Tag Archive for: #wizsnews

TownTalk: MPH Cancer Center’s Angel Fund Gets $19K Infusion From Fire Dept.

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City of Henderson firefighters know that the next call they get could involve saving someone’s life. It’s what they train for.

For the past seven or eight years, however, the firefighters at Central Station One on Dabney Drive have taken to the street – literally – to help fight a different battle, one that can be just as deadly as a house fire or car crash.

Firefighters take to the busy street in front of the station to conduct their “fill the boot” campaign and donated all the proceeds to the Angel Fund at Maria Parham Health’s Cancer Center. This year’s three-day effort netted a whopping $19,611, which Chief Tim Twisdale presented to cancer center staff on Monday afternoon. In remarks to the group following the check presentation, Cancer Center Director Kimberly Smith remembered former Chief Steve Cordell, who lost his battle with cancer in January 2023. “This was always something special to him,” Smith said of the Angel Fund project. “So we decided we were going to name it the Steve Cordell Angel Fund moving forward.”

City Manager Terrell Blackmon said this is the second year that Cordell has not been a part of the check presentation. “He was a big, strong proponent of this effort,” Blackmon said.

Chief Twisdale presented the check to hospital staff, and said he hopes the tradition will continue. “It warms our hearts to be able to do this every year,” Twisdale said. “We count you guys as a big part of that blessing…taking care of us and the community.”

Thanks also go to all those who donated over the course of the three days of the campaign, Battalion Chief Lee Edmonds said later. None of it would be possible without community support, he said.

Those tall boots got filled while firefighters held up traffic with their singing, dancing, just having a good time to support a good cause, Twisdale said.

The coins and bills that added up to the more than $19,000 donation helps cancer patients with transportation, medicine, food and more, said MPH Social Worker Hope Breedlove.

“Transportation is a huge barrier to care,” Breedlove said, adding that the Angel Fund has provided 1,072 rides since mid-January 2024. That averages out to about 5 rides per treatment day.

One gentleman had to come to the clinic twice a week for treatment, and it wasn’t that he didn’t have a car – he simply was too sick to drive himself.

“A lot of good people come into the clinic – this is great to help them bridge the gap,” she said.

Heather Endecott is an RN who works in the clinic side of the cancer center. She said the Angel Fund, in addition to the transportation support, has helped provide oral chemotherapy to some patients for years, indicating that the much-needed medications are helping people get effective treatment and live longer lives.

The Angel Fund has helped 78 families with gas, 66 families with food and countless others get medicine.

“Medication is a big area that we spend a lot of time helping (with), life sustaining medicines, medicines to control their symptoms, medicines to keep them out of the hospital, medicines to keep them from having to call 911 in the middle of the night,” Smith said.

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TownTalk: Commissioners Tap Fund Balance To Pay Overdue Bills, Health Care Overruns At Jail

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Vance County Commissioners are tapping the county’s fund balance to take care of a couple of bills – to the tune of more than $822,000 – that involve health care at the local detention center.

Of that amount, $352,000 will be used to pay past due invoices, some dating back to 2019, that were not paid by the county’s former finance director.

County Manager C. Renee Perry told commissioners during the Dec. 2 meeting that the former finance director had failed to process invoices from Prime Health. Perry said Prime Health, during the same period, experienced staffing shortages which further exacerbated the delays in processing invoices.

“We are committed to resolving this matter efficiently,” Perry told commissioners, “while maintaining our partnership with Prime Health, ensuring continued high-quality health care services for the Vance County Detention Center.”

Perry said, going forward, the county will put in place an enhanced tracking system and hold regular reconciliation meetings to make sure payments are made in a timely manner.

Commissioners also approved using another $470,000 to pay for the health care of inmates, some of whom aren’t even housed in the local jail.

The payment is based on the jail’s average daily population, which lately has been over-capacity, “so costs are increasing significantly,” Perry noted.

The $470,000 will pay for overages between July and December, as well as the six-month contract extension. At Perry’s recommendation, the commissioners approved renewing the contract for six months, through June 2025, instead of an annual contract. The plan is to try to get the next contract based on the fiscal year (July-June) and move away from the calendar year-based contract. The commissioners also asked for information about how many inmates are housed in other detention centers and how much that costs the county.

Assistant County Manager Jeremy Jones told commissioners that he recently arranged for two inmates to be taken to the jail in Edgecombe County, but they were sent back to Vance County because of bad behavior.

In another incident at the Vance County facility, an inmate sprayed four detention officers in the eyes with a combination of bleach, feces and urine.

Board Chair Sean Alston asked the manager to do some research to determine how much money the county has spent for capital improvements and maintenance on the jail over the past two years.

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Cooperative Extension with Michael Ellington: Chase Away the Winter Blues

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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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The Local Skinny! Council Approves UDO To Update Zoning, Development Ordinances

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UPDATED: Dec. 9, 2024 – 11 PM

The Henderson City Council adopted a unified development ordinance – UDO – which updates a number of zoning and subdivision ordinances, many of which have been in place since the 1970’s.

City staff and planners have spent the last year working with Insight Planning Consultants to develop the UDO. The price tag for the contract with the consultants is $99,000, which included the UDO the comprehensive plan adopted in July 2022.

The UDO is designed to be a comprehensive document that brings together the full complement of, in this case, city regulations regarding zoning and subdivisions as one way to bring consistency to regulations with regard to property development, design guidelines, sign regulations among others.

In a 4-3 vote, Council members decided to end a decades-long agreement with the county to provide building code services. City Manager Terrell Blackmon explained that the termination should take place Dec. 31, 2024, meaning the services would end in June 2025.

Blackmon said currently, the county collects the fees, and the next six months would be used to determine whether the city can undertake code enforcement on its own, or whether it could contract the services of another provider.

Blackmon also said the city could choose to renegotiate with the county to provide services.

Fees would generate revenue to help offset the costs of having city personnel do the work that now is being done by the county.

Council members Garry Daeke, Lamont Noel and Sam Seifert voted against the move.

During the discussion before the vote was taken, Mayor Melissa Elliott called the current situation “antiquated” and said the city “shouldn’t stay in a chokehold with the county.”

In other business before the Council:

  • Finance Director Joey Fuqua and auditor Alan Thompson shared information about the annual audit, which included no findings – good news for the city’s accounting of funds. In fact, Blackmon remarked that in addition to having no findings, the city managed to put about $4.7 million in fund balance.
  • A recommendation passed to place 2 all-way stops on West Young Avenue, following a traffic study to look into safety and visibility concerns. The signs will go up at the High Street and McBorne Street intersections.

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Original Update Dec. 9, 2024 – 12 Noon

The Henderson City Council will meet at 6 p.m. tonight for its regular monthly meeting. There will be a public hearing to receive comments about the unified development ordinance – UDO – before the Council considers whether to adopt a plan that updates to a number of zoning and subdivision ordinances, many of which have been in place since the 1970’s.

City staff and planners have spent the last year working with Insight Planning Consultants to develop the UDO. The price tag for the contract with the consultants is $99,000, and included the UDO the comprehensive plan which was adopted in July 2022.

The UDO is designed to be a comprehensive document that brings together the full complement of, in this case, city regulations regarding zoning and subdivisions as one way to bring consistency to regulations with regard to property development, design guidelines, sign regulations among others.

Attend the meeting in person or view via livestream at https://henderson.nc.gov/. Click on City Council Meeting on the right side of the page to find the link.

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TownTalk: Farm City Luncheon Held At Farmers Market

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The folks who gathered at the Vance County Regional Farmers Market for the Farm-City luncheon were treated to some good ol’ Southern style food – fried chicken, barbecue, with all the fixin’s, but surely the sweet treat came when local historian Mark Pace shared a brief – but comprehensive – history of agriculture in the area we call home.

There is little doubt that agriculture has been a major player in this area since before the county was established – tobacco was king, but over the years, other products have provided livelihoods.

The Continental Plant Co. in Kittrell touted “the largest stock of choice strawberry plants in the world,” or so a headline on the cover of the spring 1898 catalogue reported.  The company shipped plants all over the continent – $1.25 per 1,000 plants.

The Blacknalls ran 3,000 acres for the Continental Plant Co., Pace said. “They shipped all over the world because of the railroad,” he said.

J.P. Taylor started his tobacco operation in Vance County, which later morphed into Universal Leaf.

E.G. Davis had a side-hustle with his chicken farming business, Pace said. Locals will know where it was located: That’s right – Chicken Farm Road.

The cotton crop helped create the mills that, for years, churned out products for the textile industry. Back in the 1840’s, cotton was selling for between 7 cents and 8 cents a pound, Pace said.

“Just about every farm had a little grove of mulberry trees,” he said. What likes mulberry trees? Silkworms. And, though brief, there was a large silk industry in the area. No wonder – at that time, a pound of silk was worth $4 a pound.

A lot of good farmland now rests below Kerr Lake, that manmade resource that has been the source of water and recreation for many since the late 1950’s.

And nobody is surprised to hear statistics of decreasing farm ownership, given the rise of residential housing and other development that has no association with agriculture.

The Vance County Farm Bureau provided a snapshot of information about agricultural production in the county, all conveniently located on paper placemats on the luncheon tables.

The average farm size is about 225 acres, down by almost 20 percent from 2017.

The county has just more than 38,000 acres of farmland, but that figure is down a whopping 42 percent from just seven years ago.

There are 108 female farmers and 172 male farmers, and 88 new and beginning farmers in the county.

Farmers are increasingly aging out of their chosen livelihood – it’s a hard job that often takes a toll on health and finances. Today’s farms may look different than those of decades past, but agriculture continues to be strong in Vance County.

Extension Horticulture Agent Michael Ellington said it’s important to know the history of agriculture in our county, and it’s equally important that farmers provide mentorship to the next generation to make sure that agriculture’s future remains bright.

Listen to Pace’s talk in its entirety at www.wizs.com.

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Cooperative Extension With Wayne Rowland: Small Fruit Orchards

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Cooperative Extension

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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SportsTalk: Louisburg College Football Headed To JUCO National Title Game

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UPDATE – FINAL SCORE 

College of DuPage 31

Louisburg College 14

Hurricanes finish the season at 8-3

Congratulations on a Great Season Louisburg!

Go Hurricanes!

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SportsTalk on WIZS 12:30 p.m. M-Th

Louisburg College Head Football Coach Quinderra Spellman joins SportsTalk with Scout Hughes and George Hoyle to talk about the Hurricanes great season, as they prepare for the NJCAA DIII National Championship Game.

Louisburg College will play the College of DuPage this Saturday, December 7th, 2024 in the NJCAA DIII Football National Championship Game. Kickoff will be at 1:00pm EST. The game will be broadcasted live on ESPN+. For those that want to cheer on the Hurricanes in Chicago the address to the stadium is College of DuPage Stadium, College Rd, Glen Ellyn, IL 60137.

Go Hurricanes!

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