The Local Skinny! Lickskillet Dog Grooming Keeps Your Pets Looking Great

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Doreen Hood works hard at making sure her canine clients don’t feel like they’re at the dreaded veterinarian’s office. Her Lickskillet Dog Grooming is an inviting spot where dogs come for baths and grooming. It’s like sending your pooch to a doggie day spa.

Hood said she learned all about dog grooming in New York City from a major groomer in the field. Even when she worked as a police officer, she continued to keep her dog grooming skills sharp. Taking up dog grooming as a career was “the best decision I ever made,” she told WIZS’s Trey Snide during the Business Spotlight segment of The Local Skinny! on Monday.

“Each dog is totally different,” Hood said, and she takes those different personalities into account when she works with different clients. “I get to know each dog’s personality,” she said, “what stresses them out and what doesn’t stress them out.” Music is one of the major tools she uses when grooming the dogs, and it’s not unheard of for her to sing to the dogs as she’s working.

She works by appointment only and also offers obedience training.

Hood said she stays pretty busy, and the best way to reach her is by phone at 252.213.3670.

Lickskillet Dog Grooming is located at 132 Fry Pan Lane, in the southern part of Warren County.

The Local Skinny! Vance Eats: Jerry’s Hot Dogs

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Food trucks are all the rage these days, but local folks know that their go-to spot for more than three decades is a true original. And whether you prefer your burger or ‘dog plain or all the way, stop by Jerry’s Footlongs & Italian Sausage and taste for yourself.

Trey Snide, acting on a tip from colleague Bill Harris, took his first bite ever of a footlong red, complete with jalapeños and chili on Thursday’s Vance Eats segment of The Local Skinny!

Between bites, Trey said Anthony Clark filled him in on a little of the history of the business, which his grandfather started. Jerry Taylor built his first cart from scraps from around the farm, and grandson Anthony still has it. It served its purpose for decades, Clark said.

Both Trey and Bill had high praise for the chili – “the chili makes the dog,” Bill said.

Taylor died a couple of years ago, but his legacy lives on, thanks to his grandson and to a loyal following from the area and beyond.

Find Jerry’s Footlongs in the parking lot of Pelican’s on North Garnett Street. Call 252.820.0649 to learn more.

Be prepared to choose from a menu that includes burgers and double burgers, as well as a “short” dog, a ham dog, footlong red, and Italian and sausage dogs.

Trey’s mission is to bring good food reviews to listeners. In coming weeks, he’ll be sampling fare from area restaurants, large and small. Vance Eats can be heard as part of the Local Skinny! on WIZS. The Local Skinny airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30 am on WIZS 1450AM, 100.1FM and online at wizs.com.

(This is not a paid ad.)

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Home And Garden Show

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On the Home and Garden Show with Vance Co. Cooperative Ext.:

  • Use sand instead of salt products on walkways and driveways during winter weather and sand don’t hurt plants like salt can.
  • Cut dead foliage off of ornamental grasses. Take care not to cut into the crown or growing point, which is at the center close to ground level. Also trim last year’s foliage off liriope and mondograss.
  • Check stored bulbs for decay.
  • Inspect large shade trees for damage from the winter storm. Look for broken or hanging branches. If you can’t reach them from the ground with a pole saw, then hire a professional.
  • Check your pruning equipment pruning season is just around the corner.
  • Don’t wait until spring to plant trees and shrubs. Plant them anytime now that the ground is soft enough to dig, so they’ll get a head start.
  • If you have seedlings started indoors check each day for moisture

 

The Local Skinny! Around Old Granville: Tungsten Mine

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Timing is everything, and for a couple of local gold prospectors back in 1942, that adage certainly rang true.

The Hamme brothers, Richard and Joe, didn’t find gold in the northwest part of Vance County, but what they did find certainly proved valuable and timely.

It wasn’t gold. But they found tungsten.

Mark Pace and Bill Harris talked about the origins of The Tungsten Mine near Townsville on the Around Old Granville segment of Tuesday’s The Local Skinny!

If you remember your world history, the U.S. and its Allied forces were in the middle of World War II in 1942. The Hamme brothers’ discovery came at a very opportune time – the U.S. military needed the tungsten to put on artillery tips. Tungsten is the hardest naturally occurring metal, Pace explained. The world’s tungsten supply was in control of various countries that supported the Axis armies, and the Allied forces needed access to tungsten.

“Within six weeks, the tungsten mine was in operation,” Pace said. It started out as an open mine pit, but soon a 1,700-foot deep shaft was dug and horizontal shafts extended from the single vertical shaft.

But it wasn’t so simple to get the tungsten out of the ground. “The problem was it was very labor intensive,” Pace said. The tungsten was embedded in clear quartz rock that is ubiquitous in the area. Workers had to pulverize the rock into a fine-grained sand. “And then (they’d) run a magnet across it,” Pace said. If you were to study a Google map of the area today, he said you’d see acres and acres of those quartz “tailings” at the site of the former mine, which closed permanently in 1971.

One other problem with the tungsten mine was that folks around here didn’t have much experience with mining. Many families relocated in the area after having worked for generations up in Mitchell County, NC in iron and feldspar mines.

Although there’s probably still plenty of tungsten to be had, there’s probably not much chance of the tungsten mine being reopened, Pace said.

But, just to be on the safe side, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built two dams during construction of Kerr Lake. And it’s the Island Creek Dam that is safeguarding from possible flooding the valley where the tungsten mine is located.

Just in case.

 

 

 

 

The Local Skinny! Jobs In Vance 01-18-22

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The H-V Chamber of Commerce and WIZS, Your Community Voice, present Jobs in Vance for January 18th, 2022. The Chamber compiles the information, and it is presented here and on the radio. Contact the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce at 438-8414 or email christa@hendersonvance.org to be included.

JOB OPENINGS IN VANCE COUNTY – Week of January 18, 2022

 

Name of the Company: Boys &Girls Club

Jobs Available:  Office Administrator- responsible for managing daily operations of the Administrative Office. Provides regular clerical and administrative support, prepares correspondence and reports, maintains schedules and calendars, answers phones and maintains files. This is a part time position.

Method of Contact: Resumes can be sent to Connie Ranes at cranes@bgcncnc.com

 

Name of the Company:  Vance County Schools

Jobs Available: Secondary Classroom Teachers Grades 6-12. Offering $5,000.00 hiring bonus.

Method of Contact: Apply at www.vcs.k12.nc.us and click on Job Opportunities

 

Name of the Company:  Outside the Box

Jobs Available: If you are creative and looking for a new career please apply immediately! This is a full time position.

Method of Contact: Apply at 340 Industry Drive behind Mako Labs anytime between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm.

 

Name of the Company: Variety Wholesalers   

Jobs Available: Has multiple openings for Buyers, Assistants and Warehouse Associates

Method of Contact:  Interested applicants can go to indeed.com to apply or for more information contact Patricia Overton at 252-430-2042.

  

Name of the Company:  Vance County Government

Jobs Available: Positions are now available with Department of Social Services, Sheriff’s Department, Fire Department, Planning and Development, Emergency Operations, Register of Deeds and more

Method of Contact: For a list of all listings with job descriptions and qualifications go to Vance County website and look under job postings

Some of these businesses are present or past advertisers of WIZS.  Being an ad client is not a condition of being listed or broadcast.  This is not a paid ad.

 

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The Local Skinny! Latest Local Election News

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Candidates who wish to file for local offices will be able to do so beginning Feb. 24, 2022 at 8 a.m., according to Vance County Board of Elections Director Melody Vaughan.

The filing period resumes following a State Supreme Court ruling on newly drawn district maps. The filing period will end at 12 noon on March 4, 2022.

Any candidate who has already filed does not need to re-file, Vaughan said.

Candidates may file for the office of sheriff, the register of deeds, clerk of court and county commissioners’ seats in Districts 3,4 and 7.

Board of Education seats in districts 1, 2, 6, and 7 will be voted on in the next election, as will City Council Wards 3 and 4, at-large seats in Wards 1 and 2, and seats in the NC House and NC Senate.

Following is the list of filing fees:

·      Sheriff – $720.60

·      Register of Deeds – $529.56

·      Clerk of Court – $998

·      County Commissioners – $98.72

·      Board of Education – $42

·      City of Henderson – $10.00

·      NC House and NC Senate – $140

Make checks payable to Vance County Board of Elections.

The Local Skinny! Vance Eats: Blackened Catfish From Restaurant 39

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A lot of folks love a good plate of fish or seafood. Whether it’s fried flounder or shrimp fettuccine or some other dish, seafood can be some of the most delicious food you’ll ever eat. And that includes catfish, even though it’s not from the sea.

Catfish can certainly be battered and fried, but if you’ve never tried blackened catfish, then you have missed out. On today’s Vance Eats segment of The Local Skinny! on WIZS, Trey Snide and Bill Harris had the opportunity to sample some blackened catfish from JR’s Restaurant 39. Blackened Catfish are cooked in a very hot cast iron skillet with butter, black pepper and spices. The black color comes from the burned pepper and spices.

Today’s meal was served with delicious grilled shrimp, perfectly seasoned butter beans, creamy mac and cheese plus hushpuppies but, the highlight was the highly flavorful blackened catfish. The seasoning never overpowered the fish but enhanced it. “I always eat fish with tartar sauce and ketchup but this doesn’t need it,” Harris said of the fish. “It’s delicious,” added Snide.

JR’s Restaurant 39 features daily specials and you can stop by and order the blackened catfish with two sides and see for yourself just how good it is. The restaurant is located at 946 West Andrews Ave. at Crossroads Shopping Center, and they are open Saturday through Monday from 7 to 11 a.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m.

JR’s Restaurant 39 is an advertising sponsor of WIZS, but this is not a paid ad.

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The Local Skinny! It’s Girl Scout Cookie Time

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It’s that time of year again – Girl Scout Cookie time begins at 9 a.m. on Saturday. And NC Coastal Pines Membership Director Teresa Wimbrow says there’s something for everyone in this year’s offering.

Vance County has about 100 girls who participate in the scouting program, but Wimbrow said she is always ready to welcome new scouts, from kindergarten through high school.

Scouts will have nine varieties of cookies for sale – the old reliables like Thin Mints, peanut butter sandwich and shortbreads – but there’s a new variety out this year called Adventurefuls, which is a brownie-inspired cookie, topped with caramel crème with a hint of sea salt.

“I was sold after one,” Wimbrow told John C. Rose on Thursday’s The Local Skinny! “But I tried a few more, just to be sure.”

Visit the nccoastalpines.org to find out just where the cookie booths will be located beginning on Jan. 22. There’s a Cookies+ tab that has lots of information, from local booth locations to descriptions of all the cookies.

“We are trying to be as COVID careful as we can,” Wimbrow said, so the scouts may not be fanning out across neighborhoods and knocking on doors as much this year.

There is the option of purchasing online as well, she said.

The cookies freeze well, Wimbrow said, so you don’t have to eat them all at once. The Buy 5 program enters your name into a drawing to win Girl Scout cookies for a whole year. And then there’s Operation Cookie Drop that sends cookies to U.S. troops.

Wimbrow oversees membership for four counties – Vance, Granville, Franklin and Warren – and said “the organization builds girls of courage, confidence and character.  We have so many opportunities for young girls in STEM, travel, building leaders, community service and outdoor activities.”

In addition to looking for new scouts, Wimbrow said she always welcomes new adult volunteers to join the cadre of 50 or so she already has. “I promise (it) will be the most rewarding job you’ve ever had, that‘s not really a job.”

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Home And Garden Show

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On the Home and Garden Show with Vance Co. Cooperative Ext.:

  • Clean your greenhouse check for mice
  • Use annual ryegrass as a temporary cover on bare spots in turf.
  • Plan out your garden now,
  • Be prepared to apply crabgrass preventer earlier.
  • Plan on growing one vegetable that you haven’t grown before.
  • Start checking the planting calendar to see what can be planted.
  • Build a small greenhouse or cold frame to raise your own transplants for 2022
  • If you want to raise transplants indoors, set up a system for artificial light.
  • Order 2022 new released varieties as soon as possible they will sell out quick
  • Get ready to prune grape vines.

 

Around Old Granville: Dr. Helen Chavis Othow

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Dr. Helen Chavis Othow was an educator, a genealogist, an author and a longtime leader in civic affairs in her native Granville County. She also was a wife, a sister and a mother.

Othow died on Jan. 1, 2022 at the age of 89.

Mark Pace and Bill Harris remembered the life and work of Othow to kick off a new segment of The Local Skinny! called Around Old Granville.

The Chavis family has ties to Granville County dating back to the 1700’s, Pace said, when Granville County encompassed most of what is present-day Vance, Granville, Franklin and Warren counties.

The founder of the John Chavis Society, Othow wrote a biography of Chavis, who Pace said was Othow’s 5-times great-grandfather. Chavis was a free Black man who was born in 1763. He became a Presbyterian minister and taught many children of prominent white families in the area. Othow produced in 1990 a genealogy of Chavis and his family, Pace said, and made several subsequent updates in the years since that original publication.

Although Othow moved away from the area to attend university and then continued in her marriage and career, “she always had a connection back to the county,” Pace said. It was important for her to contribute and to give back to Oxford, he added.

She taught at numerous universities through her career, including her alma mater, St. Augustine’s in Raleigh from 1984-1996.

Othow is survived by her daughter, Ojulo Othow Norman, a grandson, Collis Norman and her brother, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, former president of the NAACP.

She is buried in the Chavis family cemetery outside Oxford.

Have an idea for a story for an Around Old Granville segment? Contact Bill Harris at WIZS 252.492.5594 or Mark Pace at Thornton Public Library at 919.693. 1121, extension 204.

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