Tag Archive for: #hendersonnews

Cooperative Extension with Wayne Rowland: Carpenter Bees

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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Vance County High School

SportsTalk: Vipers Prepare For Spring Football

It may be the season for baseball, softball and other spring sports but Vance Co. High School Head Football Coach Aaron Elliott is ready to hit the field.  Coach Elliott was a guest on Thursday’s SportsTalk to discuss this year’s Spring football game. “It will be at 8pm on Friday, May 3rd at the high school,” Elliott said.  “The state allows us to practice for ten days during the Spring and we will finish with our offense playing our defense during the game,”  Elliott added. Coach Elliott expects between 50 and 60 kids to participate.

The Vipers lost all of last year’s receivers to graduation and will be looking at replacements during the game.  Additionally, defensive backs will also be evaluated during the Spring practices and game Elliott said.

The Vipers won their conference championship last season and that success has resulted in an invitation to the High School OT Kickoff Scrimmage in Wake Forest on Saturday, August 17th at 6pm where they will play Jordan High School.  The week before, on August 8th, the Vipers host their annual Jamboree at Vance Co. High School.

The season kicks off August 23rd with a visit to rival Warren County.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: Churches And Religion, Part 2

Religious scholars and historians have labeled the general time frame between 1760 and 1800 as The Great Awakening, a time of religious revival that basically helped to shape – and reshape – how Christians viewed their relationship with their churches in the era before and after the American Revolution.

Granville County was established in 1746, and by the time the Great Awakening was taking hold in the American Colonies, three main denominations were prevalent here, said Mark Pace, local historian and North Carolina Room specialist at the Richard Thornton Library in Oxford.

They were Baptist, Presbyterian and Anglican – which morphed into the Episcopal Church after the Revolution, Pace said on the tri-weekly Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.

But Methodism came on the scene in 1784, and with it, a few wrinkles.

“Methodists are interesting,” Pace said, “and it can be a little complicated.”

By the 1870’s, there were Methodist Protestants and Methodist Episcopal churches, he said. One of Henderson’s Methodist Protestant churches was located where the city’s iconic clock tower now stands; another, near McGregor Hall and the police station.

That branch of Methodism became part of the United Methodist Church when it was formed in 1939. The Methodist Protestants preferred to have individual control, much like the Baptists; they didn’t want bishops and dioceses to make decisions for them.

As for the Methodist Episcopal churches, there was a further split between the Northern and Southern churches in 1844 because of slavery, Pace said.

There was even a church of “O’Kelly-ites” in Dexter, he said, that existed until the 1870’s. James O’Kelly was an itinerant Methodist preacher who left the denomination and was an outspoken opponent of slavery as early as the 1780’s.

The Presbyterian Church took root in Old Granville in the 1760’s, again predating the American Revolution. The Mother Church is Grassy Creek Presbyterian, where the Rev. Mr. Stradley preached from 1840 until 1910 or so.

Stradley is but one example of a local pastor “that’s the heart and soul” of a community. Others include Rev. Reginald Marsh and John Chavis. Chavis, a free Black man who fought in the American Revolution and graduated from Princeton, often preached in Presbyterian churches throughout the area.

For more than 60 years – 1850 to the 1910’s – Marsh was a Baptist minister who was instrumental in the formation of Island Creek and First Baptist in Henderson, among others, Pace said.

In those days, church pews were more likely to be filled with black and white people – granted, they often sat in separate sections – but Pace said after Emancipation, there was a movement for freed Blacks to form their own churches and establish their own communities.

Shiloh Baptist Church in Henderson and Big Zion AME Zion Church between Henderson and Oxford are two of the oldest churches that fit that bill.

Many Blacks stayed with the Baptist Church and with the Presbyterian Church after the Civil War ended, but Pace said the Presbyterian Church was probably the denomination most devoted to abolitionism.

And there are a multitude of examples that still exist in the area today – Timothy Darling Presbyterian in Oxford, founded by George Clayton Shaw, and Cotton Memorial in Henderson, founded by Adam Cotton.

Walter Pattillo, a Baptist preacher, founded a lot of churches. He was born into slavery, Pace said, but it is believed he already knew how to read and write before he went to Shaw University to study theology.

Another one of those figures that gets involved in the community, Pace said: “they don’t go anywhere – they just stay here.”

No moss gathered under Pattillo, however. He is associated with establishing a long list of churches throughout the Old Granville area, including Michael’s Creek, Blue Wing near the Virginia line, New Jonathan Creek, Olive Grove, First Baptist in Oxford, Penn Avenue, Flat Creek and Cedar Grove.

Back in those early days, when most people farmed and were, for the most part, self-sufficient, Pace said the church provided the “social fabric” of a community. The church, or meeting house, or wherever the congregations met, were so much more than a place to attend a weekly service.

“People were heavily involved in the church,” Pace said, “and the church was heavily involved in your life.”

Church members could be summoned and tried before a church council for such sinful things as cursing, drinking, gambling, adultery, consistent absence from the church, or – Pace’s personal favorite – “general meanness.”

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The Local Skinny! City Council Votes To Keep B-2A Zoning For Businesses, Retail

After receiving recommendations from a couple of different committees, the Henderson City Council voted unanimously on Monday to deny a request that would have allowed an empty retail space to be turned into a 16-bed “diversion center” for patients in mental health or substance abuse crises.

Back in November, Vaya Health officials told county commissioners that the space formerly occupied by Big Lots! on Dabney Drive was the best option they could find at the best price point. It would require a special use permit from the city, however, since the area is zoned for businesses and not hospitals or sanitoriums.

The matter was referred to the city Planning Board, which initially recommended to approve the special use permit request. But at a special called meeting in January, the City Council expressed concerns and had reservations about moving the project forward and sent it back to the planning committee for further review. The second time, the planning committee offered no recommendation.

So, the planning board reviewed the matter again in February and the Land Planning Committee weighed in as well at a March meeting, recommending the request be denied because the B-2A zoning is designed for businesses, including retail establishments and that any change could be detrimental to existing businesses.

Now, here we are in April, with the matter back before the City Council.

In reviewing the timeline of events, City Manager Terrell Blackmon said the consensus is that feel that an area zoned for business is not well suited for a hospital or sanitorium.

Council members voted unanimously to deny the request.

Vaya is looking for a location that could serve the region that includes Vance, Granville and Franklin counties, and Vaya reps told commissioners in November that they’d pitch in $1.5 million of the total amount necessary to upfit and transform the space, which would be somewhere north of $4.5 million. Vaya is looking for funding from the three counties to support the project.

WIZS previously reported that the main idea for the facility is to help take some of the heat off local hospital emergency rooms, which often aren’t equipped to handle the specific needs of individuals suffering from behavioral and mental health crises.

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Cooperative Extension With Jamon Glover: Communication, Pt. 5

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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Join H-V Chamber For “State Of Health Care 2024”

The Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce is hosting the first “state of” session for 2024 on Tuesday, April 23 to discuss local health care. The deadline to register is Thursday, April 18. Tickets are $30.

Guest speaker for the lunchtime event is Bert Beard, CEO of Maria Parham Health.

The lunch and learn will begin at 12 noon at Southern Charm Event Center, 200 S. Garnett St.

Beard will share updates on a variety of health care topics and is scheduled to discuss what’s happening locally as well as at the state level with Medicaid expansion and access to health care, among other topics.

Call the Chamber office at 252.438.8414 to learn more or email Tanya Wilson at tanya@hendersonvance.org to reserve your seat.

Corbitt Preservation Association To Hold Spring Fling Saturday

The plan for Saturday’s Spring Fling at the Corbitt Museum is to have trucks and tractors on display for the public to view and ooh and aah over, but when you’re dealing with vehicles that are as old as the Corbitts that are around here, Tom Burleson said “you keep your fingers crossed.”

The annual event will take place April 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and it’s a perfect time for folks to stop by and learn more of the history about the Corbitt family and its many contributions to the Henderson area, according to Burleson, vice president of the Corbitt Preservation Association.

Burleson himself grew up on Corbitt Road, he said on Wednesday’s TownTalk. And his childhood home was just up the street from the Corbitt mansion, that stood where Wester Realty now stands.

The Corbitts owned The Little Hotel and Mrs. Corbitt ran it back in the day, when Mr. Corbitt was busy cranking out trucks, military vehicles and tractors.

“We’ve got a good story to tell,” Burleson said. “We want to try to interest some younger folks.” His fellow Corbitt enthusiasts have “a lot of snow on the mountain,” he quipped and Corbitt Preservation Association events like the Spring Fling help to keep the history alive.

The association’s members are always on the lookout for Corbitt memorabilia and continue to collect it for display at the museum, located at 180 Church St. One recent addition is a promissory note dated 1917 signed by THE Richard J. Corbitt himself.

The company was founded in 1899 and produced horse-drawn buggies, Burleson said, then it morphed to motorized buggies, then automobiles, trucks and tractors. The Corbitt Company found its niche, however, in military vehicles.

One board member chugs down I-85 in his 1950 model truck that originally was purchased for use by the J.W. Jenkins Oil Co. in Henderson. “He gets some of the strangest looks,” Burleson said, but it’s just one of the trucks and tractors that’s still chuggin’ along.

Hopefully, it will be parked outside the Corbitt Museum Saturday.

Fingers crossed.

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