Join the West End Community Watch for its upcoming meeting on Tuesday, Mar. 21.
The speakers for the meeting, which begins at 6:30 p.m., will be Paul Ross, executive director of the Henderson Family YMCA, according to an announcement from Claire Catherwood.
Members of law enforcement also will be present to provide a police report.
The meeting will take place in the fellowship hall of West End Baptist Church, 619 Dabney Drive.
The American Red Cross has announced several opportunities to donate blood across the four-county area in March, which also marks the 80th annual observance of the national organization.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the original proclamation in 1943, but the American Red Cross was established more than 140 years ago by Clara Barton, a nurse who tended wounded soldiers during the Civil War. In 1869, she learned about the Red Cross during a trip to Switzerland and subsequently founded the American Red Cross in the United States.
Whether it’s donating blood, setting up emergency shelters and providing emotional support to those whose lives have been affected by storms, fires or other natural disasters, the American Red Cross honors the legacy of its founder.
“When help can’t wait during emergencies, people in North Carolina rally together to provide relief and hope for neighbors in need,” said Barry Porter, regional CEO of American Red Cross North Carolina. “This humanitarian spirit is at the heart of our community, and we are proud to honor all those who make our mission possible during this year’s Red Cross Month celebration. You can join in their commitment by donating, volunteering, giving blood or platelets, or taking a lifesaving skills course.”
If you can’t donate blood or platelets, you can always donate money or volunteer your time. Visit redcross.org to learn more. Later this month, on Mar. 22, the organization celebrates Red Cross Giving Day, a campaign designed to raise money to help provide shelter, food, relief items and support to individuals who have suffered disasters large or small. Visit redcross.org/givingday to give.
Blood drives happen all year long, but when individuals donate blood, platelets or plasma in March, they will receive by email a $10 Visa prepaid card. And they also will be automatically entered for the chance to win a $3,000 Visa prepaid card.
Consider signing up for one of the following local blood drives:
Vance County
Granville County
Warren
Franklin
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There is so much information at our fingertips in the 21st century world of genealogy, but people who want to learn more about their ancestors still have to use those tried-and-true research to obtain the most accurate results.
Bill Harris and Mark Pace, North Carolina Room Specialist at Oxford’s Thornton Library discussed different types of records, from family Bibles to courthouse files in Thursday’s tri-weekly history segment of TownTalk.
Before the days of online subscriptions that help individuals fill in family tree information, genealogists had to go to the source; oftentimes, that was the local courthouse.
“The court was all powerful back in the day,” Pace said, adding that you can find “all sorts of crazy records,” from the usual wills and deeds, to the bounty that someone was paid for bringing in a wolf hide.
Court records are considered “primary sources,” Pace said, as are family Bibles, tombstones and church records.
“Secondary sources are a little trickier to document,” he continued. A secondary source may be something like a newspaper article or obituary and books on local history, all of which technically contain second-hand information.
Of course, there are many books that chronicle the history of a place or a family that are considered very reliable and upon which many genealogists rely for information.
Pace said in his 40-plus years of researching history of some sort or another, he said it’s always gratifying to find that bit of missing information that had previously eluded him.
“You’ll hear a ‘whoopee’ in a quiet library,” he said, and it’s a sure sign that another researcher has found an elusive tidbit as well. “They’ve found what they’re looking for,” he said. “It‘s very rewarding.”
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More than 13,000 people have died in North Carolina alone in the past nine years from fentanyl. A half-day family summit will be held in Raleigh on Saturday, designed to be part awareness, part education, and part support for those who have family members who have died from fentanyl poisoning.
“Poisoning” is the term Patricia Drewes prefers to “overdose” when describing the unintended deaths that occur all too frequently, especially with teens and young adults.
Drewes founded Forgotten Victims of North Carolina following the 2019 death of her daughter Heaven. She spoke with John C. Rose on Thursday’s segment of The Local Skinny! and said the summit has reached its capacity and will not be able to accept additional registrations.
Within a few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the now-familiar phrase of “the 3 W’s – Wear, Wash, Wait” became a household term. Drewes said there needs to be a similar campaign to warn and educate the public on the dangers of illicit fentanyl.
“Commercials, billboards – we need to be teaching it in schools, discussing it in our churches,” Drewes said. “I don’t feel like North Carolina is doing enough,” she said.
She said law enforcement officers should carry Narcan – a overdose antidote of a sort – on their belts just like they do other useful tools like flashlights. Often, they arrive on the scene before EMS and administering Narcan could save a life.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is among those scheduled to speak, as well as victims’ family members, state and federal law enforcement and representatives of local nonprofits.
Drewes and Barb Walsh, executive director of Fentanyl Victims Network of NC are among the organizers of the summit, which will be held at the McKimmon Conference Center from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
One of the goals of the summit is to educate and increase awareness, but also to let families know that they are not alone in their grief or in their struggle.
Drewes’s group has grown to five chapters that covers at least half the state; email her at patriciadrewes@yahoo.com to learn more about Forgotten Victims of North Carolina.
Following are some sobering statistics regarding fentanyl use in North Carolina:
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Kerr-Vance Academy’s young baseball team is coming off of a 4-1 win over East Wake Academy on Wednesday. While it was a good win for Kerr-Vance, Coach Mike Rigsbee knows his team is very young. “We are young but we are talented,” Rigsbee said on SportsTalk on Thursday. “We are relying on our junior and our sophomores,” Rigsbee continued. Junior, as in singular. Kerr-Vance’s team only has one junior this year and no seniors at all. The team is also made up of three sophomores, five freshmen along with two 8th graders and one 7th grader.
“Our older kids embrace the younger ones. Kids start at a young age and they have to hustle and control their emotions,” Rigsbee explained. Youth is not all he has to be concerned with though as weather is playing a factor. With recent rains leaving the Kerr Vance field drenched, the upcoming game against Thales Academy is likely to be postponed. Rigsbee said the field at Kerr Vance is notorious for poor drainage.
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Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow sounded pretty impressed with Flock Safety’s device that reads license plates and said he hopes Henderson joins the growing ranks of cities in the area that are using technology to help combat crime.
The LPR – license plate reader – is a device that does exactly what its name implies – it reads the license plates of vehicles that pass by it.
Barrow told WIZS News Wednesday that an LPR provides real-time data to law enforcement agencies. “If we put an alert on a certain tag,” Barrow said, “it’ll send us (information) that tells us that vehicle has passed by.”
If an LPR detects that a vehicle has passed by the same LPR for, say 30 days, it’s a safe bet that the person driving that vehicle lives in that general area. That’s when police officers can zero in on that area and search for the car and then locate the person they’re interested in talking with.
Barrow said Wake Forest, Louisburg, Durham and other places in the area are testing the waters as LPRs gain popularity. And Raleigh is “inundated” with them, he said.
He plans to bring the request before the City Council at their next meeting.
LPRs are “vital,” to law enforcement, he added.
“If I can pull it off, it’ll help us out tremendously,” Barrow said.
If you get a card in the mail from the Vance County Board of Elections asking you to confirm some information, it’s part of ongoing maintenance to keep the most updated voter rolls as possible. Vance County joins other county boards of elections across the state to conduct required processes designed to keep the state’s voter rolls accurate.
Elections Director Melody Vaughan told WIZS News this week that the office has sent out 177 cards requesting updated information from residents on the voter rolls. Vaughan said she anticipates another round of cards to go out in July.
These routine processes are required by state and federal laws, according to information from the N.C. State Board of Elections. Accurate voter rolls are maintained by removing voters who have moved or died or are otherwise ineligible to vote in that jurisdiction. Voter roll list maintenance is important because it ensures ineligible voters are not included on poll books during elections.
As a result of these processes, the number of North Carolina voter registrations will decrease in the first half of 2023. As of Feb. 25, about 7.2 million voters were registered in the state, down from more than 7.4 million on January 1.
A Biennial List Maintenance occurs early in odd-numbered years, so the cards that were sent from Vance County are part of the process to voters that have not voted in the previous two statewide elections and the county board of elections has had no contact with that person. In Vance County, the cards were sent to those with whom there has been no contact since Oct. 9, 2020.
If the voter doesn’t return the card within 30 days – and the elections office doesn’t get it back as undeliverable, the voter’s record will be marked “inactive” in the state’s voter registration database. Inactive voters are still registered voters, however; if an inactive voter shows up to vote, the person will be asked to verify their address and update it, if necessary.
The registrations of these voters will be canceled if they do not vote or otherwise confirm their registration by January 2027.
County boards of elections also have begun to remove certain “inactive” voters from the rolls. Voters will be removed from registration lists this year after being sent a no-contact mailing in 2019. Any voter removed in this way would not have had any contact with their county board of elections for four consecutive federal election cycles, not voted in any election during that time and not responded to a confirmation mailing.
Statewide, more than 264,000 inactive voters have been removed in 2023. Any removed registrant must be reinstated if the voter appears to vote and gives oral or written affirmation that the voter has not moved out of the county and has maintained residence continuously within the county. These voters’ votes will be counted absent evidence that they moved out of the county.
Voters may check their registration status at any time using the State Board’s Voter Search tool.
To learn more about registering to vote in North Carolina, visit: Registering.
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