TownTalk: Low Dose CT Screening Can Catch Cancer Early

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Maria Parham Health is offering low-dose CT scans to screen for lung cancer, catch the disease early and provide appropriate treatment.

Much like mammograms and colonoscopies are routine tools to detect breast cancer and colon cancer, MPH Cancer Center Director Kimberly Smith said the low-dose CT is helpful for early detection.

Long-time smokers between the ages of 50 and 77 who show no signs or symptoms of lung cancer are eligible for the scans, Smith said on Monday’s Town Talk. She and MPH Social Worker Hope Breedlove told John C. Rose they hope that anyone wants to know whether they meet the criteria for the scan will call 252.506.7070 this week to learn more.

“We’re really excited to have this life-saving lung cancer test for smokers and former smokers,” Smith said. She and Breedlove want the community to be educated about what it is, especially because Vance County and the surrounding area has a high rate of lung cancer. In fact, she said, lung cancer accounts for 12.7 percent of all newly diagnosed cancers. In Vance County and the surrounding area, lung cancer is in the top three of all cancer diagnoses.

The phone line will be active through Feb. 28 at 4 p.m. Callers will be asked to leave a message with their name, date of birth, a phone number and insurance information, Smith said. A cancer center staff member will follow up within 2-3 business days and walk prospective patients through a series of questions to determine eligibility.

Insurance will pay for the scans of eligible patients, she added. And there are a certain number of scans available for those without insurance.

Not sure you are eligible? Not to worry, Smith said. “We’ll help you navigate through that.”

“The scans are a really great way for us to find out if a patient has some type of lung cancer,” Smith said. The earlier even a small spot is detected, the earlier a treatment plan can be developed and implemented. “We really want to find (it) earlier,” she said, adding that the cancer center uses a software program that monitors a patient for life.

Breedlove explained that the age range has expanded some in hopes of getting younger people screened. “We want to catch the lung cancer early,” she said.

Smith said COVID-19 has interrupted those routine screenings that are so important at early detection of disease. She encouraged everyone to get those screenings scheduled – not just the low-dose CT scans, but mammograms and endoscopies as well.

“That’s how we save people’s lives,” she said.

TownTalk: The Story Of Charlotte Hawkins Brown

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If Charlotte Hawkins Brown had owned a cell phone, her contact list would have included the likes of Booker T. Washington, Alice Freeman Palmer and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Born in South Henderson in 1883, Brown became synonymous with the Palmer Institute, a private preparatory high school for African American students in Guilford County that reached its heyday in the 1920s and ‘30s. Her network of wealthy benefactors kept the school in good fiscal shape from its inception in 1902 through the Depression. It closed in 1971.

Her maiden name was Hawkins, and she is descended from John Davis Hawkins, who owned 8,000 acres in the Gillburg area – there’s still a grove of pecan trees near the old prison camp where his home was located, according to local historian Mark Pace.

Pace and Bill Harris discussed Brown’s life and legacy on Thursday’s tri-weekly history segment of Town Talk.

An only child, Brown and her parents moved to Cambridge, Mass. when she was a young girl. They left the oppressive Jim Crow South for other places, as did many African Americans of that time. Cambridge is home to Harvard, Wellesley and Radcliffe, and the young Miss Hawkins was exposed to a center of education and knowledge, Pace said.

She graduated from Harvard at 18 and came back to North Carolina to “run, sight-unseen (the) Bethany Institute,” he said. This school was run by the American Missionary Association in Sedalia, in Guilford County.

But after a 4.5 mile walk from the train station to the school, she found upwards of 50 barefooted schoolchildren having class in a cramped blacksmith shop, Pace said.

Undeterred, the young educator stayed in Sedalia, started her own school named in honor of her dear friend Alice Freeman Palmer, who had been instrumental as a mentor and friend.

“She stayed there for the next 60 years,” Pace said.

The Palmer Institute in Sedalia, now a state historic site, was “the” place for wealthy African American families to send their high school-aged children. It was a private school, Pace said, and Brown encouraged – insisted – that the Palmer students carry themselves with respect and dignity at all times. Young ladies shopping in nearby Greensboro were required to wear white gloves, for example, Pace said.

In fact, Brown wrote an etiquette book that included a whole chapter on the proper use of the telephone. A criterion for graduation was to recite whole passages from that book, Pace noted.

Some of those bits of etiquette still ring true today:

“It is not necessary to talk loud to be heard” was a particular favorite of Brown’s, he said.

The school garnered respect and support from all across the nation, and Pace said it was arguably the most prominent African American preparatory high school in the United States in its heyday.

And Brown’s networking prowess helped to create and sustain that reputation. She appeared on radio shows nationwide, and the Sedalia Singers performed at the White House.

“She was very good at promoting the school,” he said.

Failing health prompted her retirement in 1952, and Brown died in 1961 at age 78.

She was a little bit of a thing – not even five feet tall – but she still cut an imposing figure in the field of education throughout her career.

Some would say that career in education began even before she was herself a student – she was reading at age 3 and speaking in public, under the tutelage of Alice Palmer, before she was 7.

Brown earned numerous degrees and honors, and even found time to be a symphony conductor.

“She was probably the most educated person ever to come out of Vance County,” Pace offered.

Her descendants include the late singer Natalie Cole and Guion “Guy” Bluford, the first African American astronaut in space.

 

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TownTalk: Taking Care of Your Heart

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Dr. Mohammed Akhter, an interventional cardiologist at Maria Parham Health is helping promote the American Heart Association’s theme to “reclaim your rhythm” during the February observance of heart health awareness.

No one can deny the impact that COVID-19 has had on our brains and our hearts, Akhter told John C. Rose on Wednesday’s Town Talk. He encourages everyone to focus again on health lifestyles that can have a positive effect on our physical and mental health.

When gyms and restaurants shut down at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, it was more than just an inconvenience, Akhter said.

It’s time to get back in the groove of those lifestyle habits like regular exercise, eating healty foods and enjoying the social interactions with family and others.

During the pandemic, he said, “we couldn’t go to the gym, we were ordering food online and not socially interacting with our loved ones – that has a major effect on our health.”
The AHA made a fundamental plea to the public, he said. “Now is the time to get back to the rhythm – exercise more, eat better and spend more time with your families.”

Those are concrete examples of steps to take to improve health and reduce stress. But  diagnostic tests performed by medical professionals are needed to determine if high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol levels may also be affecting your overall heart health.

Akhter said that 1 in 2 U.S. adults have hypertension – high blood pressure – but only 1 in 4 have it under control.

He recommends that his patients try to consume less than 2 grams of sodium a day, which may mean scrutinizing food labels. In addition, he recommends 30 minutes of exercise most days, limiting alcohol use and taking medicine that is prescribed for hypertension.

Women and African Americans are two groups that are underrepresented in heart studies, he said.

Maria Parham Health promoted National Wear Red Day on Feb. 4 as a way to “express a solidarity with women who are at risk for cardiovascular disease. He said it’s the number one killer in women.

Women may experience different symptoms than men, he said, adding that is a contributing factor to the under-diagnosis of heart disease in women.

Similarly, African Americans are underrepresented in studies of heart health.

The goal is equitable health for all, Akhter said, who said that in his practice, he works hard to tailor therapies to the individual patients.

 

TownTalk: HPD Chief Barrow Discusses the “9pm Routine” and Local Public Safety

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It’s just good sound advice, but coming from Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow, getting into a #9PMRoutine, it sure sounds like something everyone in the area should pay attention to.

Barrow joined John C. Rose on Tuesday’s Town Talk to discuss how a few simple steps at the end of each day could give residents peace of mind about their safety.

“We’re supposed to feel safe in our homes,” Barrow said. A nationwide campaign that is #9PMRoutine reminds folks to lock their vehicle doors, close and lock exterior doors of the home and turn on exterior lights to keep yourself from being an “easy victim” of crime.

Grownups may remember growing up in a time where nobody locked their car doors and may not have even locked their doors at night, but they also didn’t have all those shiny, portable electronic devices – GPS systems, cell phones, computers – that are easy targets for theft.

The main idea of the #9PMRoutine is just that – getting people in a routine that they remove their valuables from their cars and remove the temptation for would-be thieves.

“Portable things that you can easily walk away with that have value” are what thieves are looking for, Barrow said.

Additionally, he said his department gets lots of calls about firearms being stolen from vehicles. Barrow suggests that those gun owners who support the Second Amendment right to bear arms also need to know the responsibilities associated with that right.

“Be responsible about how you leave it in your vehicle,” he said.

Visit the Henderson Police Department’s Facebook page to learn more about the #9PMRoutine.

 

 

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TownTalk: Nobles Seeks To Bring More Visibility To H-V Crime Stoppers

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As the new president of the local Crime Stoppers, Frankie Nobles said he’s impressed at just how willing the board members are “to step up and do what needs to be done.”

Nobles said he’d like the community to do the same when it comes to providing information to solve crimes.

He told John C. Rose on Monday’s Town Talk that there was not a single payout request in 2021, which means that either there were no indictments or convictions as a result of tips sent in anonymously or, more likely, no tips sent in at all.

“We need the community to step up,” Nobles said. He also said he believes that people may be worried that their identity will be discovered. But Nobles said that is not the case.

Calling or texting the Crime Stoppers number is completely anonymous, Nobles said. The calls or messages get routed through a maze of different servers. The software that is used is safe and confidential.

“I think people are scared to make a tip because they think somebody’s going to know.” But he assures the public that is not the case. “We never even know who’s getting the money.”
Tips that do come in to Crime Stoppers are given to the appropriate agency, he explained. When an indictment is handed down or a conviction is made, the law enforcement agency submits the information to the Crime Stoppers board, which determines the amount of the payment to be made.

The board meets monthly, Nobles said. The executive board consists of Tonya Moore, who serves as vice president; Danny Wright, treasurer; and James Baines, secretary. Additional board members include Lorraine Watkins, Mike Fisher, Henry Gupton, Edward Woodlief and McKinley Perkinson, who is the fundraiser chairperson.

The Crime Stoppers will have a chicken plate fundraiser on March 11 at the Vance County Rescue Squad on 1735 Maynard Road. The event will run from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 and are available from any board member. Tickets must be purchased in advance, he said. It’s takeout only, and delivery can be arranged for 10 or more plates.

This is the first time the organization has had a chicken plate fundraiser, he said. Crime Stoppers formed in 1982 and VGCC law enforcement instructor Tom Long was its first chairman in 1985.

Nobles said the group has got some good things planned for the community and for the law enforcement personnel it supports.

COVID-19 has created a few wrinkles in the past couple of years, but the golf tournament is being planned and there will be another 50-50 raffle, for starters.

He wants Crime Stoppers to be more visible in the community by participating in events like the downtown car show and Night Out Against Crime.

But most importantly, he wants law enforcement agencies to know that Crime Stoppers supports them. Each agency will submit a name of an officer to be recognized for exceptional service in 2021, he said. “These officers are out there every day, putting their life on the line for us – the least we can do is recognize them.”

Visit the Crime Stoppers Facebook page to learn more about upcoming events.

 

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TownTalk: How One Veteran Uses Art, Journaling And Genealogy To Battle Brain Injury And Cancer

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Following is Part 1 of an interview with a U.S. Army veteran who is using art to deal with physical challenges, including PTSD, a traumatic brain injury and cancer. Part 2 is scheduled to air on Feb. 24.

 Kim Knight’s experience in the U.S. Army working in Medevac flight operations may have prepared her – on one level – for the medical challenges she now faces. But it’s her grit and determination and faith that keep her moving forward in the face of those physical challenges.

Knight has been a single mom putting herself through college, she’s owned several businesses and she’s been an emergency medical technician in several states during her adult life.

And most recently, Knight is learning how to manage her “new” life as she deals with the lingering effects of traumatic brain injury.

Speaking from her home in Carson City, Nevada, she told Town Talk co-host Phyllis Maynard and John C. Rose that when she finally was discharged from the hospital, after being in a coma for weeks, that she felt without purpose.

It has been a very long struggle to try to find that purpose, but Knight said she thinks she’s on the right path.

“I very recently joined a traumatic brain injury artist group,” she said. “We share different mediums – from crayons to oil paints, and crafts of every kind.” Knight is part of a new series on Town Talk called Former Active Duty: Still Boots on the Ground which focuses on how military veterans are facing challenges in their lives after service.

Knight said that before her TBI event, she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The art has helped her, she said.

“It has helped tremendously. When I start to feel stressed or feel that anxiety that comes on from PTSD or I start feeling down, I can pick up my watercolors and start creating.”

“Sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s a ghastly mess,” she admitted. “It’s a process of diving into something and the rest of the struggles and the rest of the traumas melt away.”

Knight also is a cancer patient. She said she chooses to focus on the here and now and to live for the moment, and not in the shadow of a cancer diagnosis.

She marvels a little at this newfound ability to create art, but said perhaps it took a TBI for her to tap into this creative side that she’s uncovering. She said earlier in her life, maybe she was too busy raising children and going to college and running businesses.

“I don’t know where it comes from,” she said, adding that having the time to relax and create has allowed her “to just let go.”

The brain can create new neuropathways, she said, “to work around the broken partsl” These new pathways can produce improvements in areas like memory and executive function – the ability to plan and carry out plans.

Journaling is an activity that Knight had enjoyed long before her TBI event. She said she found it very therapeutic and healing. And now, she said, “journaling helps me to get the things out that I am struggling with.” She also uses journaling as a memory tool.

She said it’s tough to know that her brain doesn’t work like it used to and coming to grips with reduced cognitive ability is difficult.

“I tend to be extremely hard on myself,” she said. But despite that, she said she is happy to be able to continue doing something now that she had done before the TBI event.

Something else that Knight was interested in long before her brain injury is genealogy and she said she’d probably be researching genealogy until she could no longer read at the computer or until the day she dies.

“Genealogy is something I’ve been doing for nearly 50 years,” she said. “It brings me so much joy to be able to piece together the history of our families – it’s one of my passions.”

 

You’ll hear more about genealogy and Knight’s research which helps individuals piece together information about their families’ histories in Part 2 of the Town Talk interview.

 

 

 

TownTalk: Law Enforcement Staff Shortages And Pay Disparities In Vance Co.

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The Vance County Sheriff’s Office is hiring. There are openings for detention officers at the county detention center, and there are openings for sheriff’s deputies as well. A qualified candidate for a job as a detention officer could earn a starting salary between $33,000 and $35,000.

The City of Henderson also is hiring and a qualified candidate for a police officer job is guaranteed a salary of $42,503. That salary is adjusted upward for candidates with college credits.

These are basic facts easily available in a quick online search. If only it were as easy as a click of the mouse or a few keystrokes to find candidates to fill these jobs.

Vance Sheriff Curtis R. Brame told WIZS News that there are 17 positions available at the local detention center and eight positions available at the sheriff’s office.

Henderson Police Chief Marcus Barrow says his department loses personnel who get jobs in law enforcement agencies in nearby counties – as well as the N.C. Highway Patrol.

It all boils down to what counties and cities are willing – and able – to pay for qualified personnel.

“We lose people to the N.C. Highway Patrol, Franklin County and to the Wake Forest police department,” Barrow told WIZS News by text message Wednesday. He said one need only look at the pay scale for a state trooper to understand why it turns the heads of employees in other law enforcement agencies. The average salary of a state trooper in North Carolina is about $46,000.

The Town of Wake Forest, for example, has posted on its website that a salary for an officer with no prior sworn law enforcement experience is $50,243. There are salary additions, including an extra 2.5 percent for a candidate with an associate’s degree to 5 percent if a candidate is fluent in Spanish. A new officer also receives an automatic 5 percent increase after six months of employment with the town.

At the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, starting pay a non-BLET certified officer is $34,000, plus incentives. (BLET stands for Basic Law Enforcement Training. Vance-Granville Community College offers BLET classes for those interested in a career in law enforcement.)

That salary jumps to close to $40,000 for those with BLET certification. The Durham Sheriff’s Office has similar salary add-ons as the Wake Forest police department – a 2.5 percent bump each for an associate’s degree, fluent Spanish speaker and honorable discharge from military service and a 5 percent increase for candidates with a bachelor’s degree.

Smaller, more rural communities like Henderson and Vance County face challenges every day from neighboring areas that benefit from being closer to larger, more urban areas.

It’s competition, pure and simple. And a little bit of supply and demand. But without competitive pay packages, demand is probably always going to exceed supply.

 

Community Partners of Hope

TownTalk: Community Partners Of Hope Looks To Community To Support Expansion

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Delthine Watson’s first involvement with Community Partners of Hope was as a volunteer who took home-cooked meals to share at the shelter. Today, Watson is the group’s community network specialist who is helping shape the vision to expand services to those who need help.

“That’s how I got started,” she told John C. Rose on Tuesday’s Town Talk. “I would cook a meal and take it to the shelter. I couldn’t do much, but I could cook a meal.”

Watson was interested when the non-profit announced the creation of a new position to work in the community. It seemed like a good match, she said, adding that her real joy comes in helping others.

We’ve all needed assistance at one time or another, she said. Her belief is that we have all been ‘the least of these,’ those whom the Bible says we should treat with kindness. And Community Partners of Hope’s Christ-focused mission has the support of numerous churches throughout the Henderson area. “It really shows how the community has come together to work on a need,” she said.

Watson’s office is at First Presbyterian Church, a church she said has been “awesome. They have certainly been a blessing. Without their support and help it would have been much more difficult – not impossible, but much more difficult.”

One of the challenges is finding a way to have the shelter operating all year long instead of November through March. And having a place where the men who sleep at the shelter can go during the daytime where they can get job training or help with other challenges they face.

Currently, under COVID-19 protocols, Hope House has room for 10 men.

“I feel confident in saying there are many more men in need of assistance,” Watson said.

Long-range goals include having services for males, females and families, she said.

“Wouldn’t that be great? It would be wonderful if there could be a larger Hope House, to accommodate more men and help them move to a different place in their lives,” she said.

That dream can become a reality with community support – not just from the religious community, but from the community at-large.

As the old saying goes, “all it takes is time and money.”

She isn’t ready to get into the details yet, but she said a fundraising campaign will be announced “very soon.”

It’s an inevitable fact that in order to provide programs and services, there has to be money coming in to fund those programs and services. “You have to have it to be able to do what you need to do,” she said.

The group will be looking at possible locations where they can offer those expanded services, she added.

There are many ways to help, from making a monetary donation to providing needed supplies. Visit their Facebook page or website www.cp-hope.org

to find out exactly what they need, and to sign up to receive email updates.

While Watson admitted that it’s not likely the expansion of facilities or services will happen this year, she was quick to follow up with a disclaimer of sorts:

“Because we are are faith-based organization, we are a ministry – we don’t ever want to say never because we are not the ones in charge. If we believe in a Master who does miracles, then if He’s in the miracle-making business, who’s to say? Miracles happen all the time.”

 

 

TownTalk: Watkins Volunteer Fire Department Vehicular Rescue Training and More

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Watkins Volunteer Fire Department can boast of six newly certified volunteers – in the area of VR – that stands for vehicular rescue, not virtual reality.

While many their age may be more interested in virtual reality with video games and other computer-based technology, these young volunteers have devoted their weekends to participating in their own VR certification process to be able to better serve their community.

Assistant Chief Brandon Link said his department has accomplished quite a feat, and he and Chief Brian Clayton have nothing but praise to shower on this group of volunteers.

Link is in charge of training and operations at the department. He told John C. Rose Monday on Town Talk that what started out about three years ago really snowballed. “We started off with a couple or three (people), and then they started coming out of the woodwork,” he said. The state recently teased out vehicular rescue into its own separate series of training courses, and Link said that’s what the group has been working on since the first of the year.

The training occurs on the weekend, and the participants sleep on cots or in hammocks at the fire department to be on site for the whole weekend. They cram in as much as 30-40 hours of training over the course of a weekend.

Link points to Matt Overton as a critical link between the older firefighters and the younger ones. Overton spent a lot of time when he was younger at the department with his father.

“He’s our bridge with these guys,” Link said. Overton knows “the things that this (younger) generation calls ‘cool.’ It’s keeping them close,” he added.

Having the interest from younger residents in the community is vital to keeping a volunteer fire department healthy, productive and ready to respond to a fire, accident or other emergency.

Link said he can put  17-18 men on structure fire responses, “more than what anyone else is doing in the four counties,” he said.

“They want to help, but they want to do more than help – they want to learn and they want to do it right. It’s just remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Link acknowledged partners Ken Reeves, who led the instruction, Steve Barney at Vance-Granville Community College, the Vance County Rescue Squad and Fred’s Towing for their support in providing expertise, equipment, tools and vehicles during the trainings. They’ve cut roofs off cars, tunneled through trunks and popped doors to simulate ways to get victims out of vehicles, he said.

Some exercises, however, have less to do with using equipment and more to do with promoting collaboration.

Link gave an example, which he called a huge team builder. A table was laid on the ground, its legs folded underneath. The group had to figure out how to raise the table in order to extend the legs. And, by the way, without spilling a drop of water from the glass that was sitting on the tabletop.

“If they spilled the water, they had to restart the exercise,” he said.

Within 20 minutes, Link said the group had figured out how to successfully execute their plan, which recreates a technique called “cribbing,” which Link defined as lifting an object, an inch at the time, stabilizing it, then lifting another inch.

The Watkins department has paid staff at the station during the week for the first 12 hours of the day.

Having additional personnel available to go out on calls is so important, Link said. And having those young, dedicated volunteers undergo the training to make them better is crucial to the department’s mission of Commitment to Community.

“This training, we can’t put a price tag on it. It’s invaluable.”

Three more volunteers are wrapping up their certification and Link expects them to complete it soon.

 

 

TownTalk: Optimist Club Respect For Law Events

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Optimist Club members Britt Sams and Tommy Farmer have criss-crossed the county over the past couple of weeks to present awards to members of local law enforcement agencies for outstanding service in 2021.

Sams, who chairs the Respect for Law committee and club President Farmer were keen to pick back up on the awards presentations – they didn’t want to have to skip two years in a row. So instead of the usual banquet with families and commanding officers on hand to witness the presentations, the two Optimist Club representatives took the show on the road.

“It’s something the Optimist Club has been doing a long time,” Sams told WIZS News.

They delivered the last two awards today (Monday), Sams said, to the Henderson Police Department and the Henderson Fire Department. Police officer William Douglas and Fire Capt. William Boyd received awards for 2021.

Other award winners were:

  • Elizabeth Wooten, Kerr Lake Ranger of the Year
  • Trooper J.P.Taylor, N.C. Highway Patrol
  • Janie B. Martin, administrative assistant, Sheriff’s Office Officer of the Year
  • John O’Neal, Vance County Firefighter of the Year
  • Chris Vick, Vance County Animal Services Officer of the Year

 

 

Henderson Optimist Club member Britt Sams chairs the Respect for Law Enforcement committee.  Please enjoy the following Facebook posts and images embedded courtesy of Britt Sams:

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