FEATURE
PAGE: Holt Lake memories, Part 3 OPINIONS:
Drowning in plastics pollution?
A ONE-OF-A-KIND RESTORER
OF HISTORICAL SIGNS
Thomas
Stelling (in the yellow smock) travels
up and down the East Coast restoring
historical markers and plaques in public
places. He was at work last Saturday
repainting this marker that stands on the lawn
in front of the Johnston County Courthouse.
Fabricated from aluminum, it was erected in
1996 by Smithfield's Historical Properties
Commission to tell a remarkable story related
to the end of the Civil War not long after the
bloody Battle of Bentonville in southern
Johnston County. David Stephens (pictured), a
former member of the Smithfield commission who
recently noticed the sign's paint was peeling
badly, took it upon himself to employ someone
with Mr. Stelling's expertise to carry out the
do-over.
While Mr.
Stelling was at work, a county employee saw what
he was doing and engaged him to repaint the
plaque at the base of the World War I monument
at the Courthouse. That plaque lists, in gold
letters, the 49 Johnstonians who perished in
"The Great World War 1917-1919."
Above the plaque is a bronze statue of a soldier
in arms that was erected upon completion of the
present-day Courthouse in 1921 --- when no one
envisioned a Second World War that took the
lives of more than 140 Johnstonians.
Mr. Stelling was able to repair both the Sherman
sign and the World War I monument before day's
end on Saturday. He's a retired newspaper
pressman from Daytona Beach, Florida.
The U.S. Census Bureau's latest
population estimate puts Johnston County over the
200,000 mark for the first time: 202,674 as of last July
1. That's an increase of almost 34,000 since the 2010
Census was taken --- a gain of 20% in eight years.
The county's population began growing at record levels
in 1990, the year Interstate Highway 40 opened into
western Johnston from Raleigh and the Research Triangle.
The 2000 Census showed a gain of more than 40,000
(almost 50%) during I-40's first decade: from 81,306 to
121,965. The 2010 Census put the county's population at
168,878 --- an increase of almost 47,000 (38%) during
that decade.
Neighboring Wake County, meanwhile, has grown from
900,993 in 2010 to 1,092,305, according to the latest
Census estimate. That's an increase of almost 200,000
(21%) in less than a decade.
Johnston
County Public Schools will be closed to students with
an optional teacher workday next Wednesday, May 1.
School officials based that decision on the number of
teachers, teacher assistants, bus drivers, and other
school-system employees who have elected to take leave
that day. That number exceeded 500 by the end of last
week.
Several schools will open their cafeterias May 1 for
breakfast and lunch: West Smithfield Elementary, Selma
Elementary, Four Oaks Elementary, Princeton
Elementary, Micro Elementary, Corinth-Holders
Elementary, and Clayton's Cooper Elementary.
Anyone with hazardous materials
in their household that need to be discarded may get
that done, free of charge, from 8 a.m. till 1 p.m. this
Saturday (April 27) at the Johnston County Livestock
Arena beside the landfill off NC 210 west of Smithfield.
The Johnston County Board of
Education will meet in the Simpson Building on US
70 Business East at 5 p.m. Monday (April 29) to
begin public deliberations regarding Superintendent Ross
Renfrow's "draft" local budget for Johnston's schools.
The Smithfield Town Council will meet in Town
Hall at 7 p.m. Tuesday (April 30) for a third
time to consider budget options for the fiscal year
ahead.
Johnston's County Commissioners won't begin their
budget sessions prior to a public hearing June 3 on
County Manager Rick Hester's proposal, which he plans to
release in the latter part of May.
The new fiscal year for state and local governments in
North Carolina begins July 1.
Carolyn
Jones (right), receives the Hospice Angel
Award from Wanda Johnson, volunteer
coordinator for Johnston Health Home Care
& Hospice.
Hospital volunteers worth a million bucks
with their service
Story
& photo from Johnston Health
Their record of service is
quite impressive, from awarding scholarships to
running gift shops to assisting hundreds of patients
a day. In fact, the 214 men and women who volunteer
at Johnston Health gave a combined 41,990 hours last
year valued at more than $1 million.
During the 39th annual
Volunteers Appreciation Luncheon last week, Johnston
Health applauded the service
of its volunteers. "You are all critical to the
operation and success of our organization," said
Chuck Elliott, president and CEO. "We could not do
our jobs without you."
Eric Janis, M.D.,
chairman of Johnston Health's board of directors,
unveiled a $1-million "check" representing the value
of the volunteers’ hours. "We respect, admire, and
appreciate what you do," he said. "You make a
difference because you care, because you’re present,
and because you know the right things to do and
say."
While all of the
volunteers received certificates, four were honored
with special awards:
• Iris Hocutt, a chaplain volunteer,
received the Overa S. Stevens Award for faithful
service.
• Phyllis Toole and B.J. Christensen,
hospital volunteers in Smithfield and Clayton,
respectively, received the Sue Archambeault Award
for "exemplary volunteerism."
• Carolyn Jonesreceived the Hospice
Angel Award for "lifting spirits, and quietly
touching lives."
April Culver, vice
president of marketing/communications and strategy,
thanked outgoing hospital volunteers' president Gale
Cass for her leadership, energy, and
initiative. In the nine years since joining the first
group of volunteers at Johnston Health Clayton, she
has also donated her time to hospice, the Johnston
Health Foundation, and as a patient and family
advisor.
In addition, retiring volunteers Charles
and Pat Wall, Mary Williford, Linda
Barefoot, and Margie Gower were honored
with donations made in their names to the foundation.
Seems like April's
chilly and rainy weather cut short the blooming season
for local azaleas this year. Even so, you can still find
some striking samples here and there this late in the
month, including these red ones blooming Wednesday in a
yard across Sanders Street from South Smithfield
Elementary School.
DEATHS & FUNERALS
Each week we'll post links to obituaries about persons
who have died during the past week. We'll monitor the
websites of local funeral homes to compile our list, and
we welcome links provided by readers to obituaries of
persons with Smithfield connections who have died
outside our immediate area.
Market
Street (US 70 Business) at 7th Street, Downtown Smithfield
Smithfield native returns to read during
class reunion weekend
Smithfield native Barbara Baker Elliott,
author ofThe
Accidental Mountaineer, will read selections
from the book at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 4 at the
Johnston County Heritage Center in Smithfield.
Ms. Elliott is a member of the Smithfield High
School Class
of 1969, the last to graduate before schools were
consolidated. She is the daughter of Eva and the
late Kenneth Baker, who owned Underwood Funeral Home
and served as Smithfield’s mayor in the 1980s. The
reading is being held in conjunction with the
50-year reunion of the SHS Class of 1969.
The humorous essays in the book first appeared in
Ms. Elliott’s column in The Greenbrier Valley
Quarterly, a magazine published in Lewisburg,
W.Va. Each essay is illustrated by a whimsical
drawing by Sally Cooper. Ms. Elliott has been
writing the column and feature articles for the
magazine for more than a decade.
She moved to the Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia
in 1992. The book includes tales of her perversely
happy childhood as a UK (Undertaker’s Kid) and some
of the more peculiar aspects of her life after it
took its unexpected detour to West Virginia.
Copies of her book will be on
sale at the Heritage Center following her reading.
From the archives of the Johnston County Heritage Center
comes this color slide from either 1956 or 1958
of Downtown Smithfield's Market Street looking westward
from Third Street. The original home office of First
Citizens Bank still stands as today's Heritage Center,
as does the brownish brick building that housed Hugh
Austin's men's store and Leder Bros. department store.
The white building that housed the Rose's "dime store"
and those to the west of that have been gone since the
mid-1970s, replaced by a parking lot and a newer
structure on the far corner built for Smithfield Savings
and Loan that "morphed" into today's Wells Fargo Bank.
thanks these sponsors of our 30th
annual Golf Classic on April 12 that raised
funds for college scholarships:
TITLE SPONSOR: United Community Bank
PLATINUM: Chick-fil-A of Smithfield
GOLD: J-CATS (Johnston County Area Transit
System)
SILVER: Adams BBQ, Ample Storage, Deacon Jones Auto, Dunn, Dunn & Oakes,
CPAs, Eric & Michele
Brownlee, Gallery Furniture, Golden
Corral, John
& Sharon Parrish, Marshall
& Associates, Sampson Bladen
Lubricants, Smithfield Manor
Nursing & Rehab, Sound Station &
Security, Sysco, Todd Edwards -
Nationwide Insurance
ROTARY FELLOW: Bug
Out, John Scovil &
Associates, CPA, Jon & Joy Callahan, Martin
Tetreault Family Law, Narron & Wenzel,
Attorneys, W.
Landis Bullock Industrial Supply, Willowrun
Veterinary Hospital
ROTARY FRIEND: Angie Gangemi,
CPA, Aspect
Financial, BB&T,
Beth
Watson - Coldwell Banker Advantage, Betty Jones,
Byrd Surveying, Camel
City Posters, Carroll
Pharmacy, Chuck Elliott, Don
Duggin - Edward Jones, Doris Wallace, Emery D. Ashley, Attorney,
Evans Jewelers, Family Media -
WMPM/WTSB, Handy
Andy Carpets, Hank Booth, Hudson
Hardware, Inline
FluidPower, Inc., James
A. Oldham, DDS, Keith Brinson -
Allstate Insurance, Peedin
& Sasser, CPAs, Power
Secure, Shawn Herrmann -
State Farm Insurance, Sleep Inn & Suites, The
Wooten Company, Tom Medlin - Allstate Insurance,
Town
Market, Zaxby's
BECAUSE
OF THE GENEROSITY OF SPONSORS, THE ROTARY CLUB
OF CENTRAL JOHNSTON COUNTY WILL PRESENT
SCHOLARSHIPS TOTALING $25,000 TO HIGH-SCHOOL
GRADUATES THIS SPRING PLUS ANOTHER $11,000 TO
STUDENTS AT JOHNSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE.
