Cooperative Extension with Wayne Rowland: Composting
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Tag Archive for: #wizsnews
WIZS Radio Local News Audio 10-25-21 Noon
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McKinley Perkinson Named New Director Of Henderson-Vance Economic Development Commission
McKinley Perkinson has been selected to be the new director of the Henderson-Vance Economic Development Commission. She will begin her new role on Nov. 15, according to information from Vance County Manager Jordan McMillen.
Perkinson was marketing director for Maria Parham Health for four years and most recently has worked with Franklin County EDC as a project manager to enhance the county’s website and online presence for, among other things, economic development and tourism.
She told WIZS News that she is happy to be coming back to work in Vance County. She is no stranger to the role economic development plays in a community – her previous jobs have allowed her to interact with the economic development sector.
“I have always worked very closely with economic development,” she said, of her time with Maria Parham Health and before that as marketing and public relations manager of VCU Community Memorial Hospital in South Hill, Va. Hospitals located in smaller towns often drive the economy, she said. And “everybody wants their hometowns to have strong economies.”
Perkinson said she will draw from her education in communications and her experience to “be that great fit” for Vance County’s economic development. She said her short-term goal is to focus on the county’s current businesses and industry to make sure business leaders are aware of all resources available to help them, especially those financial resources that are a response to COVID-19.
She also will focus on the county’s strategic plan for economic development – goals for the next year, five years, and beyond – and looking for ways to make the likelihood for achieving those goals even greater.
“Economic development is not a job that solely falls on one person,” she said. “It is a team effort. You’ve got to have strong relationships with everyone to be successful.”
In a press release, McMillen said Perkinson “brings optimism, energy and passion for Henderson and Vance County and has proven to be a creative force in marketing in her past roles.” He added that she is well positioned to continue leading the effort of the county’s recent economic development successes. “McKinley is an outstanding fit for this role,” he said.
In the search for an economic development director, McMillen said the ideal candidate would be “creative, able to work with the community and local businesses to build relationships, and one who has passion for improving the community.”
Perkinson said she feels that timing is everything, and “this is my time to bring my skills and my experience” back home to Vance County. “Everything happens in its own time,” she added.
“I love Vance County – it’s home.”
WIZS Radio Local News Audio 10-22-21 Noon
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SportsTalk: Success On The Field Keeps Vance Charter AD Lance Stallings Busy
#1 in women’s volleyball, #2 in men’s soccer, a great cross country season and women’s golf coach and player of the year have certainly put a smile on Vance Charter’s athletic director Lance Stallings. “Kudos to the coaches and the kids,” Stallings said on Thursday’s SportsTalk with Trey Snide. “It’s great to get back to normal and I’m lucky to be a part of it all,” Stallings added.
Women’s golf at Vance Charter has been a great success with second year head coach Tyler Woodside being named Coach of the Year and golfer Grace Stovall grabbing Golfer of the Year honors this season. Three other golfers finished in the top ten for the school.
Men’s soccer is #2 in the Triangle North Athletic Conference and Vance Charter’s team will get a bye going into the tournament and will play on Monday at 4:30pm. If they come away with a win they will play for the conference championship later next week.
Meanwhile, volleyball also has their tournament going on and Vance Charter will begin tournament play this Saturday at 3pm taking on Carrboro. It all adds up to a busy fall sporting season for Vance Charter and AD Lance Stallings.
SportsTalk: Vipers Prepare For Southern Durham
128 points…sounds like what a high school basketball team might score over a couple of games but, that is not the case here. This is what Southern Durham has scored in their last two football games and the high powered Southern Durham offensive show is coming to Henderson this week to take on the Vance Co. Vipers in what will most likely determine the champion of the Northern Lakes Athletic Conference.
Both teams are 3 – 0 in the conference and while Vance Co. boasts an overall better record at 6 -1 to Southern Durham’s 4-4, the Spartan’s have played a much more difficult schedule and Vance Co. is coming off a poor performance in a 21 – 8 win over Granville Central last week that saw the Vipers struggle on offense against a winless team.
Coach Wilbur Pender felt his team didn’t have their best offensive game last week but thought the defense may have turned in its best performance. “We couldn’t get out of our own way,” Pender said of the Viper’s offense. This week Pender and Vipers are working on those mistakes. “Let’s stop being our own worst enemy,” is what Pender has stressed to his team.
Pender says the key Friday night is to tackle, stop the big play and don’t allow Southern Durham to score on special teams. Practice has been much better this week so Pender hopes that will result in slowing the Southern Durham offensive machine down and will lead to a victory and likely conference championship.
WIZS will have live play by play of the games beginning immediately after the Joy Christian Center broadcast about 6:45pm with kickoff at 7pm.
Cooperative Extension with Jamon Glover: Disobedience Pt. 3
Listen live at 100.1 FM / 1450 AM / or on the live stream at WIZS.com at 11:50 a.m. Mon, Tues & Thurs.
WIZS Radio Local News Audio 10-21-21 Noon
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TownTalk: Ruin Creek Animal Protection Society Pays Tribute To Ricky Overby
Most Friday evenings for almost a decade, Ricky Overby would climb into the Ruin Creek Animal Protection Society van, put it in Drive and head out of town on a freedom ride. The thousands of dogs and cats that left Vance County for rescue and adoption groups up and down the East Coast owe their lives – literally – to Captain Ricky.
Overby died Tuesday after a short battle with cancer. But Brandon Boyd, RCAPS President, holds Overby up as an example as someone who selflessly gave of his time to further the RCAPS mission of saving animals.
Overby started out as a driver, Boyd told John C. Rose on Thursday’s Town Talk, but as the single van grew to a fleet of vans, Captain Ricky took on more responsibilities with RCAPS.
Boyd remembered his employee – and friend – as loyal and dependable. “He took pride in his work, in his job,” he said. “And he loved saving animals.”
He’d take off usually by 9 p.m. on Fridays, with dozens and dozens of dogs and cats loaded in the van. He’d make numerous stops along his way up the East Coast, his destination sometimes as far North as Albany, New York.
Sometimes, Boyd said, when he found himself awake in the wee hours of a Saturday morning, “I’d call the Captain.” The calls sometimes lasted five minutes; others lasted upwards of an hour, Boyd recalled.
His reputation for a loving, caring person grew as his transports continued – Boyd said it’s difficult to grasp just how widespread that reputation reached.
James Jackson, another local volunteer, stepped in when Capt. Ricky got sick. And Friday night, when Jackson settles in behind the wheel of the van loaded with 50 or 60 dogs and cats headed for New York, he and the other RCAPS volunteers will continue Capt. Ricky’s mission of doing God’s work of caring for animals.
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Rain Chance Didn’t Dampen Success Of Downtown Car Show
Although the official economic impact has yet to be quantified, Vance County Tourism Development Authority Executive Director Pam Hester has plenty of anecdotal evidence to show that last weekend’s Show, Shine, Shag and Dine was a great success.
“The car show (was) fabulous,” Hester told WIZS News. She estimated that between 350 and 400 cars rolled into town to participate in the 19th annual event. Given the concern for COVID-19, plus the fact that there was a good chance of rain, she said she was pleased with the turnout.
This year should have been the 20th anniversary celebration, but COVID-19 put the brakes on last year’s event. Hester said she and her team of volunteers are already making plans to mark the anniversary in special ways for next year.
Attendance was slightly down, but she cited COVID-19 as a factor in that. Hester didn’t have an official estimate, and “it’s so hard to tell when it’s that many people” milling about downtown, she noted.
Hotels seemed to be pretty well booked on Saturday night, and she predicted that was the case for Friday as well. She fielded calls from New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Massachusetts and said that many cars were trailered in. “There were a lot of cars and people that I haven’t seen – lots of new places and new faces,” she said.
She noted that there were fewer vendors and food trucks, but she attributed that to COVID, too. “It’s hard to find help to run (main restaurants and food trucks), and that’s what the vendors were running into,” she said. The food vendors that were there, however, provided delicious food. “One guy sold out of everything he had on his truck,” she added.
A meeting is scheduled for next week to debrief the team of volunteers about what went well and what can be improved upon for next year, when the event turns 20.