The Vance County Board of Commissioners held a work session of March 17th where they discuss the Vance County Board of Equalization and Review.
(Our WIZS written coverage will appear here soon.)
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Jamon Glover, on the Vance County Cooperative Extension Report
In this segment, we talk about families that set their own standards for their children in all aspects.
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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On the Home and Garden Show with Vance Co. Cooperative Ext.
The Vance County Cooperative Extension Building is located at 305 Young St, Henderson, NC 27536
The Vance County Regional Farmers Market is located at 210 Southpark Dr., Henderson, NC 27536
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The Vance County Board of Commissioners likely will discuss and adopt at their April meeting a policy to guide county staff about how and when to use AI when it comes to managing public and county data.
Randall Medlin, the county’s IT director, appeared before commissioners at a Mar. 17 work session to provide details about the draft policy, stating that it was crafted to address three key issues surrounding the county’s use of AI: that it’s used ethically, responsibly and legally; that county staff is aware of any potential biases with regard to its use; and that AI is not replacing a human making a decision in any act.
Medlin said the county will be making three software purchases in the next six months, and they all have an AI component.
He said he’d like to have the policy in place before the county moves forward with those purchases.
County Manager C. Renee Perry said she plans to have adoption of the 7-page policy on the board’s April 6 agenda.
As County Attorney Jonathan Care explained, the policy provides “guiderails” as the use of AI becomes more prevalent and more widely accepted.
“It has the guardrails in there to help eliminate the bad stuff,” Care said.
“It is only using versions that we control the data to. And that’s important, and Randall and I both agree on this, because of all the other considerations you’ve got out there, the most common one that we don’t think about that I see as being the biggest hurdle is creating public records. We’ve got to own it and control it. We’ve got to limit – to the extent we can – the number of public records that we inadvertently create by using AI. This policy definitely has the guardrails in that addresses my concerns practically and legally, but also, more importantly, addresses the IT concerns that are much more informed that I feel need to be in there.”
Medlin said the policy doesn’t prescribe how to authorize and use AI but instead offers parameters for use. “If you’re going to use AI, it can’t do this and it must do this,” he said.
The policy states that county departments that do use AI must create an annual report to present to the board and to the public at large to ensure transparency.
The report will contain information about which AI programs are being used and how they are being used and how it fits in their “chain” or scope of work.
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With spring just around the corner, school spring breaks aren’t far behind, and Youth Services Librarian Melody Peters said the library’s planning some fun programming for when youngsters are out of school.
In addition to some of the familiar offerings, like Sunday’s Family Story Time, Mother Goose Story Time, Teen Time and Lego Club, Peters told WIZS’s Scout Hughes about some daytime activities for schoolchildren in the week leading up to Easter when many area schools are on break.
On Monday, Mar. 30, the library will show the movie Zootopia 2 beginning at 1:30 p.m. Then at 4 p.m., it’s time for Smurfs 2025, she said.
It’s fine to bring your favorite snacks to enjoy during the showings, she said.
If you plan to bring groups of 10 or more, please email Peters in advance at mpeters@perrylibrary.org.
On Tuesday, Mar. 31, come at 4:30 p.m. for arts and crafts activities. On Wednesday, Apr. 1, the two movies for the day are Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie and Elio, an animated Disney Pixar film released in 2025.
There’s another movie showing on Monday, Mar. 23 – this one is Hidden Figures, based on a true story about three women and their contributions to NASA. It’s part of Women’s History Month, as is a special story time on Tuesday, Mar. 24 at 4 p.m. to read Around America to Win the Vote: Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles.
The book tells the true story of two women who traveled around in an old yellow car to spread the word about women’s suffrage – giving women the right to vote.
“It is a beautiful book about their trek,” Peters said. “A great story about what they did” that eventually paved the way for the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Learn more about all the programs and services at Perry Memorial Library at https://www.perrylibrary.org/.
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The springtime wildfire season is fast approaching, and county firefighters and the N.C. Forest Service had to put their practices – and equipment – to the test with a couple of fires last week that scorched dozens of acres and destroyed a few sheds.
The fire calls came within a couple of hours of each other and, though unrelated, both were on Thomas Road, off N.C.39 near Williamsboro.
The first call, according to Rob Montague with the N.C. Forest Service, proved to be the larger of the two fires. Montague said that fire affected about 30 acres.
Montague said the Forest Service was able to provide a bulldozer and a helicopter to assist local fire departments get a handle on the fire.
The bulldozer created a bare dirt fire line, he said, a tactic that helps contain the fire and keep it from spreading.
The helicopter scooped water from a nearby pond to drop on the fire.
And then the second call came in. A tree fell on a power line, touching off another brush fire.
Assistant County Ranger Landon Blackwell was the incident commander at the scene of the first fire. It was Blackwell, Montague said, who was instrumental in making sure firefighters could handle both fires efficiently and to determine when the first fire was contained enough to release the resources to attack the second fire.
“The helicopter was ordered for the first fire,” Montague explained. Once the second fire call came in, the helicopter was able to drop water on both fires. “The helicopter can do pinpoint work on dropping water, especially in a situation like that,” he said.
There also was a scout plane – a smoke chaser – that was called into action as well.
“It was a really great collaboration of a lot of different types of resources working together and that is the part of our job that we enjoy doing,” Montague said. “Having the right resources at the right time really won the day…to bring the situation to a stable point and minimize the damage.”
Containment is key to battling a wildfire. It’s already burning, so the idea is to stop it from moving forward and getting worse. The grasses, shrubs and trees that are burning can burn for a long time, and putting out the fire can be challenging.
Extinguishing the fire can be difficult, so firefighters create containment lines around the fire. That’s what they did with the first fire. Montague said they were able to establish good containment lines to slow the fire’s spread.
“Once that line was in there, we could free up some resources because it was not going to expand anymore.”
From above, firefighters in the helicopter and the spotter plane could provide colleagues on the ground information on how best to attack the second fire.
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More than 35 percent of U.S. households have medical debt, according to an article published in August 2025. Citing 2024 data, the authors wrote that 21 percent had a past-due medical bill and another 23 percent were paying a medical bill over time to a provider – most often to a physician or a dentist.
Many providers like hospitals and private practices use third-party agencies to get payments from patients. These third-party agencies “buy” the debt at pennies on the dollar and then contact the patients to get the payment due.
Undue Medical Debt is one of those third-party agencies, but its mission is to erase medical debt by partnering with civic groups, churches and other organizations to pay off medical debt for qualified recipients.
The Rotary Club of Oxford partnered with Undue Medical Debt and erased a whopping $2 million in medical debt for individuals in North Carolina – 597 of whom reside in Granville County.
“Medical debt is a huge problem,” said Oxford Rotarian and dentist Bart Cleary. “It means a lot to us and it means a lot for the individuals” that the local Rotary group could have such a meaningful impact in the local community.
The club contributed proceeds from fundraisers like poinsettia sales, beer and wine tasting events and more, and the district Rotary organization kicked in a matching grant. An anonymous donor also provided matching funds to elevate the amount the Rotary club could provide for the project.
As Rotary Club President-Elect Don Fick explained, the debts are collected and acquired by Undue Medical Debt and the Rotary funds paid it off.
The recipients remain anonymous – and it’s not something people can apply for, he said. They must meet eligibility criteria, he added, to make sure that the debts are paid for those who are most adversely affected by unpaid medical bills.
Recipients will simply get a letter in the mail stating that their debt has been cleared.
“We don’t know their names, their debt or what kind of medical service they had,” Fick said.
In his role as pastor, the Rev. Glenn Stallsmith said it’s been his experience that people who come to him for guidance or advice seldom talk about problems caused by the burden of medical debt.
“This issue of medical debt is one of those things that people don’t like to share,” Stallsmith said.
But when people are not able to pay their bills, they often delay future health care or health care for their children.
Getting the club to buy in to the project wasn’t difficult, he said. “It wasn’t a hard sell – it was almost a unanimous decision.”
To learn more about the work and mission of the Rotary Club of Oxford, visit oxfordncrotaryclub.org. You can send donations to Oxford Rotary Club, P.O. Box 1584, Oxford, NC 27565. The club meets on Thursdays at 12 noon at House of Ribeyes in Oxford, located at 102 Roxboro Rd.
To learn more about the work of Undue Medical Debt, visit unduemedicaldebt.org.
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Michael Ellington, on the Vance County Cooperative Extension Report:
Today’s segment is full of helpful reminders for gardeners, livestock owners, and community members. I provide dates for Extension’s annual Report to the People, an upcoming America 250 celebration, and the opening day of the Vance County Regional Farmers Market.
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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