954 Magazine Digital Edition - Expanded

EVERY

Bill Valentine, Architect Scouts

Hike Across the State

peggy blackmon: A Life Testifies

SQUARE MILE OF COLUMBUS COUNTY

c expanded digital issue

$2.50 SPRING/SUMMER 2013 Spring/Summer 2013 | 954mag.com | 1

Local care with a national reputation.

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Dr. Arthur J. Robinson Medical Clinic 800 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Lumberton, NC (910) 738-3957

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Diabetes Community Center 2934 North Elm St., Suite G Lumberton, NC (910) 618-0655

Southeastern Health Center Clarkton 9948 North WR Latham St., Clarkton, NC (910) 647-1503 Southeastern Medical Clinic Bladenboro 302 S. Main St., Bladenboro, NC (910) 863-2400

Duke Cardiology/Duke Cardiovascular of Lumberton 2936 N. Elm St., Suites 102 & 103 Lumberton, NC (910) 671-6619

Southeastern Medical Clinic Fairmont 101 N. Walnut St., Fairmont, NC (910) 628-0655

Gibson Cancer Center 1200 Pine Run Dr., Lumberton, NC (910) 671-5730

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Lumberton Urology Clinic 815 Oakridge Blvd.

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Southeastern Medical Clinic N. Lumberton 725 Oakridge Blvd., Suite B2, Lumberton, NC (910) 671-0052 Southeastern Medical Clinic Maxton 22401 Andrew Jackson Hwy., Maxton, NC (910) 844-2004 Southeastern Medical Clinic Red Springs 302 Mt. Tabor Rd., Red Springs, NC (910) 843-9991 Southeastern Medical Clinic Rowland 102 N. Bond St., Rowland, NC (910) 422-3350 Southeastern Medical Clinic St. Pauls 128 E. Broad St., St. Pauls, NC (910) 865-5955 Southeastern Medical Clinic White Lake 1921 White Lake Dr., Elizabethtown, NC (910) 862-6491 The Clinic at Walmart 5070 Fayetteville Rd., Lumberton, NC (910) 739-0133

Southeastern Diabetes and Arthritis Center 106 Farmbrook Dr., Lumberton, NC (910) 671-8556 Southeastern Digestive Health Center 730 Oakridge Rd., Suite A Lumberton, NC (910) 738-3103 Southeastern Eye Clinic 4311 Ludgate St., Lumberton, NC (910) 671-1981 Southeastern Neuromuscular Rehabilitation Center 725 Oakridge Blvd., Suite A-1 Lumberton, NC (910) 735-2831 Southeastern Occupational Health W.O.R.K.S 725 Oakridge Blvd., Suite A-3 Lumberton, NC (910) 272-9675

Southeastern Orthopedics 730 Oakridge Blvd., Suites B & C Lumberton, NC (910) 738-1065 Southeastern Pain Management Clinic 4308 Ludgate St., Lumberton, NC (910) 671-9298 Southeastern Pharmacy Health Mall 2934 North Elm St., Suite A Lumberton, NC (910) 735-8858 Southeastern Pulmonary and Sleep Clinic 401 W. 27th St., Lumberton, NC (910) 738-9414 Southeastern Sleep Center (910) 272-1440 Three locations: 300 W. 27th St., Lumberton, NC 290-A Corporate Dr., Lumberton, NC 812 Candy Park Rd., Pembroke, NC Southeastern Surgical Center 2934 North Elm St., Suite E Lumberton, NC (910) 739-0022 Southeastern Urgent Care Lumberton 2934 North Elm St., Suite B Lumberton, NC (910) 272-1175 Southeastern Urgent Care Pembroke 812 Candy Park Rd., Pembroke, NC (910) 521-0564 Southeastern Weight Loss Center 2934 North Elm St., Suite F Lumberton, NC (910) 608-0307 Southeastern Women’s Healthcare 725 Oakridge Blvd., Suite C1 Lumberton, NC (910) 608-3078 Southeastern Wound Healing Center 103 W. 27th St., Lumberton, NC (910) 738-3836 The Orthopaedic Center 500 W. 27th St., Lumberton, NC (910) 618-0441

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CARE. WHEN YOU NEED IT.

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ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED Dr. Michael L. Cahn received his Medical Degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1995. He completed his residency at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey in 2000. Dr. Cahn is a Board Certified General Surgeon and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Dr. Cahn offers a variety of options for surgical treatments that will best suit your needs. Dr. Cahn and his staff strive to offer the highest quality care available. In order to cater to individualized patient needs, Dr. Cahn provides a variety of surgical treatment options within a friendly, comfortable and welcoming atmosphere.

Along with many other surgical treatments, Dr. Cahn specializes in the following surgical care options: Breast surgery Colon Surgery Colonoscopies Esophagogastroduodenoscopies( EGD ) Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy ( gallbladder surgery ) Hernia Repairs We are located at 611 North Madison, Street Whiteville, North Carolina 28472. You can reach us at 910-642-2007. Office hours are by appointment;however, walk-ins are accepted.

New Patients are always welcome. Insurance accepted.

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contents

ON THE COVER: Lake Tabor resident Lavelle Coleman and his two grandsons, Coleman Lovette, left, and Hunter Shearin catch a bream on Lake Tabor.

photography by FULLER ROYAL

954 Finds

11_ for the dads 12_ for the moms

D.I.Y.

13_ antique chair

Arts&Culture

56

15_ scout hike full of memories 20_ love at first note 22_ for the love of color

Sport&Leisure

26_ a big one that hasn’t gotten away

Home&Garden

28_ raised gardens 36_ when pigs fly

Health&Beauty

39_ how to: pound proof your vacation 40_ focus on your core

Wine&Food

36

41_ bon appétit!

42_ padrick equals pizza, family & fun

Entertaining&Events

60-62_ cotillion debutante ball whiteville junior women’s club ball chamber of commerce photos juniorettes dance calendar of events

Special Features

46_ love at the foundation 50_ sense of place 56_ a life testifies

42

#954mag @954_Magazine

SPRING/SUMMER 2013 · ISSUE I · The News Reporter Company, Inc. · 910.642.4104 · 954mag.com EDITOR Les High · CREATIVE DIRECTOR Abigail Spach · ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Dean Lewis · ADVERTISING Amelia Sasser, TJ Enzor, Jen Martin · CONTRIBUTING EDITORIAL Alyson Bahr, Briana Cahn, Nicole Cartrette, Cynthia Hansen, Bob High, Stuart High, Gary Kramer, Fuller Royal, Wallyce Todd, Jefferson Weaver, Ray Wyche · CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Clara Cartrette, Mark Gilchrist, Krystal Hawkins, Fuller Royal, Justin Smith, Allen Turner, Nick Merrick, Scott McDonald, Steve Hall

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| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

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about The News Reporter’s first full-color magazine is, “Why the name 954?”

The news and advertising staffs kicked around several clever titles, but in the end, we chose 954 because it’s the number of square miles in Columbus County, which made our slogan, “954: Every Square Mile of Columbus County,” a natural.

We’d been contemplating a magazine for quite a while. Diversification is a key in the media business, so a magazine seemed like a good fit. Magazines have long shelf lives, and every doctor’s office and beauty and barber shop needs one or more.

It’s been said that competition makes you better, and the entry of an out-of-county publication into our market gave us the final push to start 954.

Magazines are a bit of a different animal than newspapers. Our staff was excited about the magazine because the writing and photographs are done in a more relaxed style, making for more artistic and creative license than the more straightforward style of newspaper journalism.

Photography has always been a strong suit at The News Reporter, and the slick, full-color pages that magazines allow Fuller Royal and Mark Gilchrist to show off their talents.

The cover photo is of Lavelle Coleman, a resident of Lake Tabor, and his grandsons. It required a couple of sessions to get the photo we wanted, but we finally captured the Norman Rockwell-style shot that was just right for the front.

954 has a number of sections and features. It has a story about a unique farm near Fair Bluff, a story featuring Earnestine Keaton, who is a mover and shaker with a neat history in the Riegelwood area, a story on Whiteville native Bill Valentine, who recently retired as chairman of one of the most prestigious architectural firms in the world, and his wife Jane, a look back at Troop 513’s walk across the state in 1966, a feature on Pete Padrick, the entrepreneur who made Pizza Village a family favorite in Columbus County, plus other stories about Lake Tabor, and a feature on the remarkable life of former SCC Director of Nursing Peggy Blackmon.

There are stories on up-and-coming artists, nutrition tips, personal fitness, wines, something we’re calling DIY (Do it Yourself ), features on a few of the staff ’s favorite local products, and much more.

954’s creative director is Abigail Spach, who graduated with a degree in graphic design from The University of Mississippi and got her start with magazines in Memphis.

One of the unique things about 954 is its tie-in to the Web and social media. Each page of 954 can be viewed through a link on Whiteville.com. Advertisers are not only able to advertise on the printed pages, their products and services are shared on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, allowing media-savvy advertisers several platforms with which to reach customers.

We printed 10,000 copies of 954 and distributed them to all News Reporter subscribers.

They are also available in various rack locations and can also be found in various medical practices, gift shops, chambers of commerce, hotels, and advertiser businesses. The average readership pass-along rate for a free printed publication is 2.9 viewers per magazine, which means that nearly 30,000 people will see it.

954 magazine is also available digitally with a hotlink to each advertiser’s website. 954 is also available at 954mag.com, the magazine’s website.

There will be two editions of 954 in 2013; the second one will be published in October, but due to the good response, look for it to go quarterly in 2014.

We hope you enjoy the inaugural edition.

capturing life’s moments...

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A Diamond From Collier’s Says It All..

Wedding Registry and Gift Shoppe XXX

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A Family Tradition Continues...Three Generations of Sales & Service!

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finds

954 for the dads

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a Michael Kors Mid-Size Gold-Tone Stainless Steel Everest Chronograph Glitz Watch Available at Belk $325, Whiteville 910.642.6179; b Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue Cologne, 2.5 oz.Available at Goody’s $60, Whiteville 910.640.2422; d Picnic Time 4-Piece South Carolina Gamecocks Metro BBQ Tool Set Available at Lowe’s $41.95, Whiteville 910.212.9010; e Samsung Galaxy S3 Available at EZ Wireless $99, Whiteville 910.642.9987; g Beats by Dr. Dre Solo HD On-Ear Headphones in Metallic Blue Available at Radio Shack - A&M Electronics $199.99, Whiteville 910.640.2321; h Yeti Tundra Cooler Available at Waccamaw Outdoors $325.99. Lake Waccamaw 910.646.4700; i Vineyard Vines Sandy Point Tucker Shirt Available at J.S. Mann’s $98.50, Whiteville 910.642.5029

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finds

954 for the moms

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Sideways Cross Jewelry, Starting at $29, Available at Collier’s, Whiteville 910.642.3183; b Vanilla Monkey One Shoulder Wild Zigzag Dress Available at Sugar and Spice, Whiteville 910.642.5737; c Vince Camuto Julia Satchel $248 Available at Belk, Whiteville 910.642.6179; d Jack Rodgers Georgica sandals $148 Available at Oasis Boutique, Whiteville 910.642.9881; e Pink Friday by Nicki Minaj $49 Available at Goody’s, Whiteville 910.642.9881; f Clairebella monogrammed glasses Available at Lee Lee’s Whiteville, 910.640.1784; g Michael Kors Oversize Golden Stainless Steel Lexington Chronograph Watch $275 Available at Belk, Whiteville 910.642.6179; h Blessed Mother Pottery Available at Elvington Drug, Fair Bluff 910.642.7721

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| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

Antique Chair

d.i.y.

EEEEE

super easy!

by STUART HIGH

Materials:

• Old rag to dry chair after washing it • Gloves to protect hands from rust and paint • 2 sheets 150 fine general purpose sandpaper 80-100 grade, if your chair is really rusty

Supplies: old chair,spray pa int,old rag,gloves, sandpaper, painters tape

or

• Paint tape and paper or plastic wrap to tape off the arms and legs if you want to paint them a contrasting color to the body • 2 cans Outdoor, Anti-Rust Spray Paint - We chose Valspar Outdoor Color & Protection spray paint in the color “Spring Sprout” and the “satin” finish from Lowes. This brand comes in great colors and does not require a primer or top coat.

• Newspaper or cardboard to protect your painting area

Chair ind Your F : 1 p e t S

• Blocks of wood or bricks to elevate your chair for painting ease

The steps to spray painting are very simple, once you find your vintage chair in need of some TLC. First and very important prep-work is to wash your chair well to scrub away dirt and loose rust.

After washing, sand away remaining rust with general-purpose sandpaper. I used 150 fine sandpaper since the rust was not too bad. More severe rust will need more coarse sandpaper.

After sanding, clean the chair again with water and wipe it completely dry.

Once dry, place newspaper or cardboard under your chair to protect the painting area. Choose a well-ventilated area, preferably outside and away from the wind, to do your painting. The wind can blow spray paint onto nearby objects so watch out for this, too.

Put the chair on boards or bricks to make it easier to paint the legs and bottom.

If you want to paint the arms/legs a different color than the body, tape them off with painter’s tape and paint them separately. I thought about doing this, but decided to paint the chair a solid color.

Read the directions first on your spray paint.

The several brands I looked at all had slightly different directions. I used several light coats to cover the chair and one can was not enough to finish the job. I used my back-up color, La Fonda Mirage, and painted the back and bottom of the chair, and I love the contrast. I’m actually glad I ran out of paint!

Let dry 30 minutes and enjoy your restored, vintage lawn chair for years to come.

-Stuart

Step 2: Sa nd Your Ch air

Chair ray Your p S : 3 p Ste

Enjoy your new chair!

Spring/Summer 2013

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954 creative’s picks!

beachbum B A

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954 creative’s picks!

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Arts& Culture

Troop 513 Scouts prepare to cross into South Carolina as a group.

Scout Hike

photos courtesy of JOHN MCNEILL

fathers had done, walking similar routes 200 years earlier.

He also wanted something that all of the boys – athletes and non-athletes alike – could accomplish. It was not a test of strength or speed, but of endurance and will.

In a 1966 News Reporter article by Jiggs Powers, McNeill said, “As in athletics, there will be boys who cannot be outstanding, so we have to look for things they can do like this hike … something they can achieve through desire and determination, rather than by ability alone. We expect it to be a

by FULLER ROYAL great educational project, too.”

The trip involved a great deal of logistics. McNeill and the troop’s adult a group of Whiteville Boy Scouts committee first traveled the route by car, looking for campsites and a route accomplished something no other that would keep the boys away from as much traffic as possible.

Training hikes were scheduled. Each Scout had to have 70 miles under troop from here has attempted since – walking through the Piedmont sechis belt to qualify. Most had 100 miles. McNeill had more than 300 miles. tion of the state from Virginia to South Carolina.

Thirty boys and a rotation of adults made the trip.

It was the summer of 1966 and the Boy Scouts of America was still One of those, W.C. Butler, was 13 at the time. soaring on the single greatest period of growth it would ever know. Begin“I remember how cold it was at night,” said the former Whiteville High ning in the 1950s with Baby Boomers, the BSA would become the most School band director. “I also remember the first night of being assigned to prolific youth movement in American history.

That was true locally as nearly a dozen troops were active, many headed build our latrines.”

He said the trip was hard, but fun work, and it yielded many once-in-aby Scoutmasters who learned the skills needed for camping, pioneering, wilderness survival and emergency preparedness as soldiers and sailors in lifetime surprises, including swimming in a stream below a railroad trestle and the stories told near Jamestown of a ghost named Lydia who haunted World War II or Korea.

One of those Scoutmasters always had a knack for coming up with a nearby overpass.

He recalled the hardest day of the trip – the troop covered 27 miles in a unique projects.

John McNeill, the Scoutmaster of Troop 513 at the time, thought it hard rain the boys called a “hurricane.”

McNeill said the troop brought along a long roll of plastic in case of would be a good idea to put his boys into a training regimen that would culminate in a 148-mile walk from Martinsville, Va. to Chesterfield, S.C. rain.

“We cut each boy a section and they cut out the holes for their heads,” Recalling the troop’s theme for the year – “Follow the rugged road,” McNeill said he wanted the Scouts to have some sense of what their fore- he said.

Full Of Memories

Forty-seven years ago,

Spring/Summer 2013

| 954mag.com | 17

“That was a miserable day, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat,” Butler said, adding that he would like to see someone make that trip today.

Among the adults making the trip were Jimmy Moore, Brooks Shuping, Dial Gray, Martin Schulken, Brantley Elliott, J.B. Lee and Buster Powell.

Larry Bowers, who had already aged out of Scouting, drove a support vehicle. Explorer Scouts Sandy McNeill and Vinson Bowers served as junior assistant Scoutmasters.

One of the stories from the trip that has become legend involved Whiteville attorney J.B. Lee driving several miles ahead of the 20-milea-day trip to a roadside hamburger stand and ordering 100 hamburgers and 35 Cokes and telling the disbelieving waitress behind the counter, “And hurry, I’m starving.”

Some of the fathers, acting as “forerunners,” would go into a town on the route and let folks know the troop was on its way in.

In his 1966 News Reporter article, Powers wrote, “The onlookers drew little attention from the hikers, but those girls. Now, that was something. The Scouts held their heads a mite higher and gave greetings.”

At the midpoint of the trip came a highlight – the result of an invitation sent by one of the Scouts – Lt. Gov. Bob Scott met the boys at a resting spot.

George McNeill, one of three McNeill boys making the trip, said that during the walk, he developed a fever of 103 degrees.

It was at the end of the trip and I had to fall out of the troop,” he said. “When we hit South Carolina, Dad drove me back to the place where I fell out and made we walk the five or so miles so that I would know that I had completed the trip.”

McNeill said his father had a “vision of what he expected of all of us. It was always bigger than life, and things that no one else had done.

He wanted all of us to excel, and the training we endured during this time has served all of us well. He always had a plan, a belief, a future, a new horizon and a belief that there is nothing that we cannot do.”

Scouts completing the trip were Vinson Bowers, Sandy McNeill, Ronald McNeill, Martin Schulken Jr., Marcus Elliott, Charles Goins, Coke Gray, William Robbins, Mike Ward, Charlie Lytle, Marion Elliott, Bill Smith, W.C. Butler, Jerome Honeycutt, Ed Smith, Jim Moore, Chuck McNeill, Ben Powell, Walter Saunders, Junius Lee, George McNeill, Greg Hughes, Greg Blackmon, Brad Crowell, Rossie Saunders, Roger Black, Mike Dew, David Boswell, Jim Baldwin, Jeff Shuping, Ricky Valentine and John Todd.

18

Red flags were used to signal the start and finish of the group to oncoming traffic.

Ronnie McNeill and Jimmy Moore lead the troop for a spell.

Assistant Scoutmaster Larry Bowers makes sure his charges make it safely across a bridge.

| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

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| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

Parents Jim Moore and Martin Schulken (seated) watch as the boys prepare supper.

The Scouts wait in line for lunch, served from the side of this Oldsmobile.

The Scouts pose for their “official photo” after completing the hike.

“One of those Scoutmasters always had a knack for coming up with unique projects.”

- J.B. Lee

Spring/Summer 2013

| 954mag.com | 21

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Arts& Culture

Loveu first note

Self taught singer-guitarist Madison Ellis fell in love at 13 –with acoustic guitar, that is. photos courtesy of FULLER ROYAL

by NICOLE CARTRETTE

Self taught

singer-guitarist Madison Ellis, 20, knows a thing or two about small towns and big dreams. The Fair Bluff native has a passion for music that is as strong as his ambition.

Give him a guitar and microphone and he is pretty much right where he wants to be.

The 2010 graduate of West Columbus High School writes and sings a mix of original music on subjects ranging from the love of God and relationships, to growing up in a small town. His sound is influenced by contemporary Christian rock, country, folk and acoustic rock music. He covers bands from Second Hand Serenade to country artists Jamey Johnson and Gary Allan.

Ellis is also influenced by indie folk singers like Samuel Bean of Iron and Wine and Justin Vernon, formerly of Bon Iver. He is a fan of Christian rock bands like RED and Christian metal Underoath.

From his church, the N.C. Watermelon Festival and to other local venues such as Vineland Emporium, Ellis feels right at home with a guitar in his hand or a piano or keyboard at his fingertips.

In a fun, yet sometimes personal, interview with 954, Ellis shared what is behind his passion for music.

954_So how long have you been singing?

Since I was about 7. I started playing guitar and piano when I was 13.

I’m self-taught. I play by ear and never had any lessons.

I was at a church group function, Winter Jam, in Raleigh at RBC Center. That was the first concert I had ever been to and I heard a band called Leeland play a song on acoustic guitar. I just fell in love with it (acoustic guitar) at that moment. A week or two after that, I bought my first acoustic guitar after I saved up money. I did little stuff like yard work and did little errands to get one.

954_On fishing for instruments: A keyboard and upright piano were given to me. I had put a status up on Facebook that I was looking to buy a small upright piano. Grace Mishoe from Whiteville messaged

24

me and said she would give it to me for free if I would just go get it.

954_Did your family encourage you?

My mom always told me, “If you do the things that most people wouldn’t do, one day you will have what most people won’t have.”

954_Anyone else musical in the family?

Oh, there are a lot of them. My uncle – my grandpa plays guitar, my cousin Emily plays a little bit.

At Christmas when the family gets together we sing.

954_Who are your musical inspirations?

I have three who are my favorites.

The first one is a guy named John Veseley. He is the lead singer for Second Hand Serenade. It’s acoustic love music – just him and a guitar.

The second one is Samuel Beam of

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Iron and Wine. It’s folk music. And Justin Vernon. A band he recently left is Bon Iver – it’s folk as well.

I grew up in high school listening to all Second Hand Serenade pretty much. I really love Second Hand Serenade. When I heard Fall for You – when I heard that song I just fell in love with it. I like soft, meaningful songs. The Bee Gees are another musical influence of mine.

954_Other influences: Church. Jesus comes first in everything.

954_What kind of music do you

listen to today?

Mostly acoustic. I do like some rock bands. Some favorites are RED and a band called Under Oath.

954_Where would you most like to perform?

The only place I have ever wanted to sing is the Grand Ole Opry.

That’s like my dream.

954_Who would you most like to open for?

There are so many. Umm, I’d have to say probably Second Hand Serenade if I ever had one chance.

954_If you weren’t singing, what

would you be doing?

I love to be with family but I’m pretty much doing music all the time.

954_What instruments do you play?

Guitar, piano, ukulele, melodica (which is like a hand-held small piano and piece you blow into).

954_Describe your music: I’m not like a hippy but I really love peace. It’s something so many people can find comfort in and something they can relate to. I do my own country and folk songs.

954_Do you enjoy writing music and/or lyrics?

Yes. All the music I have ever written has just come from my feelings – some kind of thought or feeling.

954_How many songs have you written?

In my lifetime probably 10 to 15 of all different genres.

954_Your favorite?

“Mine for Eternity” It’s just about a guy out in his hayfield waiting for his girlfriend and he proposes to her. That’s pretty much what it is about.

954_Next favorite: Umm, “I Know We’ll be Just Fine.”

It’s an acoustic love song.

I’m a really, really big fan of nature and just being in the woods. I write about that sometimes.

954_His tribute to Fair Bluff: It’s a song about Fair Bluff called “Small Town Memories.” I was sitting in my room with a friend, Adam Worley, who was home from the University of South Carolina. We got together and we were talking about old times. He said I should write a song about Fair Bluff. (A 15-year-old video buff from Pawleys Island, S.C., Bennette Meares with family ties to Fair Bluff, shot a music video for “Small Town Memories” in three days with Ellis just before Christmas in 2012.

You can see it and other videos on 954mag.com.)

954_On his producer: Bennette and I made a few videos for fun. “So Good to Me” and “Small Town Memories.” It was mostly just for fun but he did a really good job.

I’d go hang out with him.

954_On his embarrassing moment: When we were shooting the video down at the river, my truck broke down.

954_On a faithful note: He wrote and sings, “So Good to Me.” It pretty much talks about how

good God is to me and other people can relate to it.

954_How does it make you feel when you are performing?

Amazing. Music is just everything.

It’s all I ever do. I don’t really do anything else. It’s just what I love.

954_On his wiped-out Youtube uploads a few months ago: I don’t know what happened. I had gotten a lot of views and I had to re-upload most of the videos I ever made. That’s still a mystery. I had thousands of hits on songs. “Small Town Memories,” it just blew through the roof. There were thousands of views in the first few days when I posted that but as far as total views (on all his Youtube videos) I had 60,000 in a total of six to seven months.”

954_Your biggest fan?

Oh Lord, I’m not sure. I’m trying to think. I hate to say just one. I have one friend, her name is Hannah, and she loves all my stuff. She is the one person who just tells me ‘good job’ all the time.

954_Any loves, other than music?

I like to write stories and poetry and I love to read. (He is a fan of Edgar Allan Poe).

954_What hidden talents or hobbies do you have?

“I love the history of war and military history – all things related to the Civil War and World War II. When I was 9 years old, I watched Pearl Harbor. I love Hawaii and fell in love with the airplanes. I’ve just really liked it ever since.

954_Something most people don’t know about you: I know this is going to be weird, but I keep a journal. Sometimes I pick it up and write about it.

954_Where would you like to be in five years?

Hopefully, traveling around playing music.

Hear Ellis' music online at facebook.com/madisonellismusic.com, reverbnation.com/madisonellismusic and on YouTube

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Arts& Culture

For the Lovex Color

Oil painter Leslie Scalzo celebrates the beauty of life on the canvas

by NICOLE CARTRETTE

Oil painter Leslie Scalzo has an eye for natural beauty. The former salon owner has taken her skill for mixing color to the canvas and she’s finding new inspiration along the back roads of Columbus County.

photos courtesy of FULLER ROYAL

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“I have my own style,” Scalzo says. “I don’t

know what you call it. I don’t try to be majorly realistic. It’s more like impressionistic romanticism.”

Color is perhaps her first love.

“I just like color,” she says. “I had been a hair color specialist and was very familiar with mixing and dealing with color.

“Everyone has his or her own style,” she says. “I like to see a lot of color.”

Painting gives her the freedom to play with light.

“I like things that are moonlit—the ocean in moonlight or a moonlit road in the country with trees and a pond reflecting the light,” Scalzo says.

Some of her work includes the moon’s reflection on the ocean or a bright sunrise on the water.

She recently completed her rendition of a Brooklyn brownstone’s door under a nightlight.

“It was pretty dramatic,” Scalzo says.

A retired businesswoman, Scalzo has done everything from launching a private cosmetic label to selling real estate.

In her free time, she finds art to be an outlet.

“Painting for me is very freeing. I’ve always done some kind of art. I did pastel in the 1980s and in the 1990s I got into oils,” she says.

“When I picked up the paintbrush I knew nothing of oils,” Scalzo recalls.

She took a class and found a passion for the flexibility that oil affords an artist.

“When you put the paint on the canvas it is wet. You can change your mind and move the color around,” Scalzo says. “It is just very forgiving and I love working with it.”

Over the years, Scalzo’s subjects have included beachscapes, wildlife and country landscapes, among others.

Scalzo captures peaceful, serene settings – a winding moonlit path in the country, a sailboat on a soft horizon, a charming café overcome with delicate ivy, but she also paints wildlife in rich, sometimes whimsical hues that make for striking images. A proud, fanciful rooster is one of her more colorful pieces. A vase of flowers pops with rich tones as brush-stroked petals overpower the subtle hint of a windowpane in the background of one painting.

Subjects are as important to her as color.

“I place a great deal of importance on the subject matter of a piece of art. A well-executed piece of art has good subject matter,” Scalzo believes.

“It uplifts your spirit and you feel good about the work. It’s an expression of an emotion.

“Nature inspires me, the beauty of things on this earth. The beauty of life can be reported in art.”

You won’t find cold, dark images in Scalzo’s work.

“I don’t want to see disturbing images,” she says. Still, she respects the continued on page 29

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“I like to see a lot of color.”

continued from page 29

work.

“Art is so subjective. The beauty in a piece of art is truly in who is looking at it. One piece of art can have a million interpretations and I think everyone has to interpret it for themselves,” Scalzo says.

She grew up in Williamsport, Pa. “It’s a very progressive environment with a lot of art. I left Williamsport when I was 26 and had already taught beauty school and launched my own private-label cosmetics,” she says.

“After all that, I came south to Raleigh with my daughter. I was a salon manager and opened my own in 1986,” she adds.

In 2000, she met her husband, Mario, an Italian chef running his own restaurant in New Bern. The couple later moved to Myrtle Beach.

For Scalzo, moving to the Bug Hill community in Columbus County was a big change.

“I am a bit of a visionary and Columbus County was the next frontier from Myrtle Beach, but it was really, really beautiful from an artist’s standpoint,” Scalzo says. “We found a beautiful property and bought it on the spot in 2005.”

In 2012, the couple moved into their new home.

“We moved to Columbus County because of the natural beauty, the surroundings and wild-

life,” Scalzo says. “I am a vegetarian cook and my husband is an Italian Chef. We wanted a garden.”

Now, Scalzo, who enjoys exercise, walking and swimming, is inspired by her new rural settings to adventure deeper into wildlife themes in her work.

A bear and fish painting have come to life under her brush since the move to rural Columbus County.

Oil, pastel and fiber are all mediums she has explored.

In the 1990s, Scalzo studied under Neil Watson of Art Space in Raleigh and later under Don Thompson.

Today, she studies under artist Jim Horton of Myrtle Beach, a graduate of the American Academy of Art Design in Chicago.

Scalzo’s works have appeared in private homes and businesses in the Triangle area and the Myrtle Beach area.

Some of her work was displayed in the former Art Nouveau Gallery in Myrtle Beach and in various art shows.

Scalzo’s work is currently on display at Silver Coast Winery, 6680 Barbeque Rd. NW, Ocean lsle Beach.

Scalzo can be reached via phone at 843-8776233 and via email at lscalzo@atmc.net.

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Sport& Leisure

A Big One That Hasn’t Gotten Away

Lake Tabor a well-kept , family friendly secret.

by JEFFERSON WEAVER photos courtesy of MARK GILCHRIST

F

ishermen traditionally keep their best fishing holes a secret, and a lot of folks feel that way about Lake Tabor.

The manmade lake on the outskirts of Columbus County’s largest bordertown is apt to see anglers any day of the week, from all over the country. Bankfishing costs $3 per day, with boats costing $5 per day per person. There are plenty of secret spots, coves, twists and turns in the 150-acre lake, so crowding is rarely a problem.

And neither are the crowds one finds at larger fishing hotspots.

Lake Tabor, being somewhat off the beaten path, isn’t as wellknown as many larger lakes, yet it consistently produces a good fishing experience for those who visit.

“We have people coming in here from other states to fish,” said Bobby Adams, who runs the bait store for Curtis Nealy, the lake’s caretaker. “Folks from all over come here for the fishing tournaments, and just all the time. We get a lot of tourists from Myrtle Beach in the summer.”

Oddly enough, Columbus County anglers are just discovering the lake, Adams said.

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“We don’t have a lot of locals who come here to fish,” he said.

“We have some, and we have a lot who come to swim and go to the boat races, but we don’t have a lot of local fishermen. A lot of our folks drive some distance to come here. I guess it’s just what you like.”

The lake is amply stocked with white perch, crappie and largemouth bass, and sometimes grows them big. A nine-pound, thirteenounce bass is the biggest yet taken during one of the monthly fishing tourneys.

“We have some good fishing here,” Adams said.

Lake Tabor is roughly 60 years old, Adams said. Owned by a stockholders’ group, the lake is leased to the Town of Tabor City and managed by the town. The town had to become officially involved after the flooding associated with Hurricane Fran wiped out the dam and drained the lake. The state and federal government wouldn’t provide cleanup costs to a private organization, but the town, through the assistance of legislators, was able to apply for emergency relief funds.

Fishermen, boaters, and lovers of the lake make good use of the public beach and marina area. In

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summer time, Adams said, the tiny beach and pier are crowded with visitors.

“The ballfields are right up there,” he said, gesturing toward U.S. 701, “and we have a walking trail around the lake as well.

We have a lot of local people who come down here and spend the day and the evening—some fish, some for a ball game, some to take the boat out, some just to enjoy it. It’s a good place to come and socialize.”

A combination of good fishing and fellowship often leads to a big fish fry at the bait shop, Adams said.

“I’ve cleaned 90, 100, 150 fish at a time here,” he said. “People come by during the week and drop them off, then we have a big fish fry later in the week. Everybody looks forward to it.”

Adams said he and Nealy work closely with law enforcement and people who love the lake to keep it “very family friendly.”

“Families need a place where they can come and not be worried about a bunch of drunks or some mischief going on,” he said. “That’s what we try to encourage here.

Besides that, there’s nothing better for a family than to go fishing

together.”

“Curtis is a good Christian man,” Adams said, “and that shows.

We don’t have any use for troublemaking around here. Families need a safe place they can go and relax.”

Kenneth Benton has come to the lake for years, and on a recent afternoon was enjoying a good run of white perch with his grandson Dawson.

“I am not really sure how long it’s been,” the Nakina resident said.

“I’ve just been coming for a number of years—Dawson was little.

The fishing is always good, and the boat landing isn’t that crowded usually. It’s a good place.”

“Chippy” Watts says he has fished at Lake Tabor “Near about my whole life.”

“We call him the mayor,” Adams laughed.

Watts said there is excellent crappy and perch fishing in the lake, but the camaraderie is even better.

“You get to know people fishing,” he said as he brought his own rigs ashore. “It’s a pleasant place, a good place to get away and be by yourself for a while.”

As he fed the landing’s mascot ducks, Bonnie and Clyde, Adams

“Lake Tabor is just a special place, a good place,” he said. “You don’t find many places like it.”

noted that Howard, the lake’s other domestic duck, was off wandering somewhere.

“He visits a lot,” Adams said.

“They know when duck hunting is going on, and stay close to here.

These two don’t leave much anyway—they like to eat too much.”

The ducks are popular with children, and gentle enough to be handfed—although they get demanding when feeding time comes around, which is often.

As he tossed a cracker to each duck, Adams watched another boater coming in to the dock, a cooler full of crappie and white perch. The man smiled and waved.

“He’s had a good day,” Adams said, zipping his coat against the chill. “I like seeing folks have a good day here. Fishing’s good for people. We need to get back to things like that—you wouldn’t believe the little kids that come here that have never caught a fish, or seen a duck. It’s sad.”

Adams waved back at the happy angler, and headed back for the bait shop, where another customer stood patiently waiting and holding a minnow bucket.

“A lot of people don’t like it when it’s too cold, or too hot, but I think they’re wrong,” he said.

“Any day fishing beats a day doing anything else, and if you can take a child fishing, that makes it even better.”

Terry Bell has spent most of his life in and around Lake Tabor.

“It’s just a very, very special place,” he said.

As a young boy, he enjoyed fishing and swimming there. While he left the lake and Tabor City for college, “I had to come back.”

While water skiing, boat races, swimming and fishing have always been a part of lake life, Bell said the fishing was always first and foremost.

“Fishing is the best part of living here, that and just the beauty of the lake.”

He built his home there, and his sons grew up on the lake as well, although they missed what he called “the best years” when the lake dam blew after Hurricane Fran.

“I remember those years all too well,” he said. “The lake was always there, and then one day it wasn’t. It took a lot of getting used to—you’d look for it in the afternoon when you got home from work. It just wasn’t right when it was gone.”

“A lot of people learned not to take it for granted after it was drained,” Bell said. “We have something very, very special here.

It’s been good for the community, and good for the people of the whole area, I think.”

Bell said his grown sons still enjoy the lake, and he hopes many generations to come will appreciate it as well.

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Spring/Summer 2013

| 954mag.com | 33

Home& Garden

RAISED gardens

New way to grow veggies, flowers

by RAY WYCHE

Come spring, gardeners

are restless and impatient to get started in their annual routine of tilling, planting and weeding.

They’re anxious to break bleak winter’s enforced absence of the promising fragrance of newly turned earth and the first appearance of the pale green of a newly sprouted vegetable or flower plant.

But along with these hoped-for rewards often come sore muscles and aching backs.

Now, for home gardeners with limited space, a newer method of producing the bounty our soil offers is available: raised gardens.

A raised garden is essentially a box with 10 to 12-inch sides, although 6-inch boxes work just fine for some plantings. These planting boxes are usually made of weather resistant cypress or juniper lumber. The size of the bottomless box depends on the owner’s preference; some have room only for a few tomato plants while others are large enough to contain a variety of vegetable or flower plantings.

The length of the raised garden is limited only by the ground space available. The width is more important; experts advise limiting the width to about three feet so the gardener can reach across at least half of the growing space to plant, pull weeds and to fertilize his crop.

Raised gardening has gained in popularity in recent years, particularly among the elderly who often do not have space or equipment for the traditional, in-the-ground garden, and in many cases have back problems.

A raised garden — “garden in a box” — can be made directly on the ground or elevated to about waist height by the addition of legs, making it possible to tend to the plantings without bending an ache-prone back. A bottom for the raised garden is required if the box of soil is mounted on legs.

There are advantages other than saving your back in this new concept in home gardening.

Erosion of the good topsoil by rain is reduced,

34

slugs and snails have a hard time getting around the sides of the box in which the desirable plants are growing, weeds are more easily controlled, and your fertile garden soil is not compacted by the walking necessary for tending an in-theground garden.

Since your boxed-in garden soil is placed above the natural level of the land, the gardening dirt does not absorb or hold the coldness of earth; it warms earlier in the spring, giving the grower a jump in getting his seed to sprout and his seedlings to begin their growth.

If your soils are poor in nutrients, you can bring in richer dirt from elsewhere and plant your seeds in a raised garden.

You can add agriculture chemicals to your raised bed soil to “custom make” your dirt suitable for the specific plants you are growing. A soil test will show what fertilizer ingredients are needed, and these can be easily added.

In the event of a killing cold spell when your plants are in the vulnerable tender stage, a raised bed garden is much easier to cover to prevent cold damage than are plants in a traditional row garden.

There are numerous raised gardening kits on the market today but a homemade container to hold soil will work just as well.

But there are some drawbacks. Your planting space is limited (although you can group as many raised garden boxes as your space and resources permit). All soil preparation and cultivation is done by hand tools; no power equipment can be used.

Raised bed gardening has not made a big splash in Columbus County. Agriculture Extension agents and seed store proprietors agree that home vegetable gardening in any form, for urban and rural dwellers alike, is not as high a priority now as it was a few years ago, despite the fact that nutritionists are currently preaching that the fresher the vegetables the healthier the diet.

There are a few area residents who take pride

| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

in producing tomatoes, lettuce, herbs and other veggies that require little growing room.

Among these are Terry and Ginger Littrell of Lake Waccamaw, whose backyard has five soil-filled boxes in which they grow lettuce and other crops. Their three grandsons, Robert, 11, Logan 14, and James, 8, all lend a hand with the gardening work.

The Littrells are limited for garden space at the home, also a bed and breakfast business, just off Lakeshore Drive, and raised gardens are the answer. One of their five garden boxes has 4x4inch legs that raise it to waist height, making the work in the plantings much more comfortable.

“That’s my favorite,” Ginger Littrell says.

“That’s the one I do my planting in.”

The boxes for growing flowers and vegetables vary in size from about four feet wide to six and 10 feet long. The heights range from eight to 12 inches.

The Littrells follow the recommended gardening procedures. “We compost vegetable scraps,” Ginger Littrell says. The couple also mixes crushed eggshells with the potting soil to add needed calcium to the planting mixture.

One of the five boxed gardens has wooden dividers that were formerly used only for herbs, but Ginger Littrell says she no longer grows herbs in the box. Now it has a variety of garden plants.

“I plant whatever I want in that one,” she says.

The Littrells’ tools necessary for working the small gardens are antique child’s toy gardening sets, just the right size for the close quarters in the elevated gardens.

One problem the Littrells faced with their attractive backyard vegetable growing operation was frequent raiding of their ripening tomatoes by unwelcome visits from squirrels that played havoc with the fruits.

“The squirrels got all our tomatoes so I’m planting flowers from now on and will get my vegetables from the farmers market (in Government Complex north of Whiteville),” she says.

Lumber River Visitors Center

The Lumber River Visitors Center, opened January 3, 2011 as a place where locals as well as visitors can get information about Fair Bluff and the Lumber River.

Information and brochures are found in the Visitors Center telling about great places to visit in Fair Bluff, like our River Walk and our Depot Museum.

Established through a grant from the N.C. Tobacco Trust Commission, operated under the Guidelines of the N.C. Department of Transportation, aided by the Town of Fair Bluff and the Greater Fair Bluff Chamber of Commerce, the Visitors Center is located at 1140 Main Street, right in the middle of town. Two main Highways pass by the Center making up Fair Bluff's Main Street, N.C. 904 and US Hwy 76.

The Visitors Center is set up for meetings and special events. Tours of the River Walk are featured and history of the City and the Lumber River.

Please stop and visit us as you come through our beautiful town at 1140 Main St., Fair Bluff, N.C. Call us at 910-649-7202, or email us at visitfairbluff@tds.net . Join us on Facebook at Facebook/Fair Bluff N.C.

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Spring/Summer 2013

| 954mag.com | 35

Historical

special

954

LandGrab Columbus and Duplin counties were long noted in newspaper articles as the Democrat bellwethers of the area, but it was a different story in Brunswick.

by BOB HIGH The legislative deal in 1877

that briefly pushed Columbus County ahead of this state’s other 99 counties for land area size was a product of the old-time smokefilled room politics here, in Brunswick County and Raleigh, centered on the continuing Democrat-Republican battle for power.

Without any advance fanfare and no notice to residents of Columbus and Brunswick counties, Columbus’ county line was moved from just east of Lake Waccamaw all the way to Hood’s Creek in Brunswick County – four miles east of the present line at Delco. This act by the state’s General Assembly pushed Columbus’ square-mile total from 815 square miles to 1,010.

There was some mention of a petition from residents of Northwest Township in Brunswick County, saying the roads to Brunswick’s county seat at Southport were often impassable and Whiteville was closer for those who had to travel to a county seat. However, how the petitions were generated is not mentioned in any of the county commission’s minutes of the two counties.

But Columbus’ title as largest county in the state was short lived – just two years. A little more than 60 square miles (36,000-plus acres) was returned to Brunswick County in 1879. The portion from Hood’s

1876 County Lines

Columbus County’s eastern boundary in 1876 was from Lake Waccamaw to the Cape Fear River.

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Creek, just east of today’s intersection of U.S. 74-76 and N.C. 87 in Brunswick County’s Maco community, to the present line at Delco went back to Brunswick. Today, Columbus County’s square-mile total is 954, if you include 17 for Lake Waccamaw. This puts Columbus in third place in the state behind Sampson and Robeson.

Who were some of the players in this legislative move? Henry Blount Short was the state senator from Columbus County. He became involved in this county by purchasing land at the end of the War Between the States from the state’s Literary Fund, which gained control over vast areas of swampland in many counties. Short was 43 years old and living in Wilmington when he paid $2,000 to the Literary Fund and was given a deed to 21,800 acres of woodland in Columbus County on Jan. 1, 1869.

This land was part of the immense Green Swamp that covered huge portions of Columbus and Brunswick.

By the November elections in 1876, Short had become a leader of Columbus County’s Democrat party, and was elected to the state senate. He added to the smoke-filled rooms in any locale, for he loved a good cigar, and was often seen sporting a stogie between his teeth.

Van Valentine Richardson was Columbus’ representative in the legislature, and Brunswick’s man in the House was John Bennett. Daniel L. Russell was Brunswick’s state senator, a man who became governor.

Short arrived on the Columbus County scene on the heels of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender in April 1865, which ended the bloody four years of the North versus the South in the War Between the States. Short was soon associated with Samuel Bolton from Pennsylvania in the timber business. They set up shop near the railroad community of Maxwell, northeast of Lake Waccamaw. Eventually the community of Maxwell, once a part of Bladen County, would become known as Bolton – Samuel’s lasting legacy.

Bolton and Short were part of the Green Swamp Company, formed on the heels of the end of the bloodiest war ever involving the U.S.A. The company owned more than 200,000 acres of the Green Swamp that stretches across the lower part of Columbus County and the northwestern portion of Brunswick County.

Short eventually bought out the partners in the lumbering venture, and he and Charles Oscar Beers formed a firm that controlled most of the same land, covered with virgin cypress, juniper and pine. The vast swamp was almost uninhabited, and most of it was in Brunswick County.

The Green Swamp literally included the swamps around Lake Waccamaw, particularly the area south of Hallsboro all the way to the community named Crusoe Island near Old Dock in southeastern Columbus County.

Henry Blount Short

Matt Ransom

Most of this venture was in the beginning of Reconstruction, the period when the Northern states and federal government ruled the belligerent Southern states from 1865 into the 1880s.

Democrats fiercely controlled the large majority of Southern states, and almost all of the counties in Southeastern North Carolina held firm in the Democrat stable during Reconstruction. Columbus and Duplin counties were long noted in newspaper articles as the Democrat bellwethers of the area, but it was a different story in Brunswick.

The Democrat leadership in Brunswick was constantly wary about politics in Northwest Township, the area of the county that includes present-day Leland, Navassa, and the community of Phoenix, plus the aforementioned Hood’s Creek and Maco areas.

There was a plurality of 300 Republicans in Northwest Township, and the Brunswick County Democrats finally came up with a plan to get rid of them. By coincidence, Henry Blount Short, one of the men who were in the process of mining virgin timber from the two counties, was Columbus County’s state senator in 1877 during all of this obvious back-room deal making.

In a move that had not been mentioned in area newspapers, Brunswick County ceded almost 120,000 acres to Columbus County in February 1877. This moved the Columbus line from the eastern shore of Lake Waccamaw (today’s Bella Coola settlement) all the way to Hood’s Creek. New communities in Columbus included Freeman, Brinkley’s Depot (to become today’s Delco), Robeson’s

Store (roughly where Riegelwood is today), old Acme, Byrdsville and thousands of acres of prime timber, most of it owned by the same Henry Blount Short and some partners.

Reasoning for the gift of land by the Brunswick Democrats, announced in newspaper stories, was that Columbus was “staunchly Democrat,” and could absorb the 300 Republicans with ease and still have a solid Demo majority.

Wilmington newspapers, all supporters of the Democrat party, reported the move in the Legislature with a clear understanding of what Brunswick was doing, and how Columbus was the obvious choice to absorb the heavy Republican area because of Columbus’ Democrat majority would barely change. In the 1870s, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in Columbus County by at least 7-1.

It must not have been hard to sell Short on this deal, announced in Wilmington’s Daily Review on Feb. 2, 1877. Most of the area to become Columbus was land that he owned. It’s not absolutely clear that another advantage for Short was a better tax rate in Columbus County. Columbus taxed residents about 40 cents per $100 valuation in real and personal property, compared to 42 cents in Brunswick County. Short’s vast timber holdings were valued about $1 per acre or less.

Brunswick’s commissioners, headed by Chairman John H. Mints (sic), immediately heard a great outcry from Brunswick citizens from all parts of the county. Petitions were circulated in each commissioner’s district, and in 1879, with Short no longer in the state senate, the area from Hood’s continued on page 33

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Creek west to the present Columbus-Brunswick line at Delco was returned to Brunswick County.

Other Brunswick commissioners in 1877 were Wallace Styron, David S. Cowan, W.L. Milliken and R.W. Woodside. Counterparts in Columbus, headed by Caswell Porter, were J.W. Hall, E.D. Mears (sic), J.B. Harrelson and Haynes High.

Brunswick voters turned on their commissioners in the 1878 election, and ousted each of the five who allowed the great land swap. The new commissioners, with R.D. Hewitt as chairman, included J.B. Evans, B.L. Butler, Thomas M. Williams and Thomas Hickman. These got petitions circulated about getting back some of Brunswick’s land.

In addition to the Legislature making the land takeover, the General Assembly used this move to honor a Confederate general from this state whose name wasn’t yet immortalized. North Carolina Confederate generals Robert F. Hoke and William Dorsey Pender had counties named in their honor.

By the time the Columbus and Brunswick land deal took place, Matt Whitaker Ransom was active in state Democrat politics, and was to become a U.S. senator from the Tar Heel state. The Legislature declared the new Columbus township was to be “Matt Ransom” township, a name that was soon shortened to today’s “Ransom” township.

The only entry in Columbus County’s commission records about the great land grab was noted on Aug. 5, 1878. The notation referred to a road in Ransom Township, now in Columbus County.

Brunswick’s commissioners in April 1876 agreed for a new road from “Dr. Emmons to Brinkley Depot, then to the east side of Cowan’s Tram Road by Strong Webb and Edward Wells to and ending at the Burgwin Ford at Livingston Creek.”

It didn’t take long for Ransom Township to be heard from in its new county. David S. Cowan, once a Brunswick commissioner, was elected a county commissioner by 1880, and became the state senator from Columbus in 1885 for a two-year term.

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Oscar M. Blanks III,

Attorney At Law

For Attorney Blanks, coming home was always the goal While Attorney Oscar Blanks didn’t always intend to be a lawyer, he always intended to come home to Columbus County. “There was never a question about that,” he said. “I always wanted to come back, to give back to the community that gave me so much.” Within days of graduating East Columbus High School in 1993, Blanks was on his way to college, starting early attending summer classes. He had his sights set on a business management degree and graduated Summa Cum Laude from N.C. Central University in 1999.

His early experiences in the entertainment field fueled the fires for law school. “I was brought up that fair is fair and right is right,” Blanks said. “The little guy needs someone to fight for him.” In May 2010, Blanks received his law degree from N.C. Central University, which has been repeatedly recognized for the quality of its law school. He went to work for Frasier & Griffin, PLLC in Durham, NC following graduation and primarily practiced Criminal Law, Business Law, and Personal Injury.

Even then, Blanks said, he told his employers how good attorneys were needed in Columbus County, and how he felt the area could use a branch of the Durham firm. “I had some very good mentors up there,” Blanks said. “They encouraged me, and told me what I had to look forward to in opening a law office in Columbus County.”

Blanks came home late last year, and opened his general law practice in Memory Plaza in Uptown Whiteville, NC in January 2013.

Blanks said that his small town roots give him a different perspective.

“Everyone has a side. I’m going to do my best for my client, but I’m going to be honest, too. Respect is very important to me, and even if someone is on the opposite side of the table, I want them to be able to respect me as I do them. The highest compliment I think any lawyer can receive is for the opposing party to be willing to come to you with a problem later on, even if they lose.”

Blanks practices Personal Injury, Criminal, Traffic, Business, Entertainment, and Family law in his Whiteville office. “I tell people to come see me, sit down and let’s talk,” he said. “If it is something I can help them with, then we’ll get to work.”

For more information, log on to www.omblankslaw.com, or call 910.207.6411. Blanks’ office is located at 130 Memory Plaza, Whiteville, NC.

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Home& Garden

When Pigs Fly

by ALYSON BAHR

photos courtesy of FULLER ROYAL

N

North Carolina’s Drowning Creek Farm is tucked away in the back fields of Fair Bluff on land that has been in Becky and Jim Enzor’s family for seven generations, spanning the past 200 years.

Originally, the land was used to grow tobacco, but the Enzors gradually repurposed the land and in 1998 moved an antique house to the farm.

That year, Jim saw a flier in town advertising a house for sale, “Must be moved” to make way for a shopping plaza. The bones of the house were in such good shape, the couple couldn’t resist. They moved the 1886 bungalow-style house 10 miles in two pieces from central Fair Bluff to its present location on their farm.

One of the first homes in Fair Bluff to have electricity, the white house has been continually occupied until sold to the Enzors. The house has been such a work in progress that Becky’s mother said it would be finished “when pigs fly.”

This challenge sparked the collection of flying pigs that now grace the home’s front porch. Becky describes her mother as a “ball of fire” working in her yard and on the farm well into her 80s.

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the driveway. This is where the fun, or the farm, begins. To the right of the house, a grove of pines have lost their skirts of pine straw, which is being harvested to sell in Raleigh.

What looks like a landscape Palm next to the house is actually a plant that produces a fruit that can be made into palm jelly. Like the house, the six-acre farm is also a work in progress, with different crops being tested, including fava and cannellini beans, elephant garlic, shallots, Russian banana potatoes, pineapple guava, pluot (a plum-apricot hybrid), and brocollini.

Elephant garlic that sprouts throughout the decorative garden near the house was actually started by accident when Becky transplanted what she thought was flowering allium from her mother’s garden.

She soon realized she had something else. Becky then began transplanting the elephant garlic to the farm as it multiplied, creating a new crop of garlic to add to her everexpanding inventory, the idea being to grow more interesting and exotic At Home on the Farm crops that larger farms can’t risk. All On the way to the house, one is crops are grown in the most natural greeted by a line of loquat trees along way available.

That same fire could be said to be part of Becky as well. At a young age of 60, Becky has nonstop ideas, continually planning the next exotic crop.

She has a multitude of talents.

Instead of replacing the crumbling horsehair plaster in her house, she used her woodworking skills to repurpose boards from other old homes and barns to create warm and natural surroundings. She pointed out the trim and commented on the tricky mitering.

The dining room is the only painted room in the house. After initially finishing it with a sage green, she showed the room to Mark Moore, her artist neighbor. They both concluded that the color was a little bland and that the room needed something to set it apart.

The result is a mix of Trompe l’oeil and stenciled birds and fruits that match the scenery found on the farm. Over one doorway tobacco leaves pay tribute to what the family and farm produced in years past.

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“Anything that isn’t number one doesn’t leave the farm,” says Becky who has a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. If a customer isn’t happy, “They can keep the item and not owe me a dime, but that hasn’t happened yet!”

Gardening is a lot of trial and error, and Becky learns by each successful crop as well as the not-sosuccessful. Many of the varieties of plants have never been tried in this area, making Becky a pioneer of exotic produce.

The most fascinating crop on the farm is her shiitake mushrooms.

They have exotic names like Snowcap and Night Velvet and are sold to restaurants in Raleigh as well as to local customers.

For a tour of the farm, Becky pulled on a pair of muckin’ boots and we hopped into her pickup. The ground was muddy from a recent rain, making it a short drive. Not wanting to get stuck, we walked the rest of the way to the mushroom enclosure. The space is about a quarter acre with neat rows of oak logs leaning against a metal pole.

The best hosts for shiitake mushrooms are solid oak logs, between

If you are interested in purchasing from Drowning Creek Farm, visit their website at drowningcreeknc.com or The Produce Box theproducebox.com or Down East Connect farmersfreshmarket.org/ downeast/ a not-for-profit helping local farmers distribute goods to central locations, including Whiteville, for easy consumer pick up.

Tours of the farm can be arranged by appointment by contacting Becky at drowningcreekfarm@yahoo.com

four and seven inches thick with a dense bark (this leaves out water oaks and live oaks because they are too soft).

Holes about the size of your pinky are drilled into the logs where the spores are planted. It takes 5-10 days for a mushroom to mature, and the season occurs during periods that are not very cold or very hot.

Conditions must be just right.

The most common pest to the mushroom is the slug, but a little iron phosphate, a natural repellent dusted on the ground, takes care of them.

On the way back to the truck a small log blocks the way, and before I can ask if she needs help, Becky is already dragging it to the side.

There are more than 30 fig trees on Drowning Creek Farm. The five or six varieties include LSU Purple, Honey, Black Jack, and Watermelon.

A fig tree takes 10 years to be fully mature and six years before producing fruit. Becky has begun adding and testing new varieties, but a lot of patience is involved in waiting for the results.

She sells other hand-selected fruit, including Asian Pears, pomegranates and persimmons and she makes gourmet preserves with names such as Vanilla Rum and Lemon Sage Fig Jam. Becky explains her wisdom: “The key to making tasty jam is to focus on the fruit. Good quality and a higher concentration of fruit make

better jam.”

Roots Run Deep Plants, earth, and farming thread through Becky’s life. Growing up on a 100-acre pecan grove in Georgia, Becky often spent her college breaks picking pecans to earn spending money. Upon graduating from the University of Georgia with a horticulture degree, Becky taught agriculture for six years. She’s also worked in both floral and landscape design, making her more than qualified to run Drowning Creek Farm.

The farm is anything but a retirement hobby since one mostly thinks of hobbies as relaxing and low key.

“There will be time for puzzles and needlework later,” Becky said.

Drowning Creek Farm got its name from the Lumber River whose headwater still claims the moniker Drowning Creek. European settlers dubbed it this for the horrible dropoffs, treacherous turns, and depth known as “blackwater.” When asked why she didn’t call her place “Flying Pig Farm,” Becky laughs and says, “I thought of that, but Jim got his way on that one.”

When not working his job in wine distribution, Jim helps on the farm, tinkering with machinery and pitching in wherever needed. Jim’s work has taken the two of them throughout the world, including Germany, Italy, Scotland, England, and Australia. Ultimately, the Enzors’ home is where their land is.

And settling near family is where they have sunk their roots.

left page: A shitake mushroom peeks out from a dead log at Drowning Creek Farm. It will soon find its way to a customer’s plate in a Raleigh restaurant. this page: Becky Enzor enjoys a warm, late evening sunset on her farm.

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The home at Drowning Creek.

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t

Photo at top left: Frits and buds from new growth among the many species of delicious plants at Drowning Creek. Top right: Jim and Becky Enzor on the front porch. Bottom photo: The custom painted walls in the home.

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Health& Beauty

HOW TO:

Pound Proof your vacation

The Good Apple was created by Briana Cahn, R.D., a registered dietitian based out of Whiteville. The weight loss center works with people to change the way they think about eating.

by BRIANA CAHN

A vacation is a time to relax, unwind, rejuvenate, celebrate, enjoy family, friends and good food.

While on vacation, we all indulge, but be mindful of the consequences of overindulging.

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4.

5.

Make a choice to be an active vacation goer. Swim, bike ride, hike, walk or jog. Adding at least 30 minutes of physical activity each day can make all the difference in how you look and feel by the end of your vacation.

Don’t let yourself get hungry. Eat every three to four hours, and never go more than four hours without eating.

When dining out, be aware of your portion sizes and calories. Order food your way, the healthy way.

Steamed, broiled, grilled, boiled or baked, not fried.

Don’t let traveling and sun get you dehydrated. Stock up on water. Make sure you are consuming half of your body weight in liquid ounces (for example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you should be reaching for 75 ounces of water each day ). Bring water with you everywhere you go.

Bring fruits and vegetables to the beach or the pool or pack a high protein, low-calorie snack. Don’t give in to the chip temptation. Never eat from the bag. Always portion out your serving in a bowl or on a plate.

When on vacation, be careful not to get into the “vacation eating mindset” by considering some simple calorie counting options ahead of time. Being prepared and aware will make your vacation so much more enjoyable and rewarding.

Decide how you want to spend your calories and then enjoy without the guilt!

Briana graduated from the University of Delaware with a Bachelor of Science degree in dietetics. After rotating through all clinical and community areas of nutrition, she completed her dietetic internship at The College of Saint Elizabeth’s in Morristown, NJ . Along the way, Briana had developed a deeper understanding of how to work with different people’s needs and give them individualized plans for success. She maintains this passion and believes the key to a happier life and disease prevention starts with nutrition education, a healthy diet, and an active lifestyle.

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Health& Beauty

Cynthia Hansen is an ISSA certified personal trainer with 10 years of experience. She began her career as a personal trainer as a part-time job after joining a gym for the first time at the age of 45. It was there she met her future husband, Joe Hansen, a licensed physical therapist with Columbus Regional Health Care who was also a competitive body builder. With his knowledge of the importance of correct form and technique, she began seeing immediate results in her physique.

Four years later, and after 33 years of teaching in the public schools, Hansen became a personal fitness trainer, helping clients understand that with small lifestyle changes, they can live longer, healthier, and happier lives as well as change a family’s health and fitness destiny.

Focus On Your Core

by CYNTHIA HANSEN

High Intensity Strength Training concentrates on achieving better and faster improvements in strength and muscle growth, strengthening the whole body, and focusing on the core strength with all movements.

This type of training boosts overall cardiovascular fitness, endurance, and fat loss, and builds muscle in one workout. Here is a simple workout that people can do at home at least two days a week that works the total body, focusing on core strength that benefits the average person, the beginner athlete, and the stay-at-home mom.

“I use a 10-pound bag of flour wrapped with duct tape to demonstrate the exercise; you can use a weight of your choice or not use a weight,” says Hansen.

“There are several ways to do the exercises so you are able to get that heart rate up during your workouts such as: Do sets of 10 reps of each one and do a round of them four times, or add more reps or more rounds if it gets too easy. Or you can get a minute timer and do one minute of each one and do three to four rounds or add more rounds when it gets easier and you build strength.

“Always check with your doctor before beginning any type of exercise regimen. Core exercises do not give you the six-pack you want unless you are watching what you consume in food, so watch those calories and eat lean meats, fruit, and vegetables. Try to stay away from processed foods and drink LOTS of water!”

More advice about how to stay healthy • Eat out but be smart about it by checking the calories off the menu before you leave the house. Order grilled with little olive oil; steamed vegetables, not sautéed; order dressing on the side and dip the food into the dressing once. Stay away from bread! Order sandwiches without the bread.

• Stop drinking those calories! If you drink orange juice, are you full? Eat the orange instead and get that fiber. Drink water instead of all those calorie drinks. Save the calories for food and you can substitute unsweetened almond milk for regular milk, and it’s only 30 calories.

• Remember the body counts all the calories you take in and every little “splurge” adds up. That means you CANNOT DIET PART-TIME. You can have a little splurge once a week, but save a couple of hundred calories the day before and the day of so that your little splurge doesn’t hurt you.

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Exercise #1 Chair Squats (with or without weight) *works core, quads, gluteus, and shoulders if using weight Hold hands or weight out in front of your of chest *try not to bend arms and feet should be about 10 inches apart

Hold head up with back straight and squat down lightly onto chair(*nose over toes) and return to starting position.

Stand with feet apart, weight or hands to the right side of your head

With a swinging motion, swing weight down in front of your body and to your left side as you come down into a squat, then return to starting position by swinging the weight back across the front of your body

Exercise #2 Wood Chops (with or without weight) *works core, obliques, shoulders, arms, quads, gluteus

*repeat this exercise the next time beginning on the left side swinging to the right side

Exercise #3 V Ups

With the legs straight, raise feet off the floor and while weight is lifted from behind your head upward.

*works primarily core

Continue moving the legs and weight/ arms into a V position until they meet and return slowly to starting position

Exercise #4 Cross Jacks *works core, gluteus, quads, calves

*repeat by jumping back into the squatting position

Squat down with arms bent and fist at chin/feet together

Jump swinging arms up with fist facing out/ on your toes and feet apart

Cynthia owns Stronger Body Fitness and she trains clients at Body Shapers Gym in Whiteville.

She can be reached at (910)640-4728.

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Wine &Food

bon

appétit!

by GARY KRAMER

Pairing the right wine

with food creates something greater than the sum of the parts. A complementary wine can enhance and add new dimensions to food, and vice versa. Matching food and wine is a fairly recent concept. In the past, people simply served local foods with whatever wine was available. Over the years, the teaming of good food with fine wine has become an art form.

There are two fundamental ways to approach pairing wine and food: either match a rich flavored dish with an equally rich wine, or set off a strongly flavored food with a light, acidic wine.

The old rule was white wine with fish. Today, anything goes, and red wines are often a good complement. It is the sauce that makes the difference, not the type of fish. White wine is still often the best choice with simple, grilled or broiled fish with the notable exception of Pinot Noir with salmon.

Red wine with meat is still a useful rule. However, when you add sauces or other flavorings, you need to consider these sauces and flavorings as well. Some types of meat seem to have a particular affinity with wines made from certain grapes. Steak goes well with Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec, for example, while pork tastes great with Shiraz or Pinot Noir.

For wild game and most poultry dishes, the sauce and herbal flavorings make a considerable difference when choosing wine. White wine as well as red wine can complement any poultry dish.

Matching wines with vegetable dishes follows the same general principles as matching wine with fish and meat.

With pasta, concentrate on the sauces and flavorings accompanying the pasta when making your wine choice. When choosing a tomato-based pasta, I recommend pairing a fruity red wine such as a Chianti. If you prefer a white clam sauce or an Alfredo sauce with your pasta, a dry white wine goes well with that.

Matching wine to ethnic cuisines such as Chinese, Mexican, Indian, and Pacific Rim are a little more complicated. These cuisines did not evolve with wine. However, some of the most imaginative food and wine pairing is happening in this area.

In general, with Chinese food, look for a big spicy wine such as a Gewürztraminer, a grassy Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or unoaked Chardonnay. With pork and chicken dishes, a fruity Zinfandel or Beaujolais can be a good choice.

With Fusion or Pacific Rim cooking, a good wine selection can be made on a dish-by-dish basis. Consider pairing wines such as Vinho Verde from Portugal, Viognier from California or Riesling from New York State.

With Indian cuisine, in general, the more aromatic wines are best. For whites try Gewürztraminer, off dry Riesling or Pinot Gris. Red wines such as Shiraz or young Zinfandel can work well against the strong, spicy flavors of many Indian dishes.

With Japanese cuisine, go for off dry Riesling or sparkling wine.

Mexican food pairs well with red wines. Young Zinfandels and Merlots from California or Pinot Noir work well.

With Thai food growing in popularity, a good place to start is an Oregon Pinot Gris, Gewürztraminer, Sauvignon Blanc or an Italian Pinot Blanc.

The general rule if you want to drink wine with dessert is to choose a wine that is slightly sweeter than the desert. Fruity desserts need a sweet wine with acidity. Some chocolate desserts can go well with Port.

Just remember, it’s your taste preference, and ultimately your own judgment that counts in wine pairing.

Bon Appetit!

Gary Kramer

Spring/Summer 2013

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Wine &Food

Padrick equals pizza,family

fun

by FULLER ROYAL

photos courtesy of FULLER ROYAL

A voice mail states “Let’s go to Pete’s tonight.” chef Ron Ward, has worked at Pizza Village for cal Montgomery Ward. Helen Kay’s sister Betty A text reads “We R @ PV.” 25 years. had married Gordon “Gordy” Lewis and moved Anyone who has been in Columbus County Jennifer said folks look forward to a greeting here. any amount of time knows too well that “Pete” is from Pete on their visits and are saddened when Pete knew the building he would soon occupy Pete Padrick and “PV” is Pizza Village. he’s not there. (and eventually purchase) had been considered With 2,000 pizzas made, cooked and sold Jennifer said that as a teenager she and her for a Montgomery Ward location. each week times 52 weeks a year times 31 years brother often fought about where to eat out.

In November, 1981 the Padricks looked at the – that’s about 1.5 million pizzas.

Their dad, retired WHS teacher Dwight Burle- building and in January, 1982, began converting And through all of those years, tons of flour son, settled it one night. the building into a pizza restaurant. and barrels of sauce, Pete is the same today as he “There’s a new girl in my class and her dad On April 19, they opened. Pete moved his was when he started. is opening a pizza place,” he told the quarreling family into the old Lionel Todd home next door.

His hair is a little grayer and there are a few two. “We’re eating there tonight.”

The site is now the location of The Farm Store. more lines in the face – but most of Pete had learned the business those were created by the smiles Pete working with a pizza restaurant near A voice mail states always has for friends, who also hapKinston. pen to be his customers.

The biggest difference he found “Let’s go to Pete’s tonight.”

Pete is reluctant to talk about himwas that Columbus Countian exself, preferring to hear the latest fampected glass plates. At his old locaily news from the folks standing in line to pay.

Friends with Pete’s daughters, Kelly and tion, people pulled their slices onto napkins.

To Pete, his customers are “fine, upstanding Natalie, Jennifer knew that when she turned Jennifer said that the reason she still works ladies and gentlemen” and “pillars of their com- 16, Pizza Village would be where she wanted to there – and the reason people have been remunities.” work. turning for three decades – is “Pete treats folks As any of his regulars will tell you – and just While in college she worked there on week- like human beings. He knows their names. He about anyone who eats there is a regular – half of ends and during the summer. When she taught makes them feel special.” the Pizza Village experience is interacting with school, she still worked there. She continues toElena Ward (married to pizza chef Ron) has Pete. been on the Pizza Village staff for 20 years. day with a tutoring business on the side.

It’s something akin to visiting Disneyland Pete, who lived in Kinston with wife Helen “It is a family atmosphere here,” she said. She and – if he were still alive – Walt Disney himself Kay and family, was tired of being on the road couldn’t think of working anywhere else. taking your ticket. after 17 years with Montgomery Ward. He Elena and Jennifer (whose husband Charlie Jennifer Burleson Hall, who with chief pizza knew about Whiteville from his visits to the lo- has worked there for a number of years) went

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down a list of people who come as often as three times a week.

The Greg Clifton family is a regular at Pizza Village. Greg and wife Paula regularly bring sons Chase and Jacob and daughter Isabella. All are homeschooled and lunches at Pizza Village are a regular part of the daily school experience.

The list includes entire families, out-of-towners and tourists who discovered the eatery with their GPS units and have returned every year.

Elena said people en route to or from the beach stop in for a hot pizza and order several “half-baked” pizzas to go and cook them later for family and friends.

Pete still tells stories of the days when the younger members of the Whiteville Rescue Unit “held court” at the famous roundtable in the restaurant every Friday night.

A dozen or so rescue members, wearing their bright orange EMS coats, would entertain anyone within earshot for hours with their rescue tales.

Pete said the early years were tough, especially when Pizza Inn moved in and began a “coupon war” with Pizza Hut. Pizza Village survived, thanks to a daily lunch crowd comprised of Whiteville High School students who were on open lunch from the school.

Pete outlasted Pizza Inn and later, Little Caesar’s.

Pete credits his employees with the success of Pizza Village.

“Over the years, I have had some very good folks who have worked here,” he said.

Today, even with three other pizza chains and two Italian restaurants, Pizza Village maintains a unique niche with its patrons – folks Pete and his staff call “family.”

It was this family that helped Pete through the loss of wife Helen Kay and younger daughter Natalie to cancer.

Pete genuinely loves his customers.

He recalled one customer telling him “You just want my money.”

Pete replied “I would still be glad to see you if you just stopped by and spoke.”

And he meant it.down a list of people who come as often as three times a week.

The Greg Clifton family is a regular at Pizza Village. Greg and wife Paula regularly bring sons Chase and Jacob and daughter Isabella. All are homeschooled and lunches at Pizza Village are a regular part of the daily school experience.

The list includes entire families, out-of-towners and tourists who discovered the eatery with their GPS units and have returned every year.

Elena said people en route to or from the beach stop in for a hot pizza and order several “half-baked” pizzas to go and cook them later for family and friends.

Pete still tells stories of the days when the younger members of the Whiteville Rescue Unit “held court” at the famous roundtable in the restaurant every Friday night.

A dozen or so rescue members, wearing their bright orange EMS coats, would entertain anyone within earshot for hours with their rescue tales.

Pete said the early years were tough, especially when Pizza Inn moved in and began a “coupon war” with Pizza Hut. Pizza Village survived, thanks to a daily lunch crowd comprised of Whiteville High School students who were on open lunch from the school.

Pete outlasted Pizza Inn and later, Little Caesar’s.

Pete credits his employees with the success of Pizza Village.

“Over the years, I have had some very good folks who have worked here,” he said.

Today, even with three other pizza chains and two Italian restaurants, Pizza Village maintains a unique niche with its patrons – folks Pete and his staff call “family.”

It was this family that helped Pete through the loss of wife Helen Kay and younger daughter Natalie to cancer.

Pete genuinely loves his customers.

He recalled one customer telling him “You just want my money.”

Pete replied “I would still be glad to see you if you just stopped by and spoke.”

And he meant it.

Spring/Summer 2013

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Love at the Foundation of a Life Well Designed

by WALLYCE TODD

J

Bill and Jane Valentine

This unassuming couple has delighted Jane was in seventh grade when she met the same company, Bill was one of three of her sweetheart. Bill would become her his 1962 Harvard graduate class who went themselves in each other since they marboyfriend, then her fiancée, and then her to work for HOK. When Bill began work- ried on Dec. 20, 1959, at the Methodist husband. Little did they know where life ing in St. Louis with the company, there church on Whiteville’s Pinckney Street, would lead them… from high school in were only about 50 people employed there. right across from Jane’s family home at Now, HOK is a world-renowned firm the time. While Bill has designed and won Columbus County to college in Raleigh to the Army in Maryland, to grad school in whose website (www.hok.com) declares is: awards for such significant buildings as the Massachusetts, to his first job in St. Louis “a global design, architecture, engineering Levi’s Plaza in San Francisco, the King and eventually onto the Bay Area of San and planning firm.” Bill served as designer, Khaled International Airport in Saudi Arapresident and then chairman of a corpora- bia and the Wellmark Headquarters in Des Francisco where the couple still lives.

Moines, Iowa, Jane has Their lifelong romance has been the foundation “Let’s make buildings better, not bigger.” reared their three children, and now relishes of the home Bill would return to during his lifelong architectural tion that currently can boast of “1,600 peo- her role as a grandparent. They both do.

Recently, the couple gifted Whiteville and design career with Hellmuth, Obata ple who collaborate across a network of 24 High School with $100,000, yet the Valenand Kassabaum (HOK). His work would offices on three continents.” take him around the country and around But the story began in an earlier era. tines drive a hybrid car, use solar panels to the world. If home is where the heart is, Jane Dorward Valentine is the wife of give heat and energy to their Marin Counthen home was always with Jane, from his William E. Valentine, known to his friends ty home and Bill says, “Jane is the most refreshman year in high school to his 51 years and colleagues as “Bill.” The Valentines cycling person you could ever meet.”

He continues, “We both went to school with HOK to his 53 years (and still going) spent much of their youth in Columbus as her husband.

County and much of their married life in there. It’s a great place. It’s where we met. It was a really excellent education. Columbus In a career that spanned five decades with California.

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Wellmark Headquarters

photography courtesy of Steve Hall, Hedrick Blessing

Wellmark Headquarters

Wellmark Des Moines, IA

• LEED platinum project, the highest environmental rating in the country • A downtown Des Moine project which houses about 2000 people • Built with more or less local materials

Spring/Summer 2013

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County is very much in need. Jane and I are big education proponents, especially of public education.”

Lake Waccamaw is also one of Jane’s favorite places in the world. Bill and she spend weeks to months in Columbus County every year; the county of their childhood remains dear to their hearts.

In fact, it was the woodwinds they both played as youngsters that began the music of their lives together.

Jane remembers fondly: “I was in seventh grade. He was in the ninth, I believe. I came to play the clarinet, and he

“As Americans, we’re wasting too much stuff. We’re 4 percent of the world’s population; yet, we’re using 25 percent of the world’s resources.”

One of Bill’s favorite projects in the last five years “is a headquarters for a company called Wellmark – which is Blue Cross/Blue Shield for Iowa and South Dakota,” he states. “First of all, the people were just incredible; they wanted to maximize space and use less.

They didn’t want to cut corners, but they wanted it to be really efficient. So, we got to do everything. We helped them

“When I was growing up, my father owned a tire-recapping shop. He spent his days grinding out old tires with a buffer in a room where the temperature was 110 degrees. So Dad helped people re-use their worn out tires. Most people in this town, including our family, earned a very modest income. Our efficient lifestyle was borne from necessity….” was playing the clarinet in the Whiteville band. We got to meet each other and we really liked each other. Wherever we were marching in a parade, we’d ride – going and coming back – holding hands on the band bus. I think it was Fairmont, where he bought me something to drink – I don’t know if it was a Coca-Cola or something…

I think it was a hamburger;” Bill interjects. “That was a quarter, not just a nickel.”

Jane laughs… “A hamburger, that makes it more impressive.”

“That was definitely a statement of intent,” Bill says with a corresponding laugh to accompany his sparkling eyes.

The two are comfortable in their repartee, and as long-time couples can often do, they are able to finish each other’s thoughts and sentences.

As a designer, Bill has a passion for “less being more.” He says: “America was founded on frugality – waste not, want not.” Current history indicates:

60

choose the site. We did all the interiors, all the architecture.”

Bill continues: “I led the design. There is an environmental rating system in the United States, which is spread across the world, called LEED (Leadership in Energy and Design), which comes in and rates buildings. Platinum buildings are fairly rare, but this is a LEED platinum building.

“For example, all the water – when it rains, is collected – and it is used for all the bathroom sinks and all the irrigation, so the building uses almost no water.”

He noted that there’s a big tank, like an Olympic Swimming pool, which catches the water underground and sorts it out when it’s needed. “And then, there are systems for making air condition and heating units use much less energy… and part of (it all) is using local materials,” explains the man who cares deeply about the earth and its sustainable resources.

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Highlighted Buildings Bill Designed George R. Moscone Convention Center

in San Francisco, CA - 1981

Levi Strauss Headquarters in San Francisco, CA – 1982

King Khaled International Airport in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia – 1983 Apple Computer Research & Development Campus in Cupertino, CA – 1993

303 Almaden Office Building in San Jose, CA 1995

Adobe System Headquarters in San Francisco, CA – 1996

Nortel Carling Research & Development Headquarters in Ottawa, Canada – 1998

City of Phoenix’s City Municipal Courthouse in Phoenix, AZ – 1999

Biogen IDEC INC Research Corporate Campus in San Diego, CA – 2004

Symantec, Culver City in Culver City, CA – 2007

Calstars Headquarters in Sacramento, CA – 2009

Wellmark Headquarters in Des Moines, IA – 2010

Biogen IDEC

photography courtesy of Scott McDonald, Hedrick Blessing

Bill was speaking at an environmental meeting in Toronto in 2011, highlighting “the power of less” when he realized: “I was feeling terrible.”

Understandably so, he had acute myeloid leukemia. “I was in the hospital for quite a while (about a month).” Even when he retired from HOK in 2012, he was still undergoing chemo.

However, he says: “I’m feeling great now. So far, I’m in remission.”

The retirement party honored Bill and his family in San Francisco. Levi’s never lets anybody have a private party, but they made an exception for Bill. HOK board members gathered from around the world to celebrate Bill’s career, as did friends and all his family.

When asked about what he hopes he leaves behind at HOK, Bill replies: “My hope… is that I think through the years, HOK has developed a certain soul. If my legacy is to play a very large role in getting that soul to care more about people, rather than pompous buildings and so on, then I think it would be a very good thing.”

HOK has been an integral part of the Valentines’ life. Bill declares: “I loved HOK and Jane and the children did as well.”

From being the son of a tire-shop owner and the daughter of a drivers license examiner to becoming a couple whose children and grandchildren light up their own world, the Valentines love each other and cherish the life they’ve been given.

For Bill, his career has played a major role in blessing him and his family: “It was a career that I literally could not have known how to dream.”

Biogen IDEC INC Research Corporate Campus

• A modern “Italian hill side town” • Designed to be a very friendly place to work… aspiringly the best lab environment in the world.

Spring/Summer 2013

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Levi’s Plaza San Francisco, CA

• 850,000 Square Feet • Designed to give a heart to an existing San Francisco Neighborhood.

• Designed to “fit in” to the small scale neighborhood. It is a large project but feels like an “in scale project” …rather than a blockbuster….. …… perhaps this kind a project might have some applicability to the Columbus County Court House… Brick, in a small, sweet scaled neighborhood…where the existing buildings were an almost precious simple existing buildings.

And where there is an existing “landmark building”.

Want to be in the next 954?

EMAIL US: 954mag@gmail.com CALL US: 910.642.4104 OR GO ONLINE: 954mag.com/contact & fill out a contact form

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| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

Levi Strauss Plaza

Phoenix Courts

photography courtesy of Nick Merrick, Hedrick Blessing

Phoenix Municipal courts Phoenix, AZ

• A climate based concept, which provides naturally lit spaces …all the light with only a small part of the heat, for a very hot climate like Phoenix.

• The stone for the project is local and was quarried within forty miles of the site • Designed to take advantage of the light filled but very hot climate….this may be a better way to say it.

Spring/Summer 2013

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top & bottom: Bill’s award night with HOK and acceptance speech

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Who is the couple that recently gave $100,000 to Whiteville High School?

Jane and Bill Valentine fell in love as fellow band members at WHS. Bill went on to head one of the largest architecture firms in the world, but the couple still retains a great fondness for their hometown and Lake Waccamaw.

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EARNESTINE KEATON’S ROOTS RUN DEEP IN EASTERN COLUMBUS

Earnestine

K e a t o n grew up in a large, hardworking family, hearing history around the Sunday dinner table, the tobacco field, and the church pew.

Like many African-Americans, she was part of the mass migration that left the farm fields and small towns of the South for better opportunities up north. Even after spending years in New York City, she still longed for home, and felt the need to be back in the coastal plain of North Carolina.

“There were many times we would pile in the car right after work and come home on a Friday,” she said. “Sometimes we would change clothes at work, sometimes when we got home, and go straight into the fields with the rest of the family, just like we hadn’t left.

“No matter what, we always had our roots here. Momma and Daddy made sure we took a piece of home with us wherever we went.”

Keaton’s love of family and her home country led to her drive to preserve history—not just the often-forgotten history of the former slaves and free black settlers of Sandyfield, East Arcadia, Freeman, Armour and Black Rock, but the history of the entire region.

“When you research your own family,” she said, “and you come across names like Gen. Robert Howe (a Revolutionary War general who owned a large plantation in the area) and they are connected with your own family—you get a sense of history, a sense of place.”

Growing up Earnestine is one of 12 children born to tobacco farmers, Willie and Mildred Keaton.

Everyone, including their children, refer to them as Buck and Wallie. The fact that they do not call their parents Mama and Daddy is not uncommon in African-American families. It became acceptable at a time when young couples could not afford their own homes and lived with his or her parents and, of course, the children called their parents by the name they heard while referring to their grandparents-Mama and Papa.

Earnestine divides herself and her 11 siblings into three groups. The older ones Bubba, Fredia, Nita and Phil are in the ‘A” group, while she puts herself, Willie Mae, Cecile and Fay in the “B” group. The “C” group, Randolph, Lionel and Devoria, are the young guns, those who could be any of the first two group’s children. They more than the first are challenged to do better while keeping the family connected to its past history of sharing and caring for others.

66

continued on page 52

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continued from page 50

Ernestine and most of the first two groups are retired, “but not from the job of being one of the Keatons- it’s demanding but it has benefits.”

For as long as she can remember, there was this inability to watch someone else work.

“It is a trait that began with my mama who loved the physical labor involved in farming tobacco and she was a natural boss—the one who was the first in the field and we followed.”

Today they no longer farm tobacco and all have their own families, including Earnestine, who has two sons, Christopher and Allen. Some have homes that circle the family home place on the land that was once fields. Others are close enough to have a visual presence.

Anyone who meets Earnestine notices two things: she is a talker and has a confidence in what she talks about, whether it is political or social. Growing up on a farm was not all work, but a history lesson as well. “We had free time for ourselves and could spend it roaming about, seeing people and places that connected me to the past.”

She spent hours of spare time reading tombstones at the Dickson family cemetery and seeing when certain ones were born and died. It was no surprise when she became the family historian.

Across the branch East Arcadia sits on the Bladen-Columbus line, and has its roots, with its sister town of Sandyfield, in Black Rock Plantation.

“Most of the people in East Arcadia were free issue,” Keaton explained. “My family came from across the branch, as we put it, in Sandyfield, and we were descended from slaves.”

Eastern Columbus and Bladen were in a state of change after the War Between the States.

Unlike many areas, where freed blacks found themselves at loose ends, the local family connections that stretched back more than a century before emancipation gave some former slaves in the area an advantage over their counterparts in other communities. Plus, the

68

nearest large city, Wilmington, had a tradition of free black property owners, craftsmen and black-owned businesses.

One of the major advantages, Keaton explained, was that the biggest crop in southeastern North Carolina wasn’t cotton, tobacco or grain, but naval stores.

Say the words plantation, and many conjure up visions of cotton fields and grand mansions.

In southeastern North Carolina, however, plantations were just as likely to have large, but more modest homes, and have pine trees instead of plants.

“With emancipation,” Keaton said, “there were still jobs for many who were already working in the woods. They just shifted from slavery to salaried work.”

Naval stores is the all-inclusive term used for the products of the long leaf pine tree—the sap, called rosin or resin, was collected from trees tapped by hand. While longleaf pines

out to other companies were still needed. Trades that were dependent on the naval stores i n d u s t r y — b l a c k s m i t h i n g, hands to ride rafts down river to Wilmington, and many others—were still needed as well.

“The transfer was a lot easier

“It made me feel even better to be one of “those Keatons.’ That’s something I could take pride in.” were valued for wide, straightgrained lumber, the trees are also the prolific producer of pine resin.

Gathered in buckets, the resin was distilled into turpentine or boiled into pitch, both of which were waterproofing agents used mainly in the maritime and boating trades, but in everyday life as well. Long leaf pines can produce the thick, golden syrup for up to 20 years before the tree weakens. At that point, the tree can be harvested for second-grade timber.

Stumps and heartwood from old dead pine trees produces “lighter” or “lightard” wood, from which tar is produced through a dangerous process using a specially-built kiln.

With the end of the war, Keaton said, the market for the valuable naval stores expanded—and the skilled laborers who had worked for years for a particular master or were hired

| 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

for many,” she said. “There was still a lot of agriculture, but many of the people here had their own land for the first time. That gave them a desire to work harder and succeed.”

One of those who personified that success was George “Mr. Georgia” Dickson. A former slave, Dickson bought land whenever he could, and sold that land back to struggling African-American families trying to establish their own homesteads. One of those families was Mrs. and Mrs. Buck Keaton—Earnestine’s parents.

Dickson was Mrs. Keaton’s grandfather, and was famous for admonishing those who bought his land to “farm the land and keep it in the family if you have to sell it.”

“He understood the value of ownership,” Keaton explained.

“He knew we needed those roots to come home to, the heritage and the values that helped

bring us up.”

Buck Keaton shared something more than just a work ethic with his grandfather-inlaw. Both were famous storytellers, as were many members of the family, and from an early age, Keaton began hearing tales of a freed black pastor from Alabama, his young bride from Black Rock, and an epic journey that produced many of the strongest traditionally black churches in eastern North Carolina.

Baptists on a mission Keaton’s road to her roots crosses the Cape Fear, meanders through the Pender County community of Canetuck and its neighboring Kelly in Bladen, and heads west to Missisippi and Alabama.

David Lloyd purchased Black Rock Plantation and other of Gen. Robert Howe’s property from Gov. Benjamin Smith in 1814. Smith had purchased the properties after the Revolutionary War hero’s death. In addition to naval stores, the plantation produced rice and tobacco, as well as subsistence crops. His son, Salter, would eventually become a state senator, but he was first and foremost a businessman. Interestingly, Lloyd’s state senate district closely resembled the one served for decades by Sen. R.C. Soles.

Salter Lloyd was one of the first plantation owners in the state to see the growing cotton trade as a good way to make money, and at the same time, cotton plantations were opening up along the Gulf Coast, especially in Mississippi and Louisiana. The farms were primitive, but the land was cheap and fertile. At its largest point, his holdings in North Carolina included 3,200 acres and 90 slaves, many of whom were taken west to work the new cotton farms.

Even in the wilderness, worship was important to the family, and around the turn of the 19th century, faith began playing a major role in the lives of both free and enslaved blacks across the country. As such, black pastors, preachers and itinerant evangelists became

more prominent in rural societies.

One of those early black pastors was the Rev. Richard Keaton (1825-1885). Keaton was a free black preacher from Alabama when he went to the Lloyd plantation to hold services.

Richard Keaton’s name is familiar to many residents of the Cape Fear region because of what he did after coming to North Carolina. The Reconstruction Era was a time of religious fervor, especially in the former slave communities, and churches were among the first things founded when the nowfreed people began creating their own communities.

Keaton is recognized nationally as a major leader of Black Missionary Baptist Movement in the state, which peaked from 1865 to1872.

The oral history tradition served him well, especially his strong roots in Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Sandyfield. Ironically, Buck Keaton didn’t tell about the pastor who founded the family here.

“He never told us about his great grandfather, Richard Keaton and his work in organizing churches except to say he was the first pastor of our church and his wife was off the Lloyd Plantation on Black Rock.”

Numerous churches he helped plant or pastor are still strong today, from Rosa Green in Kelly to Canetuck and Moores Creek in Currrie, to Keithren Chapel in Ivanhoe, Lakes Chapel in Atkinson and back to Mt Zion in Sandyfield.

Keaton says, “I get goose bumps when I visit one of his churches and think of him standing before former slaves, preaching to them at a time when they knew there was a God and He had heard their cry. You have to feel some pride when you see the name of one of your ancestors attached to something that’s nearly 150 years old and still going strong,” Keaton said.

Keaton and her sister Cecile started the Lower Bladen and Columbus Historical Society to help preserve the heritage of the area, and at the same time, build a bridge between the races.

The association holds close

the early values of those they seek to remember and honor as well.

“History also serves to remind us of our uniqueness as a community that started from nothing but faith.”

“One of those Keatons” Growing up as one of 12 children, Keaton said her parents worked hard to instill a number of traits in the entire family.

“There was always a lot of noise, and usually a lot of happiness, but there was also respect as well,” she said. “There was concern and care for others.

There was a love of the land, and a need to do well for the next generation. Daddy made it a point to remind us we weren’t sharecroppers—we were landowners, and had a different set of rules to follow. Our family had worked long and hard to get to where we were, and that same thing was expected of us.”

“We were blessed to have a reputation to live up to and not one to live down. One of the worse sins my mother thought we could commit was to be scornful. Her thinking was—if someone offered you food and you said, no thank you, it might hurt their feelings.”

Sunday afternoons saw the Keaton home and porches filled with children, grandchildren, cousins and families. That helped everyone get to know each other, Keaton said, and love and discipline could be handed out by any adult to any misbehaving child. She said all the Keaton children realized the same standards were expected from everyone—and that even if their family wasn’t around, people would be watching and remembering what they did.

“Momma always reminded us, ‘Don’t forget who you are and where you came from,’” Keaton said. “It took me a while to understand that, but what it was that she didn’t want us to do anything we might regret later, something that might embarrass the family.”

“I heard somebody once refer to my sister and me as ‘some of those Keatons,’” she said. “I didn’t think we were that special or pretty or anything. It took a

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while to see that they were watching us, wanting to see what we did, if we lived up to the reputation our families worked so hard to build.”

The close family ties that helped her develop a love for history also helped strengthen the family, even when most of the children had left home. Along the way, Keaton realized, that even as a grown woman in New York City, she still instinctively wanted to follow the guidelines laid out by her family. In 1997, when her father became ill, Keaton retired from a career with Verizon Communications in the World Trade Center and came home.

“I really didn’t want to come home yet,” she said, “but God has a way of putting people where He needs them. I needed to be here.”

Keaton never slows down; after her father’s death, she turned wholeheartedly into historic preservation and community work.

She has worked as a community college instructor, and advised her brother Randolph to start the Tri-County Joblink Center in Delco, where she helps with programs and classes to aid young people searching for jobs. She has served on the Columbus County Tourism Board, and currently serves on the board for the Friends of Fort Fisher.

Keaton led efforts to convert the old Freeman School on N.C. 11 into a community building—and market its use. Today, the old school is busy five days per week, and often has programs on weekends as well. It’s become a hub for the area, with senior meal services, art programs, afterschool programs, classes and meetings taking place in the buildings and on the grounds.

Keaton also worked to save the photography of Mack Munn, the son of former slaves who sold burial insurance and sundries from his scooter in the East Arcadia, Sandyfield and Freeman areas while taking hundreds of photographs that provide a rare glimpse into the life and lifestyles of African Americans in the 1940-1960 era. She was curator for the exhibit while it was at UNC-Wilmington, and worked to bring the Munn collection to the N.C. Museum of Forestry in Whiteville.

Her love of history is matched only by her love of family, Keaton said. The two go hand-in-hand, she explained. Of all the accomplishments she has attained through the years—many of which she is too modest to mention—one stands out the most in her mind.

It wasn’t her work with the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society, bringing the Munn photographs out of closets and drawers to be shared with the world, or even discovering how her own roots grow deep in the sandy tobacco fields and pine forests of Black Rock extended to the rich soil of Mississippi and back again.

“My daddy was a reader,” she said. “He read everything, all the time. If someone brought a newspaper from out of town to the fertilizer plant or the logging woods, he would bring it home. He worked hard, with his hands, but he wasn’t an ignorant man. He taught all of us to read as much as possible.”

Keaton’s proudest moments came when her first newspaper article was published in an area newspaper. She gave it to him while he was in his favorite spot—on the couch in the den. She didn’t tell him about her story but knowing how he read the paper from front to back, he would find the story on his own.

“The look in his eyes when he realized his daughter had written that—I can’t tell you what that meant,” she said.

“His response was not to tell me I had done a good job, but instead, he chuckled, and asked ‘where in the world did you come from?’

“With that he stuck it under the pillow on his couch and stretched out. That was another amazing grace moment and another story for me to tell.

“It made me feel even better to be one of ‘those Keatons’.

That’s something I could take pride in.”

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special

954

A Life Testifies: Never Give Up

by WALLYCE TODD

Peggy Blackmon’s life has not been boring.

In fact, if some knew all the challenges she has experienced, they would wonder how she managed to flourish and excel amidst it all.

She is a quiet powerhouse of perseverance and determination. Combined with this is her intense care for others - especially those in Columbus County who may also face hurdles and consider giving up instead moving forward.

In April, Peggy retired after 31 years at Southeastern Community College (SCC), where she was the Dean of Allied Health, Business and Technology. She had not always been dean; in fact, when she first attended SCC as a nursing student in 1971 – she was a mom on her own

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with four children.

She earned her associate degree in nursing in an era when single moms often experienced the stigma from divorce; yet, Blackmon didn’t let this affect her or the life she worked to create for her kids.

“Being a mom is the most important role I have ever had. It has brought me more pleasure than any position,” Blackmon said. “I went back to school because I had children. It was not for myself, for my profession – but it was because I had them. I went back to school because

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I wanted to rebuild our lives.”

She was born to Randy and Lois Williamson Yoder. “Daddy was in the army in WW II. Mother told me he got to come home and see me at the hospital just after I was born. He came to my grandparents’ during the month after my birth to see Mother and me before he left for overseas. I didn’t see him until I was well over 3 years old.”

When he came home, the recipient of a Purple Heart, Blackmon’s father built a small house in Whiteville. Later, four younger siblings, three sisters and one brother, were added to the Yoder family.

When Blackmon was jumping up inside her home at age 14 – she hit her head hard – leading to a brain injury that created a hearing loss in one of her ears. Two years later at age 16, she contracted meningitis and had surgery to repair the hairline fracture that had occurred due to the previous injury. After the surgery, she lost her sense of smell.

“Coping with hearing loss was just tough,” she acknowledges.

But tough does not deter Blackmon now, and it did not then.

“You get in difficult, unplanned situations. I was raised with adages: ‘Waste not. Want not.’ ‘Anticipation is half the enjoyment.’ When I’d get into certain situations, I’d remember those sayings. That was just the generation I’d come from.”

She took English and geometry in summer school and graduated a year early from high school. She speaks highly of the education she received in Columbus County: “Whiteville High School has my greatest compliments for the education I got there - as do all the public schools (in Whiteville) that I attended. I was in a lot of clubs

in high school, I was a marshal and in the Beta Club. I have great memories of WHS. I loved my classmates.”

She had just turned 16 when she began dating her first husband and fell in love. Kenneth Moss was the son of Robert and Mildred Moss.

They married in the same month she turned 17.

Blackmon recalls: “I was young and in love and I eloped. I was eager to experience life. I felt like I’d lost a lot. I was very excited about starting over again.”

As a new bride, she began attending college in Wilmington.

“Then I got pregnant and started my family and stopped going to college. Nearly a decade later, she was living in Florida with her husband and her four young ones. Life was again difficult, but it was not able to break her spirit even when “my marriage ended in 1969.”

It was the deep care she had for her offspring that inspired her to move back to the rural North Carolina community where she had been born and reared. The year was 1970, and change was in the air. “I came back to Whiteville and started over.”

Blackmon admits it was not easy.

“I never in my life saw myself as a divorced woman. That was painful.

Divorce was not acceptable in the generation I was raised. I had my children whom I loved dearly. They were wanted children – a blessing in my life. I was their strength and they gave me strength.”

That strength permeated into the years to come. When she moved back to Whiteville, she got reacquainted with her friend, Tim Blackmon. “Then, in 1971, I started back in school. I finished the whole

(nursing) program in fives semesters.

I studied so hard.”

Her memories continue about that season of her life: “My parents babysat. Tim, bless his heart, babysat. He encouraged me all through school. I guess we fell in love when I was in school. After I finished school with an Associate Degree in Nursing at SCC in May 1973, I married Tim in December of that year. He’s been a wonderful dad. It’s been a good life.”

“We made a family,” she continues. “We laughed a lot. We worked hard. I worked as a nurse (in a doctor’s office, then at National Spinning). Tim worked at The News Reporter and then started his own business. He started doing electronic repair. He did a home study course.”

The years would pass, and Peggy would be asked to teach at SCC, then she would pursue her bachelor’s degree, followed by her master’s degree.

She would go from teaching partstime to being a full-time instructor

to becoming a dean of a large number of departments at SCC. “I fell in love with teaching at SCC,” she said. “I studied harder than my students because I wanted them to know more facts than I did and how to apply what they were learning.”

Those varied departments have since been divided amongst several deans now that Blackmon is retired.

“I very much enjoyed working at Southeastern. I loved advising students, hoping I could inspire the students to stay in school and go on,” she said. “We have outstanding faculty at Southeastern. It’s a good place to work. It’s a good place to go to school.”

Yet, this time was not without its own challenges, both in her health and in her pursuit of the additional degrees. Trials, of course, do not stop her. “I love to learn. I love to do new things. I love a challenge… a challenge gives me something to set

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She is a quiet powerhouse of perseverance and determination.

my sights on,” Blackmon admits.

During one of the years when she was commuting two days a week on two-lane roads to Wilmington, Charlotte and eventually Greenville for all her additional degrees, Peggy remembers: “I had ovarian cancer. I was blessed it was found it early enough that it could be treated and I could stay in school.”

Before she retired, Peggy had back surgery. She wears braces on her ankles for additional support as she continues to recover. As always, she keeps on keeping on.

“I’m finding ‘me’ now. I’ve put off some things… so now, I’m scrapbooking,” she said. “The clutter I’ve thrown in bins, I’m pulling it out and trying to get it organized. My goal for the next five years is to tap

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into some creative things.”

Blackmon’s passion is to help inspire others who might find themselves in the same situation she did.

“Many times, young men and young women find themselves, like I did, having to restart their life and that’s where – for me – SCC reached out its hand, and I want to do the same for anyone else in the same situation.”

As an educator, as a woman, as a mom and as a professional, Blackmon is emphatic about how she hopes her life can be a lesson.

“If I can encourage anybody, it is to say: ‘Life’s going to give us obstacles. It’s going to give us illnesses.

It’s going to give us challenges. You must set a goal. Quitting is not an option.”

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Entertaining

Events

Tabor City Chamber of Commerce

Left: Tabor City Councilman Lamont Grate presented the Outstanding Business Award to Frances Gablehouse and her staff at Elite One Insurance, Heather Hammonds, Andrea Coleman, and Ashley James, right to left. ; Right: Youth directors recognized were, left to right; Lesley Hilburn, Jaden Miller, Holly Miller, Desiree McClellan, Ashley James and Abby Leonard.

Whiteville Junior Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Club Ball

Clockwise from top left: All past presidents were invited. The following attended: Beth Bullard, Amy Bailey, Amanda Tedder, Susan Deans, Rita Todd, Kelly Young, Rachel Smith, Stephanie Miller, Janice Young, and Terrie Priest.; Debbie Viets, Paula Smith, Leigh Cook, Janet Gray (center, front) Rhonda Scott ; Amanda Tedder, Melissa and Kevin Williamson ; Crystal Duncan, Rachel Smith and (standing) Meredith Tedder ; Pam Enzor, Grayanna Ray Young, and Lacey Hooks ; Whiteville Junior Womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Club members.

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photos courtesy of Justin Smith

Whiteville Chamber of Commerce

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Entertaining

Events

Left to Right: Susan Deans and Sally Mann ; Carolyn Blanks, Irene Smith, and Samantha Alsup ; Keith Alsup and Joey Schultz

Fair Bluff Chamber of Commerce

Left to Right: Fair Bluff Commissioner Clarice Faison, Wanda Lennon and Paul Gerald of G&G Healthcare ; Bill Waddell, Margaret Greene, Kaitlin Ashley and Kathy Ashley of Frank Horne Construction and Horne Bay Farms, Mary Alice Thompson and Betty Willis of the Fair Bluff Historical photos courtesy of Allen Turner Society.

Juniorettes Dance

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Entertaining

Events

Clockwise from top right: Having fun awaiting their presentation, debutantes Kate Meekins, Marianna Baggett, Ashlyn Cox, Jaclyn Koonce and Carly High with Son of Cotillion Alston Ray before the ball.; The fathers make their way for the first dance with their daughters.; Sterling and Caroline Koonce dancing.; Marianna Baggett and escort, Council Rix; Ashlyn Cox and father Kyle Cox. ; In their reception attire, debs Marianna Baggett, Jaclyn Koonce, Ashlyn Cox, Carly High and Kate Meekins.

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Cotillion Debutante Ball

Bonus Pics

954 Digital Exclusive

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Events

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Entertaining

Events

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Bonus Pics

954 Digital Exclusive

Bonus Pics

954 Digital Exclusive

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Events

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Bonus Pics

954 Digital Exclusive

Bonus Pics

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Calendar Of Events April 13 SCC Foundation dinner theatre honoring Dewey Hill, 6 p.m., T-Bldg.

April 13-15 American Power Boat Race at Lake Tabor Free to the public Hydro Plane Boat Race April 18 Senior Prom at Vineland Station, 5-7:30 p.m.

Presented by Columbus County Department of Aging. For more information call 910-640-6602.

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April 19-20 B-B-Q on the Bluff – B.B.Q. cooking competition sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of Fair Bluff. Call 910-649-7202 for more information or visit fairbluff.com May 3 Columbus Boomer Games Events; April 13-24, Boomer Awards Celebration 2-4 p.m. at SCC Building T (free). Visit Columbusco.org for information.

May 4 – 79th Annual Strawberry Festival Parade and Scholarship Pageant in Chadbourn. Visit ncstrawberryfestival.com for full event schedule.

May 9 – The 13th Annual Lunch on the Lawn & Tour of Homes -tickets are available now at the Depot Museum, Lake Waccamaw Town Hall, Whiteville Chamber of Commerce or from any board member. Lunch is $20 and tour is $10.

May 11 Columbus County Farmer’s Market opens for the season.

Market open every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. For hours and events visit columbuscountyfamersmarket. com

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Jack Meares, R Ph | 954mag.com | Spring/Summer 2013

May 14 30th Annual Senior Picnic and Fair, County Fair Grounds, 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

For information call 910-640-6602.

May 21-23 Department of Aging trip to Savannah, Ga. and Charleston, S.C. Cost $339 per person/double occupancy. Contact the Department of Aging, 910-640-6602.

June 15 – The North Carolina Cardboard Boat Championships at the Lake Waccamaw Sailing Club. Sponsored by the Whiteville Rotary Club. Visit www.nccardboardboatchampionships.com for more information.

June 15-16 Waccamaw Equestrian Horseshow at Boys and Girls Home Arena, Lake Waccamaw. Visit waccamawequestrian.com for schedule.

July 19-20 Watermelon Festival Riverfront in downtown Fair Bluff Parade, Teen and Queen Pageants and Duck Race on the Lumber River. Contact ncwatermelonfestival@yahoo. com

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Kelly www.wwpemlaw.com Spring/Summer 2013Sansone-Galley | 954mag.com | 91

We’ve changed our name to represent a whole new level of healthcare.

For generations, Southeastern Regional Medical Center has been the foundation of healthcare throughout this part of North Carolina. As your families have grown, so too, has ours. We’ve grown into a complete medical system of state-of-the-art services, facilities and primary care clinics. The hospital, which will continue to be known as Southeastern Regional Medical Center, is only the beginning of a much larger picture of health services that are all connected, and all in touch with your needs.

We believe excellent healthcare is more than being here when you need us. It’s about being here when you don’t. We want to help you not only “be” healthy, but “stay” healthy, so you can enjoy the things you love.

That’s a new direction in healthcare — and one that deserves a new name.

300 West 27th Street | Lumberton, NC | (910) 671-5000 | www.southeasternhealth.org

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