TownTalk: More Thoughts On Steve Cordell
City of Henderson Fire Chief Steve Cordell is remembered.
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TownTalk: Henderson Fire Chief Steve Cordell Passes
City leaders and colleagues of Henderson Fire Chief Steve Cordell paid tribute to their friend and coworker, who died Sunday after a brief illness.
Cordell and his family had attended a ceremony at City Hall on Jan. 19 – on Cordell’s 51st birthday – during which he received the Order of the Guardian award for outstanding leadership and service in the fire industry and was recognized for his 30 years of work with the city.
Funeral arrangements will be announced later by Sossamon Funeral Home.
Retired fire chief Danny Wilkerson told WIZS News Monday that he remembers well the day in May 2015 when he called then-Assistant Fire Chief Cordell to his office.
“I asked him if he was ready to become fire chief,” Wilkerson said. “You should have seen his face,” Wilkerson added, recalling Cordell’s emotional reaction to the news that he would serve as interim chief upon Wilkerson’s retirement. He later was chosen for the job and succeeded Wilkerson as chief in November 2015.
Cordell joined the fire department in 1990’s and found a career that lasted more than 30 years. He got his first taste of fire service in 1990 as a 17-year-old volunteer with Watkins Volunteer Fire Department.
Watkins Assistant Chief Brandon Link said Cordell remained active with the department and continued to contribute to the department throughout his career with the city fire department.
In a post on social media, Link remembered Cordell and gave thanks for his many years of service: “Thank you for showing me what faith is when I wanted to lose hope,” Link wrote. “Thank you for choosing to love me when you had zero obligation to do so. Thank you for holding me to a higher standard than the rest because, while it seemed unfair, ultimately you knew best. Thank you for being there for me when even I didn’t realize I needed you.”
Henderson Mayor Eddie Ellington praised Cordell for his immeasurable passion and dedication to the community. “The knowledge, wisdom and service to his profession have profoundly impacted countless lives,” Ellington told WIZS News. “Although his life here on earth is over, his eternal flame will continue to burn in our hearts and memories.”
Among others sharing some of those memories with WIZS News was Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow, who said Monday that Cordell was a “kind soul” who would do anything for anybody. “We we poked fun at each other but always came together,” Barrow said of the friendly rivalry between public service agencies and personnel. “They were always there for us… we were always there from them,” he said.
Public safety poses challenges for those who serve, but Barrow said Cordell “never let anybody down.”
“Steve was a dedicated and a professional firefighter,” Wilkerson said, adding that he “never doubted his ability to do his job – as well as mine, when I was absent. I have many memories of our friendship and working relationship.”
Firefighters with the Henderson Fire Department were honored Monday, Oct. 24, 2022 for their role in saving a woman’s life in a January house fire. NC Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal Mike Causey is seen here with Henderson Fire Chief Steve Cordell with the commissioner giving the chief a thumbs up on the floor of fire station 2 downtown
Wilkerson said Cordell was always exploring ways to do better and they would talk after going out on fire calls to see how and where to make improvements. He said the city was fortunate to have kept Cordell when he easily could have gone to be chief somewhere else.
“He’s just been a huge asset and (we)just need to keep going forward and continue what he’s started,” Wilkerson added.
Vance County Emergency Management Director Brian Short called Cordell “one of the best people I ever met – a good Christian man…someone trying to make things better.”
Short recalled that any time he’d walk into Cordell’s office, the first thing he’d notice was an open Bible. His straightforward approach was just one sign of his professionalism and leadership. “He never came sideways at you about anything,” Short said. “He elevated his people… it was never about him, it was always about ‘us,’” Short stated.
As Wilkerson explained, for Cordell, it was “God, family, fire department – in that order. “I never knew him to get (his) priorities in the wrong order.”
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TownTalk: Maria Parham Recognizes Employees During Leapfrog Event
People working in hospitals hear the word “contagious” and their minds may go straight to thoughts of how to react to an adverse medical situation.
But during a celebration Wednesday at Maria Parham Hospital, the mood was nothing but positive as staff and other officials took time to honor employees for their hard work and dedication to their jobs and to celebrate receiving an “A” safety rating from Leapfrog, a hospital watchdog agency.
It was Cancer Center Director Kimberly Smith who used the word “contagious” to describe the attitude and positivity of Efia Kearney, who was honored as Employee of the Year.
Kearney works in the Emergency Department, and she is always picking up extra days to help out. “She provides a positive outlook for Maria Parham,” Smith said, reading from some of the comments on the nomination form. “She is our ace-in-the-hole to solve needs,” read another nomination.
Top left frame – Efia Kearney and Kim Smith; Top center – Josh Banks
Smith herself was presented a director award, along with Josh Banks, director of facilities management.
In remarks to the group, both Smith and Banks spoke about the high level of teamwork involved in getting their jobs done each and every day.
Stephanie Allen, director of quality and patient safety, attributes the Leapfrog “A” rating to the same teamwork across the hospital. “It’s something for us to be very proud of,” Allen said during the gathering.
The hospital previously had earned “B” ratings from Leapfrog, and CEO Bert Beard said this is the first “A” rating.
As a community hospital, Maria Parham doesn’t have the size or resources that other, larger facilities enjoy, but it “can still be excellent and give quality of care,” Beard said.
Eight out of 70 Lifepoint facilities earned an A rating from Leapfrog, Beard noted. Just over 1 in 4 of the 2200 hospitals rated by Leapfrog received an A rating.
“Once you set the bar this high, you want to keep it there,” said Allen.
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TownTalk: Wayne Goodwin Talks About NC DMV
Granville County has been without a license plate agency for a few months now, but DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin says the process is underway to have an office open again soon.
Goodwin spoke with John C. Rose Wednesday morning on TownTalk and provided an update on this and other topics, from the Real ID program and DMV kiosks to the increased use of electric vehicles in the state.
The DMV office where folks get their driver’s licenses are state agencies, staffed with state employees, Goodwin explained. But the license plate agencies – LPAs – are operated by private contractors with state oversight.
“Occasionally, we’ll have a license plate agency close,” he said, usually because the contract is up and isn’t renewed for one reason or another.
Goodwin said the state has received applications and in currently in the process of choosing a new contractor.
Conducting business online is a popular way to avoid the wait times and sometimes long lines for anyone who needs to transact their business in person. Visit www.myncdmv.gov to renew driver licenses, renew plates and more.
But Goodwin said North Carolina is exploring placing service kiosks that can be accessed any time of the day for those who don’t want to use the online services.
“We’ve decided to do what a few other states are doing,” Goodwin said, in exploring the use of kiosks – standup machines that can provide certain DMV services to the public.
“Be on the lookout for that,” he said, adding that about 20 will be rolled out in grocery stores and other public locations in the near future to test the public’s interest in using them.
Smartphones are figuring into the world of DMV, too.
Some states are implementing mobile driver licenses as a way to cut down on identity theft. North Carolina is exploring that idea, too, he said.
As for the Real ID, Goodwin said “folks on the federal level decided it’d be best that the deadline be pushed back two years…which gives folks more time to become compliant.”
It’s an idea that came about as a result of the 911 attacks, but it is not a requirement.
A gold star in the upper right corner of the driver license certifies that the person has provided the necessary documents that verify identification.
Summit ways to better prepare ourselves for the future.
As for the increased use of electric vehicles in the state, Goodwin said it really boils down to two things: customer demand and what the automobile industry decides to provide consumers.
More EVs means more charging stations as well, and Goodwin said he would anticipate more charging stations popping up.
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TownTalk: Upcoming Events At VGCC
All campuses of Vance-Granville Community College will stay open late on Tuesday, Feb. 7 to accommodate students – current and prospective – who may need help or guidance from staff about planning their next steps with coursework.
Sherri Alston, director of admissions and enrollment services, told John C. Rose on Tuesday’s TownTalk that the day is designed to help students get help learning what their next steps are – whether it’s speaking with an advisor, beginning the registration process or participating in a new student orientation.
VGCC Public Information Officer Courtney Cissell said the new orientation classes will be offered that day on the Main Campus at 10 a.m. and again at 5:30 p.m.
Students would participate in orientation sessions after completing the registration process, Alston reminded, which means students should have a letter of acceptance in hand before attending the orientation.
Students these days have the chance to sign up for course offerings that are completed in just 8 weeks. The second 8-week course begins on Mar. 13, Alston said.
“Students are having a good time doing the classes in a quicker time span,” Alston noted, adding that students often have to juggle work, home, families and children’s activities on top of attending classes. The shorter 8-week time frame is a faster pace, but it also means a student may be able to complete a program more quickly.
No matter the type of program students are interested in pursuing, a good first step is consulting with VGCC staff.
“Call us, let’s talk about your goals…what’s driving you,” Alston said. “We want to steer you in the right direction.”
Visit www.vgcc.edu to learn more. Call the office of admissions and enrollment services at 252.738.3327.
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TownTalk: Nobles And Wood Recognized
It’s always nice when your colleagues recognize you for your efforts in the workplace. Frankie Nobles, chief of animal services for Vance County, thinks it’s so important that he belongs to the county’s Employment Engagement Team, a group that thinks of ways to show appreciation to the county’s employees.
One of the ways the county shows its appreciation is by identifying an “employee of the month” and recognizing the award winners at county commissioners’ meetings.
Shelly Wood was recognized as December’s employee of the month. Wood works with the Board of Elections.
January’s employee of the month was a surprise to Nobles, who chairs the employment engagement team.
It was him!
“They pulled one over on me,” Nobles told John C. Rose on Monday’s TownTalk, who said he was honored to accept the award. And he didn’t know ahead of time, he said, that he would be January’s recipient.
Nobles and the others on the employee engagement team are always looking for ways to make employees feel appreciated and valued.
“You want your staff to want to come to work and be proud to work for Vance County,” Nobles said. Employee retention is a challenge that many employers face these days, he added. He and the other members of the engagement team meet monthly to brainstorm how to improve and, in turn, attract prospective employees to find careers in Vance County.
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Town Talk: Cordell Recognized for Fire Dept. Service
Steve Cordell honored for service to Henderson Fire Dept.
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TownTalk: Basic Genealogy
Today’s genealogy enthusiasts have a multitude of online resources, from databases that help create family trees to digitized newspapers from bygone eras.
Whether you’ve been at it a long time, like Mark Pace and WIZS’s Bill Harris have, or whether you’re just getting started, there are a few rules of thumb to keep in mind as you ferret our tidbits of information.
In their tri-weekly history segment on Thursday’s TownTalk, the two history buffs discussed the basic nuts and bolts of genealogy – call it Genealogy 101.
Pace, North Carolina Room specialist at Oxford’s Thornton Library, has been doing research on his family for half a century. Harris, for about the past 25 years.
Harris reminds others to talk in person with the oldest family member you can to find out information. “But there’s so much more,” he said, from family Bibles to web-based resources.
Pace said a family’s oldest living relative is a “wonderful resource” to start with, whose basic knowledge can be verified – or disproven – by checking against other sources.
“If you start with what you know,” Harris said, such as talking with a grandparent or other older relative, to gain information, “you can plug it in and then…slowly start working backwards” to fill in the gaps.
It’s important to determine what information is relevant to your search to avoid getting distracted. “Don’t let it overwhelm you,” Harris continued.
Libraries and courthouses are familiar places to many seasoned genealogists. But there is so much information available at your fingertips – online databases and archived documents make it easier for genealogists to find information in far-flung places.
Most places have a local history library, Pace said, and he constantly receives calls from people who are doing just that – checking sources.
“North Carolina was one of the very last states to mandate by law that you have a birth certificate or death certificate,” he said. That law took effect in 1913.
Before then, births may have been recorded in family Bibles and deaths verified in wills or estate records.
Wills and estates, however, were used by those who owned property. The lives and deaths of individuals who didn’t own property could easily have fallen through the cracks and lost forever, Pace noted.
Case in point, a branch of Pace’s own family. “All they did was grow tobacco and go to church,” Pace quipped, adding that there is scant information available about that part of his own kin.
Not surprisingly, when recorded information was done by hand and not by keystrokes on a computer, errors were much more common.
That’s just one reason why genealogists should always have multiple sources for their information
“Question everything,” Pace advised, adding that genealogists often have to be part sleuth to uncover information that may be difficult to prove.
For years, telephone books served the vital purpose of listing numbers of individuals and businesses. Those thick paperback behemoths are obsolete today, but the old ones that are still around can help genealogists confirm information, Pace said.
Documents as mundane as phone books help to place a person in a certain time period at a certain place. They are “fabulous” resources, Pace said.
He fielded a query once from someone who wanted to know the phone number for a family member who lived in Oxford at the beginning of the 20th century, when the town had its own self-contained telephone system. Pace located a 1903 phone book and found the phone number.
What was that phone number, you ask? 1.
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TownTalk: BGC Granville Club Kicks Off Phase 1 Of Major Facility Facelift
Community leaders and other interested individuals gathered at the Granville Boys & Girls Club in Oxford Monday to witness the Construction Kickoff that will transform the Granville County club from a cavernous warehouse to a state-of-the-art facility.
Five club members, each sporting blue t-shirts with the familiar Boys & Girls Club logo, gave up their day off from school for the MLK holiday to take part in the celebration. They posed for photos with officials as they stood behind a paper banner decorated for the event. Then they got a running start and broke through the banner to officially kick off the project, to applause from the grownups assembled.
CEO Donyell “DJ” Jones told those gathered that if all goes well, the project will begin in early February and should be completed by the end of May. H.G. Reynolds is in charge of the project.
The Granville club is located in a building formerly occupied by Santa Fe Natural Tobacco. The administrative offices for the BGC North Central North Carolina also is located at the West Street facility, having moved from Vance County when the building was donated a few years back.
The construction project will create a dedicated art space, computer lab and more. Renderings by Intrepid Architects of Greenville, N.C. flanked the seats at the construction kickoff event to showcase the proposed design.
“As we look at this space,” Jones said, he described as “priceless” the time and resources that have been committed to bring the project to fruition. “This investment will have a positive impact on the community,” he said.
Among the special guests on hand Monday were Richard Moore and Julia Blaine, and Jones recognized them both for their significant contributions. Moore’s foundation provided a “transformational” investment to get the project off the ground and Blaine, along with husband Thomas and their Strong Arm Baking Co., issued a challenge in late 2021 to raise money for the project. This challenge raised awareness and added more than 200 new donors to BGC.
Jacqueline Robinson is the chief development officer for the regional organization, which has clubs across the four-county area. In her remarks Monday, Robinson talked about the history of the Boys & Girls Club, which officially celebrated 100 years in 2006.
Today, the staff of Boys & Girls Clubs work with club members, focusing on three priority areas: academics, good character and citizenship and healthy lifestyles.
This project will provide club members increased access to technology as well as a stable internet connection, in addition to more space for tutoring sessions and many different types of programs.
“This is the place where you come so you can grow into a professional,” Robinson said. She said that the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions curtailed BGC activities, and the new renovated space will be a real plus as club members continue to return to the Oxford unit.
Michael Currin, chairman of the BGC corporate board, said the transformed space will be a kid-friendly space and will provide a “first-class environment that will meet the needs of our kids.”
Follow the progress at https://www.facebook.com/BGCNCNC/
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TownTalk: Classes Help Seniors Navigate Technology And The Internet
By all accounts, Edy Thompson says, the class designed for senior adults who want to learn more about how to use technology is a success.
From reading the evaluations from those who attended the first class, everyone thinks it’s an “excellent idea,” Thompson told John C. Rose. “And they’re coming back.”
Completing an evaluation is a small price to pay – the only price, actually. The class is free for senior adults and is the result of a partnership with AARP and Rebuild Communities. Thompson is the executive director of Rebuild Communities.
“I just think it’s an excellent, excellent program,” Thompson said. The facilitators had to get trained to teach the class, which will continue on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30. Up to 10 participants come to learn more about how to use the technology that is all around us, from smartphones, laptops and iPads to Zoom calls and online troubleshooting chat sessions.
Thompson said older adults have to work at not becoming obsolete. “We know it but we don’t want to address it,” she said.
People are reluctant to show that they don’t know something, but this class provides information in a non-threatening way that folks enjoy.
“It’s wonderful to see seniors getting together and having fun and learning something useful,” she said.
Want to join in the fun? 252.915.1663 or send an email to info@rebuildcommunitiesnc.org.
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