Tag Archive for: #wizsnews

TownTalk 5-11-21; KARTS Provides Key Service To Rural Residents

/by

Irene Johnson, executive director of KARTS discusses the transportation services offered by the agency, the effects of Covid-19 and the need for drivers.

Johnson stressed Kerr Area Rural Transportation Authority operates with a “safety first” approach to everything.

For Broadcast Audio Click Play. Written story below.

 

The term “public transportation” may conjure up images of crowded buses headed across a busy commercial district in a large city, but rural areas have public transportation services that help people get to medical appointments or complete errands in town.

In Vance, Franklin, Granville and Warren counties, 55 KARTS buses travel the country roads to pick up rural residents who rely on public transportation.

KARTS, or Kerr Area Rural Transportation Authority, has been serving the four-county area since 1983, said Irene Johnson, KARTS executive director. She told John C. Rose Tuesday on Town Talk that she wants to spread the word about KARTS.

Anyone who needs a ride to get a COVID-19 vaccine can ride for free, Johnson said. “We will make that possible at no cost” to the rider, she said. Just call KARTS at 252.438.2573 after scheduling the vaccine appointment.

Johnson said KARTS buses are on the road Monday through Saturday, and some drivers begin their shifts behind the wheel by 2:30 a.m. Many riders go to dialysis centers she said, and appointments there start as early as 4 a.m.

But KARTS buses take riders to Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, too. A scheduler can provide details about schedules and fare costs. Visit www.kartsnc.com for a breakdown of roundtrip fares. A roundtrip fare between 1-10 miles costs $8; a roundtrip fare between 11-20 miles is $10.

Those Around the Town shuttles that scurry throughout Vance County are KARTS buses, too. Johnson said there are designated stops for those shuttles, which generally run between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

COVID-19 restrictions created extra steps for KARTS, including sanitizing machines for the vehicles when they’re off the road, as well adding hand sanitizer stations on each bus. Masks are required to board the bus, and drivers have extras for anyone who needs one.

In addition to transporting people to their medical appointments and grocery shopping, Johnson said KARTS also takes people to work. She said at least four buses deliver workers daily to their jobs at Revlon in Oxford. Johnson estimated that those 55 buses are handling an average of 400 appointments a day, down from as many as 700 at one time.

KARTS, like many other rural transport agencies across the state, need qualified drivers. “We’re comfortable at 400 (trips), but we could use 20 drivers right now,” she said.

Drivers must be at least 21 years old and pass a background check and a drug screen.

“You’ve got to be someone who likes people,” she noted. “The easy part is being behind the wheel – you may be the only person they see all day.”

(KARTS is an advertising client of WIZS.  This article and audio are not paid ads.)

TownTalk 05-10-21 Economics, Jobs, Inflation

/by

Host John C. Rose discusses economics, employment and inflation including the effect stimulus payments have had, how the lack of employees has effected the shipping of goods and concerns about inflation.

For complete details and audio click play.

 

The Local Skinny! Home And Garden Show 5-5-21

/by

WIZS, Your Community Voice.  Thank you for listening! 

The Local Skinny! each Wednesday on WIZS is the Vance County Cooperative Extension Service Home and Garden Show.

 

Coach's Corner Logo

SportsTalk 5-4-21 Paul “Showtime” Gaffney, Gaffney Athletic Prep Academy

/by

Before he was known as “Showtime,” Paul Gaffney was a kid from a rural coal mining town in Kentucky. He was born to an unmarried teenage mom who placed him for adoption. At the age of two, his adoptive mother died and Gaffney was raised alone by his adoptive father. Gaffney would be considered as an “at-risk child” but Gaffney overcame these issues through his love of athletics and basketball. He is the Tennessee Wesleyan University Hall of Fame, where he received a B.S. in Business Management and, through his fifteen years with the Harlem Globetrotters, he is in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Now he is the founder of Gaffney Atletic Preparatory Academy (GAPA) in Tennessee which Gaffeny calls, “An innovative school dealing with sports careers including sports medicine, marketing, communications and nutrition serving grades six through twelve.” There is also a post grad program available to students who need it to help with GPA’s as well. GAPA enhances opportunities for students to move up to prestige college, according to Gaffney.

Gaffney says, “There were always people around me who inspired me to be a better athlete,” and this is what he hopes that GAPA will do for his students. Gaffney says GAPA teaches kids to find out what they love. While they may love athletics they might not be the world’s greatest athlete but might be great at cooking which could lead to a career as a sports nutritionist allowing them to be involved in athletics while not being on the field or court.

Students are from all over the world. He recruits students locally as well as Italy, Portugal and other locations.

However, GAPA isn’t his only interest. Gaffney is manager of the Tennessee Conductors of the WABA Basketball League. This women’s league is an opportunity to showcase talent so players may be able to move on to the WNBA. The team is scheduled to begin its season in July.

Gaffney credits his fifteen years with the Harlem Globetrotters in helping him open doors on these ventures. “The Globetrotters helped me develop the needed character for these endeavors,” Gaffney said.

Speaking of his Globetrotter experience Gaffney said, “We played eight days in a seven day week.” The constant travel all over the world helped the team develope a brotherhood that remains to this day. “The court was my office for 15 years and I enjoyed every minute of it,” Gaffney said. He calls the Globetrotter a tight knit family.

Gaffney also said playing with the Globetrotters was probably harder than playing basketball in the NBA due to the number of games involved and the travel which saw them go all around the world but the millions of smiles and memories those games brought to fans are special not only to those fans but for him as well. One of Gaffney’s fondest memories and one that changed his life was in 1996 when he met then South African President Nelson Mandela.

For complete details and audio click play.

 

TownTalk 5-4-21 Donald Seifert, Shriner’s Fish Fry

/by

Donald Seifert of the Tri-County Shrine Club about the upcoming Shriner’s Fish Fry.

Broadcast audio here.  Written story below.

For decades, the annual Shrine Club fish fry was held at the Henderson Armory. In recent years, although the locations have changed, the mission has never wavered: the local Shrine Club fundraiser supports local and national causes to help children.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021 marks the 57th fish fry, said Donald C. Seifert, who spoke with John C. Rose on Tuesday’s Town Talk.

The event is take-out only, he said, and runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 210 Industry Drive, at the Sherman and Boddie facility. Tickets are available from local Shriners, but also are available at the door.

“It all comes together,” Seifert said of the preparation for the annual fish fry. “But it comes together right at the last day or two,” he said. Club members will get the cookers on site and prepare the fish. There’s a lot of work that goes into the annual event, and he said club members look forward to serving a lot of customers on May 19.

“We do have some good experience on moving folks through and getting them hot plates (of food),” he said.

In the 57 years that the fish fry has been held, there’s no telling how much fish has been battered, fried and placed on plates or in to-go boxes, he said. “It’s very gratifying. The people of Henderson and the surrounding area have been so supportive – it’s just been a good project for us and I think people have enjoyed it also,” Seifert added.

A couple of years ago, the group known as Henderson Shrine Club adopted a new name to reflect its demographic. The Tri-County Shrine Club is the same group, but Seifert said the newer name is more inclusive.

“We’ll do our level best to deliver to our customers a good fish plate – they’ll certainly get their money’s worth,” he said.

The local Shriners support causes in the community – they recently helped with a first-responders fundraiser – as well as Shriners’ hospitals across the nation and around the globe. “Road runners” are Shriners who transport children and family members to Shrine hospitals for treatment. Treatment and transportation are at no cost to the family, and fundraisers like the local fish fry support the medical care the children receive.

The fish fry is something that the community looks forward to, with many years selling completely out of fish – but the timing is uncannily close to when the event is over. Larry Parker and Ray Fields are two mainstays of the fish fry, and Seifert said that the former Highway Patrolmen really know how to move things along when they need to.

Rose asked Seifert how many fish fry events he’d attended over the years. With only a slight pause, Seifert stated “It’s been most of them – I was here and I was a Shriner, so I was at the fish fry.”

TownTalk 5-3-21 Dr. Michael Sylvia, Chief Of Pediatrics, Maria Parham Health

/by

Children can safely return to school said Dr. Michael Sylvia, Chief of Pediatrics at Maria Parham Hospital, earlier today on TownTalk.

TownTalk broadcast audio and written story below.

In the past year or so, experts and laypeople have spoken at length about all the complications brought on by COVID-19 and the effects it has had, both in the community and across the globe. But one local pediatrician said Monday he would offer a simple response to the question about children’s safe return to school: Yes.

“The short answer is yes, it is safe to send your child- and kids – back to school,” said Dr. Michael Sylvia, chief of Pediatrics and vice chair of the department of Medicine at Maria Parham Medical Center.

“We know that school is incredibly important, not just for the learning’s sake, but there’s a lot of social skills that kids develop in school, especially in the 6- to 12-year age group, that pre-adolescent range,” Sylvia told John C. Rose on Monday’s segment of Town Talk.

He said children invariably will come home with the everyday, run-of-the-mill germs that cause colds, stomach bugs and other common ailments when they do return to in-person school full-time. But it is important for parents and other adult family members to be able to discern those routine symptoms and not jump to the conclusion that the child has COVID-19.

“Kids share germs – it’s inevitable,” he said. Symptoms such as a high fever, sore throat, shortness of breath, chills and body aches, and loss of taste or smell could indicate something more than just a standard cold, he said. If a child complains of those symptoms, or has been exposed to COVID-19, a call to the doctor is in order for possible testing.

As children return to group activities like sports, it’s going to be important to be vigilant about hand washing and not grabbing the wrong water bottle.

But not letting young people play sports could have a more negative impact than letting them get back on the fields for practice and games. “Sports is huge for team building and emotional development,” Sylvia said. “I’m all about kids getting out and exercising.”

Parents who notice changes in their children’s behavior – physical or emotional – should talk with their pediatrician. “The one thing that parents can do is just be open,” Sylvia said. “Share your concerns with your child.”

Sylvia commented on the ongoing research around COVID-19 and how it affects different age groups. Teenagers are still far less likely to catch COVID-19 or have symptoms bad enough to put them in hospital, he said. Younger children are even less likely to experience symptoms, he added. But children are still being included in clinical trials, and the research can help health experts target the age ranges that should be vaccinated.

“We’re optimistic that we’ll have some pretty good information about vaccines in kids by summer,” Sylvia said.

The decision to vaccinate young children has yet to be made, but Sylvia said it probably would be a good idea, even if there is a low incidence of infection. Why? “It’s (for) the child or the adult in the community who can’t get the vaccine for health reasons,” he said.

“I’m optimistic that we will be through this in the near future,” Sylvia said. “Parents just have to stick it out just a little longer.”