Tag Archive for: #hendersonnews

The Local Skinny! Vance County Schools Receives Awards

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For the third year in a row, Vance County Schools has brought home top honors for excellence in school communications, presented to school districts by the N.C. School Public Relations Association.

VCS earned a total of 16 Blue Ribbon awards for outstanding and effective

school public relations, according to information from Aarika Sandlin, VCS director of communication and marketing. The local school district was one of 38 to receive honors at the ceremony held Friday, Feb. 10 in High Point.

“Vance County Schools was recognized in every Blue Ribbon Award category for exemplary work,” Sandlin said in a press statement. “This recognition is an honor for our entire district, as well as a testament to the hard work of our team and the collaboration between departments on a daily basis.”

One of its five gold awards came in the Marketing category and the entry “Center for Innovation: The Hub of Our Community” received a perfect score.

The other four gold award categories and their winning entries were:

  • Photography – Superintendent Bennett Reads Across the District
  • Electronic Media – Moving Forward in our Strategic Plan
  • Special Events and Programs – Business After Hours
  • Digital Media Engagement – Alumni Roll Call: Homecoming 2022

VCS received five silver awards in the following categories:

  • Special Events and Programs – Arts Alive 2022
  • Special Events and Programs – Honoring our Community Partnerships
  • Digital Media and Engagement – New Principal Announcements for the 2022-2023 School Year
  • Photography – Play hard. Laugh louder. Love bigger.
  • Publications- Visual Identity Across the District

VCS received six bronze awards in the following categories:

  • Excellence in Writing – Growing through Accountability
  • Image and Graphic Design – Vance County Schools: A Quick Glimpse
  • Image and Graphic Design – In the Know on the Road
  • Electronic Media: Polly C – A Unique Look at Policies
  • Special Events and Programs – Honoring Wayne Adcock: Auditorium Dedication

Representing Vance County Schools for NCSPRA, in addition to Sandlin, are Brielle Barrow, communications coordinator; Dr. Destiney Ross-Putney, executive director of the Center for Innovation; and Kristen Jeffreys, digital learning and innovation specialist. NCSPRA is a statewide professional organization serving more than 175 members. Its mission is to build support for public education through well-planned and responsible public relations. For more information, visit www.ncspra.org.

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Cooperative Extension with Wayne Rowland: Woodscaping Woodlands

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Listen live at 100.1 FM / 1450 AM / or on the live stream at WIZS.com at 11:50 a.m. Mon, Tues & Thurs.

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TownTalk: Foundation Continues The Work Of Mary Emma Evans

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If her mother were still alive, Phyllis Evans said she would not be giving high marks to the city – or to its residents – for its level of cleanliness.

But a foundation named for the late Mary Emma Evans is trying to do its part to make things better and cleaner in Henderson, one litter sweep at the time.

Mary Emma Evans served the South Henderson area as a Ward 1 representative on the Henderson City Council. She died in 2011, and the same year family members formed a foundation to keep her memory alive.

Daughter Phyllis and granddaughter Phylicia spoke with John C. Rose on Monday’s TownTalk to provide an update on what the foundation has been doing and continues to do in her name.

“I know Mama is shaking her head,” Phyllis said, on the condition of many city roadsides that she sees strewn with litter.

Although she and a cousin routinely venture out along roadsides in South Henderson to clean up, the foundation sponsored a cleanup day in late January to come out in force to make a difference. Couldn’t make it to the January cleanup date? Not to worry – they plan quarterly cleanups along the portion of Dabney Road by Aldi’s, extending toward Hicksboro Road near St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church. That is the stretch of road that will be designated by NC DOT for the Mary Emma Evans Foundation’s Adopt-A-Highway sign.

Evans’s mother championed, among other things, the efforts of the Clean Up Henderson Committee, during her time on the City Council. “I know my mom would be happy to see our city clean,” Phyllis said.

But the foundation also extends its work to caring for the people that live in the community, too, and it has partnered with other community agencies on various outreach projects over the years.

Now, however, they’ve got their own community basketball team that practices a couple of times a week.

Phylicia said there are probably 50 or more youth that live in the South Henderson area who can walk to the outdoor courts at the former Salvation Army facility.

“They walk to the courts, Phyllis said, “or they’ll meet us at the foundation site on Alexander Avenue and we’ll transport them.” They practice on Wednesdays now at the Henderson Family Y and on Sundays at Aycock Recreation Center.

There may be a dozen or more who show up for practice, but Phyllis said even if there were more, the foundation would find a way to transport them all.

Partnerships strengthen a community, and Phyllis said her mother would be proud of what is being done in her name.

“We’re coming together with love,” she said, adding that Henderson is a beautiful place to live.

She just wants to keep it beautiful – to honor her mother’s memory and for others to have a sense of pride about where they live, work and play.

“We know that’s what mom would want us to do,” she said.

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SportsTalk: Jason Brown To Be Inducted In NC Sports Hall Of Fame

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There are a lot of analogies that can be made between football and farming. Just ask Jason Brown.

Football players prepare, stay in shape and recover from injuries in the off-season, for example. At Brown’s First Fruits Farm in Franklin County, the off-season also is a time to prepare. But Brown’s focus is on making sure the farm equipment is in good repair for upcoming planting and harvesting.

Brown, a standout center at UNC-CH, got his start at Northern Vance High School. And although it was football that took him to a career in the NFL, the ever-humble Brown said he relied then – and continues to rely on – “a lot of hope, faith and prayer.”

The pro football player-turned farmer is one of 15 inductees in the Class of 2023 North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. John C. Rose caught up with him this week for a few minutes to talk about the honor.

Asked about favorite memories he carries with him from his playing days, Brown said it’s “the team aspect that really rises to the top. I’ve been fortunate to be on some very good teams,” he said. “When you’re (playing the game) with your brothers, it definitely makes it a lot more meaningful.”

His big brother, Lunsford, graduated from Northern Vance High School too. But his life was cut short in service to his country in September 2003, Brown said. “I drew a lot of inspiration from my brother,” he explained. He wore Lunsford’s dogtags, pointed and jagged on one side from shrapnel, under his uniform. “After I put on my tight shoulder pads and tight jersey, I could literally feel” against his chest a reminder of his brother.

And he vowed to never quit, never complain, Brown said. “I just wanted to honor and serve my older brother. I knew he cared about my football career…about my success.”

These days, there’s not much time to reflect on bygone days of bowl games and personal honors. Brown gets up early, puts in a full day at the farm and tends to follow the sun. When it goes down, so does he.

But the lessons he learned during his football days definitely affect how he looks at life.

Diverse players came together to work as a single unit to get a job done. “It was a melting pot. Those guys were my brothers, no matter what they looked like. There was a shared common cause that brought us together,” he said.

He longs for the day when neighbors can do the same thing – set aside petty disagreements and treat each other with mutual love and respect.

“If we can do that, we can take on anything,” he said.

Learn more about the April 21 induction ceremony at  www.ncshof.org

 

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The Local Skinny! Vance Co. Arts Council Celebrates Black History Month

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The Vance County Arts Council, in conjunction with McGregor Hall, invites the community to come out for an evening of musical entertainment to learn about the history of gospel music.

The show is free to the public and begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at McGregor Hall, and Vance County Arts Council Executive Director Alice Sallins said folks are in for a real treat.

“We’re so excited,” Sallins said. “We want people to come and behold this beautiful production.”

Sallins told WIZS’s Bill Harris that she couldn’t divulge too much about the show because it will be presented at other venues in addition to McGregor Hall.

Thanks to some grant funding, she said the Arts Council was able to bring in some top-quality perfomers and artists who will take the history of gospel music from its roots in call and response, field hollers and spirituals all the way up to its blending of blues and jazz that creates the familiar sound we know today.

“Thomas Dorsey combined those genres of music with spirituals he heard in church,” Sallins said on Thursday’s segment of The Local Skinny! “He came up with this moving music that cause people to clap their hands and move their bodies,” she said.

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TownTalk: The Reconstruction Era In Vance, Granville And Warren Counties

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Driving past historical markers that dot the roadsides in the area give motorists a brief glimpse into some of the well-known people that have lived, worked and died nearby.

But anyone who wants to take a deeper dive into those people memorialized on the historical markers need only ask Mark Pace, North Carolina Room specialist at Thornton Library in Oxford.

Pace joined WIZS’s Bill Harris Thursday for the tri-weekly history program on TownTalk and they discussed some prominent African Americans who influenced the political scene after the end of the Civil War.

Henry Plummer Cheatham, for example, has a historical marker along NC 96 in Oxford, which reads: “Born into slavery. U.S. Congressman 1889-1893. Superintendent of Colored Orphanage of N.C. 1907-1935. Grave 8/10 mi. N.E.”

But a marker cannot include all the accomplishments of someone like Cheatham, and of others who played a role in the politics of North Carolina during Reconstruction, which Pace said was basically between 1865 and 1900.

Vance County was formed during this period – 1881 – and until 1900 “every single representative in the state legislature from Vance County was African American,” Pace said.

This area had the highest number of free blacks in North Carolina at one point, somewhat of an anomaly that wasn’t seen in other parts of the state or in Southside Virginia.

Pace posited that this could be due to the fact that a Virginia law requiring anyone who bought their freedom had to leave the state within 90 days.

This core of free Blacks in the area opened up opportunities – educational opportunities, economic opportunities and political opportunities.

Cheatham, for example, was born in 1857 on the Cheatham plantation located off Highway 158 west of Henderson, went to Shaw University and by the age of 29, was elected to Congress. His sister-in-law was married to George White, another influential politician of the day.

White defeated Cheatham and went on to serve the “Black Second” district in the U.S. House from 1897 to 1901. He was the last black Southerner in Congress for 72 years.

That is what White’s historical marker says. It was erected in New Bern in 1976.

 

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