954 Magazine _ Fall 2014 Edition

EVERY

SQUARE MILE OF COLUMBUS COUNTY

Lisa Richey

Soul Speak Kenneth White

Captures Heritage in Art

Elliott Turner Spends a Summer in Antarctica

Linwood Pridgen: The Man With the Gifted Hands

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contents

10_

954 Finds

12_

Drums, Drumming Definitely Define Dudley

15_

His Art Captures the History and Heritage of the Area

18_

Rockabilly Music Is Still Alive

21_

Holiday Wreath D.I.Y.

23_ 52

Linwood Pridgen: The Gifted One

26_

Ancient Oak Tree Was Crown Jewel Of Wedding Reception

30_

Turner enjoyed stint in Antarctica

34_

Everyday Functional Training

36_

From Spina Bifida to Queen for a Day

44_

The Ultimate Bait

15

46_

Old Theatre Is Now A New Events Center

50_

James Council: Still Pedaling the State

52_

Kicking The Walls, Jumping On The Floors

58_

Nickerson Directs West Columbus High School Bands to Success

64_

Collecting Wine

70_ 12 #954mag @954_Magazine 6 | 954 | Fall 2014

Lisa Richey: Soul Speak

74_

Gluten, Celiac Disease, Weight Loss and Your Health

76_

Entertaining and Events

on the cover...

Lisa Richey

Cover photography by Fuller Royal

Fall 2014 Volume II Issue II The News Reporter Company, Inc. Whiteville, NC 910.642.4104 EDITOR Les High CREATIVE DIRECTOR Abigail Spach ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Dean Lewis ADVERTISING Amelia Sasser . TJ Enzor Hanne Richards CONTRIBUTING EDITORIAL Dan Biser . Briana Cahn Clara Cartette . Nicole Cartrette Cynthia Hansen . Bob High Stuart High . Gary Kramer . Fuller Royal Wallyce Todd . Jefferson Weaver . Ray Wyche CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Fuller Royal . Mary Kindschuh . Bob High

Fall 2014 | 954 | 7

8 | 954 | Fall 2014

l a i c e p S oliday H e r P avings!

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Fall 2014 | 954 | 9

finds

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finds

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Arts& Culture

Drums, Drumming Definitely Define Dudley by fuller royal Photography by Fuller royal

Matt Dudley picked up his first drumstick at 8.

Ever since, his life has been drumming.

“My brother Shane Dudley played snare drum for Hallsboro High School,” Dudley said.

“I can remember my brother had a snare drum in his room. I would sneak in and play it when he wasn’t around,” Dudley recalled.

Later, the deal was sealed while watching MTV. “I can remember seeing Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich sitting, with a camera angled at his feet showing him doing the bass pedal stuff and man, this guy looked like a super-human.”

Dudley never really took formal lessons.

“My brother was teaching me stuff,” he said. “That was basically my first lesson. He taught me a lot about rudiments and techniques. By the time I was 8 years old until sixth grade, when I first started band, I already knew all the fundamentals and I knew how to read basic drum notation.

“The rest of it, I learned from (retired East Columbus High School band director) Robert Page,” he said. “Once I got in school, he was a huge influence on me being a musician, as was my brother.”

Dudley’s talent quickly paid off.

“I made first chair in all-county band for five years in a row and was second chair in the all-district band when I was in eighth grade.”

By 10th grade, the seniors had graduated and Dudley became drum captain of the ECHS Marching Gator Band.

“Marching season – I loved that the most.

Concert season was good, but marching season was my favorite. I always looked forward to marching,” he said. “Those were my favorite things – parades and competitions. I was always gung-ho. I have always been this huge drum nerd.

“I have always kept up with everything possible related to drumming,” he said.

12 | 954 | Fall 2014

“If 10 years from now all I am doing is blogging and teaching, then I am completely fine with that. My measure of success is not money, but what I can do to help someone and to grow as a drummer. I want to give back to other people and be happy with who I am.”

-Matt Dudley In 11th grade, he branched out.

“I started helping out friends,” he said.

“They were doing a gospel album in a Conway recording studio and asked me if I would help with drum tracks for it. I went and that was basically my first drum session to be recorded.

“That got me thinking that I needed to do that more often,” he said.

He wanted to do more recordings with other people or get in a band where he could record an album.

“After that, I started a band with some of my friends here in Whiteville – Jonathan Cigary, Daniel Purifoy and Daniel Sarvis,” Dudley said. “It was called ‘Unpaved.’ We basically put together a praise and worship band and ended up being a Christian rock band.”

Their first performance was at the county fair.

“Our second show was at the House of Blues restaurant (in North Myrtle Beach). We did radio interviews for 101.7. We also recorded our own album with a guy who went to church with us.”

“Unpaved” competed in the Battle of the Bands at Six Flags Over Georgia.

“We didn’t win, but we did pretty good,” he said. “After that, everyone went to school.”

He played with other bands and made friends with band mates Ryan Lee, Austin McPherson and Jarrod Cox. “We put a band together called ‘Central’,” Dudley said. “I played with those guys for a long time. While in that band, I was going to college at SCC for electrical technology and finished with my degree.”

Still playing with various bands and recording demos, he looked for work.

“I was trying to find a job with my new degree,” he said. “I didn’t have the experience.”

He went through a series of odd jobs before deciding to offer drum lessons.

“I stated teaching in January 2003,” he said.

In 2006, he returned to SCC. “I ended up going back to college,” he said.

“I wanted to pursue a music degree. My passion is drums. The whole electrical degree was a security option. I thought about making money and doing drums as a hobby.

“I needed to do something I would be happy with,” he said. “To wake up each day and enjoy what I do. I don’t want to base happiness

on retirement down the road. I want every day to be an adventure and to push myself and do what I love.”

He transferred to UNC-Pembroke.

“I was 26 at the time,” he said. “Just to get into the music department was hard.”

He had to audition with solo performance on a snare drum, a marimba and a timpani drum.

“I had to play all the major styles on a drum set,” Dudley said. “I had (former Whiteville High School band director) Chance Bryant helping me. He would let me come in and use his equipment to rehearse on.”

Dudley prepared for six months, working four to five days a week on his audition.

He also received help from former South Columbus High School band director Britton Goodwin.

“While I was learning all of that, I had to have 12 drum warm-ups memorized for the drum line tryouts with UNC-P’s Spirit of the Carolinas Marching Band,” he said.

He didn’t know that the day he would audition for the music department was also the same day he would try out for the drum line.

“I was stressed out of my mind and thought I would never make it,” he said.

“I went and had the drum line tryout,” he said, “I was nervous. I had not even gotten into the school.

“They told us to stand in front of the drum we wanted to try out for. I went through all the drum warm-ups. We did some sight-reading.

We all performed as a brand new drum line.”

After the exhausting audition, Dudley and the others took a breather.

“A guy walks in and walks up to each person saying ‘you’re in’,” Dudley said. “I can remember dropping a tear out of my eye like a little girl. I worked my butt off.

“After that, I had to try out to get into the music department,” he said. “Everything worked out. I even got a scholarship to play drums.”

While there, Dudley studied under drummer Pat Petrillo, who performed with Gloria Gaynor, Patti LaBelle, Dee-Lite, Patti Smythe and Glen Burtnik, as well as jazz guitarist Ed Hamilton, and most recently the world music group Oko Jumu.

Petrillo also performed on Broadway in “A Chorus Line,” “Grease.” “Footloose” and “Dreamgirls.”

Dudley said his degree was something new at UNCP, aimed toward the music industry/ business.

“We were the guinea pigs,” he said, adding that he was taking classes such as recording technology.

College was not to last.

“I ended up having to leave after only two semesters,” he said. “I couldn’t afford school. I was taking 14 credit hours and drum line practice was until 6:30 p.m. three days per week with games on Saturday.”

He was also performing for Sunday morning church services.

“I never had a day off,” he said. “I wasn’t able to work because of all the long hours.”

He did have six music students, which helped him pay for gas and some of the bills.

“I couldn’t do it,” he said.

“The degree I was working towards was not a professional degree, but an entrepreneurial degree,” he said, adding that since he was “already doing that,” he made the decision to quit college in 2010.

“I wouldn’t trade drum line for anything,” he said, “It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was military-like and we were close knit. You couldn’t slack off and you didn’t want to let anybody down. It was one of the only moments I have ever felt like I was on a solid team.

“I learned a lot of different styles of music while I was there,” he continued. “I met a lot of good people with whom I am still friends and who have gone on to do some cool stuff. It taught me a lot about myself.”

Today, Dudley is pushing hard, working to make a living from the drumming he loves.

He has built a website that is dedicated to any and all things drumming, and has worked to keep his drum lesson slots filled with students.

His promotional efforts – website, blog, business cards and signs – have paid off with the addition of 12 students in just one week to his growing list of drummers.

“From that point, I have taught fulltime, private lessons Monday through Friday.

He is also helping coach the drum lines at East Columbus and South Columbus high schools.

He is playing in several bands and is available to help lay down tracks of recordings.

He has also been playing at Lifepoint Church in Wilmington.

“The experience is different,” he said. “It’s the same style, but more rock driven there. It’s a younger group with more college students.

“I was just talking to a friend about my goals,” he said. “From not even four months ago they have completely changed.

Dudley said his website (www.mattdudleydrumming.com) is different now.

“It is for me to give back to the drum community,” he said. “What I really want to do is show my passion for drums to help other people and to get them started in drums or to help them at whatever point they’re at. My website is dedicated to everything drumming, from new products to new events. I’m posting anything related to drums, including product reviews and interviews with other drummers.

“If 10 years from now all I am doing is blogging and teaching, then I am completely fine with that,” he said. “My measure of success is not money, but what I can do to help someone and to grow as a drummer. I want to give back to other people and be happy with who I am.”

Fall 2014 | 954 | 13

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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Arts& Culture

His Art Captures the History and Heritage of the Area by nicole cartrette Photography by Fuller royal

In Kenneth White’s sign shop and art studio in North Whiteville, the past thrives in idyllic landscapes and eye-catching portraits on canvas.

Detailed images of inviting farmland, local marshes, rustic tobacco barns and realistic wildlife are just a few of the subjects that the artist uses to celebrate Columbus County and Southeastern North Carolina.

Intricate feathers in vivid colors bring to life ducks on still waters in a work of exceptional realism. A piece that captures the former Sunset Beach Bridge is a serene yet haunting reminder of days gone by in the nearby coastal town.

Aging, sun-lit tobacco barns in a warm tobacco field is another White painting that pays tribute to Columbus County’s rich agricultural heritage.

Though his paintings of individuals are fewer,

they, too, bring a feeling of nostalgia. One of his better known works is a painting created for the first North Carolina Pecan Festival.

It offers a glimpse into the soul of the Southern farmer. The acrylic painting portrays an aging man with a life-like straw hat upon his head, as he sits at the edge of a wood barn.

Pecans are overflowing from his large wrinkled hands and the weathered tin roof of the barn offers the subject an inviting shady spot.

“It’s a really cool painting that says something about this area - the barn, the old man, the pecans,” White said of the piece that Suzanne King inspired him to paint.

The story behind the popular image is perhaps as intriguing as the piece itself.

Bill Thompson Sr. played the role of the old man in a photography

shoot planned as a sort of precursor to the painting.

Thompson sat in a chair with a basket of pecans.

There was no barn, no straw hat, no shade. Those were all details of White’s imagination.

“I wanted an old scene,” White said.

White carefully added wood grain to the imaginary barn, looped straw in the hat and brought texture to the pecans in such a way that one is transported

for a moment to that time and place.

For White, it is a great compliment to be told the painting reminds others of someone important to them.

“Sometimes it is a

Fall 2014 | 954 | 15

granddaddy they see or an uncle. Whatever they get out of it, if it means something to them, I’ve accomplished something,” White said.

The 53-year-old painter’s process is fascinating.

He might photograph an amazing sunset today, yet paint it decades later. That is the case for one of his barn paintings.

“I photographed those barns in the 1980s but just painted them three years ago,” White pointed out.

For White, bringing 16 | 954 | Fall 2014

forgotten places back to life is thrilling, yet challenging. The patient painter spends as many as hundreds of hours on some of his pieces.

“I may start two or three paintings at once but only one will get finished,” White said.

At least 15 or more pieces remain unfinished, unable to meet the expectations of his own worst critic - himself.

The humorous and down-to-earth White has actions that suggest he has

a real appetite for life, nature and history. He takes the time to see serene beauty in everyday life and common landscapes of the area.

“I saw this beautiful sunrise on the way to work. It was one that everybody passes but no one really takes the time to see,” White explained.

I stopped and took a photograph.” In time, White will extend the life of that moment through his brush strokes.

His paintings offer oth-

ers more than an experience of taking notice. It is more than a powerful image he wants to portray.

“I want it to mean something,” White said.

White’s work is evident of his many talents, interests and willingness to try new things.

While much of his work is in realism, he is branching out into more impressionistic forms of art and shows a real talent for it in a painting of a hunting dog splashing through a marsh in pursuit of birds.

The busy yet relaxed brush strokes create a playful scene of his friend Billy Jackson’s golden-haired hunting companion.

White said he wants to create more images like it.

Standing in the lobby of his Whiteville business, Signs and Designs, one feels as if he is in a cozy art gallery. One is hard pressed to imagine a time when such a talented painter lacked the confidence needed to pursue his talents, but White said there was such a time.

“I want it to mean something.”

-White

“I really wanted to be an artist,” White said. “I didn’t know I could.”

Growing up in Clarkton, he attended Clarkton High School where he credits teacher Ed Harris with getting him “fired up” about art. “I’ve thanked him many times for that,” a grateful White confessed.

He learned a lot about perspective, drawing, modeling and shading, he said.

After high school, thumbing through a community college course catalogue at Pitt Community College led the eager young man to pursue classes in drafting, computer design and photography via a commercial art program.

“I really didn’t know

what commercial art was,” White laughed.

He pursued whatever interests could hold his attention. One day he was fascinated with a man painting a roadside billboard while suspended in the air. That chance moment led to a lifelong career and business.

It wasn’t long before White, too, was 40 feet in the air doing lettering and painting billboards for a company out of Dillon, S.C. “I learned the sign business being in the billboard business,” White said.

He learned sandblasted sign-making after seeing a nice sandblasted sign and simply deciding: “I want to do that.”

He said he has benefited from the help of others and isn’t afraid to learn from others or ask for help.

Mike Cole of Cole Monuments in Whiteville lent him a sandblaster and helped him pursue his desire to learn more about it.

“I get obsessed,” White said of his creative pursuits.

For an artist with varied interests and skills, White puts on an impressive balancing act. His busy signmaking business remains a priority while he juggles pursuing his passion for painting.

White seems unconcerned with labels and very comfortable leaving his options open in his artwork and future endeavors.

Regardless of his title at the moment (wildlife painter, landscape artist, portrait painter), what White achieves with

paint, brush and canvas is preserving the flavor of Southeastern North Carolina scenery, history and heritage.

Past showings of his works have been held at the Columbus County Arts Center, local restaurants and regional wineries.

For someone who seems to have mastered playing with light, motion, color and shade, White is humble about his works.

He is vocal about his eagerness to soak up more knowledge about art and improve his works.

His advice to other aspiring artists is to never stop learning.

“Get lessons from the best. To better understand color, reflective light, shading and perspective, the way I learned was going to shows. It’s very inspiring

to see others’ artwork. I see things that are incredible.

To achieve that effect that I am after in my own work is always a challenge,” White said.

A creative life may not have been what White envisioned possible years ago when he was just a child with a mother who thought if he drew a stick figure it was the most beautiful thing she ever saw, but with the help and support of Lynn, his wife and business partner of 23 years, the Whiteville couple has found, for now, a comfortable balance.

The part-time artist admits painting has not always been lucrative but definitely worthwhile.

“I’m not saying it has made me a million but I’ve enjoyed my life because of it,” White said.

Fall 2014 | 954 | 17

Arts& Culture

Craig Peacock (left) and brother Don play at The Emporium

Rockabilly Music Is Still Alive by ray wyche Photography by mary kindschuh

What do a funeral home manager, a drum instructor, a podiatrist, and an office machine technician have in common?

Honey Don’t.

Honey Don’t is the uncommon, puzzling and oft-questioned name of a local band that specializes in rockabilly music played by the aforementioned four men.

The four are Craig Peacock, Matt Dudley, Dr. Don Peacock and Scott Worthington. The four, all of whom have day jobs, have been together musically for about two years but their association goes farther back.

The Peacocks are brothers, Dudley is a semi-professional drummer who occasionally plays with other groups, and Worthington was in Whiteville High School with Craig Peacock. The two roomed together at East Carolina University. Don Peacock is the older brother of Craig and has a thriving podiatry practice in Whiteville.

Craig Peacock and his brother Kyle jointly own and operate the family business, Peacock’s Chapel in the Pines Funeral Home.

Craig and Don Peacock play guitar and sing, Worthington plays the lead guitar, and Dudley handles the drum set.

It’s the mystifying name of the group that immediately raises the question; From where and why the irrelevant and unusual name?

Craig Peacock says the answer comes from an early rockabilly song.

The group had been playing — without a name — in several ven-

18 | 954 | Fall 2014

ues: clubs at nearby beaches, parties, receptions, weddings and company events. The band was heard also at the Columbus County Fair last month.

Honey Don’t also performs at The Emporium, a consignment store in downtown Whiteville that invites local and area bands to play every Friday night.

When Jimmy Mauldin, who operates the Emporium in the old Leder Brothers Department Store on Madison Street, invited the group to play at one of The Emporium’s Friday night concerts, he asked Craig Peacock the name of the group. Peacock answered: “We don’t have a name.”

“I’ve got to have a name to introduce you,” Mauldin remarked.

Since he was talking to Craig and time for the band to begin playing was getting short, Craig says the title of an early rockabilly song came to him: “Honey Don’t.”

Most people, when they first read or hear the unusual name, flash a puzzled look on their faces.

Rockabilly music is an amalgam of early rock-and-roll, hillbilly, punk rock, rhythm and blues, and country music. The big band era of popular music was fading in popularity by the early 1950s as rock and roll and its close-kin music were catching on. Rockabilly also has among its ancestors the rock and roll style that peaked in the early 1950s. Like early rock and roll, rockabilly songs are heavy on the rhythm. Rock musicians in Southern states seem to

have been more attracted to playing this new sound variety of their favorite musical genre than musicians in other places.

Strangely (especially to the unenlightened listener), Honey Don’t sticks with acoustical guitars in an era in which most bands go strongly for electrified instruments that have volume controls that reach the earbusting level.

Those musicians who embraced rockabilly found a ready playlist of rockabilly tunes available, and budding songwriters ready to turn out more songs.

Honey Don’t was the title of a song in the rockabilly genre, one of the tunes that the Honey Don’t group grew up with. The name is even more surprising in that it has a verb in it, unlike some other rockabilly pieces such as “Hoochie Coochie Daddy,” “Rat House,” “Sweet Hell,” “BlackRats,” and “Louie, Louie.”

Along with the odd-ball names rockabilly artists choose for their compositions, the musicians were just as imaginative when selecting names for their bands. Some of the more far-out names chosen are The Baboons, Stray Cats, Blue Teardrops, Farmer Boys, and The Hell Freaks.

To add to the rockabilly concept at public concerts, rockabilly clothing from the birth era of the genre is available at many outlets, and many bands dress in the 1950s styles.

Craig Peacock says rockabilly music is not to everybody’s taste, so

the band can handle other types of tunes as well as rockabilly. In fact, when Craig is explaining funeral service choices to the family of the deceased, he reminds them that a piano and organ are in the funeral chapel, and if the family wants guitar music, he mentions, “And I play guitar.”

Honey Don’t plays music in a variety of styles.

“We play rock and roll, folk — just about anything,” he says.

He plays solo guitar at funerals and sticks to the old familiar hymns, such as “In the Garden” and “The Old Rugged Cross.”

Craig Peacock says he got into music because his older brother Don taught him to play guitar. Both Peacocks are graduates of East Carolina University and both majored in science.

The band has no appointed leader or director.

“We’re all in it together,” Craig says.

None of the band has had any music training beyond what they learned on their own and from other band members. Despite their two years of successful performances, the group holds practice sessions weekly.

Craig Peacock says the band doesn’t go for “winging it,” playing a song they have not rehearsed at least several times. What they play comes from within them, and Craig Peacock sums it up best: “You’ve got to have a feel for music.”

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Working with our clients to achieve their financial goals since 1941 horizontal.indd 20s preson | 954douglas | Fall1-2 2014

1

10/27/14 11:00 AM

Holiday Wreath

Materials: 14” wire wreath frame Scissors (3) 15 foot rolls 5“ burlap ribbon (1) Roll complimentary-colored burlap or wired ribbon to hang wreath (1) roll 26 gauge floral wire Your choice of silk flowers and greenery to compliment your décor and transition your wreath from fall to holiday decorating.

d.i.y.

by Hanne Richards

Supplies: 14" wire frame, burlap ribbon, wir e, scissors, silk flowers, greenery, wired ribbon

p ecure burla Step 1: S th wrea ribbon to

Step 2: Wea ve burlap in and out of wire fram e

ecorate Step 3: D

th your wrea

*We chose a ready-made “bunch” of cream-colored flowers for our fall wreath and deep-red hues as replacement flowers for the holiday wreath. Each “bunch” had at least three large “blooms” and the “greenery” to accent each wreath. **We did not use hot glue in this project.

Assembling your burlap wreath is a very easy project. The hardest part is deciding your colorscheme and flowers.

Once you have made your purchases or repurpose your own materials, spread all the components out on a table.

Twist a 4” piece of floral wire to one end of your 5” burlap ribbon and secure the ribbon to the back of the frame on the first row of wire.

Pull about 4” of ribbon up through the wire form and underneath the outside row and simply weave the ribbon in and out and work your way around the wreath frame. You can make your wreath as fluffy as you like.

When you get to the end of the roll of burlap ribbon, secure the end to the frame with floral wire and continue with the second and third roll as you did with the first.

The burlap is very forgiving and you can twist and fluff the ribbon the way you like it once you have filled the frame.

To decorate your wreath, we used floral wire to secure the silk flowers and greenery. It’s very easy to get the wire through the burlap and twist to the frame. We took our ready-made “bunch” of flowers apart, which left us with nice “stems” on the flowers to attach to the frame.

Next we cut a 40” strip of wired burlap ribbon and used it as a hanger for the wreath. We looped the ribbon under the top of the wreath and tied a bow at the top and let the “legs” of the bow hang down. The knot in the bow fit our door hook perfectly, but you can wire the top of the bow to your hanger to make it extra secure.

To transition to the holiday look for our wreath, we unwired the fall flowers and secured the deepred hued flowers with floral wire to the frame. We swapped out the brown burlap hanging ribbon with 36” of green-wired ribbon. We used the extra green ribbon to make a traditional wreath bow and secured it the frame with wire. Changing the flowers and bow, gave us a completely new look.

Enjoy your holidays a little more by saving time and money with your homemade custom wreath for all seasons.

Thank You to Hanne Richards, Classifieds Manager for this D.I.Y.

Fall 2014 | 954 | 21

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10/27/14 11:00 AM

Linwood Pridgen –

The Man With the Gifted Hands

Arts& Culture

by bob high Photography by fuller royal & bob high

One of seven boys and five girls born to Ernest and Thelma Laura Smith Pridgen, Linwood Pridgen still loves a challenge – anything to make him use his mind.

When he was a youngster in the late 1940s, Linwood’s lack of attention in school worried his teachers. His fifth grade teacher made an unannounced trip to the Pridgen home along East Clay Street in Whiteville, and casually walked over to the Pridgen woodworking shop.

The teacher saw Linwood busily helping his father build precision kitchen cabinets, and after watching for a few minutes, she left and went to the Pridgen home where she knocked on the front door.

Linwood’s mother went to the door, and the teacher blurted, “Well, I won’t worry about him

any more.” Linwood’s mother asked for an explanation, and soon learned the teacher couldn’t get the youngster to pay attention in class.

“the more complicated something was to make, the less problems i had” “I was usually gazing out the window, or playing with my ears. School work wasn’t interesting

to me, I was bored to death,” Linwood says with a grin.

Linwood followed in his father’s footsteps.

Ernest Pridgen had a third-grade education.

Linwood finished the 10th grade, and that was it for formal education. However, as his father demonstrated, book learning wasn’t necessary.

“One day, my father told a banker, ‘If people like me didn’t drop out of school and start a business, then those who go to college wouldn’t have a place to work.’”

Of course that’s not so true in today’s rapidly changing business climate, most of it geared to computers and many other electronic gadgets and inventions. But for Ernest Pridgen and his large family, and his second-eldest son, Linwood, it was the ticket to success.

Linwood Pridgen explains the process of inserting heavy armorplate for the judges’ benches in the new courthouse annex here.

Fall 2014 | 954 | 23

Linwood Pridgen, left, and brother Paul are pictured in front of a pin router used by founder and father Ernest Pridgen in the Wilmington shipyards in the 1940s, which he then purchased in the 1950s. The machine is still used today.

The Pridgen reputation for skill, quality and making good on their word has led a bevy of contractors and architects to the Pridgen Woodwork Company’s doors in recent decades.

Pridgen gives ‘full measure’ The Pridgen family prides itself on delivering superior quality work

24 | 954 | Fall 2014

at reasonable prices. Linwood is proud when he speaks of his grandfather’s advice to his son Ernest.

“My grandfather always started work each day 10 minutes before anyone else, and didn’t quit until 10 minutes after everyone had stopped.

He said it was to make sure he gave a man ‘full measure’ for the money

he was earning. The Pridgen family takes pride in living up to that business practice. We give ‘full measure’ when we do something.”

The sprawling Pridgen Woodwork business on the western edge of the White Marsh in Whiteville is crammed with work in progress for dozens of clients – from the new Columbus County Courthouse to several banks, a community college and a Wall Street brokerage firm.

The buildings that will eventually house the fruit of Pridgen Woodwork’s skilled craftsmen stretch from ocean to ocean across the breadth of the United States. For many years Pridgen has done all of the woodwork in buildings for First Citizens Bank as it spreads across the country, and it now does much of the same type work for Merrill Lynch, one of Wall Street’s longest known companies, as they construct or refurbish offices from Florida to Louisiana and Texas. Plus, there’s work for the new Kenan football building in Chapel Hill, and more. The Pridgen work ethic is being stamped on three dozen projects now.

“We’re higher on our bids sometimes than competitors, but we’ve done such good work for so long there are contractors and architects out there who know there won’t be any problems if we get the job, and that brings us a lot of work. We are constantly living up to our reputation. We’re proud of it, and we make sure we give our best,” Linwood explained.

Exact measurements needed

The Pridgen approach includes sending an employee to nearly every building site to make final measurements for the spaces in which Pridgen cabinets, tables, benches or any other piece of material will be installed.

“We have the measurements on a set of blueprints, but we don’t work in measurements of a half-inch, or a quarter of an inch. We mill and build items to within a 64th of an inch, and that type of measurement isn’t on a blueprint. We learned a long time ago, it if didn’t fit when we went to install a cabinet or any other piece of woodwork, the problem was ours. We don’t want a controversy with a contractor. We’ve learned to make sure we better have our ducks in a row,” Linwood added.

Linwood loves the challenge Linwood, 74 and now semi-retired, loves a challenge – in wood or metal. He’s taught himself to use his gifted hands and brain to figure out tough problems, and to make several pieces of equipment used almost every day at the Whiteville business.

He attended an international woodworking exposition in Italy in the late 1980s, and saw a $25,000 door-pressing machine. He studied it, made a few mental notes, and soon built a similar product for less than $2,500 – a machine that is still being used just about every week.

Other machining requirements for the Pridgen business were solved

by Linwood on several occasions.

There are at least four other machines – constantly in use – manufactured by Linwood. If computer equipment is required, he farms it out to a computer specialist, and installs it to finish the machine.

One of Linwood’s best known skills is in making a circular staircase. “The more complicated something was to make, the less problems I had,” Linwood recalled. “I could build cabinets and make one mistake right after another. I’d build a circular staircase, and never made a mistake. I loved the challenge.”

Linwood would make rough notes for a staircase on a piece of cardboard or scrap of paper, and when installed the circular staircase might need an eighth of an inch adjustment.

The Pridgen firm hasn’t made a circular staircase in about five years.

“They make them in small sections on computerized equipment now, and it’s faster and cheaper than do-

Linwood Pridgen’s talented hands are pictured with part of a working steam engine he built as a child. ing it the way we did it,” Linwood said as he explained how that particular product isn’t usually manufactured now at the Pridgen business.

Linwood’s skills don’t include just woodwork. He bought some special vehicle parts in 1974 before he purchased a new GMC pickup with 33 miles on it. Linwood drove it home, and pulled the engine. He put in new pistons and camshaft to improve the fuel mileage and power of the truck.

Swift, Ernest, Linwood and his brothers, plus Linwood’s son Thomas form four generations of woodworking skill. All have the gift of working with their hands and heads. Thomas Pridgen, Linwood’s son, and Elliott Duncan, another present employee and grandson of Ernest, represent the fourth generation of woodworking geniuses.

Ernest’s sons David, Lester, Paul, Michael, Rudolph, Randy, plus daughters Laura, Charlene Gwen, Rebecca and the late Linda Gail, have the Pridgen desire for quality and honesty burned into their everyday lives.

Ernest had success as a teen Each is proud of their father’s beginnings. He was riding his bicycle as a teenage boy in the 1920s looking for work. He stopped one day on Madison Street in Whiteville to watch carpenters as they tried to figure how to make an arch to be used inside the First Baptist Church.

Ernest watched and listened until

he couldn’t stand it any longer. The problem for the professional carpenters and others wasn’t a big deal to him. He told the men he knew how to do it. Intrigued, the men asked young Ernest to show them.

He did.

Young Ernest returned to the church site the following day. He used chicken wire to form the arch, and told the contractors to cover it with plaster, and when it hardened, they would have an arch. They did, and it worked beautifully. The contractor hired the smart teenager.

Typical Pridgen results.

A few years later, Ernest, assisted by two of his brothers, was building homes in Whiteville, and there was a good competition with other local builders. He went to the other builders and told them that if he could build the cabinets to be placed in their new homes, he’d quit being their competitor. They did, and Pridgen’s base business was born.

And, there’s the story a Whiteville woman tells. She told Ernest Pridgen she had a table that needed repairing. “Mr. Pridgen sent a little boy to my house one day, and the little boy repaired the table,” the woman related with amazement.

The little boy was Linwood.

These two events are just two of the examples of what made Pridgen Woodwork a superior company.

They are examples of the Pridgen method of doing business. Be honest, do it better, do it right and stand behind the product.

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wwwww Fall 2014 | 954 | 25

Wedding special

954

Ancient Oak Tree Was Crown Jewel Of Wedding Reception by clara cartrette

Photography Courtesy of Jody Johnson/Photorad The Anthony Lynn Nealey and Mary Margaret Wooten wedding reception could be described a lot of ways: beautiful, elegant, historical, fun, happy — but most of all, unusual.

Not many wedding couples and their guests get to dance in the moonlight on a portable dance floor under the canopy of a centuries-old live oak tree lighted with 150 handmade Mason jar candles.

The reception was held on a farm in the Evergreen community that several generations of Kissams have owned. The bride’s great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Treadwell Kissam, born April 8, 1855, purchased the land a few years after the Civil War. He and his wife Elizabeth C. Brown, born March 28, 1858, established their home under the shade of an extremely large oak tree and raised 12 children in the large house they built. The house has been gone for years, but the centuries-old live oak remains and it was the centerpiece of the Nealey-Wooten wedding reception. North Tower Band of Raleigh provided music.

There was an abundance of delightful 26 | 954 | Fall 2014

food, prepared to perfection by caterer extraordinaire Vicky Ward, whose talent for design shows up on tables all over the area.

She also made the Mason jar candles, which were hung on the giant oak tree by bride’s brothers, Adam and George III, from the bucket of a tall front-end loader.

That’s pretty unusual. It happened in September 2013 but people are still talking about it. One of the most talked about things were the Royal Toilets, which were brought from Georgia for the special occasion. The description puts them in the Hollywood range — glamorous, air conditioned with music playing and mints available.

Before the couple left the reception, dozens of white balloons with tiny LED lights inside were released and they floated off bunched together.

Weather cooperated for the outdoor reception, but the bride’s mother had an alternate plan if it had rained.

Mary Margaret’s parents, George and Alice Kissam Wooten, were able to buy part of the Kissam farm some years ago. George and their sons, George III and Adam, are

continuing the Kissam tradition of farming — now the fifth generation — and they grow sweet potatoes, soybeans and cotton.

The Wootens have a special feeling for sweet potatoes, having owned Bailey Produce of Chadbourn for many years. When George walked Mary Margaret down the aisle at Evergreen Baptist Church, he was wearing a sweet potato bloom on his lapel instead of the typical boutonniere. Sweet potato blooms were also tucked into Mary Margaret’s bouquet of antique white roses and a piece of her grandmother’s wedding dress was sewn into her gown.

George explained that sweet potatoes don’t always have blooms, but one day he was riding past a sweet potato field when he saw some blooms. He stopped to take a photograph, which he emailed to his wife with a note: “You are my sweet potato; I love you.” What a romantic thing to do, even if he did $2,800 worth of damage to his truck when he backed into a tree.

The Kissam lineage includes Benjamin Treadwell and Elizabeth Kissam, Mayo and Ether Kissam, Ernest and Ruth Kissam,

Mary Margaret and her father George Wooten

The Wooten boys enjoy the Ford Bronco that was used as a gift table. The vintage bathtub held chilled water and the old farm table held an antique lantern and other heirlooms.

The bridal party

Fall 2014 | 954 | 27

George and Alice Wooten, sons Adam and George III, daughters-in-law Megan and Stephanie, grandchildren Grace Anne, Augustus and Sullivan, and Alice’s mother, Ruth Townsend Kissam.

The kitchen part of the Kissam home

“george vanderbilt’s mother was a kissam, and the vanderbilts built biltmore house in asheville, the closest thing to a castle in the united states” George and Alice Kissam Wooten, and their children, George III, Adam, and twins Mary Margaret Wooten Nealey and Sara Bailey Wooten.

Family history, documented in several stories in The News Reporter by a couple of Alice’s ancestors, reveals that Benjamin Treadwell Kissam left Westfield, N.J. when he was a teenager. Alice recalls that her ancestors handed down information that an aunt, one of the Vanderbilts, gave him and his brothers $100 each, which was a tradition of the Vanderbilts.

He wanted to be a sailor, and got off a ship in Wilmington. He then traveled by foot to the Evergreen area where he met Elizabeth C. Brown and they were soon married. Asked why Alice thought he came to Columbus County, George quickly replied: “Because he had Benjamin Treadwell and Alice Brown Kissam with their children. good sense!”

George Vanderbilt’s mother was a Kissam, and the Vanderbilts built Biltmore House in Asheville, the closest thing to a castle in the United States. Some years ago the Kissams had their family reunion at the Biltmore House.

With each generation, the 400-acre Kissam farm got split up among heirs, and George and Alice bought out one of the heirs to her grandfather’s portion several years ago.

Alice noted that generations before her said the Kissams first had a log cabin with a dirt floor. She remembers the later home, a large house that was never painted. It had wide hallways and portraits hung on each side of the foyer, and there was wicker furniture on the porch. Alice said the Kissam family had birthday dinners and family reunions there for many years. The kitchen part, separated from the main house by a breezeway as was the tradition when the house was built, was still standing when she and George bought the property.

When they had it torn down it was full of honeybees.

The big live oak tree has no doubt survived many storms, droughts and probably dozens of swings hung on the huge branches for children through the ages to enjoy. It has been surveyed by the U.S. Forestry Service and measured 27 feet in circumference. At one time it was a co-champion for the state’s largest live oak.

At the wedding reception it shared crown jewel status, along with The mighty oak tree the newlyweds.

28 | 954 | Fall 2014

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special

Turner enjoyed stint in Antarctica

954

Elliott Turner at night in the Antarctic

by fuller royal Photography courtesy of Elliott Turner In fall of last year, Elliott Turner was just beginning his summer – in Antarctica.

“It was an adventure,” said the Western Prong resident. “It was a totally different environment. It was really isolated, but colder.

It averaged minus-20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit.”

He said that on some days, the temperature rose to 36 degrees, just enough for some melting.

“It started dropping later in the season,” he said.

Turner, a firefighter/paramedic, signed on with Antarctic Fire Department at McMurdo Station, Antarctica for the summer season – late September to early March.

His job was to provide aircraft fire and rescue support.

“We basically had a normal fire station – two trucks and an ambulance,” he said, adding that there is a lot of personnel turnover there.

“The average retention rate is 50 percent,” he said. “There is a 40-person staff in the

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summer and 10 people in the winter.”

Turner said several agencies work at McMurdo during the summer.

“We had to do all of the building inspections monthly. These were normal fire inspections, except it’s such a high hazard,” he said. “Everything there is considered critical infrastructure and you can’t afford to lose anything.”

While stationed there, Turner said two helicopters crashed. One was a Korean flight.

Turner said it was a Russian-built helicopter.

“It crashed on an icebreaker during a hard landing and caught fire off shore,” he said.

“An Italian rescue group ‘packaged’ the patients,” he said. “We picked them up at our airfield and took them to our clinic.”

Turner said his team worked to stabilize the patients until the next day when they could be flown out.

The Australian crew of the second crash sustained only minor injuries.

Other than the crashes, and a dryer fire in the main building, Turner’s time near the South Pole was quiet.

“We practiced with the U.S. Air Force every day on their aircraft,” he said. “And we had normal fire drills.”

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McMurdo Station – operated by the United States Antarctic Program – hits its peak population of 1,500 in the summer.

Turner said that number was smaller during his time there because of cuts in government funding.

There are 150 residents during the winter, mostly people involved in keeping the infrastructure going including cooks, medics and some scientists.

McMurdo consisted mostly of scientists and researchers from the United States.

Turner said there were visitors from other countries as well as foreign exchange students.

He said the University of North Carolina at Wilmington has had a contingent there in the past.

Turner said he and his colleagues didn’t do much with the science groups other than participate in some of the technical talks.

Turner worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off.

“We had a person hired who oversaw recreation,” he said. “That included a gym with basketball, hiking trails and different classes on the area and its historic sites.

One of those historic sites included the still-standing, 100-year-old huts of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton and his crew from the Endurance.

During a 1914 expedition to cross Antarctica, disaster hit Shackleton and his 28-man crew.

The Endurance became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed before the shore parties could be landed.

After a series of adventures, Shackleton and his crew would escape with no loss of life, ensuring Shackleton’s status as a hero.

Turner said he wasn’t able to bring back any souvenirs other than photographs.

“They are really strict about bringing stuff back because of conservation efforts,” he said.

“This was a completely new environment,” he said. “I learned a lot about the history and stuff just by being there. I saw seals about every day and I saw a few whales.

“You can get pretty close to penguins – three to four feet,” he said. “You’re not allowed to approach them. They have to come 32 | 954 | Fall 2014

After a live fire practice

Turner with one of the fire department trucks up to you. That was part of our job. We were one of only a handful of groups that could actually interact with wildlife because we had to keep them off the runway.”

He said he did miss trees and grass, and “the food wasn’t great.

Some days were better than others.”

He said Christmas was different.

“We had Christmas dinner and the holidays came and went.”

And it never got dark. The sun did a complete 360-degree circle around the base, just barely dipping along the horizon.

Windows had to be covered to keep the 24-hour light out so crewmembers could sleep.

Turner said the experience was incredible.

“I would do it again,” he said.

“It put me in a position where I had to take on leadership and also learn to be responsible for myself. You’re pretty much on your own.”

Today, Turner is job hunting.

He said that his experience in Antarctica will come into play in whatever job he finds here.

Fall 2014 | 954 | 33

Health& Beauty

Everyday Functional Training by cynthia hansen

Cynthia Hansen and her client, Joan Ward

Cynthia Hansen

Stronger Body Fitness ISSA Personal Fitness Trainer Certified TRX Core Trainer 910.640.4728 34 | 954 | Fall 2014

As a personal trainer for strength and core training, weight loss, and just total fitness training, my job is to create a fitness program that helps clients successfully achieve their goals in these areas. So while you may not have an athlete’s goal of hitting a home run or scoring a goal, you may have a goal of being able to reach down and pick something off the floor or play a game of basketball with your kids, which requires the same movements as an athlete.

Functional training is about training your body to handle reallife situations and it works for all of the above goals with my clients.

It’s about teaching your muscles to work together rather than isolating them to work independently.

In training, I focus on building a body that is capable of doing reallife activities, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an ideal posture that might be created by a machine.

Functional strength training helps train your body to perform the types of movements such as dynamic strength, flexibility and agility to make your daily activities in life a little bit easier and improve your quality of life. Ex-

amples of these everyday movements: -Lifting: Lifting up laundry baskets, babies, toddlers, groceries, yard equipment, etc.

-Reaching, pushing and pulling: Cleaning the house (changing bed linen, pulling laundry from the machines, ironing, picking up toys and laundry off the floor, vacuuming, putting away dishes, etc.) and yard work (raking, pushing a lawn mower, packing debris in trash bags, planting plants, etc.)

-Balancing: Safe gait patterns as you walk; climb and descend stairs; toting multiple objects at the same time (such as a child in one arm and a bag of groceries in the other), etc.

Functional exercises can be done anywhere at home or at the gym.

It’s always good to check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program. It’s also a good idea if you haven’t exercised to use only your own body weight for resistance before you challenge yourself with adding weight for resistance.

You can add functional exercises to your workout at the gym or start a home program implementing some of the exercises below.

Shoulder and arm exercises 1

2a

3a

4

2b

3b

5

squats and balance Squats and lunges: Any reaching, lifting or bending movement involves an element of squatting or lunging.

Pic 4 demonstrates a goblet squat using a jug of water for weight. Start in a squat position with elbows to knees keeping the weight to your chest until you stand up. Using the weight challenges your core and pressing the weight up into the air after you stand works your shoulders and arms as well. *If you are unable to squat, hold on to the back of a chair without the weight and squat as low as your knees allow strengthening your quads, hamstrings and gluteal muscles.

Shoulder and Arm Exercises: You can use grocery bags to strengthen your arms and shoulders by lifting or raising the bags out to the front of your body as seen in Pic 1, or you can lift the bags laterally from the sides forming a “T”shape with your body. Pics 2a and 2b demonstrates strengthening your triceps by lifting the bags over your head and then lowering the bags down your back while holding your elbows in close to your head. Pics 3a and 3b demonstrate strengthening your biceps by first positioning your elbows near your hips and arms fully extended and then lifting the bags up toward your chest.

Balancing: Any movement that requires you to balance yourself to complete the movement works the core and total body as seen in Pic 5. Stand on right leg and begin leaning forward while you raise the left leg back behind you. Reach forward with your right hand and touch the floor. To challenge your core a little more, reach down and pick up an object like a jug of water. Repeat several repetitions on one side before repeating on the opposite leg. In Pic 6a and 6b while stepping up onto a step or chair, you can strengthen your core and improve your balance by holding an object above your head. Doing this while running up and down steps is, also, quite a challenge.

*It is important to perform all exercises slowly and perform all exercises in a safe environment. You can make your workout more challenging by adding more repetitions or more weight. Vary your workouts by choosing different exercises for different days and change up your combination of exercises from time to time.

The more you practice these activities, the stronger you’ll become, the better your balance will be with daily activities, and the better you’ll feel!

6a

6b

Fall 2014 | 954 | 35

special

954

From Spina Bifida to Queen for a Day by bob high

Photography by mary kindschuh & Contributors

Shriner John Norosky

Shriner C.P. Lewis Many eyes will be on a secondgrade girl from Acme-Delco Elementary as Addison Davis reigns as Shrine Bowl Queen at the annual high school football classic pitting the best of North and South Carolina against each other on Dec. 20, 2014 in Charlotte.

It’s quite an honor for the 8-year-old youngster born with spina bifida – vertebrae not fully formed at birth – who lives along N.C. 87 in the edge of Bladen County with her parents, Scott and Roxie Davis.

It’s also quite an honor for the Columbus County Shrine Club, a dedicated group of men who spend much of each year raising funds to be used exclusively for the transportation and treatment of children at Shrine hospitals.

The Shrine Club’s largest annual fundraiser is its fish fry held in Riegelwood, Chadbourn, Whiteville and Tabor City in mid-October. Almost 1,500 fish plates are usually served at the Riegelwood 36 | 954 | Fall 2014

event, with thousands more at the other locations.

“We’ll feed 5,000 people, and I want all those who purchased tickets to know that 98 cents of every dollar we raise goes to help the children at Shrine hospitals.

We only use two cents of each dollar for operational costs,” said Edwin Russ, one of the Shrine Club’s most active members.

“Columbus County may be ranked as one of the most unhealthy and poorest counties in the state, but we’re also one of the best at giving to help each other – particularly children with orthopedic problems,” declares Russ. Shriners in this county have raised $176,000 through the fish event and other functions in the past 10 years to assist children afflicted with orthopedic and spinal cord conditions, burns, cleft palate and cleft lip.

The county Shrine unit has purchased three vans to be used to transport children and their families to various Shrine hospitals, particularly the one in Greenville, S.C. The Sudan Shriners group is an offshoot of the Masons organization, and is headquartered in New Bern. “We’ve very proud of the work we do to assist children with orthopedic conditions and their families. We help children up to

Addison Davis, this year’s Shrine Bowl Queen and father Scott Davis age 18, and we also help members of the military up to the age of 21,” Russ added. “There’s no place to pay at a Shriner hospital, and we have 22 of them in the United States.”

Another child living in Delco is transported to Montreal, Canada, for special care for a brittle bone disease. Russ said the Shrine Club has spent nearly $9,000 transporting the child and family members for several appoint-

ments.

The Davis youngster travels to Duke Hospital in Durham for medical attention, and goes to the Greenville hospital at least three times a year for orthopedic consultation and service.

“We usually travel to Greenville in our own vehicle, but the Shriners make sure we have a motel room and give us gas money,” Addison’s mother Roxie reported.

Addison is excited about her

“Queen for a Day” future, and expects to be presented a special crown in a ceremony at her school. Addison continues to take part in dance classes at Amber Wilkerson’s Dynamic Footworks studio in Delco where the stretching exercises and movements help her in her fight with the crippling disease.

Roxie Davis told of a special gift to Addison last year by the late Maxie Watts of Tabor City, a former magistrate who read a story about Addison’s condition and battle.

“He handcrafted a special stool for her to use, and he painted it pink, Addison’s favorite color,” the child’s mother explained. “The stool is the perfect height for Addison in some of the places she needs to sit, and we’re extremely grateful to Mr. Watts for what he did.”

Addison has few problems moving about on the floor, and she was busy one recent afternoon playing with her niece, 9-month-old Ophelia Abigail. Both of the girls enjoyed the playtime. Addison can’t crawl, but she moves crablike with speed and agility.

Russ pointed out that Shriners hold an annual pheasant hunt at a Honey Hill shooting preserve, plus a golf tournament each spring and a raffle at the annual Pecan Festival as other methods to raise funds for the children so close to Shriners’ hearts.

There are 90 men who call the Columbus Shrine Club home, including those who live in Columbus, Robeson, Brunswick, Bladen and Pender counties. Another of the Shrine projects is a steel-drum band, formed several years ago, and a major part of many area parades.

Five children, in addition to Addison Davis, make up the roster of kids being assisted by the Columbus Shrine unit. Matt Wilson of Lake Waccamaw is the current Shrine president, and other officers include Jack Meares of Fair Bluff and Jeff Pridgen of Whiteville.

For more information on the Columbus Shrine Club and the work of Masons and Shriners as they give to children, visit Sudanshriners.com

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Mistletoe Market -9 a.m.-8 p.m. Nov. 20-21, and 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Nov. 22 $5 includes Festival of Trees A distinctive shopping experience. Vendors from across the region will be displaying a host of handcrafted goodies and fabulous finds from far and wide.

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Sport& Leisure

The Ultimate Bait catfish noodling gaining in local popularity. local fishermen use unusual bait – themselves. by jefferson weaver

It takes a special type of fisherman to voluntarily stick his hand into a dark hole underwater so something will bite his fingers.

“Noodling isn’t for everybody,” said Matt Wilson, a lifelong Lake Waccamaw resident and avid hand-fisherman. “It’s a rush.”

Often called grabbling, noodling, hand-fishing, hogging or tickling, noodling catfish involves reaching into a place where a catfish might be waiting, and encouraging the fish to either open its mouth or chomp down on the fisherman’s hand. The angler then forces his or her hand as deeply into the fish’s mouth as possible to grab a gill and lift the fish from the water.

The technique isn’t just a sport – it also serves a purpose. The most popular target fish among grabblers is the non-native flathead catfish. Flatheads (Pylodictis olivaris) are aggressive feeders, eating everything from TJ Wilson and two catfish he noodled other catfish and game fish like bass nows, eels and even goldfish. When the fish to turtles, aquatic mammals, waterfowl and sees a wiggling handful of fingers in its terrieven small alligators. The fish were accidentory, its natural instinct is to eat. tally or intentionally released in North CaroNoodling fish (not just cats) has been around lina roughly 40 years ago, and are considered since the Paleolithic Era. Pre-colonial explora nuisance. ers and 18th century naturalists describe Native They are also considered a challenge. The Americans noodling fish of all species in the state record is 78 pounds, and was caught in New World. Lewis and Clark described some the Cape Fear River. Flatheads weighing 60western Indian tribes that ate only fish, and plus pounds are not uncommon, and 30- toused only their hands to catch bullhead catfish 50-pounders are a regular part of fishermen’s (a smaller cousin of the flathead) and other specreels across the southeast. cies.

Flatheads have a reputation, which some Catching catfish by hand was well known consider undeserved, as being less tasty than throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. “Tickother catfish. In truth, water quality plays ling” fish such as trout, bass and catfish is taught more of a role in the texture and taste of any in military survival schools. A number of cable fish, especially catfish, than its genetics. Mertelevision shows focus on noodling. cury counts can be higher in flatheads, however, Wilson and his fellow cat-chasers began since they eat large quantities of other fish in noodling while bowfishing for other predator addition to absorbing mercury on their own. species – gar and blackfish – in Lake WaccaUnlike most catfish, which respond best to maw. stinkbaits and cut fish, flatheads are hunters – “We’d see these big old catfish out there that they prefer live bait, such as shiners, large minnobody knew were around,” he said. “It wasn’t 44 | 954 | Fall 2014

long before we wanted to try it.”

Matt and brother T.J. Wilson asked around, and connected with Louie Nye and Kelly Hoffman, among others, who had been noodling for years.

While catfish can be noodled any time of the year, the catfish bedding season is the best time, Matt explained.

“The female builds the nest by wallowing out a place underwater, just like a hog,” he said. ”She lays the eggs, and the male guards them. He is going to attack anything that comes into that nest – the same way you catch bream off the bed, but this time, the fish is 50 pounds and biting you instead of a cricket.”

Illegal dumping in the lake in years past has worked to the advantage of noodlers, Wilson explained.

“There are old tractor tires out there where they love to bed,” he explained. ”People put them there to attract fish, and the catfish like to bed in them. Sometimes you can cover one with your body while you’re trying to get the fish into position to grab him.”

Wilson said the sport is dangerous, but not as much so in the deep water around where the fish hides as it is closer to shore. Most grabbling is done in six to eight feet of water, but when the fish come off the laying beds, they move toward shore to eat smaller prey. The noodlers follow along behind them, facing a new set of dangers – rather than being as worried about drowning, in shallow water the anglers have more to worry about the wrong animal taking the bait.

“When you get in the shallow water, you have alligators, snakes, and turtles,” Wilson said. “If you don’t know for sure what’s hiding in a hole, you can get yourself hurt really quickly.”

Other popular fishing spots include collapsed piers and virtually any structure that provides cover where the flathead can protect its nest and ambush passing prey animals.

“The first one I ever caught noodling,” Wil-

son said, “was under an old pier. When I finally reared up out of the water with that thing on my arm, there were a bunch of people in boats nearby and they were just staring. They’d never seen anything like it. I hadn’t either, really – it was about 45 pounds.”

While bass fishermen and even some avid channel catfish anglers would brag on a 10- to 15-pound fish, Wilson said size really matters with flatheads and the occasional blue cat (another invasive) that fall for a wriggling finger.

“If it’s smaller than about 15 pounds, we leave it alone,” he said.

Heavy rains washing downstream from swamps above Lake Waccamaw can also make the hunt more challenging. Tannin from the swamps darkens the water, making it harder, if not impossible, to see likely “holes” and hides where fish might be waiting for a free meal.

“When the water gets dark, like it has with the heavy rains this year, you can’t see,” he said. “You have to move into the shallow water, and that’s where you have to keep an eye out for the other things that live there. A catfish bite is enough – a gator would take your hand off.”

Noodlers know the feel of a catfish, versus other things that lurk beneath the surface.

“The mouth feels like sandpaper,” Wilson explained. “You want him to open his mouth and either swallow your hand or let you get inside.”

The fisherman then has to grab a gill flap from the inside, or manage to get a good enough hold on the inside of the fish’s mouth and throat to extract it from the hiding place. In shallow water, the fish can be flipped right into a waiting boat, but in deeper water, the angler has to swim back to the surface and tread water while his partners extract the hand from the fish.

Wilson said the sport isn’t for everybody.

“You’re down there in the fish’s element, his home,” Wilson said. “It’s not like being on a boat reeling one in. It’s you and the catfish.”

The rush is a big part of noodling, Wilson said.

“The closest thing I can compare it to is bear hunting, or maybe pigs,” Wilson said. “When you’re dealing with something that might come back at you, it’s just not the same.”

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Historical

special

954

Old theatre is now a new events center

by CLARA CARTRETTE

Miss N.C. 1953 in front of The Ritz

Two

years ago the old Ritz Theatre in Tabor City was a gaping, ugly hole in the business district’s landscape.

Today it is the jewel of Tabor City, a grand showplace to be used by the community as a special place to have special events.

A lot of elbow grease and money have gone into the project and it is now complete. It is beautiful and it is a source of pride for the townspeople, especially those who enjoyed The Ritz when it was a movie theatre. Many of those people have been instrumental in the success of the refurbishing project. A lot of people “put their money where their mouth is” and made contributions to assure that the project would be completed.

Some contributions were large, some were small, but the best part is, those who contributed have a sense of pride in helping to save an old dilapidated building that meant so much to so many as a theatre. It will continue to mean a lot to them and newer generations who will enjoy it as an events center, a place for performances, receptions, reunions, weddings, parties, Setting up for a party talent shows and numerous other events.

The cost of refurbishing the Ritz was about How did it all come about? Steve Lynch was Greg Cox, then a city councilman, asked during $375,000, some coming from grants but most Tabor City’s first promotions director. He said his interview for the job in March 2000 what coming from the community.

46 | 954 | Fall 2014

Lobby sign

Simmons wedding rehearsal party he would do to clean up the town and improve the facades.

“I was from a small town and one of the best times I had was going to movies on Saturday,” Lynch said. Noting that the Ritz was merely an ugly shell of a building, he told Cox it would be difficult to get things done about facades so long as they met code.

“I got hired and there were so many other things to do,” Lynch said. In 2001 he was talking with Stan Fowler, a Tabor City native who is an architect with an office in Raleigh. They tried to think of ways to bring back the theatre, but the idea got put on the back burner.

Tommy and Edna Small owned the Ritz.

They had previously sold it to the Chamber of Commerce, but got it back because it was too expensive to renovate. Code enforcement resulted in taking down what was left of the roof, which had become a danger to the public. There was also a big crack in the back wall, creating danger. The back wall was very close the Fred Lay Stage in Ritz Plaza where thousands gather on Yam Festival Saturdays.

Fast forward: the Smalls donated The Ritz to the town in hopes it could be restored or refurbished. Tabor City had $30,000 left over from a grant and Lynch went to Town Manager Al Leonard and suggested maybe it could be used to do something at The Ritz. What he had in mind was a tent-type cover and concrete floor to provide space for a farmer’s market. Leonard

Sweeney Family Band first to perform at Ritz Center

Half and Half performed for fundraiser

Steve Lynch and Dianne N. Ward worked together on the Ritz project thought it was a good idea but estimates ran around $45,000.

Lynch went to the Tabor City Committee of 100 to ask for $15,000 to complete the project but members wanted something permanent.

Working on façade so marquee can be erected Fall 2014 | 954 | 47

Lynch explained that there were two walls and they wouldn’t support a permanent roof.

Infrastructure would run the cost to around $123,000, and the town didn’t own the building.

“Richard Wright and Rod Sanders really wanted it,” Lynch said. “The Committee of 100 put up $40,000 and the town donated $7,400 in interest earned during construction of the new prison. Richard went to the Smalls and they donated the building to the town and said go forward with the project.”

Somewhere in all of the discussion, Lynch retired but never gave up on The Ritz. He contacted people who had served on a grant committee to get feedback on whether to go forward and most, if not all, were in favor. He came back and worked diligently on the project with Dianne Nobles Ward, the new promotions director. The Committee of 100 came through with more money and lots of people responded favorably to a suggestion to make $500 donations. Engraved brick pavers were sold and The Ritz Challenge was presented by Rod Sanders, who offered to match donations up to $1,500. The community came through on all requests and it looked like it was a go for refurbishing The Ritz, which would be known as Ritz Center.

Sonny Graham got the bid as contractor, bidding under budget and completing the project on time to complete Phases I and II. Then,

48 | 954 | Fall 2014

all that was left was Phase III — completing the façade and installing the marquee. That exciting project was scheduled to be completed Oct. 24, the day before the biggest day of the N.C. Yam Festival, and the deadline was met.

The first event held in Ritz Center was a dinner for the $500 or more donors. A packed house reflected the generosity of communityminded people. An open house reception was held later for other donors and the public.

The first performance held in Ritz Center was by the Sweeney Family Band, a group from Florida but headed by Chadbourn native Greg Thompson. The band’s performance was a cross between the Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw and demand for seats required a matinee as well as a night performance.

A recent Ritz event was Richard Wright’s 70th birthday. Wright had a vested interest in The Ritz from the beginning, having spent many Saturday afternoons watching western movies there. He handled the legal end of transferring the deed from the Smalls to the town of Tabor City and it was written into the deed that the outside of the building would remain as near like the original as possible. That made a lot of people who loved The Ritz happy, as they wanted it to resemble what they had enjoyed through the years. Stan Fowler drew the design for the marquee.

Another recent event was a concert by a popular local group, Half and Half, comprised

of Karen and Richard Gore, Dr. Darrell and Wanda Diefes. They donated a concert for a Reuben Brown House Preservation Society auction and Richard and Margo Wright won it. They donated it to Ritz Center as a fundraiser, and their performance was scheduled for Nov. 15.

Town Manager Al Leonard was all for the Ritz project, but it was his duty to warn city officials that Ritz Center could be a financial drain on the town. However, Leonard happily reported at a recent town council meeting that Ritz Center was holding its own. Promotions Director Dianne Nobles Ward reported revenues of $5,000 since it opened. She noted that events have been booked or are in the planning stages well into 2015, and demand is strong.

She said Ritz Center is guaranteed to host at least 31 events in its first year, with a strong possibility of 47.

Leonard said with that history and promise, Ritz Center will not be a drain on the town treasury. Nobles said she has already booked more than 15 events for 2015, including wedding receptions and rehearsal dinners, performances and a still to be defined 13-week series of Thursday night talent shows beginning in June, produced by Greg Thompson.

“If you get to 52, that’s averaging one a week,” Leonard said. “I don’t think any of us envisioned paid customers once a week. I expect we will surpass that.”

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Sport& Leisure

James Council Still pedaling the state at 81

by DAN BISER

You would figure that the final day of a week-long bicycle trek would be one of excitement and accomplishment.

But when you get surrounded by tremendous wind gusts that North Carolina’s Outer Banks sometimes have to offer, it can be a different story.

That’s how it was for 81-year-old James Council of Lake Waccamaw and the other 1,200 participants in this year’s Cycle North Carolina “Mountains to the Coast” event.

“That final stretch between Manteo and Hatteras was the toughest day I ever had on a bike because the wind gusts were so high,” said Council of the “homestretch” portion on the 500-mile journey that had begun a week earlier in the mountain town of Sparta. “We were riding right into the teeth of it. I heard a lot of other people say it was the worst they had ridden in.”

But as challenging and frustrating as the final day became, Council said it was another very rewarding experience. It marked the 11th consecutive year that he had made the “Mountains to the Coast” trek.

“I was really happy to see the finish line this time,” said Council, who took up biking at the age of 55, seven years before his retirement from his longtime position at International Paper.

The “Mountains to the Coast” ride follows a different route each year. The 2014 run held Sept. 29 through Oct. 4,was a stretch that ran a northern circuit not far from the Virginia line. After starting at Sparta, the ride had overnight stops in Mount Airy, Reidsville, Oxford, Roanoke Rapids and Edenton. It then cut south to Manteo for the 50 | 954 | Fall 2014

James Council competes in the 1996 May Day Biathlon near Morganton.

final stop before the windy jaunt to Cape Hatteras.

The event crossed through 16 counties. Council averaged 11.6 miles per hour and he spent a total 42 hours, 55 minutes pedaling the course.

“I had to get off and walk the bike a couple of times on the mountain part of the ride … when it got a little too steep,” he said.

“They’ve been holding the ride for 15 years and I’ve done the last 11,” Council said. “I plan to keep on doing it. It keeps me young. It’s a great way to see North Carolina and a great way to stay active.

“They tell me every year that I’m one of the oldest they have riding,” he said. “Last year there was a man who was 82. Every now and then I see some participants who are least

as old as I am and probably older.”

Other area riders in this this year’s Cycle North Carolina included Rossie Bullock of Cerro Gordo, Mitchell Edwards of Clarkton and Bruce Robb of Lake Waccamaw. Also taking in part in the event were Hallsboro natives Graham Wyche and Larry Floyd, who both now live in other areas of the state.

Council grew up in Hallsboro, playing baseball. He became a standout catcher for the Hallsboro High School team as well as the Whiteville Post 137 American Legion team in the early 1950s. He went on to play several seasons of semi-pro baseball in Whiteville.

“Baseball was about all we had back then when I was real young and I truly loved it,” said Council, who during the 1960s was instrumental in developing a countywide youth baseball program.

“We started out with the Little Tar Heel League, and it switched over to Dixie Youth about 10 years later,” he said. “The county league still exists.”

Council got interested in biking when he and his son Mark took up the sport as a father-son activity.

Mark had finished a strong college baseball career at Methodist College, and was looking to stay physically active. They were involved in several biathlons and spent a Saturday walking from Lake Waccamaw to Wilmington.

Since becoming involved in the “Mountains to the Coast” ride, Council has started out in such mountain locations as Asheville, Black Mountain, Blowing Rock, Elkin, Boone and Brevard. Destination points have included such places as Ocean Isle Beach, Atlan-

tic Beach, Oak Island, Topsail and Hatteras Village.

In 2009, Cycle North Carolina made an overnight stop in Whiteville before heading out on the final leg. The Whiteville High School campus turned into a tent city.

While many bikers utilize tents and other camping gear, Council has always chosen to make reservations for indoor lodging and a good night’s rest.

Council’s training facility is right outside his front door at Waccamaw Shores. He does much of his roadwork on the long stretch of Waccamaw Shores Road that runs to and from the lake’s dam. Council’s house was one of the first on the road when Waccamaw Shores was developed in 1973.

In months leading up to the “Mountains to the Coast,” Council tries to pedal at least 500 miles per month. During cold weather months he trains on an indoor stationary bike.

Council has been able to complete all but one of his rides in the “Mountains to the Coast.” Several years ago, he took a fall just before completing an early leg of a run in Greensboro.

“We were riding on a residential road that had several speed bumps,” he said, “One of the bumps had some grease or something on it and my front tire slid when I hit the bump. I got knocked over and banged my head, but the worst part was that I had a fractured pelvis.

“I had the finish line in sight when it happened,” he added. “I tried to get back on the bike, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Fortunately, I was back on the bike and training three months later.”

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Graham restored and renovated a 100- year-old farmhouse for a restaurant.

It is a rare time when you won’t find Danny Graham smiling.

In his dusty western boots, with pressed jeans bloused in the tops, a black cowboy hat, and RayBan sunglasses, Graham is a happy man. He laughs as he twirls his handlebar moustache, he laughs when someone honks a car horn in greeting, he laughs when a worker watering a pot of mums accidentally sprays him with water.

Whether he’s heaving cases of fresh produce, arranging a display of pumpkins, handling final details on the restored farmhouse he’s turning into a restaurant, or tracking down a new supplier of fresh produce, Graham is well-known for his beaming smile, unashamed laugh and welcoming personality.

Pull up to the Livingston Creek Farmers Market, and there’s a good chance a worker will point him out and say, “Mr. Graham is the one with the moustache.”

“This is just Danny,” he laughed, twirling one end of the ‘stache. “I’ve always had a moustache when I could. One end always went up, and the other drooped down, so one day I got some of my sister’s Dippety-Doo, and twirled it up. The ladies all said that was all right, so here I am.”

All by design Danny Graham also doesn’t believe in accidents.

“A man who can look at a building and say, ‘Someone designed that’,” Graham said, raising his hands to the pines shading Livingston Creek Farmers Market, “then he looks around at all this and says it was an accident, some big bang caused all this – I can’t understand that. There’s a reason for everything. God has his hand everywhere.”

Graham grew up just a few miles from his growing market in Delco. Like many rural African-Americans his age, he and his five siblings were never strangers to hard work.

“We worked in tobacco, grew corn, raised livestock – all the stuff you do on a farm,” he said. “All that was preparing me for today.”

A master gardener, Graham has a skill for making things grow. That love of the earth led him to an abandoned century-old farm on the side of U.S. 74-76.

“I had the opportunity to buy the place, and it was right where I wanted it,” he said. “This is what I was made for.”

Instead of just a farmers market, Graham has created a small complex of buildings along the Andrew Jackson Highway. The farmers market is still the centerpiece, but a seafood market will soon be open, too. The home has now been renovated and will open as a restaurant this fall. The facility is open enough for plenty of parking for weary travellers, and has public restrooms, a walking trail, and more features in the works.

Graham’s dream is to make the farmers market a working farm again.

“We want to have pony rides, animals, everything that people have forgotten about,” he said. “At the same time, it’s making jobs for people who need them, and helping local farmers and producers.”

Do your best Graham’s philosophy doesn’t allow for doing anything halfway.

He was the top recruit in his basic training battalion in the Marine Corps, thus earning him the priviDanny Graham in his market. lege of choosing his first duty station.

While some might have chosen exotic locales, foreign duty stations or “cushy” posts, Graham chose the nation’s capital, where he served four years on President Jimmy Carter’s security team.

“It’s an honor to be called the best, and I figured there was no more important job than guarding the Commander in Chief,” Graham said.

The post is challenging since even the usual Marine discipline regarding appearance and demeanor is not always enough.

“If I was going to do something, I was going to do it right,” he said. “That’s how I was brought up, and that’s what I still do.”

After his time in the service, Graham came home and went to work in several major industries, including DuPont. His restless energy, however, left him wanting to do more, so he tried his hand at renovating classic homes in

“We worked in tobacco, grew corn, raised livestock – all the stuff you do on a farm,” he said. “All that was preparing me for today.”

Wilmington. He still does restoration and renovation work, but not as much as he once did.

“I have one house on North Seventh I’m working on right now,” he said.

“People knew how to build back then – they took pride in their work. They were craftsmen, and I try to respect and honor their work whenever I’m fixing something up.”

Kicking the walls, jumping the floors When Graham retired and began looking for his dream property, he found the old home between Delco and Freeman, half obscured by weeds and vines.

He originally was looking for a site for a large farmers market featuring local produce, where he could create jobs for young men and women as well as helping small farmers. When he went into the old home, he realized there was a chance to create something much more.

The classic farmhouse had been empty for more than 20 years. Graham said he “kicked the walls and jumped on the floors” – two tried-and-true tests for antique architecture – and found the home was still solid.

“This was perfect,” he said.

The old house will soon become Livingston Creek Eatery, featuring home cooking and specials, served inside the dining rooms or on the large deck behind the store.

“God had a plan for this the whole time,” Graham said. “This is close to where I was raised, close to where we live now. He brought me here for a

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weeds that once covered the site. Each bin and display is personally checked every day before the market opens. When the restaurant opens, he expects to work even longer hours. He doesn’t get home until the last customer is served and the last worker has made it safely home for the night.

And Graham keeps this schedule seven days a week, year round.

“Nothing comes free or easy,” he said. “People have forgotten that. It’s easier when we work together, but nothing’s easy that’s worthwhile. Just as long as you know you have God on your side,

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reason and a purpose, and makes everything happen in His will.”

One reason Graham decided to expand so much on his original plan was because people need jobs, he said.

“The economy hasn’t gotten that much better,” he said, “and people need to be able to work.

Young people need an education to compete in the modern world, but in the meantime, they have to eat and pay their bills, too.”

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He’ll pull you through it, no matter what. When we get away from him and do it ourselves, we mess up. It just takes faith and hard work.”

Graham said there have been times when he wondered if he was doing the right thing, but then a sign would come through when he most needed it.

One of the first indications that he was supposed to come home and open his dream business came with something as pedestrian as a new well for drinking water.

“We drilled down 178 feet, through five layers of rock,” he said, “not being sure we would hit a good supply. We hit an artesian well, and the water’s so good we’re working with a bottler now to make a craft-label drinking water. It’s some of the best water you’ll ever drink – a lot of the bottled water companies use purified tap water. This is real spring water.”

Graham doesn’t mind talking, but he doesn’t like talking about himself. Part of today’s problems can be traced to selfishness, he said.

“We need to look around and see what we can do for others, and quit worrying about ourselves so much,” he said. “If we do like God tells us, and look out for others – He’ll look out for us.”

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ward. He is also very frank when it comes to his opinion of how many young people are growing up.

“I firmly believe that everyone should serve two years in the military,” he said. “These kids with their pants hanging down, their underwear showing – that’s a lack of respect for themselves or anyone else. The military would change that, and give them the discipline they need to work to get a good job.”

While Graham is the boss, he said he tells his employees that “you don’t work for me—we work together.

“We’re all pulling this sled uphill together,” he said, “and it takes a team to do it right. I expect people to work hard, and I’ll pay them well for it, but we’re going to work together.”

Graham is no stranger to hard work, and is a devotee of its benefits.

He runs daily, as well as working out, usually before dawn. His love of running was one reason he established the walking trail at Livingston Creek. He’s at work around 7 a.m., opening the market for business, then he’s often on the road greeting producers, farmers and gardeners, tracking down new suppliers, and seeking new products and ways to draw motorists off U.S. 74-76 and into the market complex on Harvest Circle.

He’s done much of the construction and renovation work himself, as well as clearing the rank

Livingston Market and Eatery is located on Harvest Circle, off US Highway 74/76 in Delco Fall 2014 | 954 | 55

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Nickerson Directs West Columbus High School Bands to Success by allen turner

Photography by Mary Kindschuh

George Nickerson talks with band member Kylie Jenkins.

It has been a long and somewhat unique journey for George Nickerson, band instructor and director at West Columbus High School, a journey that began in Oceanside, California and which currently has him imparting his enthusiasm for music to students in Cerro Gordo. His journey has included a career in the U.S. Marine Corps. He even met his wife during a military assignment in Great Britain.

Nickerson, 57, has been a band director and music instructor in the Columbus County school system since January, 1998. He acknowledges that his years in the Marines shaped him in ways that influence his style of teaching and relating to his students today.

As he sees it, one of his most important functions is to teach his students to learn not to quit.

He believes he has been somewhat successful at that. “No matter what happens to them in life, they need to learn to not give up,” he says, “and while I’m not able to impart that philosophy to all of them, I do get enough of them to come around to that way of thinking.”

Although he puts in long days, commuting roundtrip 200 miles a day from his home in Jacksonville in Onslow County to his office at West Columbus, he doesn’t envision doing anything else, so great is his love of his job.

The trumpet player – he’s been playing the trumpet since he was eight years old and still considers it to be his primary instrument – was discharged from the Marines in 1992 with the 58 | 954 | Fall 2014

rank of staff sergeant. While in the military, he served as a member of the 1st Marine Division, 2nd Marine Division and 3rd Marine Division bands and was a member of the bands at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot.

He was the first Marine musician to be temporarily assigned to a British Royal Marine Band in Scotland. During his military career, he also served in Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

He lived in Oregon during most of his formative years and still has family there. He met his wife, Dawn, while on a temporary duty assignment with the Marines at the British Royal Tournament. She was a member of the British Royal Navy when they met and after they married in 1991 they decided to remain in eastern North Carolina, since the location would be about halfway between her family in England and his family on the West Coast. They’ve planted their roots in Jacksonville due to her employment with an attorney’s office there.

Living in Jacksonville and working in Cerro Gordo means that Nickerson has some long days. He’s on the road many mornings by 4:30 a.m. On a normal day, he usually gets back home by 8:30 p.m., but band performances can stretch out his day so that he doesn’t return home until 12:30 or 1 the next morning.

Following his discharge from the Marine Corps, Nickerson enrolled at East Carolina University, from which he graduated magna cum

laude in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in music education. He began working for the Columbus County Board of Education in January 1998, the only post-military job he’s ever held. And it’s the only job he ever wants.

“I’m not ever retiring,” he says. “One time a guy told me that the only way I’d ever leave this school was if I was buried in it, and that’s okay with me. West Columbus my home.”

In addition to his duties at West Columbus High School, he taught band at Cerro Gordo and Fair Bluff Schools early in his career. With the closing of Fair Bluff Elementary several years ago, his service now is limited to West Columbus and Cerro Gordo. He still works with elementary school children in the Jazz Band Christmas tour every year.

At West Columbus, Nickerson teaches three classes: band, with 44 students this year, color guard with 16 students and electronic music with 10 students. Students from his classes participate in three bands. The marching band has 60 members, the jazz band is comprised of 18 members and the concert band boasts 44 members.

In an average year, the marching band will have 14 performances including football games, the jazz band will have 14 performances and the concert band will put on six concerts.

His bands have performed at the Virginia Jazz Festival in Virginia Beach, the state convention for school district superintendents, the state convention for boards of education and in Gov. Beverly Perdue’s inaugural parade.

In 2010 Nickerson was selected as the Southeastern District Band Directors’ Association Clinician of the All District Middle School Concert Band.

The band director practices what he preaches when it comes to never giving up. He acknowledges that working in a small rural school district with somewhat limited financial resources proves to be challenging at times. “The county does what it can, but it’s not a good time financially for the county. We need to replace things every so often. We need a new drum set. We need a new keyboard. We need different equipment, you know.”

Nickerson adds, “If we had more technology, I could get my kids to create more. That’s just what we need. It’s not that anybody’s being unsupportive. When you’re in a rural area, you have band boosters who do what they can to raise money for you, but when you’re in a small area and you have a whole bunch of people asking the same

people for money over and over again …”

He emphasizes that with the limited resources available, his bands and classes have gotten tremendous support from school administrators, both at the school and district levels, and are supported by an outstanding band boosters organization of 30 adult members.

Nickerson is passionate about his music, and his greatest passion is expanding the number of students involved in music education. While only about 10 percent of West Columbus’ student body is involved in his band classes, he would like to see that expanded so that 100 percent of the student body is involved in some kind of music.

He notes with pride that most of his music students are ranked in the top 10 percent of the school’s students academically.

We caught Nickerson at a particularly busy time because he was prepping his students to appear at Yam Festival activities later in the week.

“We’re working very hard on getting ready for the weekend, and these kids are working every night. Also, I was sick a little earlier in the year and we lost two weeks, so we’re behind and trying to catch up. I’m getting home at 12:30 in the morning and then getting up between 4:15 and 4:30 to do it all over again. But, to teach kids, you’ve to do what you’ve got to do,” he smiles.

Columbus County Schools Arts Education Coordinator Kelly Jones says, “I have known Nick for 17 years now. He is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. Not only is he

dedicated to his school and his students, but he also goes out of his way to help anyone in need. I know that, as arts coordinator, if I need his help he is always at the ready and I depend on him a great deal. West Columbus High School and Columbus County owe him a debt of gratitude.”

Nickerson returns to his mantra that is a carryover from his Marine Corps days. “In the great scheme of things it may not be all that important at the high school level, but at some point my students are going to have to learn that they have to do what they have to do,” he says. “They have to overcome any obstacle. They have to keep on going; they can’t quit. And if I don’t quit on them, then they are going to learn not to quit on themselves.”

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He says that the values he is trying to teach his music students will be important to them for the rest of their lives, even if they never pick up another musical instrument after leaving high school. “That (continuing to play an instrument) is not essential,” he says. “I realize that. Maybe one out of 100 will go on to become a musician and play an instrument after they graduate. But the other things are essential.”

“What I do here is I focus on everybody,” Nickerson says. “The individual is not the most important thing. The group is the most important thing. But the individual has got to learn not to give up. They’ve got to learn to keep going, no matter what else happens. That’s the most important lesson.”

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Dr. Fleming has been practicing medicine in Whiteville, NC for 20 years. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians. He is happy to see adult patients of all ages and specializes in older patients with multiple complex problems to include, but not necessarily limited to: High blood pressure • Diabetes • High cholesterol • Heart/Lung/Kidney disease • Arthritis Dr. Fleming cares for his own patients when they are in the hospital. We are located at 116 Memory Plaza adjacent to the Columbus County Courthouse. Medicare and Private insurances accepted. Call us today @ 910-914-6043 and learn more about becoming a patient.

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Wine &Food

Collecting Wine

by Gary Kramer Most ordinary table wine is consumed within a few days, or even hours, of purchase. Some wines, however, are made to continue improving in the bottle and will taste better after several years than on the day you buy them.

To enhance your enjoyment of the wines you buy, it helps to know not only how to select bottles that will be good to drink today, but how to store them in ways that will help them improve in the future.

In storing wine, proper temperature is the most important consideration. The ideal temperature for storing wine is between 50 degrees F and 55 degrees F. The lower the temperature, the more slowly the wine matures. Up to 68 degrees F is fine, provided it is constant. Fluctuating temperatures are particularly bad for wine. Light and humidity are also 64 | 954 | Fall 2014

critical.

Strong light will damage wine, especially white wine in clear glass bottles. Very dry storage conditions will cause the cork to dry out and allow air to enter the bottle. High humidity doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t affect wine, but it will damage the labels. Wine is best stored in a quiet place, since even slight movement can disturb its sediment.

Finding a storage space for your wine collection is easy. You can create a wine storage space at home by insulating a small closet or an area under stairs. Avoid storing wine in attics or garages because of extreme heat.

Having found a suitable space, the next step is to store the wine correctly. Bottles should be stored on their sides in wine racks so the corks stay in contact with the wine and remain

moist. There are many different wine racks available, made of wood, metal, plastic and even concrete.

It is easy to lose track of a wine and keep it past its prime, which is why keeping cellar records is important. A cellar book should contain the name of the wine, the location in the cellar and space to make notes when the wine is drunk. If you know when you would like to drink the wine, then note this. You could also include the provence of the wine and also how much you paid for the wine.

Most wine is made for drinking while it is young. However, there are some wines that will improve with additional aging time in the bottle and merit putting away for a few years.

Just how long you keep a wine depends on several factors. For red wines, all but the cheapest will bene-

fit from a year or two of bottle aging.

Some will age for decades and it is a shame to consume such wines too young. Red wines that can age longer than a few months include Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir.

By contrast, the majority of white table wines are not likely to improve with extended aging. There are a few exceptions, including Rieslings and Chardonnays.

For me, wine is a cross between a beverage, a food and an experience.

With Mother Nature assisted by skilled and dedicated winemakers, the simple process of fermentation produces a marvelous result, a multidimensional product with a unique identity and exquisite beauty.

Collecting and enjoying wine can be an enjoyable hobby.

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Arts& Culture

SoulSpeak

Lisa Richey’s life and art serve to encourage and inspire by wallyce todd

Lisa Bearnes Richey and canine companion, Blossom, spend time together in the spiritual formation-direction room Richey has created, which looks out into the meditative beauty of Lake Waccamaw.

The canvas

of Lisa Bearnes Richey’s life is a colorful one, with both darks and lights blending into an effervescent variety of experiential art that makes up her existence on Earth. Simultaneously, while living on the planet third from the sun, she seems to reside in the presence of the Spirit of God. She does this in such a sensory way that those in her presence feel her sparkle while also getting a sense of the Divine.

The experiences of her life include banking, trust management, art, friendship, spiritual 70 | 954 | Fall 2014

Photos By Mary Kindschuh, Wallyce Todd and courtesy of Cheap Therapy.

direction, health issues, leading silent retreats, creating her own business, community service, paper-making, inspiring others, peace-giving, stone-painting, lake-gazing, mom-caring, dogloving, service-leading, encouraging… and more. The art of Richey isn’t just in the paper she handcrafts, the wisdom cards she creates, the ABC’s for Life books (individually designed journals) she makes… it’s also found in the way she listens, advises, leads and loves the people around her.

Her life is multi-layered with lots of memo-

ries that paint themselves upon her consciousness. She has one recollection of her childhood that has particular import in the way she directs her life. “I have many (memories), but my favorite is one my dad and I shared. During my young life, Dad was a Marine. So he was deployed a lot.

“When he was home, he and I would get up at 5 a.m. each day, eat Grape-Nuts and tell each other about the miracles we’d witnessed or experienced the day before. I still try to like Grape-Nuts and I still look for miracles each

This page is dedicated to the art and spiritual formation ministry of Lisa Bearnes Richey. Examples of her cards, journals, posters and more are found here. All of her products and more information can be found at: www.cheaptherapy.net (Cheap Therapy.... handcrafted paper art that celebrates life). The center stone is connected to Richeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life as spiritual director.

Fall 2014 | 954 | 71

day. I was 20 before I realized not everyone had a dad like mine. That realization shifted the focus of my life.”

Before she started her own business called “Cheap Therapy,” Richey was in the financial industry for two decades. She noted: “It is a cosmic joke that I lived as a banker for almost 20 years. I am not a numbers gal. I’m about people, learning, and service. That said, the years I worked for BB&T, then UCB, then BB&T again, were dear to me. I had the privilege to serve people and learn. Not a bad combination.”

But banking was not to be her life-long career. She wasn’t to know it, but what began as just a new way to express herself via handcrafted cards would become a way to share her

“The primary first goal in my business plan is to pay it forward. So I donate at least 90 percent of our profit to several different charities.”

-Lisa Bearnes Richey gifts with her community and the world. When asked, she doesn’t highlight a specific time when she allowed her imaginative energies to flow and flourish.

“It’s tough to pinpoint my beginning, because I don’t think of myself as artistic or particularly creative,” she said. “I’ve just always felt like I don’t ‘see things’ like other people. The first people to ‘officially’ encourage something they saw as creative were Susan and Delane Shelley. They’d created this amazing space for food and nourishment on many levels called Middle Earth. And Susan suggested I place a basket of some of the cards I made at creating in Middle Earth.”

What was “playing” became her next professional pursuit when she experienced health changes. She recalls, “In the fall of 1998, I left UCB because of the adventures of multiple sclerosis. I wanted to continue to contribute to many of the places I’d previously been in a position to contribute financially. So I started creating and offering cards and handmade journals to these places.

“I created a handmade book called ‘ABCs for Life.’ It’s a simple guided journal that offers quotes and questions for every letter of the alphabet. Long story short, a bookstore in Wilmington began offering these ABCs book and a sales representative contacted me to request permission to begin offering ABCs and the rest of ‘my line’ across the southeast.”

Richey continues: “I remember sitting with Jackie McPherson, at her kitchen table – pondering what I’d call this new business. Jackie asked me what it meant to me and what I wanted it to mean to others. Cheap Therapy was the obvious choice. That was 14 years ago.

The primary first goal in my business plan is to pay it forward. So I donate at least 90 percent of 72 | 954 | Fall 2014

The genesis of Richey’s “All Shall Be Well” painted stones: Richey says: “The story originates with Julian of Norwich. Julian was a woman who lived in the 14/15th centuries in England. After having a near death experience, she received a series of messages from God. Over many years, she recorded these messages, which she called Showings. In fact, by publishing these Showings, she was the first woman to publish a book in the English language. At the core of the messages she received was that God created us and loves us – no matter what. That no matter who we are or what we do, as far as God is concerned, ‘All Shall Be Well.’” our profit to several different charities.

“My second goal is that the most important thing is to remember the most important thing. Our primary customers are art galleries, books stores, and hospital gift shops around the country. We grew from five customers to 849 in five years. Because of my own energy, the illness and death of my sister, loving my mom, who’s 89, and life in general, I cut my marketing budget. So we now create for 402 wholesale customers across the U.S.” Yet, there’s more to her life than her paper products. She has studied spiritual formation and is a spiritual director. “When I stopped being a banker, I had more time on my hands.

So people would often visit. The conversations during those visits would often turn to stories of faith. For years, I’d met with a priest I considered my spiritual director. Spiritual directors differ from pastoral counselors and psychological counselors in that their focus is not to offer solutions. A spiritual director is someone who is simply present with someone in their rela-

tionship with God or whatever they consider their Holy Source.”

Susan Moss Deans is a friend of Richey’s, attends the same church in Whiteville and has been a participant in a silent retreat facilitated

by Richey in Wilmington during Lent earlier this year. Moss describes Richey: “She loves others unconditionally. She has a unique ability to overlook a person’s shortcomings and see and appreciate the very best in them. She has the ability to let people know it is OK to mess up or make a mistake. She also has a gentle way of saying ‘that’s enough’ or ‘let’s move on’ when it needs to be said.”

Anne Natoli is the rector of Grace Episcopal/Christ the King Lutheran Church in Whiteville, one of the ministries where Richey serves. Natoli notes, “I think of Lisa as a free spirit, as an ordinary-everyday mystic, ready to see and respond to the Divine in all things. Yet, she’s not a loose cannon.

“As a lay member of the Order of Julian, (a monastic order in the Episcopal Church http://

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www.orderofjulian.org/home.html), Lisa is well schooled in the prayer traditions and spiritual disciplines of the Christian church.

It’s this combination of freedom and discipline (law and gospel) that makes her such a potent ministerial force. Lisa is also a licensed Lay Eucharistic Minister and Lector.”

Sara Brooks recently invited her family to celebrate the wedding anniversary of her and her husband, Bill. Richey helped her create some artistic touches for the special event.

Brooks stated: “What I love about Lisa is that the Scripture speaks to her, and she creates beautiful art that is inspired from God’s Word.”

With her mother’s former dog, Blossom, as one of her favorite companions, Richey speaks

with much love for her parent and with an appreciation for the life she currently leads.

“These days, I pretty much live my life between Lake Waccamaw and New Bern, where my mom lives. Mom is 89 and is living into what most 89-year-olds experience. So I am living into what most adult children experience.

Mom is feisty and dear. I learn from her every day.”

Learning. Loving. Creating. Communing…

It’s all a part of what makes Richey’s life a dynamically evolving artwork. Her existence is one with a myriad of hues and layers, which is continually reflecting a holy beauty and peace into the world at large.

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Health& Beauty

WHITEVILLE CITY SCHOOLS Gluten, Celiac Everyone Committed to the Success of ALL Students

Disease, Weight Loss and Your Health by briana cahn

GLUTEN FREE…..

We see it on restaurant menus, TV commercials, in advertisements and now we even see a big section in the grocery store labeled “ gluten free”. What does it mean? Who is it for and what is Celiac Disease?

Celiac Disease is a disease of the small intestines in which the body’s immune system responds to gluten by damaging the lining of the small intestine. Celiac Disease is a genetic disorder that affects about 3,000,000 people. The chance of Celiac Disease increases to 1 in 22 if an immediate family member has it. Diagnosis is by intestinal biopsy and a blood test for antibodies. Symptoms include gas, diarrhea, epigastric pain, fatigue, weight loss and/or a skin rash.

The only treatment for Celiac Disease is to eliminate gluten from your diet. Gluten is a protein found in grains such as wheat, rye, barley, oats, kamut and spelt. It is also known as a food additive called “dextrin”.

It has also become very “trendy” to follow a gluten free diet plan.

There are a couple of benefits associated with eating little to no gluten.

When an individual is following a gluten free diet, he/she is eliminating many processed and packaged food items. By doing so, an individual is more likely to eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and lean meats.

Even though a food label is marketed as being gluten free, it is not always healthy. Many of the packaged “gluten free” foods that are available are high in calories. Also, many gluten free foods are made with rice or corn flour, are not enriched or fortified and may contain a lower amount of iron, fiber and folate.

If you think you have Celiac Disease, a wheat allergy, or a wheat intolerance, please contact your doctor. With Celiac Disease, it is important to read food labels, closely looking for gluten in hidden places. It is also important to speak with a registered dietitian.

Empowering all students to reach their maximum potential for lifelong learning and productive citizenship. www.whiteville.k12.nc.us 74 | 954 | Fall 2014

Gluten is found in: ➸ Breads, cereals and pastas ➸ Flour tortillas and wraps ➸ Cereal Bars ➸ Cakes, cookies, pastries, and custards ➸ Snack crackers ➸ Convenience Foods

➸ Soups and sauces thickened with gluten containing flours, rye, wheat or barley ➸ Vegetable proteins and starch ➸ Modified food starch derived from wheat ➸ Malt flavoring, including maltodextrine, dextrin unless labeled as corn malt

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Entertaining

Events

Taste of Tabor

1_Miss North Carolina, Beth Stovall, joins local pageant winners on the dance floor at Taste of Tabor.

2_ Greta Heye, left, and Lisa Clark enjoy a crisp evening at Taste of Tabor in Tabor City.

3_ Folks enjoy food and coffee and hot chocolate during Taste of Tabor. The event took place at the house of Brenden and Angela Jones.

4_ The Embers featuring Craig Woolard perform at the Taste of Tabor as part of the Yam Festival festivities.

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2014 Families First Fashion Show

Joshua Bower

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Entertaining

Stephanie Miller

Events

Collin and Leah Hooks

Locke Byrd

Chris Evans

The Families First staff

Miller Brown

Butch Pope

Lucy and Locke Byrd

The crowd gathers before the fashion show Fall 2014 | 954 | 77

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Entertaining

Events

Columbus Regional Hospital System Employee Recognition

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Columbus Regional Healthcare held an employee recognition banquet in October at Northwood Assembly.

1_ Janet Royal is recognized for 25 years of service.

2_Deborah Dallas is recognized for 30 years of service.

3_CRHS Chief Financial Officer Carl Biber welcomes guests.

4_Lynn Nobles, five years of service, and husband David Nobles.

5_Brian Jenkins, 20 years of service, with wife Amy. 6_Susie Fairfax and Elizabeth Fowler each had 35 years of service.

7_Magnolia McIntyre and Barbara Boone.

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to submit an entertaining feature for the next 954 magazine: Call 910.642.4104

&

Entertaining 2

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SCC held a reception last month for retiring president Kathy Matlock.

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1_SCC President Kathy Matlock and her next door neighbor, Whiteville Police Chief Jeff Rosier.

2_Columbus County Manager Bill Clark and County Transportation Director Charles Patton.

3_Music was provided by SCC staffers Glenn Hanson, Marc Chesanow and Gene Wayman.

4_Former SCC Trustee Doris Dees and current Trustee Theresa Blanks.

5_SCC Administrative Assistant Melody Callihan talks with a guest.

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642-3511 10/16/14 PM Fall 2014 | 9541:01 | 79

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2014 Yam Festival Sweet Potato Auction

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1_1st Place Adult Winning Sweet Potatoes Grower Sawyer Enzor Strickland 2_Sawyer Enzor Strickland and Miss NC Beth Stovall 3_Kinley Nance and Jean Aubrey Williamson 5 4_Kinley Nance, Miss NC Beth Stovall, Kate Alsup 5_Left to right: Brenden Jones, Warren Miller, Bonnie Miller, Kelly Miller, Ronnie Strickland

November Events Saturday, November 15 Southeastern North Carolina Agriculture Festival in Fair Bluff Columbus County Farmers Market

Collards and Cornbread Day 7am – 1pm

November 17-22 9th Annual Lower Cape Fear Hospice Festival of Trees for Bladen and Columbus Counties at Northwood Church

2672 James B White Highway, Whiteville.

Visit www.hospicefestivaloftrees.org for complete festival event information.

80 | 954 | Fall 2014

Calendar of Events Festival of Trees Events: Festival of Trees at Northwood Church

9am to 5pm Nov 17, 18, 20 & 22 Enjoy beautifully decorated trees, wreaths, dessert café and appearances by Santa Claus.

Admission is $3 Children younger than 12 and $5 General admission.

Mistletoe Market

Vendors from across the region will display handcrafted goods and fabulous finds for your Christmas shopping list. $5 Admission includes Festival of Trees. Located at Northwood Church from 9am to 8pm Nov. 20-21 and 9am to 6pm Nov. 22.

Decking the Halls

Get inspired to deck your halls for the holidays with ideas and a demonstration presented by floral designer Jody McLeod from 6pm to 8pm Nov. 17 at Northwood Church.

Tickets are $25 per person and must be purchased before the event. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.hospicefestivaloftrees.org.

Holiday Luncheon with guest speaker, Celia Rivenbark

Luncheon is 11:30 am to 1pm on Nov. 19 at Northwood Church. Tickets are $35 per person and $250 for tables of eight. Tickets must be purchased before event. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.hospicefestivaloftrees.org.

The 33rd Annual Columbus County Industrial Golf Tournament at Land O’ Lakes

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Tournament First Flight 1st Place winners – Allan Wright, Rob Conway, Edwin Skipper, and Kenny Stanley

Breakfast with Santa

from 7pm to midnight. Call 910-642-9303 for more information or visit www.crhealthcare.org

December Events Friday, December 5 Candlelight Walk and Christmas Tree Lighting

Leaving at 5pm, sing your favorite carols while strolling from the Lake Waccamaw Town Hall to the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum for cookies and hot chocolate.

Saturday, December 6 Columbus County Farmers Market “Christmas From The Heart”

Craft Show & Sale from 7am to 1pm.

Events

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Danny McNeill, event co-chair along with Meredith Jackson, welcomes golfers to the 33rd annual golf outing.

Calendar of Events Saturday, December 6

Enjoy breakfast and pictures with Jolly Old The Very Merry Christmas Tour at Saint Nick from 9am to 11am Nov. 22 at Northwood Church at 6pm Northwood Church. Admission is $5 for Concert featuring Newsong, Jamie Grace, children younger than 12 and $7 for adults. Sanctus Real and Josh Wilson. Tickets availAdmission includes the Mistletoe Market. able at itickets.com and Oasis Boutique. For Tickets must be pre-purchased before event. more information visit For more information and to purchase tick- www.verymerrychristmastour.com. ets, visit www.hospicefestivaloftrees.org.

Saturday, November 22 10th Annual CRHS Hospital Gala at Vineland Station

&

Entertaining

Annual Lake Waccamaw Christmas Parade

begins on Columbia Ave. and travels down Lakeshore Dr. to Flemington Dr. at 10am.

Lake Waccamaw Fire and Rescue Hot Dog Fundraiser at the Fire Station at 11am.

Christmas Parade Through the Lights in Tabor City

The only nighttime Christmas Parade in Columbus County begins at 6pm. A tree lighting ceremony with local entertainment follows the parade.

“Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley”

Perform at The Ritz – Matinee and evening shows at The Ritz in Tabor City. Call 910-653-4141 for ticket information and times.

Community Farmer’s Fest & Crafts Fair in Tabor City

Call Cynthia Nelson at 910-377-3012 for more information

Sunday, December 7 Christmas Parade

through downtown Whiteville - 3pm.

December 11 – 13 Christmas Turkey Shoot

sponsored by the Tabor City Chamber of Commerce.

Sunday, December 21 & Monday, December 22 Ritz Christmas Spectacular in Tabor City

with shows at 5pm and 7pm. Admission is Free.

January Events 2015 Thursday, January 1 Happy New Year Friday, January 23 & Saturday, January 24 Women of Worth - WOW 2015

at Bowers Auditorium in Whiteville Featuring Sheila Walsh, Praise & Worship Leader Jan Smith & Comedienne/Speaker Kelly Ingram Tickets $35 each before December 10 & $45 after December 10. Call 910-770-3523 for more information or visit www.womenofworthnc.com.

Fall 2014 | 954 | 81

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At Southeastern Health, we believe excellent healthcare is a partnership — a partnership between us and you.

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