WIZS Radio Local News Audio 05-08-23 Noon
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Henderson City Council Approves Resolution to Name Bridge in Memory of Master Trooper
The Henderson City Council unanimously approved a resolution to name a bridge in Vance County in memory of Master Trooper James “Brent” Montgomery.
The action item appeared on the Council’s agenda Monday night. The resolution calls for the I-85 bridge at Satterwhite Point Road to be named in memory of Montgomery. He died in March 2021 from complications of COVID-19 at age 50.
He had been a trooper for 15 years in Vance, Warren and Franklin counties, and before joining the Highway Patrol had worked with the local sheriff’s office and police department.
“As a dedicated public servant, he was exemplary in the performance of his duties and an inspiration to all who knew him,” according to information included in the Council’s agenda packet.
A portion of the resolution reads:
WHEREAS, the Henderson City Council desires to honor former North Carolina State Trooper and dedicated public servant James “Brent” Montgomery; and
WHEREAS, Master Trooper Montgomery served the North Carolina Highway Patrol in Vance, Warren and Franklin counties with diligence and honor for 15 years; and
WHEREAS, Master Trooper Montgomery served as Field Training Officer, Traffic Crash Instructor, Taser Instructor and had charge over the School of Safety Program; and
WHEREAS, after enduring a difficult battle with Covid-19, James Brent Montgomery, at 50 years old,
passed away on March 15, 2021; and
WHEREAS, personally and professionally, Master Trooper Montgomery was loved and respected for his exemplary conduct and service to the community.
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Henderson City Council does hereby request the North Carolina Board of Transportation name the Satterwhite Bridge over I-85 for the late Master Trooper James ‘Brent’ Montgomery.”
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TownTalk: CultureFest Coming To Oxford This Weekend
CultureFest is coming to downtown Oxford and organizers hope that all those who take part in the festivities will leave with a greater appreciation not just for diversity, but for all the things that different world cultures share in common.
“It’s back and bigger than ever,” said Ajulo Othow, one of those planning the event. Between the COVID-19 pandemic and a postponement from last fall because of an impending hurricane, the festival will resume for its second year in the Littlejohn parking lot in Oxford.
Oxford Mayor Jackie Sargent and Granville Tourism Director Angela Allen joined Othow on Monday’s TownTalk to discuss highlights of the festival, which will take place Saturday, May 13 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
A variety of entertainment is scheduled each half hour, which Othow said represents cultures from around the globe. St. Cyprian’s African Drummer group kicks things off at 11 a.m., and Sergent said she plans to stick close to the stage so she can enjoy all the performers throughout the day.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to learn some new things…celebrate each other and learn commonalities,” Othow said. Her mother, the late Dr. Helen Othow, had the original vision for CultureFest. “I’m proud to be able to continue the work she started.”
The festival has taken on a larger community feel since it found its downtown spot, with collaborators including The John Chavis Society, the City of Oxford, Granville Tourism, Downtown Oxford Economic Development Commission, Granville Ed Foundation, Mary Potter Club, Granville Museum and NC Arts Council all contributing to the event.
“I am really proud of this particular festival,” Allen said, adding that she expects folks from outside Oxford and Granville County to come to the festival. “It’s an awesome time to invite people into Granville County,” she said, while uniting folks who already call Granville County home.
There will be food trucks, more than 20 vendors with crafts and more, as well as children’s activities and demonstrations like tortilla making and much more during the daylong festival, making it a real interactive event, Allen said.
“Many hands have gone into making this a successful celebration and a community event,” she added, and that she hopes it becomes a fixture among the city’s festivals.
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Cooperative Extension with Wayne Rowland: Planting Gardens
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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Oxford’s New City Manager Set To Begin Work May 10
-information courtesy of City of Oxford Communication Specialist Sabrina Richards
The City of Oxford has a new city manager – William “Brent” Taylor has been appointed to the post and will be sworn in to begin his new duties in a ceremony on May 10.
Taylor most recently was town manager for Selma, NC and brings with him 30 years of experience in municipal government in the Carolinas, according to information from the city of Oxford.
He has experience with issues relating to police departments, town events and water and sewer management. In his role as town administrator in Walhalla, SC, Taylor helped secure ffunding for the Walhalla Water Treatment facility and improved the water quality for the city’s residents.
“We are excited to welcome Mr. Taylor as our new City Manager. He demonstrated multiple strengths to the board during his interviewing process.” said Mayor Jackie Sergent. “His passion for public service, commitment to transparency and accountability, and the ability to build relationships with employees and residents makes him the perfect candidate to lead our city.”
As city manager, Taylor will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the city, strategic planning, budget management and community engagement.
“The people of Oxford have been very warm and friendly and the city has that small-town charm which not only makes me want to work here but even more importantly be a place to live,” Taylor stated upon his selection to the position.
A drop-in reception to welcome Taylor will be held in the City Hall lobby between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., before the regular monthly commissioners meeting begins. The public is welcome to attend.
SportsTalk: Vance Charter Names Athletes Of The Year
Lance Stallings, Athletic Director for Vance Charter School, and his teams have been very successful on the field during the Spring sports season. The school’s lacrosse team, co-conference champions with J.F. Webb, hosts a second round playoff game against Swansboro Friday night. The softball team is currently in second place in the conference and two golfers, Hunter Gill and Bill Taylor, have qualified for state regionals.
Stallings, who was on SportsTalk Thursday, also announced that senior Christian Bean has been named male Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year and sophomore Katherine Suther has been named female Athlete of the Year. “These two students are nominated and selected by the entire athletic department not just their coaches,” Stallings said. Both Bean and Suther joined Stallings on SportsTalk to talk about the award.
Bean plays three sports at Vance Charter: cross country, lacrosse and basketball. Once he graduates this year he plans on attending Appalachian State and majoring in recreation management. Suther also plays three sports: volleyball, basketball and soccer. “Soccer is my favorite,” Suther said. “We’ve grown together as a team. We had a lot of freshmen who had never played before,” Suther said. Suther also said that even though she is only a sophomore she has already begun to look ahead to college where she is considering going into sports medicine.
Soccer is just winding up the regular season and plays Oxford Prep Thursday night. A win by Vance Charter will ensure the team a share of the conference championship, but a loss will give Oxford Prep the title outright.
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WIZS Radio Local News Audio 05-04-23 Noon
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WIZS Pop The Hood: Batteries
— for our sponsor, Advance Auto Parts
Unless you’re really into vehicles and how they work, you may think all car batteries are alike. By asking just a few simple questions about your particular driving habits, the knowledgeable team of employees at Henderson’s two Advance Auto Parts locations can help you choose the right battery for your vehicle.
In this first installment of “Pop the Hood,” Advance Auto Parts District Manager Jay Matthews explains a bit about choosing the right battery for your needs.
Running a lot of errands each day and stop and start your vehicle often? Have you tricked out your car or truck with lots of electronics? The Advance Auto Parts employees aren’t being nosey, Matthews said. “What they’re trying to do is determine the best battery for you.”
It’s important that your car’s battery provide adequate cranking power – and that varies with the seasons, he noted.
“What a lot of people don’t realize is what it takes to crank your vehicle at 70 degrees is totally different from what it takes at 30 degrees.”
Drivers are welcome to come to either location – 400 Prosperity Drive just off Dabney Drive or 390 Raleigh Road – to get a complimentary battery or alternator check, just to make sure things are operating properly.
Preventive maintenance is just one way to reduce the chance that your vehicle is going to leave you stranded.
Sometimes it’s not the battery that needs replacing, Matthews said. Sometimes, the corrosion that occurs when acid leaks from the battery ends up on the terminals and in the battery cables.
“On most vehicles, we do free installation of batteries,” he said. Some vehicles have batteries in tricky places that just aren’t safe to install in a store parking lot. The folks at Advance Auto can look up the information quickly to determine which vehicles that don’t qualify for the free installation.
Advance has free curbside services to offer battery checks, as well as wiper replacement and check engine light scans. And the stores offer a 10 percent military discount.
Check out “Pop the Hood” every other Thursday at 11:30 a.m. on WIZS
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TownTalk: Around Old Granville: The History Of Area Newspapers
It wasn’t that long ago that people had to wait until the local daily or weekly hit the front stoop, sidewalk or mailbox to get the latest news and information. In today’s world of breaking news reports and computers that, with a few keystrokes, pull up news from across the globe, the physical newspaper has really taken a hit.
There have been dozens and dozens of newspapers published across the Old Granville area over the years, and Thornton Library’s North Carolina Room Specialist Mark Pace talked about some of them with WIZS’s Bill Harris on the Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.
A number of print newspapers continue to provide local news and community journalism for their coverage areas, including The Dispatch in Henderson, the Oxford Public Ledger, Butner-Creedmoor News, Warren Record and Franklin Times.
But do you know about the Gold Leaf, a newspaper printed in Henderson by Thad Manning?
“He really kind of changed newspapers in this area,” Pace said of Manning, who came from Halifax County, NC in 1881 and began the weekly newspaper.
Until then, newspaper publishers were more “fly by night” operations, bringing in printing presses on the back of trucks and setting up shop in storefronts in small towns.
During World War I, there was such a demand for news that Manning started a weekly paper in 1914 called the Dispatch. It later became a daily, was owned and operated for decades by three generations of the Dennis family, and it currently publishes three times a week under its original name, The Dispatch.
Henderson had another publication called the Henderson Semi-Weekly Index, which Pace noted became popular enough to be replaced by the Weekly Index. Not surprisingly, issues of that publication have not been located for the years 1861-1865, because of the chaos brought by the Civil War and the scarcity of newsprint.
Much like today’s wire services – think Associated Press and Reuters – newspapers shared copies among themselves and published stories that would be attributed to the original source. Pace said that’s how researchers can piece together information about long-gone newspapers. The credit line “taken from Gillburg News,” for example, confirms the existence despite the fact that no physical copy of the Gillburg News exists, Pace explained.
The newspapers of yore contained information that today may seem insignificant or trivial – visiting relatives and a story about someone’s unusually large potato won’t be seen in today’s newspapers. But Pace said it can really help piece together what a community looked like at the time and it can help genealogists with their research, too.
Pace implores anyone with old newspapers – or other printed information that may seem obsolete – to bring it to the library before hauling it to the landfill so he can take a look. There just may be something of interest there.
Two good resources for finding microfilm or copies of old newspapers are https://www.newspapers.com/ and the NC Digital Heritage Center at https://www.digitalnc.org/
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VGCC Foundation Scholarship Priority Deadline May 31
-information courtesy of VGCC Public Information Officer Courtney Cissel
Scholarships offered through the Vance-Granville Community College Foundation for the 2023 Fall Academic Year are open for applicants. The priority deadline for full scholarship consideration for Fall 2023 is May 31, according to VGCC officials.
“We know our students are often already working, raising families, and going to college in their spare time,” VGCCF Executive Director Tanya Weary stated. “At VGCC, we work to help them graduate with as little debt as possible.”
The VGCC Foundation has more than 300 endowed scholarships based on a variety of factors – merit, financial need, degree choice and more. Scholarships are awarded individually to curriculum students based on criteria outlined for each award. Selection will be based on an overall assessment of academic performance, leadership skills, character and community service, according to a press statement from VGCC Public Information Officer Courtney Cissel.
Scholarship funding is limited, and completion of the application does not guarantee an award. All applicants must have a minimum of a 2.0 GPA to be considered for a VGCC Foundation scholarship; many scholarships require a minimum 3.0 GPA. Scholarship recipients are selected by a scholarship selection committee unless otherwise stipulated in the criteria of the scholarship.
The scholarships are made possible through the generous support of private citizens, organizations and businesses. To apply for VGCCF scholarships, visit www.vgcc.edu/fao/scholarships. For additional questions, contact foundation@vgcc.edu.