from school.” –Jessie Ammons
“We’re third-generation now. There are many, many lessons that my grandfather instilled in his children that still stand today.” –Boo Jefferson, co-owner of Kannon’s Clothing
From left: Mary Kathryn Phillips, Joe Ann Wright, George Knuckley, Boo Jeff erson
DON’T LET ITS OWNERS’ SOUTHERN DRAWL FOOL YOU: Kannon’s Clothing is a tale of the immigrant American Dream. e store – based in Wendell with two separate men’s and women’s outposts in Cameron Village – was founded 100 years ago by Isaac George Kannon, a goat and sheep herder om Hammana, Lebanon. A er watching a man order ham-and-eggs and pay in cash while recounting the progress and opportunity he’d seen on a recent trip to America, Kannon set out to go for himself. A er a three-month barge trip, Kannon arrived at Ellis Island in October 1905, and immediately made his way to Raleigh, where his brother-in-law happened to live. Using a hand-drawn map of the area om his brother-in-law as a guide, he walked around the area peddling linens and other luxury sundries he’d pick up at the State Farmers Market and carry in a backpack. “He be iended people and would either sleep in their home or sleep in their barn for the night,” Je erson says. Within a few years, he’d saved enough to buy a horse-and-buggy for his one-man luxury goods shop. By 1916, he decided that home was North Carolina and not Lebanon, and a iend helped him secure a store space in downtown Wendell. ose same iendships Kannon made while walking and selling goods became customers of his fi ne clothing store, Kannon’s Clothing. Soon, his wife Zahayia Kannon immigrated to help run the store and build a family. Growing up, “our life was centered around the store. We all lived together and we all worked together.” Treating customers like family came – and comes – naturally to the close-knit Kannon clan. “We treat our customers as if they’re coming into our home,” Je erson says, because they’re not far om it. Today, Je erson and her sister Joe Ann Wright buy for the newly opened women’s store in Cameron Village and also work at the Wendell fl agship location; brother George Knuckley and sister Mary Kathryn Phillips manage the men’s store in Cameron Village. Je erson’s parents both worked at Kannon’s. “It’s part of our DNA and that’s who we are.” Despite necessary adaptations to keep a retail business going, Kannon’s has lasted a century because of the family dynamic. “We are one of the oldest family-owned and operated businesses in the Southeast,” Je erson says, and their inventory refl ects it: “We can clothe three generations in a family in specialty clothing. A grandmother, a mother, and a granddaughter can be dressed om head to toe: the outfi t, the jewelry, the shoes, and the purse.” –J sie Ammons
