 |
||||
| PUBLISHED
ONLINE OCTOBER 24, 2019 •
VOL. 1, NO. 43 |
||||
|
||||
|
Town Council candidates: Who they are and what they want the board to address  On Tuesday, Nov. 5 voters in all of Smithfield will elect
three "at large" members of the Town Council. Four men
are running for the seats: incumbent councilmen John
Dunn and Steve Rabil along with Jim Snyder and former
councilman Roger Wood.Running "at large" means all of Smithfield's voters will be able to cast ballots for three of the four candidates. Mayor Andy Moore, meanwhile, is running without opposition on this year's ballot. Incumbent Councilman Emery Ashley chose not to seek re-election this year. READ MORE about the candidates and their goals on the FEATURE PAGE> |
||||
  JOHN
P. (JACK)
O'HALEAttorney at Law 102 S. Third St. Smithfield 919-934-6021 e-mail kim@jackohale.com |
||||
|
It's the
largest purchase by the Triangle
Land Conservancy (TLC) since its
founding in 1983 --- 1,120 acres
of the Neuse River's
"bottomlands" below Smithfield. Using a
no-interest loan from private
donors, TLC paid $2,850,000 to
buy the property from J.M.
Hester Family Farms LLC,
according to filings last week
with the Johnston County
Register of Deeds. TLC says
the tract includes "a massive
650-acre floodplain" as well as
"prime farmland, upland forest
areas, and a unique brown water
swamp." It has more than two
miles of Neuse River frontage,
part of that across from Howell
Woods, an assemblage of 2,800
acres given to Johnston
Community College in 1993 by the
late Rudolph Howell. "Brogden
Bottomlands," as TLC has labeled
its newly acquired property,
lies along the route of a future
section of North Carolina's
Mountains-to-Sea Trail. "The
site is not currently open to
the public, but TLC will arrange
guided hikes and tours in the
future," reads the
organization's announcement of
the acquisition. READ MORE
about it on the Triangle Land
Conservancy website> READ MORE about the Brogden site in the editor's OBSERVATIONS> |
||||
|
|
||||
 Kiwanians carry on a tasty local tradition The Smithfield Kiwanis Club has served up its annual Pancake Supper for more than half a century. Present-day club members aren't sure when it started, but some of us who grew up here remember taking it in when we were youngsters in the late 1950s. In those days the supper was served in the basement cafeteria of Smithfield High School. In recent years the event's home has been Centenary United Methodist Church's Wesley Hall. Among the Kiwanians staffing this year's edition Tuesday evening were: (left to right) Gary Lee, club secretary; Barbara Narron, past president; Gary Hosey; Neal Haworth, president; John Whitley, historian; Terry Ellis, treasurer; and Tom Stevens. Proceeds from the Pancake Supper benefit the club's community-service projects. |
||||
|
||||
The home folks come out to cheer author and illustrator Emily Wallace
She told the gathering her book is "part encyclopedia and part travelogue" --- the product of three years' worth of road trips, writing, and her own illustrations about unique places for food and fun in the American Southland. One of the book's first entries is Smithfield's Hills of Snow structure on Bright Leaf Boulevard, built in 1984. When she was growing up, she recalled, "we didn't have an art museum or a gallery" like JCC's Frank Creech Art Gallery (the site of Sunday's reception), "but we did have a building shaped like a snowball." A 2000 graduate of Smithfield-Selma High School, she studied art and creative writing at Virginia's Emory and Henry College and continued her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago --- inspired in part, she says, by her mother Myra Wallace, a long-standing English teacher here, and her grandmother, the late Charlotte Wallace, an accomplished local artist and musician in her day. Laura Moore, one of Emily's favorite grade-school teachers, introduced her former student by showing Sunday's audience an illustrated book report by Emily that Mrs. Moore had laminated and saved to inspire students that came afterwards. It was "a beautiful piece of work," read the teacher's note awarding Emily an A-plus. Emily Wallace is presently serving as art director and deputy editor of Southern Cultures, a quarterly publication of the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has written and illustrated articles for numerous publications including The Washington Post, Southern Living, and Our State. To find out more about Emily and her new book, visit her website> |
||||
 |
||||
Halloween in Smithfield: here are the rules  The Town of
Smithfield, by ordinance, limits
Halloween "trick or treat
visitations" to:• 5 to 8 o'clock p.m. on October 31. • Children 12 years of age and younger. • Residential sections of town. If you're out there driving your vehicle during those hours, please be especially alert --- and slow down! Parks & Recreation's Halloween events listed on SPORTS & RECREATION> WHAT'S COMING UP? A rundown of upcoming civic and cultural events in our community that we've been told about or seen publicized elsewhere: THE 15th ANNUAL HISTORICAL GHOST WALK hosted by the Johnston County Heritage Center is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. today (Thursday) in Smithfield's Riverside Cemetery. Admission is $5 for adults and $3 for students in grades K-12. Guided tours are offered first-come, first served, starting at the corner of South Second and Church streets. WEST SMITHFIELD SCHOOL'S FALL FESTIVAL is set for this Saturday (Oct. 26) at the elementary school on Galilee Road just off NC 210 west of Smithfield. Bounce houses, face painting, games ($5 for wristbands), photo booth, food. JUNIOR WOMEN'S LEAGUE "TOUCH A TRUCK" event for children on Saturday, Nov. 2 from 9 a.m. till 2 p.m. in Downtown Smithfield. Youngsters can see, touch, and explore their favorite big trucks and heavy machinery and meet the folks who protect, serve, and build our community. Proceeds will benefit My Kid's Club. NEUSE CHARTER SCHOOL'S FALL FESTIVAL on Saturday, Nov. 2 from 7 a.m. till 2 p.m. at the school. Activities include cow patty bingo, bounce houses, a costume contest, 5K and fun runs, and burgers, hot dogs, roasted corn, and more. Proceeds will benefit the school's organizations. |
||||
 7th Street Marketplace & The Chicken Barn |
||||
|
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. NICOLE (NICKI) YATES REAVES, 37 - died October 22 BARBARA ANN ANDERSON, 81 - died October 20 ADAM CYRUS WOODARD, 42 - died October 19 DAVID CALLEJAS ARROYO, 39 - died October 17 LARRY DEAN HARMON, 73 - died October 17 BENJAMIN LEE BRAU, 28 - died October 17 EMMA RUTH PILKINGTON STAFFORD, 85 - died October 17 MORRIS RAY THOMPSON SR., 80 - died October 17 CAROLYN ANN SMITH BEASLEY, 72 - died October 16 RICKY LEACH, 59 - died October 15 RICHARD EARL BLACK, 69 - died October 13 |
||||
THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS Ira Turlington with some of his
students and teachers, c.1912
The
gentleman seated on the front row is Ira
Turlington, legendary local educator and founder
of Turlington Institute that morphed into
Smithfield Graded School on South Third Street.
The young man to the right of Mr. Turlington is
Edwin Smith Pou, son of U.S. Congressman Edward
W. Pou. Young Edwin went on to serve as a Navy
pilot during World War I. Tragically, he died
when his plane crashed on patrol off the coast
of France just two weeks before the war's end in
1918. He's one of the personalities being
portrayed in this evening's Historical Ghost
Walk at Riverside Cemetery. In the photo above,
notice the young man sitting on the left: He's
barefooted!
(Photo from Johnston County Heritage
Center)
|
||||
|
- a public service announcement - |
||||
|
"INSIDE" PAGES IN THIS WEEK'S EDITION FEATURE PAGE: Meet Town Council candidates> SPORTS & RECREATION: Special night at SSS> OBSERVATIONS: Preserving nature and history> WANT TO VIEW PREVIOUS EDITIONS? Visit our archives |
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|