7 minute read
OUR TOWN
THE USUAL OUR
Algebra Club members Rich Harr and Hart Huffi nes reminisce at the Players’ Retreat.
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“Th e Algebra Club is meeting this Friday night at the Camp’s farm at 8 p.m.” –former assistant principal, Needham B. Broughton High School, circa 1970
There have been many student clubs at Needham B. Broughton High School over the years. A look back at the school’s yearbook, the Latipac, during the ’70s shows an Algebra Club. Th e club’s photos always featured a fast car or two with many long-haired boys beers. (Th e legal drinking age was then 18.) Th e Algebra Club is perhaps unique in ingenuity: Without social media, they managed to gather via those morning announcements. At each “gathering” (also known as party) club members took donations for future meetings; when there were gathered around it. Th is sharp-minded group listed its meetings in the morning announcement lineup: typically weekend evenings, at a vaguely referenced location. Th ey printed invitations, hung posters, and ordered refr eshments. Before long, the administration wised up: Th e Algebra Club wasn’t studying math skills. Th e Algebra Club is not unique in concept. Before them were the Dirty Dozen and the Casuals, other social clubs who got together to hang out, relax, and by senior year drink a few funds left over, the AC rented a beach house at Atlantic Beach for spring break. Many Algebra Club members still live in Raleigh and spend time together. Hart Huffi nes, one of the club’s founding members, says he counts himself lucky to consider his high school fr iends among his closest. “We have kept those relationships through all the years,” he says. “Th ey mean a lot. We still like to have a good time.” –CC Parker
OUR Town GAME PLAN
–Evan Walker-Wells, co-founder, Scalawag magazine
Scalawag takes nothing at face value, including its own success. The nonprofit politics and culture magazine based in Durham is approaching its third anniversary in the new year, and it has already earned recognition from national outlets including The New York Times. The early momentum is but motivation for improvement, says co-founder Evan Walker-Wells. In December, the staff will retreat for a weekend of reflection and planning. “We want to build a more engaged and accountable relationship to the communities we serve,” says Walker-Wells. Walker-Wells is the magazine’s only full-time employee, working from Durham to serve communities throughout the Southeast. He relies on a few part-time contributors in the Triangle, co-founder and current law student Jesse Williams, and more than 250 freelance writers and photographers spread out from rural Mississippi and Kentucky to urban Atlanta. “The most important and most meaningful contributions to what we’ve done, in my opinion, have come from having this broad team.” Among the contributions are in-depth coverage of race relations in the South and community-focused reporting from the region’s most rural areas. Both will continue, Walker-Wells says, as well as a new initiative: “Southern joy … telling the stories of artists and other people who are doing cool and interesting works in the South. We want to make sure we get at the diversity of the region, and understand the reasons why people choose to stay in the South.” The end goal, Walker-Wells says, is to create a quarterly product that educates, questions, challenges, and ultimately empowers. “We hope to have a role in moving Southern culture forward: focusing on solutions and the work people are doing already and every day.” With goal in mind, come January, the team will be off and running. Walker-Wells will be the leader of the pack. “I enjoy the planning aspect,” he says with a laugh, “I like the execution a lot better.” –J.A.
Scalawag magazine cofounder Evan Walker-Wells, center, with two of the magazine’s team members: Lizzy Hazeltine, left, and Cierra Hinton, right
N.C. Made founder Nicole Bogas, left, and co-owner Cathleen Cueto, right “The boxes support local food makers, and they’re a chance to practice gratitude. The sentiments that come with gifts are inspiring.” –Cathleen Cueto, co-owner N.C. Made
“Nicole makes amazing pies. She’s the friend who always brings something extra delicious to parties.” Cathleen Cueto moved to Durham from Brooklyn, New York City in 2014 and says she still remembers the first time she met her friend and now business partner Nicole Bogas. “Amazing food is memorable.” It turned out to be especially true for the duo, who today work together to curate gourmet food gift boxes at N.C. Made. Bogas first founded the company as a side business in 2014 while also working in digital advertising. “I was so excited about the food in our area, and inspired by how many of them had beautiful product design.” She wanted to share her favorites with friends and clients across the country, so she decided to do it herself. “We hang our hat on things that are typically North Carolina,” Bogas says. N.C. Made’s first boxes remain among its most popular: the N.C. Barbecue themed package includes barbecue sauce, hushpuppy mix, and a N.C. BBQ map; the N.C. Beer one includes a beer-and-bacon barbecue sauce, spiced apple beer jam, and gaelic ale mustard. There are snack boxes, customizable corporate gifts, and wedding welcome boxes. As business grew, Bogas brought Cueto on board. Winter is an especially sweet time of year at N.C. Made. “We can’t send any boxes with chocolate in the warmer months,” Cueto says, because it melts in the mail. The holidays mean the return of boxes with cocoa candy: in particular, city-themed boxes. If you want to send an Oak City box to a loved one, inside will be Slingshot Coffee Company cascara tea, Crude shrub syrup, Benny T’s Vesta dry hot sauce, a note card letterpressed by One and Only Paper, and a bar of Videri chocolate. No matter the theme choice, every box comes with a handwritten note. Sometimes, Bogas and Cueto use the front and back of note cards to transcribe customers’ thoughts. “Even if they’re really long, we write it out,” Bogas says. After all, a personal touch combined with amazing food is bound to be remembered. “Those are the aspects we get excited about.” –J.A.
–Sarah Williams, LimeBike program coordinator, N.C. State University department of transportation
You’ve likely seen the neon green bikes: they’re a familiar site near N.C. State’s campus, in downtown parking lots and parks, and even in neighborhoods. “They’re pretty much everywhere,” LimeBike program coordinator Sarah Williams says. The aptly named cycles are dockless, which means they can be left anywhere by a rider: they automatically lock and await the next person. N.C. State introduced 300 bikes this fall, and they’ve quickly spread beyond campus. Since August, almost 16,000 users have used the bikes more than 50,000 times. “They’re for anybody to use.” Williams works for N.C. State’s department of transportation, where she says she and her colleagues have sought to bring a public bicycle system, called bike share, to campus for a few years. Bike shares usually include bike racks, which is both an initial investment and a logistical challenge. Racks also limit where users can pick-up and drop-off bikes. When the start-up LimeBike launched in California last January, promising a rackless program, it caught the Raleigh team’s eye. In June, UNCGreensboro released the first-ever LimeBike installation. It was successful, and “we followed suit pretty soon after.” To use a LimeBike, you download an app and load your credit card information. When you’re ready to ride, you scan the QR code located on each bike to unlock it. Rides cost one dollar per half-hour, or fifty cents per half-hour for students. User fees pay a small local LimeBike staff to pick up, service, and maintain the bikes. “It’s exciting how easy it was to implement,” Williams says, “and to see how many people want to ride bikes. Now that they have this option, it’s almost constantly used.” Hopefully there will be more LimeBikes come spring, Williams says, and adds that the campus initiative wants to work cohesively with the City of Raleigh and its BikeRaleigh plan. “The best part of this is that it’s shown how Raleigh really wants to have a bike share.” –J.A.
