Edmonds Tennis Foundation

TownTalk: Edmonds Uses Tennis To Promote Oral Health

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The tennis courts at Fox Pond Park will be occupied Saturday with young people swinging racquets and … toothbrushes?

That’s right, it’s Tennis and Dentist Community Fun Day, hosted by Edmonds Tennis and Education Foundation.

Young people ages 5-18 are invited to come out to the park for the event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fox Pond Park is located at 375 Vicksboro Rd.

Participants will get free tennis lessons from some tennis experts and they’ll learn the importance of maintaining good oral hygiene from a couple of local tooth experts.

Dr. Jerry Edmonds, III and his wife Dorcel launched the 501c3 in 2018 and this is their third fun day event to introduce the sport of tennis to young people.

The foundation was named National Junior Tennis Learning Chapter of the Year back at a meeting in January, at which time the 17 North Carolina NJTL chapters were challenged with coming up with an innovative way to teach tennis in combination with a community learning experience.

Edmonds said his wife came up with the idea on the drive back home from the meeting.

The foundation uses the game of tennis as a vehicle to foster and develop positive character traits including integrity, honesty and more, Edmonds said.

And since May is National Tennis Month, they’re offering a tennis clinic and an oral hygiene clinic. But this clinic won’t have kids opening wide for the dentist to peer inside at teeth and gums; rather, there will giveaways of things like toothbrushes, floss and more, Edmonds said.

“The goal is to teach (children) early on the importance of good dental hygiene,” he said.

Granville Vance Public Health representatives will be on hand with information about its dental clinic, for example, and its school-based program called “The Tooth Club.”

Last year, the foundation awarded 17 $500 scholarships to graduating high school seniors to use toward college costs.

Sponsorships are vital to the foundation’s scholarship program, but Edmonds said the “secret sauce” is pairing local sponsors with those scholarship recipients to create a mentor/mentee relationship.

Through the scholarship program, tennis clinics and more, Edmonds said he hopes the foundation is creating “an army of givers” who will spread out across the community and beyond and to keep coming up with ways to be involved.

 

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VGCC Logo

TownTalk: Vance Granville Helping Small Businesses

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Dr. Jerry Edmonds, III, vice president of Workforce Development and Community Engagement at Vance-Granville Community, said he’s proud of the way the community supports small businesses and entrepreneurs. It may make his job just a bit easier, too.

From local government to the Chamber of Commerce, the network of support is a strong one for new business owners in the area.

“It seems like every week we’re having a small business ribbon-cutting,” Edmonds said on Tuesday’s TownTalk.

And those business owners have a valuable resource at VGCC – the Small Business Center. SBC Director Carolyn Perry’s office is located at the VGCC South Campus in Creedmoor, but Edmonds said she travels throughout the four-county area to help small business owners.

The services are free, and help individuals with anything from startup to counseling hours – it’s all designed to make sure that new businesses stay in business.

Statistics show that new businesses most often fail within the first five years, and Edmonds said the SBC is here to help during that initial period and beyond to help businesses continue to thrive. “We’re intentional,” he said. “We really try to mentor them and make sure they make it through that crucial five years.”

Whether you’ve been in business for awhile and maybe need a sounding board for advice or you’re thinking about starting your own business, the SBC is here to serve.

“Our job is to help business owners, be they startups or those that have been in business for years,” Edmonds said, adding that the local SBC help between 10-15 new businesses each year and provide help to retain that many businesses as well.

Visit www.vgcc.edu to learn more.

 

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Vance County Logo

TownTalk: Board of Equalization and Review Hears Appeals

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Vance County residents who want to learn more about the revaluation process and just how it will affect their tax bill can attend an information session on May 20 at 4 p.m. The info session will take place in the county administration building, known commonly still as “the old courthouse.”

One tidbit of information that may have been helpful for a handful of residents who appeared before the board of equalization and review last week: Have proper documentation to support your case for a lower valuation.

Another important tidbit: The appeals process ends June 3. It’s almost mid-May, so property owners who want to contest their revaluations need to get busy.

The county’s board of commissioners doubles as the board of equalization and review, and although some residents provided anecdotal evidence and even photographs to support their remarks, commissioners time and again said they needed written documentation.

Each of the five cases that were heard also were continued, and commissioners offered suggestions to help the property owners understand what was needed.

“A common theme tonight is that some people just don’t understand what information they need to bring,” said Commission Chair Dan Brummitt. Brummitt also said more information needs to be shared with the public about several exemptions that are available for property owners.

“They all have evidence…but they didn’t bring it,” Brummitt said.

One woman spoke and said there was no way her home could be valued at $103,000 – she lives among at least two abandoned homes, squatters living in a former business nearby and a hoarder one street away. She had pictures but nothing in writing, so commissioners, although sympathetic, said she didn’t have proper documentation to support her appeal.

Upon learning that the boarded-up house next door had sold for $12,000, commissioners encouraged the homeowner to request that public information – available at the tax office – to then present to the E & R on appeal.

Another woman who lives near Kittrell said her property value went from $50,000 to $109,000.

“I live in a doublewide, an old doublewide,” she said. And although she no longer has the swimming pool, outbuilding or deck on her property, “my property tax went up,” she said.

Brummitt said each property listing has a tax card that includes comparable properties. They’re on the back of the tax card, he said.

This resident said $75,000 is a more realistic price for her property, but Brummitt asked what documentation she had to support that claim. Comps could be one way to document similar properties and their values.

The county’s website has posted a lot of pertinent information about the appeals process, and tax office staff is available to answer questions, said Commissioner Yolanda Feimster.

“They’re there to answer your questions,” Feimster said, adding that staff is willing to extend any assistance needed to residents.

Not everybody is computer savvy or computer literate, and Commissioner Leo Kelly said senior adults especially may need a little extra help. “The information is overwhelming,” he said. “It’s just too much information all at one time.”

County Manager C. Renee Perry told WIZS in an earlier interview that the county is working on a tight deadline. Perry said “the plan is for the Board of E&R to open on May 6 and close on June 3. The last day to appeal will be June 3.”

Visit www.vancecounty.org/departments/tax-overview to learn more. Call the tax office at 252.738.2040.

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TownTalk: Beard Discusses Rural Health Care

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Maria Parham Health CEO Bert Beard said the state of health care in this area is in a pretty good spot these days. That doesn’t mean that rural hospitals like Maria Parham don’t continue to face challenges, but Beard said hospitals in other markets are facing some of the same things.

Beard was a guest on Thursday’s TownTalk to discuss some of the trends that he’s seeing from his vantage point.

Medicaid expansion, he said, is allowing more uninsured or under-insured residents access to health care. The number of new enrollees is about half a million, approaching the prediction of about 600,000 in North Carolina.

“We’re lagging a bit in Vance County,” he said, but health care professionals at MPH as well as Granville Vance Public Health and others are always looking for new enrollees.

With rising costs and the constant demand to find qualified health care employees, Beard said the Medicaid expansion “has given us a lifeline that we desperately needed.”

Beard said he and his colleagues knew hospitals were headed down a path to a health care provider shortage, but the COVID-19 pandemic hastened that process. Without adequate staff, some small hospitals simply couldn’t afford to keep the doors open, which only brings more challenges to the rural areas they serve.

“Services are going away that are vital,” he said. One of those is maternal services. It’s critical that expectant moms be within, say, an hour of a hospital that provides those services, for the safety of the mom and the child.

When he spoke at the April 23 “state of health care” forum sponsored by the Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce, Beard said top on people’s minds was the mental health crisis that is so often in the news.

He looks forward to the Emergency Department’s Safe Space project that has received funding and said it will transform how patients in crisis can be managed when they come through the Emergency Department.

Mental health issues are multi-dimensional and under-resourced, Beard said, noting that psychological issues are often entangled in social issues and substance abuse, which exacerbate the problem.

“We’ve got to be more deliberate in how we invest in that,” he said. Public-private partnerships like MPH behavioral health services in Louisburg is something that Beard said he is quite proud of.

Whether through collaboration or providing quality health care by Duke physicians and others, Maria Parham is poised to keep patients across the region it serves top of mind when it comes to community care.

It must be a mutually supportive relationship, however, Beard said. When you seek care, seek local care first.

“It’s more important than ever,” he said, that “when people have good available local health care, that they choose it – the alternative is that health care goes away if it’s not supported locally.”

“We’re working every day to get better every day. That comes with a mutually supportive relationship with our community.”

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TownTalk: CultureFest Coming To Oxford

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CultureFest is coming to downtown Oxford this Saturday, and organizers say the day’s activities will be a treat for all the senses – there will different types of food, musical performances and plenty of demonstrations for the entire family to enjoy.

“We are literally shutting down the center of town, “exclaimed Cathy Anna, who is the event producer for the sponsoring John Chavis Society. Main Street – between the Courthouse and the roundabout between the post office and Oxford Baptist Church, will be packed with artisan vendors, food trucks and performance stages for the event, which will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Performances will take place every half hour and will include all types of traditional dance groups representing Polynesian, Latin, Mexican, West African cultures, Anna said. And don’t forget the Cane Creek Cloggers, who will perform with a full bluegrass band providing a musical backdrop.

A Durham-based group will bring traditional dance and drumming of West Africa to Oxford, said Ajulo Othow, treasurer of the John Chavis Society and a direct descendant of the man for whom the society is named.

Part of what makes CultureFest special, Othow said, is that people from diverse backgrounds can make connections through “love, joy, dance, music…arts in general.” The idea is to leave, “feeling more connected to one another.”

Anna said 66 vendor booths will be lining Main Street to offer a unique shopping experience. All the vendors are also the artisans who will have for sale their custom crafted, handmade items – “items you’re not going to find anywhere else,” she said.

There will be “food trucks galore,” Anna said, offering a global culinary smorgasbord – everything from Asian Fusion, Italian, Greek, Soul Food and even “Fair Food.” And there will be plenty of sweet stuff, too – cakes, pies, snow cones and ice cream. These are conveniently located by the children’s craft area that will provide lots of hands-on creative activities for the younger generation.

So whether you head downtown for the Chinese Dragon Dance, Ballet Folklórico or Indian dancers in their colorful garb, or you just want to let your kids to enjoy creating a mandala or a beadwork activity, just know that CultureFest is a fun way to learn more about traditions we may not be familiar with. It’s a way to bring people together and break down stereotypes.

“Couldn’t we use a little bit more of that,” Othow said. “Just a little bit.”

It was Othow’s mother, the late Helen Chavis Othow, who was a driving force in the creation of CultureFest. Othow died in 2022, and CultureFest has continued to gather momentum.

“I like to think of it as a love offering from my mom to the community,” Othow said of the festival. Her family’s roots in Granville County go back to the 1700’s, and Othow said her mother devoted her life to research the many contributions the family made to its community.

Anna and Othow invite the community to come and stay all day – it may just take that long to experience all the sights, sounds, tastes, aromas and touches that CultureFest will provide.

Visit https://culturefest24.planningpod.com/ for a list of performances and times.

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TownTalk: Cicadas Emerge

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Some parts of the country are bracing for a fairly rare occurrence – a trifecta of sorts, as it pertains to cicadas. Most folks around here, however, will experience only a couple of types of those giant insects who are emerging from their dormant states for their brief foray above ground.

According to Vance County Agricultural Extension Technician Wayne Rowland, Vance County may see some of the 13-year brood – they’re called periodical cicadas — along with the annual cicadas. “This year is a monumental year,” Rowland told WIZS’s Bill Harris on Monday’s TownTalk. The last time the two broods emerged was about 200 years ago.

How to tell the difference? The 13-year cicadas have orange eyes, but the annual cicadas a bigger than their 13- and 17-year brood relatives, Rowland explained.

Known for their loud thrum or hum, cicadas pose little to no problems for humans or animals. “They don’t sting,” Rowland said, but curious dogs and cats who sample the insects may wish they hadn’t eaten so many.

“If your dog eats a few of them, don’t be concerned – they’re not poisonous,” he said.

“You might see them again, but they’re not detrimental to humans or pets,” Rowland added.

Just like the recent solar eclipse, North Carolina is not in the sweet spot to witness the emergence of the two different periodical broods. Rowland said the 17-year brood will mainly be seen in Illinois and points North.

Locally, the 13-year brood will emerge west and north, he added.

We can always count on seeing the annual cicadas, but this year, there may be more swarming and humming in the air – and crunching under footsteps along sidewalks and on lawns.

Females lay their eggs in the bark of trees, which is a small nuisance for mature trees. It could, however, create more of a problem for young, recently planted trees. Consider putting some insect netting over these trees, spray them down with water to deter cicadas from landing on them or spray with liquid Sevin.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville Churches And Religion

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These days, churches and their congregations are fairly stable entities, occupying structures that have been around for years, decades, and even centuries. But in earlier days, when congregations were first being established, church services outgrew their small buildings and moved to bigger places.

And sometimes, the building moved, too.

That’s what local historian Mark Pace discovered when he went on a field trip to Stovall to check out Grassy Creek Presbyterian Church. Pace, who is the North Carolina Room Specialist at Richard Thornton Library in Oxford, said he had presumed that it was the congregation that pulled up stakes and moved to Stovall. But as he poked around during a renovation project, he saw pegs – not nails – and two-toned timbers that “looked like they’d been moved and replaced.”

He suspects that at least part of the existing church dates back to the 1750’s or 1760’s.

Grassy Creek Presbyterian is the Mother Church of other Presbyterian churches in the area, he said, having been established in 1757.

That’s pretty old – more than a decade older than historic St. John’s, Williamsboro, the oldest frame church in North Carolina, built in 1772.

But it’s not enough that parts, not all, of the church are old, Pace said.

There are plenty of congregations that have been in existence in the area for many years, but the structure in which they worship has either been renovated, torn down and rebuilt or has been lost to fire.

Take Liberty Christian Church in Epsom, for example. Pace’s own relative, Benjamin Franklin Ayscue was one of the church’s founders back in 1859. The church once stood where the Epsom Fire Department is now, and it was called Liberty Hill. The current church was built in 1904.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Warrenton was built in 1824 by Thomas Bragg, who also was the chief contractor for the State Capitol in Raleigh.

Brassfield Baptist in Granville County was built in the 1840’s and nearby Banks Methodist started out as an Episcopal Church in 1790; the current building was built in 1911.

Hester Baptist and Mountain Creek Baptist were built by the same contractor; their sanctuaries look the same, but Hester got shortchanged during construction and is 10 feet narrower than Mountain Creek, Pace said.

Tabbs Creek Baptist is celebrating its 250th  anniversary, having been established in 1775. But the current church building is 20th century vintage.

Old Granville County was somewhat of a melting pot, and it’s not surprising that immigrants brought their religions with them. St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ridgeway was established in the 1870’s to serve the area’s German population.

In 1923, the first Catholic Church was built at the corner of Montgomery and College streets in Henderson, largely to serve people who moved to the area for the textile industry, Pace said.

A larger church was built on Oxford Road to accommodate the growing Catholic population. That site is now a funeral home.

Not to be outdone, Oxford got its own Catholic church in 1955 when St. Catherine’s of Siena was built. It stands empty today, but recently was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Pace said its unique Mission-style architecture, interior artwork and windows by a liturgical artist Ade Bethune are special features of this building.

Granville County boasts of a most unusual spot to host a church service – a railroad car.

“In 1892, the Catholic Church built two identical chapel cars, St. Peter and St. Paul,” Pace said. “In 1942, with the creation of Camp Butner, there was a need for a Catholic Church,” he continued. So one of those chapel cars was parked on a spur line off Spring Street and from 1942 to 1954, Catholics held mass there.

The Henderson and Oxford congregations merged when St. James Catholic Church was built on U.S. 158.

Listen to the entire interview at wizs.com!

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TownTalk: ALS United NC Helps Those With The Disease

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Dave Shore and WIZS’s Bill Harris have some things in common: They both have had media careers – Dave as one of the founders of 99.9 The Fan in Raleigh back in 2007, and Bill behind the mic right here at the radio station, for one. But more importantly, both are interested in helping others manage what, at best, is a life-altering diagnosis.

Shore was busy with TV sports career back in 1991 when his mother was diagnosed with ALS, and he said he wasn’t able to provide the care for her that he would have liked.

As president and CEO of Raleigh-based ALS United NC, however, Shore said he considers “this is my time to help my Mom…to help others.”

Today, Harris can count himself in that group. He was diagnosed last week.

“I’ve got it. I have to deal with it,” Harris said. “If doing a show can help someone else, I’m all for it.”

And so, that’s just what he did.

Shore joined Wednesday’s TownTalk segment by telephone from Washington, DC, where he and others are meeting with North Carolina legislators to talk about ways to help fight ALS.

“I’m leading a major Mission First organization,” Shore said. ALS United funds two grant streams – one that goes to patients to pay for things not covered by insurance – and the other that provides grant funding to the six clinics set up across the state to help ALS patients.

The two closest are at Duke and UNC, he said. These multi-disciplinary clinics are a one-stop shop of sorts to help patients see various specialists during the course of a day visit.

It’s a lot easier to go with the acronym ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease than it is to say Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a-my-o-TROE-fik LAT-ur-ul skluh-ROE-sis), and Shore said diagnosing the disease can be as complicated as trying to pronounce the medical term correctly.

Basically, what it’s doing is breaking down motor neurons in your body and robbing your body’s ability to get signals from the brain, Shore explained.

“It’s a hard diagnosis to make,” he said, and it often takes a long time.

There is reason for hope, however. Between advances in research and drug trials, neurologists have more tools to improve patients’ lives.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to find a cure. In the meantime, organizations like ALS United continue to work to make patients’ lives better.

“Our main goal is to take care of our patients. We don’t do the research, but …partner with the ones who do to keep it going,” Shore said. “They’re smart people,” he said of the researchers, “and they’re going to find the right combination.”

Similarities between ALS and other neurological diseases ranging from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s are desperately underfunded. But Shore said if ALS researchers have a breakthrough, it likely would carry over into treatment of the others.

Remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that went viral 10 years ago? “We’re going to do it again,” Shore said. “We need that influx of dollars.”

He’d like to think that a treatment for ALS, now considered a progressive, degenerative disease, will come along, much like the drug cocktail that has essentially made HIV a disease that patients can live with.

“It became a survivable diagnosis,” he said.

There are so many trials and so many drugs that people are being put on to see if the progression can be slowed down.

Shore’s mission is to find a way to live with ALS. “It’s kind of what fuels me,” he said. “That I get this information out and help as many people as I can.”

Visit https://alsnc.org/ to learn more.

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TownTalk: Diamond Unique’s Domestic Violence Story

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Victims of domestic violence suffer at the hands of people who supposedly care for them – whether it’s physical or emotional abuse, or both, the suffering is real. But victims who make a plan to get out of a dangerous situation and then do so triumphantly call themselves survivors.

Once they choose survivor over victim, the tide turns and healing begins.

Just listen to Diamond Unique’s story, and you’ll hear what a survivor sounds like. She’s put the past behind her and she’s ready to share her story with others, in hopes of inspiring others who find themselves in similar circumstances.

The name Diamond Unique is not the name she was given at birth, but it is the name she goes by as she pursues a career as an actor, podcaster and author.

She reached out to WIZS to tell her story, “to let everyone know that I am a living testimony.” By sharing her story on various social media platforms, this single mother said she wants others to know they aren’t alone in their struggles.

Diamond said she thanks God for delivering her from her abuser. “Without the Lord, I would be nothing,” she said on Tuesday’s TownTalk. As she lay in a hospital bed, with a concussion from that last attack, she said God sent her a message: “You have a message, get your voice out. Let people know the real meaning of domestic violence.”

And now she’s using Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Tik Tok to do just that. She said she’s got 20.8K Tik Tok followers, which she describes as “amazing…incredibly empowering.”

Domestic violence robs people of their self-love, their determination, Diamond said. “It makes you feel less than who you are,” she said. She felt like a nobody.

After she had gotten away from her abuser, she said “I could finally lift my head up and know that I was a person who made it through.”

She wants to send a message of empowerment to others through her acting and her video posts; she wants others who are suffering at the hands of abusers to know that there is more to life than their current situation.

Diamond is working on a book that chronicles her life and her experiences. The title is “Woman Behind the Bruises.” She doesn’t have a publication date yet, but she anticipates it will be out soon.

Find Diamond Unique on Facebook and Youtube; you’ll find her on Tik Tok and Instagram as Miss Pretty Ambitious.

Listen to the entire interview here.

TownTalk: AVID Equals Post-Secondary Readiness for VCS

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AVID is a program that’s been helping public school students unlock their potential for more than 40 years. Its longevity is a tribute in part to its effectiveness and in part to its response to the evolving needs of students.

The acronym stands for Achievement Via Individual Determination, and VCS AVID District Director Dr. Destiny Ross-Putney said today’s program focuses not just on college-bound students, but post-secondary pursuits that include work after high school.

Putney calls it “post-secondary readiness,” whether students are college-bound or head right into a career.

A typical AVID student is a student who has a GPA between 2.0 and 3.5. “It’s not for your typical high-flying student,” but rather for students who have the potential to be more successful with just a little bit more structured support in the classroom, Ross-Putney said.

“Some students are simply not interested in college,” she said, but AVID prepares students for life after high school graduation, whether it’s college or work. AVID teaches students how to be truly prepared to be active citizens in the community.

Three Vance County Schools have AVID programs – Vance County Middle School, Vance County High School and, new this year, Carver Elementary. There are about 70 middle school students at each grade level that participate in AVID, and there’s an elective class at the high school, Ross-Putney said. VCHS is a schoolwide AVID school, she added, which means that faculty use AVID techniques and strategies in their classrooms.

The third- and fifth graders at Carver are getting their first taste of AVID, Ross-Putney said. The plan is to introduce AVID in other elementary schools in the district.

The district also has professional development to share with teachers’ various AVID strategies, which include things like how to take good notes, create resumes, and effective interview techniques.

There’s a focus on writing with AVID, and teachers use the WICOR strategy to help students: WICOR stands for Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization and Reading.

AVID helps students develop self-confidence and self-advocacy, she said. “I can see how confident students are,” when she visits AVID classrooms. “They are specifically taught how to have a discourse,” she said, which increase students’ “abilities to communicate as well as withstand rigorous course work.”

And AVID also keep track of students after graduation – it’s a built-in component of the program to check in one year and three years after graduation.

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