Each broadcast of “The Local Skinny!” on WIZS will feature your phone calls at 492-5594.  The calls can be about anything on your mind as well as items you have for sale, or items you are looking for.

Plus, there’ll be local news and information, guests, business spotlights and the latest from Vance County Cooperative Extension.

Run down for Wednesday:

11:30 a.m. – Items to Buy or Sell;
11:45 a.m. – Business Spotlight with RCE Theaters Marketplace; How fortunate we still have a local movie theater!

The show podcast is always available at wizs.com/thelocalskinny and by clicking on the show logo atop wizs.com.

Tomorrow (2-11-21) on the program, local calls, items to buy and sell, plus Brandon Boyd, president of Ruin Creek Animal Protection Society and Jamon Glover with COOP with a weekly parenting tip.

Next week on the program, guests include Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow, H-V Chamber President Michelle Burgess and Britt Sams with Sam’s Furniture and Mattress Center … plus your calls and items.

Stay tuned and tell a friend!

RCE Theaters-Marketplace is open for business, and owners Blaine and Janelle Given hope families in the area will fall in love with the movie-going experience all over again. They bought the former Henderson Marketplace last year and, since then, have worked to make sure patrons can enjoy a movie in a place where cleanliness is key.

Opening a movie theater in the middle of a pandemic may not have been ideal timing, but Blaine Given told Trey Snide during Wednesday’s show on WIZS “The Local Skinny” that interior updates, lower ticket prices and a strict attention to wiping down surfaces between seatings all contribute to an enjoyable, safe place to visit.

Blaine and Janelle Given breathed new life into the area’s only multi-screen movie complex, which opened in 1991. RCE Marketplace joins their other two theaters in Roanoke Rapids and Elizabeth City, which faced closure before they took ownership.

They bought the Roanoke Rapids theater in 2013, the Elizabeth City theater two years later, then learned that the Marketplace was for sale last year – just as the nation began to reel from the COVID-19 pandemic. They met with then-owner Dr. Mike Smith and his wife and everybody agreed to make it a win-win for buyers and sellers, as well as for the community. “Our big focus was the people of Henderson and the surrounding area. How we could make sure we kept that facility open and available for families to have a place to come and make memories and spend time together,” Blaine Given said.

Among the upgrades, he noted, is a renovation of, including new seating, in one of the auditoriums. If his prediction holds true, all auditoriums could be equally renovated by the end of 2021.

Just like other businesses when they re-opened during the pandemic, the theater had to build in extra cleaning steps to comply with COVID-19 restrictions. That, Blaine Given said, is one thing they can do to contribute to the effort to combat the virus.

“We have the opportunity in the movie theater to do it on a bigger level,” he said. All high-touch surfaces, including seats, get wiped down between every show. In addition, the seats get an extra solution sprayed on them at the end of each evening. The air systems are monitored to make sure everything’s running properly and Given said they installed hand-sanitizing stations “all over the theater” for patrons’ use. “We are just trying to make sure that people are not concerned about the cleanliness (of the theater) or the risk of coming to the movie theater is any greater than it would be anywhere else, he added.

He and wife Janelle, president of RCE Theaters, want other families to have the same love of going to the movies as they have, “where families come to make memories,” Blaine said. So, they have lowered ticket prices to make the experience more affordable. “We want families to walk through the door and be entertained together,” he said.

“The Local Skinny,” a new program that WIZS launched on Feb. 8, is a way for the community to stay connected to a variety of local opportunities – it’s Tradio, public service forum and call-in show all rolled into one.

The Henderson-based station has long devoted air time to keep the listening community informed, and this new program is a fresh way to present information over the air waves. John C. Rose hatched the idea as a way to deliver in shorter bursts different forms of information. “The Local Skinny” bundles a few services under a new name as a way to keep things fresh.

Monday’s show included some callers who had items for sale, as well as some other items for sale that had come in earlier to the Tradio program.

“It’s gonna be a hodgepodge of things,” Rose commented during the initial program.

You just never know where the show may go, and that’s what may appeal to the listening audience.

Henderson Mayor Eddie Ellington was the first official guest on the show Tuesday, and christened the program’s official launch with a proclamation of sorts. “I hereby officially proclaim this inaugural show,” Ellington said. Rose reminded listeners that the governor of North Carolina sent a message to the radio station when it signed on for the first time – May 1, 1955. So he felt it was appropriate to have another government official operate in a similar capacity.

On Tuesday’s show, for example, Ellington and Rose discussed what had happened at Monday night’s City Council meeting. The police department and fire department got the green light to pursue a few grant opportunities. “It’s a no-brainer when you have grants coming your way,” Ellington said.

“The Local Skinny!” is a format that the community can participate in and benefit from. “The Local Skinny!” will be live at 11:30 a.m. Mon-Thurs right after “TownTalk,” which has the 11 a.m. time slot M-F.

Tune in to 1450 AM or 100.1 FM to listen live. Find recorded shows