North State Journal - Vol 1, Issue 11

VOLUME 1 ISSUE 11

SUNDAY, MAY 8, 2016

www.NSJONLINE.com

the Sunday News Briefing

Left to right, Alexis Branagan, Amanda Treiber and Michael Wells, all dancers with the New York Theatre Ballet, warm up before rehearsals at Edgecombe Community College in Tarboro on Thursday, April 28.

The town commissioned a piece by the ballet company titled “Of Brewton House” to commemorate the work of local painter Hobson Pittman.

Minnesota State college system lifts ban on travel to NC St. Paul, Minn.

The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system announced Thursday its presidents have lifted their travel ban to North Carolina.

Initiated on May 2, the presidents implemented a ban of nonessential business travel to the state. A statement from the organization said the ban was lifted in light of the U.S. Justice Department’s notification sent to North Carolina officials on May 4, stating they “are confident that the deplorable discrimination embedded in North Carolina’s legislation is being addressed.”

NC DEQ to drop SolarBee project Raleigh The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality announced Thursday that its secretary, Donald R. van der Vaart, has decided to discontinue the SolarBee project. After 21 months of data collection, the project, designed to improve water quality, has shown no significant improvement, according to DEQ.

INSIDE Marathon field hockey match (51 hours) B4 Local boxer chases history. B1 Sports Go behind the scenes with us as The New York Theatre Ballet visits Tarboro. C3 the good life

State government leaders address General Assembly legislation On Murphy to Manteo, page A5

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STATE

JOURNaL

CHRISTINE T. NGUYEN | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Raleigh As several Republican party members seem hesitant to support Donald Trump’s bid to become the next president, Sen. Richard Burr issued his support for Trump via Twitter on Thursday, stating he always said he would support the Republican nominee and that it’s clear Trump has won the Republican presidential primary.

“I look forward to working with Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket and to maintaining a #GOP Senate,” he said in a tweet.

“There will not be a third term for a Clinton/ Obama Administration in the White House,” he continued.

20177 52016

NORTH

talk it out campaign

ELEVATE THE CONVERSATION

Sen. Burr endorses Trump

5

MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

8

The North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission is working on phase 2 of the Talk It Out Campaign, which focuses on providing parents resources for starting conversations about underage drinking.

ABC Commission starts the conversation about underage drinking 94%

House Bill 2

By Liz Moomey North State Journal

EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Gov. Pat McCrory responds to questions on House Bill 2 in an interview with Capital Tonight Anchor Tim Boyum May 4 during the North Carolina Chamber’s Government Affairs Conference and Chamber Day at the NC Museum of History. This week, the Department of Justice sent a letter stating McCrory and North Carolina are in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964k and billions of dollars of federal funding is on the line.

US Department of Justice says H.B. 2 violates Civil Rights Act

By Jeff Moore North State Journal RALEIGH — The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to Gov. Pat McCrory Tuesday stating that due to House Bill 2, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, both he and the state of North Carolina were in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Letters were mailed to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina as well.

The letter gives McCrory and the state until close of business May 9, to confirm North Carolina will not comply with or implement H.B. 2.

If not confirmed, North Carolina inferences that all federal funding associated with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 will be withheld.

“Access to sex-segregated restrooms and other workplace facilities consistent with gender identity is a term, condition, or privilege of employment,” the letter reads. “Denying such access to transgender individuals, whose gender identity is

“I thought it was a very common sense rule...”

RALEIGH — Steve Sciascia, the mayor of Harrisburg, N.C., is an operational risk manager for financial crimes at Bank of America and has three kids. Sciascia lost his son to underage drinking in 2011.

Once a week in North Carolina, one person dies from underage drinking. Sciascia has joined forces with the ABC Commission to combat underage drinking with the Talk It Out campaign.

Talk It Out aims to educate parents about underage drinking and provide them with resources to have a conversation about the effects of alcohol.

“We want to educate those parents, ‘Look, you have a responsibility as a parent to know what your child is doing,’ and try to educate them the best as possible about not drinking underage and some of the costs when it happens,” said Luther Snyder, the executive director of Initiative to Reduce Underage Drinking

N.C. middle/ high school aged children say underage drinking is a problem

44% of parents say underage drinking is a big problem

See Teen drinking, page A8

DECISION 2016

NC GOP Convention kicks off in Greensboro

By Jeff Moore North State Journal GREENSBORO — Republicans from across North Carolina made their way to the Gate City over the weekend for the North Carolina Republican Party’s state convention.

This year’s convention had an added sense of excitement for a host of reasons, not least of which is the recent ascension of the GOP’s presumptive presi-

dential nominee Donald Trump.

The agenda for the weekend also included selecting delegates to send to Cleveland for the party’s national convention in July, as well as voting on party platform changes, activism training and hearing from a range of conservative speakers.

All was done under the tutelage of a new party chairman: former U.S. House Rep. Robin Hayes.

See N.C. GOP, page A8 Staff member Kevin Deutsch sets up county signs before the General Session of the NCGOP State Convention at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro on May 6.

— Gov. Pat McCrory

See H.B. 2, page A8 EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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NS J

THE BACKSTORY

datebook

NC DPI proposes changes to high school math standards

Growing a small business? Check out the opportunities!

May 12, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Small Business Growth Funding Symposium Frontier, Research Triangle Park

May 13, 12 p.m.

“Why Successful Businesses are Successful” Cary Chamber of Commerce

we stand corrected To report an error or a suspected error email corrections@nsjonline.com with “Correction request” in the subject line.

North State Journal ISSN: 2471-1365 Neal Robbins Publisher Donna King Managing Editor Drew Elliot Opinion Editor Will Brinson Sports Editor Jennifer Wood Features Editor Published each Sunday by North State Media, LLC 819 W. Hargett Street, Raleigh, N.C. 27603 Inquiries: 866-458-7184 Annual Subscription Price: $250.00 Periodicals Postage Paid at Raleigh, N.C. and at additional mailing offices.

By Josh Hyatt North State Journal RALEIGH — The State Board of Education hosted several members of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Wednesday to hear the latter’s proposed changes to update high school math standards.

N.C. DPI, which generally reviews content standards for every subject on roughly a five-year schedule, summarized voluminous recommended changes to the board regarding the state’s current standards for high school Math I, II and III, which utilize the integrated approach to mathematics that the state instituted several years ago.

According to Jennifer Curtis, the mathematics section chief for DPI, the standards for Math I will be the least affected in the current draft of proposals; those for Math II and III have been reorganized.

“I would say the biggest change for teachers would be the reorganizing of content as well as working on different types of proofs in both Math II and III,” she said.

N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson said she wants feedback from teachers, business people, college professors, parents and others.

“For those of us who have been in education, we know that there is no such thing as a perfect set of standards,” Atkinson said. “So we have to keep working and working to improve standards, especially to match the needs and the potential needs of our students. Our big goal is always to make sure our students graduate with a diploma that allows them to be successful at the next stage in their lives.”

Dr. Maria Pitre-Martin, the Super­ intendent of Schools for the Thomasville City School District, put heavy emphasis on the fact the proposed changes will be up on the N.C. DPI website, and she encouraged any interested parties within the state to check them out and provide feedback.

MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

State Superintendent June Atkinson discusses proposed changes to the state’s high school math standards on May 4 at the Education Building in Raleigh.

“That is what is critical as we continue in this process,” Pitre-Martin said. “We need feedback to make quality decisions for our students.

“We want a set of content standards that are clear,” she continued. “That people can pick those standards up and actually understand what they mean. They can find resources and materials to teach those content standards.

Because we know there is a big difference between standards and curriculum.”

Curtis said the most important takeaway

in this situation is there is a process in place for these changes, and that process has been followed.

“At the end of the day that is really the most important point here, is that these standards were produced, revised with North Carolina Educators, for North Carolina students, and we have listened to the field,” she said. “We have listened to our teachers, we have listened to our district leaders, and the message has been loud and clear: that high school math needed revision, and it needed work now.”

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North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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BUSINESS & ECONOMY the DASHBOARD

883,107

small to midsized businesses in North Carolina

John e. skvarla III

97.9%

of all businesses in the state are small, employing 1.6 million people

45%

of total N.C. business employment and nearly half of the gross state product are produced by small businesses Source: Small Business and Technology Development Center

Small business has big impact on NC economy

the

BRIEF

et growth of the number of small businesses N is one of six key factors driving

the nation’s job creation, according to a study published recently in Applied Economic Letters. Still, many economic development strategies center on landing the “Great White Whale” — that big, headlinegrabbing corporation from outside.

Headlines instead should also focus on the role played

by North Carolina’s nearly 844,000 small businesses.

Collectively employing 1.6 million North Carolinians, small firms compose the economic fabric of our communities and provide every town and city with a reliable base of civic leadership.

The job-generating capacity of small business is a key element of Gov. Pat McCrory’s economic strategy for North Carolina. It began in 2013 with historic reforms to our state’s tax code, business climate and service-delivery architecture.

Since then, North Carolina’s economic growth has led the nation, with our gross domestic product rising 13.4 percent over the past three years and our per capita and family income growth now 15 percent higher than the U.S. average.

While we have made great progress, it’s time to fine tune our state’s smallbusiness development strategy.

While we have made great progress, it’s time to fine tune our state’s small-business development strategy.

More can be done to streamline the conversion of innovation into new jobs.

Nationally, one-third to one-half of economic growth comes from innovation.

Small businesses are the ideal venue to capitalize on North Carolina’s legacy of research and development leadership, turning new discoveries into startups and unleashing a powerful wave of job creation.

We’re working to improve supply-chain linkages, the mutually beneficial connections between small businesses and larger corporate buyers. North Carolina is the second state to become a Regional Growth Partner in IBM’s Supply Connection initiative, which links small firms with their Fortune 500 counterparts.

We must also address access to capital for North Carolina startups. While our state is America’s ninthlargest economy, we rank 16th as a destination for venture capital. That will hopefully change as legislators authorize crowdfunding as a means for connecting everyday businesses with everyday investors.

We are additionally exploring the possibility of a $100 million early stage equity fund at no cost to the taxpayers and without the need for an appropriation from the General Assembly.

When combined with existing entrepreneurial development programs, this strategy can create a thriving backdrop not only for Great White Whales but also the state’s most vital economic asset: our small businesses.

John E. Skvarla III is the N.C. Secretary of Commerce.

MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Grayson Ferrell, right, of Wilson, gets her makeup done by Caroline Sharp, left, also of Wilson, at the Merle Norman Cosmetic Studio before prom on April 22.

Trends, styles and traditions showcased for prom season

By Laura Ashley Lamm North State Journal

R

OCKY MOUNT, N.C. — Maxwell Miller opened an envelope filled with quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famed novel, “The Great Gatsby.” Inside, her boyfriend, Noah, added a new quote, “I’ll be your Gatsby, if you’ll be my Daisy at Prom?”

Miller, a high school junior at Rocky Mount Academy, received a “promposal” — the newest high school trend in asking a date to prom. This spring, high schools across the state are continuing the tradition of prom, and retailers are preparing for the influx of ladies needing attire, flowers, makeup and more.

“Prom is full of happy memories of high school friends and it is something every person can relate to,” said Miller, 16, of Tarboro, N.C. Miller and her classmates at Rocky Mount Academy will enjoy a 1920s Great Gatsby theme to dance the night away, but before they arrive there’s much to be done to get ready.

After the “promposal” comes the dress. According to young ladies attending prom this spring, most dresses are bought online through specialty websites like LuLu’s, in large department stores, or in small boutiques in the state’s metropolitan cities. Proms have moved from bedazzled floorlength gowns to a more semi-formal approach. Some schools

around the state are opting for cocktail dresses or casual maxi dresses.

“I don’t think proms are as expensive as they used to be. Dresses range between $30 to $60,” said Miller, who ordered her dress online.

For many ladies, Pinterest has provided ideas and tips for do-ityourself makeup application, but for others they opt to visit a beauty counter for makeup application.

“Most people know how to do basic makeup, but for special occasions they ask us to help them with contouring, highlighting, or a smoky eye look,” said Caroline Sharpe, esthetician with Merle Norman Cosmetics in Wilson, N.C. “We add more makeup than you normally wear to help you stand out,” said Sharpe.

Special occasion makeup consists of foundation, eyeshadows, eyeliners, lipstick, mascara and more. When young ladies are going to prom, they are looking for eyebrow waxing, spray tans and makeup application.

“Having makeup done for a special occasion is a money saver for a lot of women,” said Sharpe.

“Women don’t want to go out and buy makeup they will only use once. They can come here and use what we have.”

No matter where you live in North Carolina, the costs for services are similar. Makeup application begins at $35, lash appli-

cation ranges from $30 to $95, spray tans average $30, facials can range from $40 to $95 depending upon the type, and waxing ranges $8 to $50.

Seeing a hairstylist at the salon is another part of prom many young ladies enjoy. Having hair styled into up-dos, braids or curls ranges around $45.

“Girls enjoy coming in to have their hair done so they can have a whole new look for prom,” said Heather Johnson, stylist with Fringe Salon in Wilson. “Up-do hairstyles are still popular for prom, though braids have become a big trend this year.”

For ladies to complete their look, there is one last accessory to put in place.

“When young ladies have chosen the color of their dress, they come in with a color sample to select a flower to accessorize,” said Tommy Roberts, owner and florist at Flowers by Roberts in Pinetops, N.C. Most select sweetheart roses, orchids or daises adorned with ribbons of pearls, diamonds, crystals or ribbon. Boutonnieres are selected to match. Traditionally, gentlemen purchase the corsages or wristlets for the ladies, though often parents assist in the purchasing. Boutonnieres begin at $8.95. while wristlets range from $20 on up.

Roberts added, “The best part of prom season is to see everyone dressed up and excited.

EEOC: Refusing bathroom access due to gender identity is discriminatory Washington, D.C. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a document this week saying it considers it sex discrimination if an employer refuses a transgender employee access to a common restroom for the gender with which they identify. The agency said employers cannot require proof of reassignment surgery for restroom access or require transgender employees to only use a single-stall restroom.

McCrory, Tillis test out F-35s in simulator at museum demonstration Charlotte Government officials, including U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, got a chance to “fly” Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in a simulator this week during a demonstration at the Carolinas Aviation vMuseum. Parts for the jet will be built in N.C. and 94 F-35’s will be based at U.S. Marine Air Station at Cherry Point on the coast.

The production will create about 1,200 jobs and produce $103 million in economic impact for the state. The supersonic jet is considered the most advanced, and most expensive, weapons project in military history.

Burt’s Bees selects new exec Durham Burt’s Bees has named Jim Geikie as the Durham-based company’s vice president and general manager, starting Monday. Geikie most recently served as the company’s vice president of international capability development.

He is now responsible for managing the entire Burt’s Bees business and will work from Durham.

Winston-Salem company named a top small business

By Cory Lavalette North State Journal

R

aleigh — North State Aviation, a Winston-Salem-based company that does repairs and modifications to aircraft, was honored Thursday by the U.S. Small Business Administration as one of the top small businesses in the country.

North State Aviation President Charles A. Creech and Vice President of Maintenance and Business Development Thomas H. Chappell were named Small Business Persons of the Year by SBA, which gives 54 awards honoring a winner from each state and U.S. territory every year.

“These small business owners represent the best of the best and showcase daily their entrepreneurial spirit and what it takes to be successful in today’s evolving and competitive business environment,” SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet said in a statement.

North State Aviation has been in business since 2011, starting with eight principals and now boasting approximately 425 employees.

The company works with a number of airlines, including United Airlines and several leasing and charter companies, primarily doing

repairs and modifications to Boeing 737 and 757 aircraft.

The company’s Winston-Salem facility is in the old Piedmont Airlines headquarters, and that’s where the original eight employees previously worked and met each other.

“All of us had spent a lot of time in that building at Piedmont years ago, and we thought, ‘well, let’s put some life back into it,’” Chappell said.

North State’s Aviation has quickly grown in its five years, expanding to a facility in Kinston, N.C., along with other opportunities to expand into existing facilities or build new hangars to house more aircraft on the horizon.

The award came as a surprise to Chappell, given that there are 28 million small businesses in the United States and more than 600,000 alone in North Carolina.

“It was a little bit on the shocking side, but we’re honored to have been selected for it,” Chappell said. “It’s been quite a ride and we’re very fortunate.”

Chappell credited the initial assistance the company received from the North Carolina Small Business and Technology Development Center along with the support from Gov. Pat

McCrory’s administration in helping them succeed.

Despite the company’s rapid growth, Chappell said the company has no plans to expand outside of North Carolina.

“This is our home and we’ve got tremendous support from the current administration,” Chappell said.” Gov. McCrory has been very supportive from the very start. Being homegrown here in North Carolina, we intend to stay in North Carolina.”

Jim Young | REUTERS

North State Aviation works primarily with Boeing 737 and 757 aircraft, doing modifications and repairs.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

Murphy

to

Manteo

Hats Off! 49 48 46

At NC State, seniors’ class rings spend one night locked in the Memorial Bell Tower on Hillsborough Street before being distributed.

By Jeff Moore North State Journal

51 42 43

44

52 55

53

Piedmont Western Carolina University

Gardner-Webb University

Laurel University

Brevard College

Lenoir-Rhyne University

Catawba College

UNC Asheville

Piedmont Baptist College

Warren Wilson College

Wake Forest University UNC School of Arts Salem College

Livingstone College Davidson College

Montreat College

St. Augustine’s College William Peace University 41

North Carolina State University

Belmont Abbey

Shaw University 43 Meredith College

UNC Charlotte

44

42

East

Lees-McRae College Appalachian State University

Carolina Christian College Greensboro College

Johnson C. Smith University

Southeastern Free Will Baptist College 45 Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

New Life Theological Seminary

46 Duke University

Pfeiffer University

Guilford College

Queens University of Charlotte

47

Elon University

Wingate University

48

UNC Chapel Hill North Carolina Central University

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

St. Andrews University UNC Pembroke

49

Louisburg College

50

Bennett College

Fayetteville State University

51

Chowan University North Carolina Wesleyan College

UNC Greensboro

Methodist University

52

Barton College

High Point University

Campbell University

53

University of Mount Olive

Mars Hill University

Each graduate at Elon University receives an oak sapling, while freshmen and new students receive an acorn.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, new students drink from the Old Well for good grades.

45

47

Faculty members at Wingate University form a gauntlet graduates file into before they receive their diplomas, so professors can wish them well.

East Carolina University students cannot walk under the cupola on the mall until after they officially graduate.

Tradition says if they walk under it early, they risk not graduating in four years.

Legislative leaders, Governor address NC Chamber

56

At William Peace University, graduates are given a Bible and toss roses into the historic fountain on the main lawn.

Hundreds of Bennett Belles alumnae return to Bennett College each May when new graduates, dressed in all-white gowns, cross through the same gates they entered as first-year freshwomen.

jonesandblount.com @JonesandBlount

57

On the day before graduation, the sophomores of Meredith College assemble 100-foot daisy chains for Class Day, a celebration of the graduating senior class.

New students at High Point University are required to walk across the seal, but cannot walk across it again until commencement, for fear of failing to graduate.

Jones& Blount

50

At Warren Wilson College in Asheville, all graduates receive hemlock tree saplings to plant at their future home.

54

54

UNC Wilmington

East Carolina University 56 Mid-Atlantic Christian University 57 Elizabeth City State University 55

Infographic by LAUREN ROSE

west

piedmont

Henderson County set to open third cidery Hendersonville, N.C. The mountain town announced it is scheduled to open its third cidery this summer. Henderson County is the largest apple-producing county in N.C. and is now leading the way in hard cider.

Asheville Citizen-Times

Man sentenced to prison for sex crimes against autistic boy Burke County A 19-year-old man was sentenced to at least 12 years in prison for sex crimes against a 12-year-old autistic boy. Officials said Brandon Lee Sprouse of Morganton, “inappropriately touched the 12-yearold male victim, who has a moderate form of autism, and had the boy perform sexual acts on him,” in March 2015. Sprouse pleaded guilty Thursday.

WBTV

east

Tractor trailer crash causes thousands of potatoes to spill on I-77

Police investigate bomb threat made to 3 courthouses Jackson County Authorities are investigating a bomb threat that was made to three courthouses Thursday. Police received a call saying there was a bomb located at the Jackson County Courthouse, the Cherokee Tribal Courts or the Swain County Courthouse. After searching the three courthouses, police do not believe there was a bomb. As of Friday, the investigation is still ongoing.

ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES

Charlotte About 50,000 pounds of potatoes spilled onto Interstate 77 near uptown Charlotte after a tractor trailer accident Friday morning. The crash caused I-77 to shut down for several hours. Police said the driver of the tractor trailer fell asleep and hit a concrete barrier that caused the potatoes to spill out. The driver was hospitalized with minor injuries.

WNCN

Beyoncé gets Raleigh in formation Raleigh Beyoncé stopped in Oak City for the fourth concert of her Formation World Tour Tuesday night. The concert was delayed because of lightning but she continued the show, which ended before midnight.

Rumors swarmed the City of Raleigh was going to fine her after pushing past noise ordinances. They tweeted: “Putting an end to rumors: #CityOfRaleigh did not fine Queen Bey after last night’s performance.

Come Slay anytime.”

NC natives to present movie at Cannes

Blue Cross likely to be fined for IT problems Raleigh N.C. Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin said he believes Blue Cross Blue Shield will be fined millions of dollars for technology problems.

The IT problems have affected coverage, billing and payment for customers and doctors over the past four months. The Department of Insurance said they will finish their investigation in May and announce their findings next month.

The News and observer

A5

Wilmington, N.C. Filmmaker Jared Knecht and actor Madison Hatch, natives of Wilmington and Topsail Beach, respectively, will have their first film, “Skumaskot,” premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in France later this month. Entered in the Short Film Corner, the film’s title means “dark place” in Icelandic and is reflective of the movie’s plot. The film follows a man, played by Hatch, as he wrestles with life’s difficulties by taking a trek though the wilderness of Iceland.

The STAR-NEWS

Duke Energy acquires 6 solar sites in Eastern NC Eastern, N.C. Duke Energy Renewables announced this week it has acquired six 5-megawatt solar projects in Eastern North Carolina. Four sites are in Northampton County, one in Hertford and one in Edgecombe.

Collectively, these units will generate enough solar energy to power 6,000 homes.

Blue Angels has first female pilot Cherry Point, N.C. Marine Corps Capt. Katie Higgins made history by becoming the first female to fly with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels Demonstration Team.

Formally stationed with the Marine Aerial Refueler Squadron 252 at Cherry Point, Higgins now pilots the Fat Albert C-130 with the Blue Angels.

THE HAVELOCK NEWS

RALEIGH — Legislative leaders and Gov. Pat McCrory addressed business leaders Wednesday at the North Carolina Chamber’s government affairs convention.

Speakers covered a range of topics, from workforce development and business incentives, to taxes and the state budget.

“You represent the face of North Carolina’s business community, but more importantly you represent what the face of this economy is going to look like now and in the future,” said Senate minority leader Dan Blue (D-Wake).

“A successful, versatile workforce equates to successful and versatile companies. The two always have, and the two still do, go hand in hand,” Blue said.

Blue also told business leaders he believes the state needs to re-establish industry incentives, such as tax credits for renewable energy and the film industry.

The Speaker of the House, Rep. Tim Moore (R-Cleveland), focused his remarks on priorities for the short session. "[The House and Senate] agreed on a spending budget,” Moore said. “That probably cuts three weeks out of this legislative session, so that’s a great thing because we have a starting point that we’ve already agreed on.”

In 2015, the legislative session lasted months longer than planned as the chambers negotiated a twoyear budget. The agreement between the chambers in 2016 represents approximately $22.3 billion in total state spending.

“We’re planning, on the House side, actually having a passed budget by May 20,” Moore said. “We should be out [of session] by the first week of July.”

The propensity for agreement in the legislature is not lost on House minority leader Larry Hall (D-Durham).

“I often shock people when I talk about how often we actually work together and how much we share concerns,” Hall said. “Last session in the House of Representatives we voted unanimously 69 percent of the time.”

Hall also emphasized the business community’s role in workforce development.

“You got to be involved in saying we have to invest in that

workforce because that’s the future of your companies,” he said.

Sen. Harry Brown (R-Jacksonville) touched on the importance of continued regulatory reform for business growth.

“We need to hear from you. What rules and regulations do you have to deal with that slow you down in doing business?” Brown said. “When we slow business down, we slow growth down, and we don’t want that. Especially in small small businesses because they don’t have the capacity to deal with it quite as much as maybe some of the larger businesses.”

Brown also said he’d like to move toward pay-for-performance policies for teachers, just like employees are paid and rewarded in the private sector.

“If we can get [teachers] to a good pay schedule in a short time, then let’s reward those teachers for teaching hard-to-find classes such as math and science,” Brown said.

“That’s something we’re going to try to address in the Senate. Treat teachers like professionals, just like we treat our employees.”

In an interview at the event, McCrory highlighted what he thinks is needed for a diverse economy, and how to balance tax cuts and public investments.

“The line is when South Carolina is beating you for jobs and their tax rate is much lower than us,” McCrory said.

“We had some of the highest taxes in the Southeast. We’re now competitive.

“We’re going to have benchmarks that we have to hit before we reduce the income tax anymore or the corporate tax anymore, and so far we’ve hit those benchmarks.”

However, McCrory doesn’t think income tax rates should be zero.

“I believe in a diverse tax system that can withstand any type of recession,” he said. “I don’t believe we should have a tax system too dependent upon any one tax.”

McCrory also highlighted the importance of infrastructure, saying, “We have to prepare for future growth.”

“We are growing. In fact, even since H.B. 2 has passed, I think we’ve recruited 400 to 1,000 new jobs to North Carolina,” McCrory said, addressing the public fallout from H.B. 2 and concerns of the bill’s economic impact.

The General Assembly reconvenes Monday to continue budget meetings.

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North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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north STATEment Neal Robbins, publisher | Drew Elliot, opinion editor | Ray Nothstine, deputy opinion editor

visual VOICES

EDITORIALS | Drew Elliot

A (continued) tale of two economies It is the dismal economic record over the past decade and more that weighs on so many Americans.

In February, my colleague wrote in these pages about the divergent paths the national and North Carolina economies were taking. He spoke of the “long-term meager economic forecast and low expectations for growth” in the nation, and he praised the long strides North Carolina has taken toward economic freedom.

Recent economic news underscores the trends he discussed back then. Friday’s weak jobs report followed a Feb. 28 U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis release showing the GDP growth rate for the first quarter of 2016. Gross domestic product rose 0.5 percent, anemic at best. These lackluster telltales are stoking fears of economic contraction and even a new recession. But the more important fact is not the nearzero growth for this year so far. It is the dismal economic record over the past decade and more that weighs on so many Americans.

While the national economy averaged annual growth rates of 3.23 percent from 1947 until 2016, there are adolescents in middle school now who have not seen an annual growth rate break 3 percent in their lifetimes, much less hit that 3.23 percent average. And today’s high school seniors are not even old enough to remember a truly humming economy — 2000 is the most recent year that ranks in the top third in a ranking of growth rates for the years 1950-2015.

Meanwhile, other news released by the BEA showed that North Carolina is on a very different trajectory. North Carolina’s GDP growth since the beginning of 2013 has been a robust 13.4 percent, tops in the nation. And regionally, the latest quarterly GDP data available shows N.C. with the highest growth rate in the Southeast.

While GDP growth in current dollars is only one measure of economic health, there aren’t enough caveats and qualifications in the world to mask the fact that the state’s economy is doing great when compared to both where we were before 2013 and when compared to current national and regional trends.

Even the left-leaning Politifact.com acknowledged that Gov. Pat McCrory was correct in saying that North Carolina is No. 1 in the land. Although readers have to wait until the article’s 17th paragraph, Politifact does eventually concede that “between the first quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2015 (the most recent data we have), no state’s economic output grew as fast as North Carolina’s 13.4 percent rate.”

The first quarter of 2013, of course, is when McCrory replaced Gov. Bev Perdue as the state’s chief executive.

It’s no wonder that Democrats want voters’ attention to be on rock concerts and bathrooms. While it is yet to be seen whether that issue will be a winner for them, they know for sure that they don’t want the election in November to be a referendum on the economy — something that actually affects the vast majority of North Carolinians every day of their lives.

They know will lose on that issue for sure, even if the state’s economic growth rate slows from a sprint to a walk between now and November.

BE IN TOUCH Letters addressed to the editor may be sent to letters@NSJonline.com or 819 Hargett St. Raleigh, N.C. 27603. Letters must be signed; include the writer’s phone number, city and state; and be no longer than 300 words. Letters may be edited for style, length or clarity when necessary. Ideas for op-eds should be sent to opinion@NSJonline.com.

EDITORIALS | Ray Nothstine

Freedom and the Fourth Estate An important lesson endures amid an industry’s chaos: independent and truthoriented media is essential for a free and flourishing society.

Many newsrooms could once brag that during the Great Depression they did not have any layoffs. Journalism was long considered recession proof. As an industry and career, journalism is of course undergoing a prolific transformation. The economic term is creative destruction.

Forty percent of traditional media has vanished in the last decade. To top it off, like many institutions in America now, journalism not only too often fails to tell the truth but also is riddled with an agenda. When this happens, journalists perpetuate a disservice to those they claim to educate and uplift. No wonder trust in the media continues its downward spiral.

Print media, which once reigned over the American landscape, brought down a presidency. Films such as “All the President’s Men” and “Spotlight” depict the importance and power of investigative journalism. An important lesson endures amid an industry’s chaos: independent and truth-oriented media is essential for a free and flourishing society.

Furthermore, with the withering away of civil society and the rise of secularism, the need for more thoughtful forces to serve as a

buffer between man and the state becomes all the more critical. It was the notable 18 th century conservative British statesman Edmund Burke who is credited for coining the term “the fourth estate.” Burke knew that along with the citizenry, government, and the Church, the news media played a critical role for health in society and the common good.

Media that concerns itself with the truth should demand our attention. Unfortunately, truth is becoming harder to decipher for many in our post-factual culture. There are still many great journalists and scribes chipping away at scandal, corruption, and tyranny, but more are needed. The biggest winners of an unprofessional and entertainment-focused media culture are certainly not the amused consumers, but the politicians and others who are all too comfortable and at ease under the corrupting forces of power and influence.

As a growing and economically expanding state, North Carolina is well placed to have a deepening influence on the nation. Undoubtedly, it is vital for the state to have a strong and independent media presence. And as current events should point out so well to readers in a diverse state, North Carolina deserves more

than just cheerleaders of the moral and cultural decline.

It is imperative for journalists to continually embrace the code of ethics put forward by the Society of Professional Journalists. One of the main guiding principles of the society is to “seek truth and report it.” Much of the reporting on House Bill 2 has, of course, ignored this rule for the kind of sensationalism driven by the agenda of the herd. There are endless examples, another being the lack of faith-informed reporters in newsrooms who easily alienate their highly religious states and regions.

While we all suffer from the state of the media today and its perceived demise, the reimagining and resurrection of true journalism is primed to begin in a state like North Carolina. This is a good thing, because there is little doubt that the survival of the American experiment depends in large part on a free and vibrant press.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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Guest Opinion | DONALD VAN DER VAART

CLARENCE PAGE

Women journalists, under fire, are fighting back ive years have passed since CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Lara Logan F was sexually assaulted by a mob of crazed

Madeline Gray | north state journal

Electric lines at a substation in downtown Raleigh crisscross the sky.

McCrory fights to keep electricity prices low, protect private property rights The McCrory administration has consistently been a vocal opponent of the federal government’s attempts to centralize more power in Washington.

G

ov. Pat McCrory has become a national leader in fighting the Obama administration’s attempts to impose costly federal mandates that would hurt North Carolina’s economy and eliminate jobs. Thanks to the governor’s leadership, North Carolina successfully stopped the federal takeover of states’ electricity systems and millions of acres of private property.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court put Obama’s landmark rule to take over states’ electricity systems on hold until all legal challenges are resolved. This was the first time the Supreme Court has ever stayed a rule before a federal appeals court reviewed it.

The Supreme Court’s ruling came on the heels of another federal court’s decision last October to block Obama’s Waters of the United States rule from taking effect until judicial review is completed. In both cases, the courts determined implementation of the rule would cause “irreparable harm” and that the petitioning states, which include North Carolina, will likely succeed in court.

The McCrory administration has consistently been a vocal opponent of the federal government’s attempts to centralize more power in Washington.

At the direction of McCrory, North Carolina’s chief environmental agency joined other states in fighting the rules in court because they are illegal and their costs greatly outweigh any potential benefits. It is unconscionable for a state leader to allow the federal government to impose these illegal rules, yet North Carolina’s attorney general decided not to join either lawsuit on behalf of North Carolina’s citizens.

The federal power plan would drastically increase energy costs, threaten job creation, and allow bureaucrats in Washington to dictate how electricity is generated and when it is available.

Low-income families would be hit the hardest because it is estimated to increase electricity prices

by 22 percent, or $434 a year. The federal power plan would have little, if any, environmental benefit and the Obama administration does not deny that it would have no impact on climate change.

North Carolina currently has the cleanest air that has been recorded in the past 25 years of monitoring. For the first time in almost two decades — and in spite of stricter federal standards and a growing population — the entire state meets all federal air quality standards. In addition, we have reduced carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel sources by more than 25 percent since 2005 and are on track to reach a 30 percent reduction by 2030.

North Carolina will continue to clean up its power sector while keeping energy prices low without meddling from the federal government.

Obama’s illegal water rule is another example of federal intrusion that will create more red tape at the expense of private property owners, farmers and economic development. The rule ignores the role of the states in protecting water quality, imposes regulatory uncertainty, will devastate land values and stifle economic growth and prosperity.

North Carolina already has an effective regulatory framework in place that protects the state’s water resources.

Governor McCrory understands that states make better decisions on how to protect their natural resources than bureaucrats would in Washington, D.C. North Carolina will continue to protect its residents and businesses from the heavy hand of big government that will increase energy prices and diminish property rights. This governor is not afraid to stand up for North Carolina citizens and fight the federal government when it oversteps its authority.

Donald R. van der Vaart is secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Columnist | MICHAEL MUNGER

We have been focusing on the wrong kind of diversity, and our students are paying the price.

Students are defrauded by campus groupthink e are producing a generation of college students W who think education consists of

memorizing a political catechism.

Everyone, but most of all the students themselves, are ill-served by this fraud.

Worst of all, the students who are really losing out are those who most support the current system.

I’m not worried much about conservative students, or even kids who are just skeptical of all political views. For the most part, students who resist orthodoxy actually get a pretty good education, because they get their beliefs tested.

The real worry is the students who are “winning,” the leftists whose views dominate the academy. They aren’t being challenged, and don’t learn to think. I was chair of political science at Duke for 10 years. At a meeting of department heads, we heard from the chair of one of our (many) Departments of Indignation Studies. She said, “I find that I don’t really need to spend much time with the liberal students, because they already have it right. I spend most of my time arguing with the conservative students.”

I imagine that this would have been news to the parents of her more liberal students. Finding out

that they had learned everything they needed to know in high school would have saved them from paying Duke’s tuition to be ignored in the classroom. Having memorized a kind of secular leftist catechism, they were free to wander around the quads of Duke and enjoy themselves.

What is the alternative? The simplest, but clearest, way to think of a good college education comes from John Stuart Mill, who argued for what he called “collision with error.” In “On Liberty,” Mill wrote: [The] peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that [people] lose...the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error...He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their

most plausible and persuasive form.

That’s the clearest argument for diversity I’ve ever heard.

Unfortunately, it is an argument for differences in hues, but not of views. As diversity is now practiced, colleges aim for a wide variety in physical appearances but a nearly monolithic ideological profile. A recent study by Prof.

Jonathan Haidt of New York University found that 96 percent of social psychologists see themselves as “left,” 3.7 percent as “centrist,” and only 0.03 percent as “right” of center. Similar studies have been conducted in other social science and humanities disciplines, with similar results.

We have been focusing on the wrong kind of diversity, and our students are paying the price. As Mill said, students need to hear dissenting views “from persons who actually believe them.” In the current system, the absence of dissenting voices is harmful.

Students on the left should sue their colleges for breach of contract, because they are being denied collision with error.

Michael Munger is a professor of and director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University.

men — and rescued by a small group of brave Egyptian women — in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship.

The widespread coverage given to that attack brought a new focus to a growing problem that had been looming in the shadows for years: sexual assault against journalists.

In the first four months after Logan’s attack, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists interviewed more than four dozen journalists who had undergone sexual violence. The offenses ranged in severity from gang-rape to aggressive groping by multiple attackers.

Unfortunately, the usual conflict between safety and press freedom on such assignments is complicated by the double-bind in which many female journalists find themselves: They want the dangers of sexual violence to be acknowledged, but they don’t want that knowledge to give their editors cold feet about sending women on dangerous assignments.

New York Times reporter Kim Barker, for example, whose war memoir, “The Taliban Shuffle,” has been turned into a Tina Fey movie, recalled in a 2011 ProPublica essay how she was grabbed and groped as a Chicago Tribune reporter in Pakistan in 2007.

“I knew other female correspondents who weren’t so lucky, those who were molested in

We make a mistake if we make the false choice between safety and good journalism. their hotel rooms, or partly stripped by mobs,” she wrote. “But I can’t ever remember sitting down with my female peers and talking about what had happened, except to make dark jokes, because such stories would make us seem different from the male correspondents, more vulnerable.”

Indeed, even the Committee to Protect Journalists — on whose board I am honored to sit with Logan and other distinguished colleagues — had unwittingly joined in the silencing of those women. CPJ kept tabs on how many journalists were killed or imprisoned around the world, Barker noted, but did not keep data on sexual assault and rape, partly because “most journalists just don’t report it.”

That’s changed. Every year CPJ releases “Attacks on the Press,” a book-length analysis of which countries are abusing journalists the most. In response to growing concerns, the new “Attacks” is focused on sexualized violence, online harassment and other intersections of gender and press freedom.

In an all-women panel sponsored by CPJ at Washington’s Newseum last week, Logan recalled how she had been pressured by male colleagues to join other journalists who were leaving war-torn Iraq.

“I remember being heavily criticized, because they said, ‘You just want to get your face on TV. ... But if something happens, we’re going to have to come get you’,” she recalled.

“If I was a young guy, and I wanted to stay, no one would have said anything like that.”

Besides, as the panel pointed out, women are not the only victims of sexual violence.

Male journalists also have been targeted, usually in captivity or detention, even if they tend to be even more reluctant than the women to report the crime or talk about it.

One notable exception, Umar Cheema, a prominent Pakistani political reporter, described to CPJ being abducted, tortured and sodomized with a wooden pole in an Islamabad suburb in 2010 in retaliation for his political reporting.

His decision to speak out “has made me stronger and made my enemies more cowardly,” he told CPJ in 2011. “Their efforts to intimidate me backfired.”

As Logan said in a “60 Minutes” interview, women journalists “do it for the same reasons as me — they are committed to what they do.

They are not adrenaline junkies, you know, they’re not glory hounds, they do it because they believe in being journalists.”

What is to be done? I think we make a mistake, whether as news content providers or news consumers, if we make the false choice between safety and good journalism.

We need to have both. Women have shown in growing numbers that they deserve a chance to prove themselves as much as men do.

We also need to acknowledge that discrimination and harassment are problems that women tend to face more often and intensely than men do. We need to talk more about it, not try to hide it.

Clarence Page, the 1989 Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary, is a member of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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NATION& WORLD Cruz, Kasich depart race after Indiana primary loss; Trump stands alone

NEWS IN IMAGES

By Liz Moomey North State Journal

Antara Foto/Moch Asim | REUTERS

Workers hold fireworks during a protest marking May Day in Surabaya, Indonesia on May 2.

Pablo Sanhueza | REUTERS

A fisherman stays next to a boat used to block a road during a protest calling on the government to help ease the economic effects of a harmful algal bloom in Chile, May 5.

TOPHER SEGUIN | reuters

Officers look on as smoke from Fort McMurray’s raging wildfires billow into the air after their city was evacuated on May 4.

H.B. 2 from page A1 different from their gender assigned at birth, while affording it to similarly situated non-transgender employees violates Title VII.” Gov. McCrory responded Tuesday at the North Carolina Chamber’s Government Affairs Conference and Chamber Day. “This is no longer just a North Carolina issue, because this conclusion by the Department of Justice impacts every state, every university, and almost every employer in the United States of America,” said McCrory when asked about the letter.

“I thought it was a very common sense rule, but the federal government is now saying those are discriminatory practices, and frankly those are the practices that most private employers are using today,” said McCrory. “It was overturning a mandate on the private sector.

“We don’t know what the next steps will be, but it’s a dramatic change in societal norms in a very short period of time,” McCrory added. “We anticipate the next move would be a financial one.”

Speaker of the North Carolina House, Rep. Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain) said “I think North Carolina has been under attack for the wrong reasons in a lot of ways. We had an issue forced upon us by a radical, out of control city council in Charlotte adopting legislation that was clearly just something outside of common sense, I would say, that forced us to have to deal with it.”

Moore said the legislature will not take action in time to meet Monday’s deadline, but McCrory is expected to have a response.

Deborah Ross, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, issued a statement in reaction to the letter, saying “There is no longer any justification under which [her opponent U.S. Senator] Richard Burr TEEN DRINKING from page A1 for the ABC Commission.

In a survey, 84 percent of middle schoolers say if their parents talked to them more about underage drinking, they would stop.

As a speaker for the Talk It Out campaign, Sciascia has addressed parents about the importance of having this conversation.

“I don’t get a second chance with my son,” Sciascia said. “I have other children that hopefully learned from the ordeal themselves, but the biggest thing is that communication line, even if you don’t think your child is drinking alcohol. What is the worst that can happen if you have a conversation with your child?”

Snyder said most of parents have turned a blind eye, but they are trying to open their eyes to underage drinking.

“They realize it is a problem but not their kid,” Snyder said. “They are a little in denial.

It is up to us to try to have that message that is, ‘Look, it could be your kid.’”

The campaign has focused on various methods, including informing parents that the average person has their first drink at age 14, and showing the negative consequences of underage drinking, like death or being locked up. Talk It Out is about to enter the third phase of the campaign that focuses on the internal effects of underage drinking.

Indianapolis — One man remains for the Republican Party ahead of the national convention.

Republican candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the race after losing the Indiana primary to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump Tuesday.

Shortly after receiving 36.7 percent of the vote in Indiana, Cruz announced he was suspending his campaign.

In his concession speech, Cruz said he appreciated his supporters.

“Thank you to the more than 317,000 of you who signed up to volunteer with this campaign — who made hundreds of thousands of phone calls, knocked on tens of thousands of doors, and spread the word to everyone you know in person and online,” Cruz said. “Together we assembled a grassroots army unlike anything seen in modern times.”

Trump addressed Cruz’s departure at a victory rally in New York.

“I want to congratulate Ted Cruz,” Trump said. “He’s a tough, smart competitor.”

Katich announced Wednesday he would be suspending his campaign as well. He received 7.5 percent of the vote in Indiana.

In a statement, he thanked his supporters.

“Together, we fought the good fight and did it the right way,” Kasich said. “Your devotion to our campaign based on our shared belief in solving our nation’s challenges by uniting people and lifting them up will forever remain in the hearts of my family and me. While our campaign is ending, our work is not over.”

With Trump as the remaining Republican presidential candidate, he is likely

Republican U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz hugs running mate Carly Fiorina just before announcing that he is suspending his campaign for president.

CHRIS BERGIN | REUTERS

to get the nomination despite his low approval rating.

Indiana provided some good news for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who won with 52.7 percent of the vote and picked up 44 delegates.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton still holds a commanding lead and is just 178 delegates shy of securing the nomination. Sanders said he plans on staying in the race for the remainder of the primaries.

Trump tweeted after Sanders’ win saying, “I would rather run against Crooked Hillary Clinton than Bernie Sanders and that will happen because the books are cooked against Bernie!”

According to a poll released Friday by PredictIt, Clinton has a higher probability than Trump of becoming the next president. The probability Clinton would win the Nov. 8 election is 61 percent compared to Trump’s 40 percent. The gap between the two narrowed this week by about 5 percent.

can continue to claim that H.B. 2 is not a federal issue.”

North Carolina House minority leader Larry Hall (D-Durham) agrees with the Department of Justice, and laments that “the procedure we went through was not true to ourselves as members of the House of Representatives.” Hall said the chamber violated their own rules by not seeking input on the bill, and suggested such input could have helped avoid the fall out the state is currently experiencing.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest disagreed with the Obama Administration’s actions.

“To use our children and their educational futures as pawns to advance an agenda that will ultimately open those same children up to exploitation at the hands of sexual predators is by far, the sickest example of the depths the Obama Administration will stoop to ‘fundamentally transform our nation,’” he said.

North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger also dissented with the Department of Justice.

“This is a gross overreach by the Obama Justice Department that deserves to be struck down in federal court,” he said.

McCrory, who has faced criticism nationwide for signing the bill into law, said the resolution will be complicated.

“I look forward to working with [UNC System President] Margaret Spellings and the University [of North Carolina] and the Senate and the House and try to determine the incredible conclusion of one agency within the federal government, which is a pretty sweeping conclusion,” he said. “In fact, some of the interpretations of some of the words are yet to be clarified in federal law. This is very complex issue and requires a complex review.”

According to a team of university researchers, the brain isn’t fully developed until age 25, and a kid’s brain responds to drinking differently than a legal adult brain does. Snyder explained adults generally feel tired after drinking, but kids haven’t developed this function yet and feel more energized after drinking, and therefore will drink more.

“If it were up to science, the drinking age would be 25,” Duke University professor and brain researcher Dr. Wilkie Wilson said.

The research also showed underage drinking can be damaging to the brain, especially the cognitive memory portions.

Dr. Fulton Crews, the director of the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, warned, “If a parent wants to let their child drink at home, they better be prepared for them to never leave.”

With a series of ads and partners across the state, the campaign hopes to target every group.

“This is not a white rich kid issue,” Snyder said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight, black or Chinese or what have you.

This is across the board unfortunately.”

Sciascia said the message is the same — they want to save lives.

“We hope that it resonates with these kids,” Sciascia said. “The goal is to save people’s lives. One life makes a huge difference.”

“The first thing that goes through your head is what can you do to make sure this doesn’t happen to anybody else. It is just a horrific experience.”

Clinton said last week if Trump was to become president, President Barack Obama’s work would be for nothing.

“We cannot let Barack Obama’s legacy fall into Donald Trump’s hands,” she said.

“We can’t let all the hard work and progress we have achieved over the last seven and a half years be torn away. We have to move forward together. We have to bring our country together.”

AARON JOSEFCZYK | reuters

Ohio Gov. John Kasich withdraws as a U.S. Republican presidential candidate in Columbus, Ohio.

N.C. GOP from page A1 Hayes was elected to the position on April 30, after the removal of the embattled former chairman, Hassan Harnett.

The convention was Hayes’ first significant opportunity to repair any damage the party may have suffered from the monthslong schism between the former chairman and his defenders, and the party’s central committee that initiated his removal.

“I don’t see any obstacles; I see opportunity. We’ve got a good, strong, unified party to work from,” Hayes said. “Again, it’s always a work in progress. It just happens to be a point on the calendar where you get together, kind of re-up, and that’s what we’re doing here.”

Hayes is no stranger to the role, or North Carolina politics for that matter. Formerly serving as chairman of the N.C. GOP from 2011 to 2013, Hayes also served North Carolina’s 8th district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009.

In addition to breakout learning sessions, tending to party business, and speeches, the convention allows Republicans to meet and engage with current and aspiring elected officials, as candidates from congressional to judicial races worked the crowds.

“In a down ballot, grassroots race like mine education is the name of the game,” North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Bob Edmunds said. “Being here talking to people, the ones who are motivated to vote, is worth its weight in gold to me.”

General session is where the business of the day is done, taking actions like approving party

rules, voting on changes to the party platform, and selecting national delegates to the party’s convention.

Several resolutions voted on addressed the recent turmoil in party leadership, such as establishing due process for the party Chairman, eliminating nondisclosure agreements, and guaranteeing transparency for the central committee.

Delegates will also vote on a resolution to make the North Carolina Republican primary a closed contest, allowing only registered Republicans to take part in the process.

Judy Steele of Caldwell County is focused on the change in party leadership after the recent shakeup.

“Seeing a change. Seeing what the’re going to do with this new chairman, and how fast they’re going to go through all this before we can think about what they’re actually doing,” Steele said. “I don’t like what they did at all [to Harnett].”

Despite recent party infighting on the state and national levels, the convention had a sizable turnout and plenty of enthusiasm for the upcoming elections.

Due to the late congressional primary, 2nd District primary contenders George Holding and Renee Ellmers, both sitting members of congress, were on hand to court voters during the convention.

General session was set to resume Saturday, culminating in the meeting of the chosen national convention delegation and a dinner event with the hosts of NC Spin and distinguished writer and economist Steve Moore of the Heritage Foundation.

—Mayor Steve Sciascia EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

A Trump volunteer heads to work the table in the exhibition hall during the N.C. GOP State Convention at the Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, Friday, May 6.

the Sunday Sideline report

boxing

1. Brind’Amour, Floyd, Jamison among nine inducted to the NC Sports Hall of Fame.

2. Kennedy Meeks announced his return to UNC after declaring for the NBA Draft 3. Redskins signed tight end Jordan Reed to fiveyear, $50M extension 4. Charlotte Hornets eliminated by the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs 5. Changes under center at ECU: Pirates landed JUCO QB Gardner Minshew, former ECU quarterback Kurt Benkert committed to Virginia

@TomOatesWSJ: NBA: Manu stepped on the line, Waiters fouled Manu, Mills fouled Adams, Kawhi fouled Westbrook & Ibaka fouled Aldridge. Not a good :13 for refs. @PGA_JohnDaly: In 1991, the total purse was $1,327,000.00 and that’s what the winner gets paid today if they were to win a major! LOL #howtimeshavechanged

Madeline Gray | north state journal

Dewayne Beamon, right, trains with Dave Hawkins, left, of Hit Hard Boxing, on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at Retro Fitness in Raleigh.

Beamon will fight Rudolph Hedge for the Universal Boxing Federation (UBF) All-Americas title at Dorton Arena on May 13, 2016.

SPORTS NC Hall of fame

By Shawn Krest North State Journal aleigh — After the interview is over, Dewayne Beamon asks to see the cell phone. Beamon flips through photos of R himself, unhappy with the gym office lighting.

@ECUAthletics: @ericchurch to headline @ECUkickoff at DowdyFicklen Stadium on 8/20! #carolinakickoff

NCAA Golf

N.C. well represented in NCAA Regionals Six of North Carolina’s men’s golf teams (Wake Forest, UNC, Campbell, NC State, Duke, ECU) qualified for the NCAA Regionals, taking place May 16-18. Three more schools from the state (Charlotte, UNCG, UNCW) will be represented in the regionals by individual golfers.

College sports

Minnesota bans teams from playing in N.C. because of HB2 Minnesota State Colleges and Universities announced sports teams from public schools are banned from traveling to North Carolina as part of Minn. Gov. Mark Dayton’s response to House Bill 2. The system ruled sports travel is “nonessential” state-funded travel and falls under the governor’s ban NC travel ban.

Preps

NCHSAA announces athletes of the year The North Carolina High School Athletic Association announced Nick Coe from Asheboro High School and Haylie Shope from Hiwassee Dam High School won the Male and Female Athletes of the Year, respectively. Coe is 247Sports’ No. 4 defensive end in the country, while Shope excelled in volleyball, basketball and softball.

NASCAR

2017 schedule released

Talladega and Kansas swapped spots in the Chase in NASCAR’s 2017 schedule.

Charlotte Motor Speedway retained three races: the AllStar Race on May 20, CocaCola 600 on May 28 and Bank of America 500 on Oct. 7.

Beamon poised for NC boxing history

Madeline Gray | north state journal

Haywood Jeffires is interviewed before being recognized as an inductee in the 2016 class of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday at the Museum of History in Raleigh.

NC Sports Hall of Fame welcomes newest members

By R. Cory Smith North State Journal ALEIGH — The Great North State flexed its athletic R muscles further on Thursday

and Friday night with an impressive induction of nine new members into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

The state boasts a bevy of stars already in the hall, but featured a 2016 class highlighted by Rod Brind’Amour, Antawn Jamison and Eric “Sleepy” Floyd.

Those names still resonate with North Carolinians, but plenty of other honorees earned a spot due to their impressive roots in the state. With monikers like the “Father of the Funnybike” and “Rabbit,” this year’s class ties together athletic greatness from nearly every level of sports in the state.

The disparity among the group is fascinating: Floyd was dropping huge NBA playoff performances before the Warriors were cool and certainly before

Jamison ever thought about burying a deep three at the Dean Dome. Freddy Johnson was winning basketball games at Greensboro Day School before either Floyd or Jamison starting playing the game professionally.

You wouldn’t pinpoint Susan Yow and David Fox together in the same room until you realize they have ties to the same university — Susan dominated in college for NC State and is the sister of NC State coach Kay Yow, while David won swimming titles for the Wolfpack — but the connection never really matriculated until their mutual induction.

What ties all nine inductees together, of course, is their roots in North Carolina. From record-breaking high school basketball coaches to Olympic gold medalists, here’s a look at the newest members of the Hall and what the honor means to each of them.

See Hall of fame, page B8

“Let’s see the video,” he says.

Yessica Zapata, co-owner — with Beamon — of Stop Running Promotions, explains she didn’t get any video.

Beamon trots across the gym and grabs two stools from ringside, dragging them to a well-lit area near some heavy bags.

“Ask me one of your questions again,” he says to the reporter.

“So we can get video of it for the website.”

Once he approves of the sound and lighting as being web-worthy, Beamon gives a wide grin. “This is an example of the busi- “I didn’t know it ness side of things that I have to be con- would come this cerned with now.”

Beamon, a former top-ranked golden soon, but when gloves amateur, is now an undefeated ban- you’re ready, tamweight boxer in addition to co-running his own promotion company. He’s won four you’re ready.” fights, two by knockout, since turning pro in Dewayne Beamon August of last year.

On May 13, he’ll be fighting Rudolph Hedge for the Universal Boxing Federation (UBF) All-Americas title at Dorton Arena.

According to the Stop Running team, it will be the first time Raleigh has hosted a boxing title fight.

If Beamon has his way, it won’t be the last time he sets Raleigh boxing history.

“Hector ‘Macho’ Camacho has the attendance record for the state of North Carolina,” he says.

On April 18, 2003, near the end of his Hall of Fame career, Camacho drew 6,000 at what was then called the RBC Center in Raleigh for a main event loss to a fighter named Chris Walsh.

“Nothing against Camacho,” Beamon continues. “He was a great fighter, but the North Carolina attendance record should be held by a fighter from North Carolina.”

See beamon, page B8

inside

christine T. Nguyen | north state journal

No matter what kind of outdoor/exercise activity you engaged in over the weekend, it probably doesn’t compare to the field-hockey experience in WinstonSalem, where a group of players set a Guinness Book of World Records mark by playing for 51 hours straight.

Neither thunderstorms nor broken bones could stop them. Brooke Pryor tells their stories on B4 and B5.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

B2

NS J beyond the box score

05.08.16

Johnny Manziel: The quarterback turned himself in on a charge of misdemeanor assault related to family violence. He was released on bond and ordered to have no contact with his former girlfriend.

Frank Vogel: Indiana Pacers team president Larry Bird chose not to renew the contract of Vogel, the Pacers coach for the last six seasons.

Chris Bosh: The Miami Heat and Chris Bosh released a joint statement ruling the star forward out for the rest of the NBA Playoffs for health reasons.

Champions League: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid were both winners this week, setting up a rivalry match in Milan for the Champions League final on May 28.

John Wall: The Raleigh native and Washington Wizards All-Star underwent surgery on both knees this week but is expected to be ready for the start of the 2016-17 regular season.

Charlotte Checkers: The AHL affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes is looking for a new coach after Mark Morris’ exit to become the next hockey coach at St. Lawrence University.

POTENT QUOTABLES

Wells fargo championship

Phil Mickelson was an early contender at the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte with a

usa today sports images

“It means a lot that the Redskins invested that kind of money into me and think that highly of me as a player and as a person.”

Jordan Reed on signing a five-year, $50 million extension with the Washington Redskins

Soccer

5000-to-1

Leicester City started the season with 5000to-1 odds to win the 2015-16 English Premier League title.

Leicester clinched the championship on Monday, making them among the most unlikely champions in all of sports.

NBA playoffs

75

The number of points scored on three-point field goals alone in the Cleveland Cavaliers 123-98 win in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Atlanta Hawks. The performance set a new record for the most three-point field goals in a game (25).

69 and 70 on the first two days of the tournament.

Jim Dedmon | USA TODAY Sports

Kyrie Krispy Kreme Shoes

Nike and Krispy Kreme have teamed up for a limited edition color way of the Nike Kyrie 2. The shoe features the iconic green, white and red design of the Winston-Salem donut company and it’s even being promoted with a mock donut truck with “Ky-rispy Kreme” and “Game So Sweet” on the side.

courtesy of nike

UNCW junior named Player of the Week

madeline gray | north state journal

UNCW junior Robbie Thorburn was named CAA Player of the Week, becoming the fourth member of the nationally-ranked Seahawks to win the conference honor.

Land of the long leaf pine straw

Jim Dedmon | USA TODAY Sports

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

B3

NCSU baseball

Photos by Madeline Gray | North State Journal

NC State infielder Evan Mendoza, who recently won ACC Offensive Player of the Week, at Doak Field on Tuesday.

Evan Mendoza’s

transformation spurring NC State’s ACC run

By R. Cory Smith North State Journal ALEIGH — Last season, Evan Mendoza was a sparsely-used R pitcher looking for a heightened role on the NC State baseball team. This year, he’s thriving as a utility infielder, leading the Wolfpack with a .365 average and three home runs after a series win over Duke.

Mendoza completely transformed as a player after developing during the offseason, and the sophomore sat down with North State Journal to discuss his breakout season and his team’s success.

North State Journal: What were your thoughts on winning ACC Player of the Week?

commute home and working out. It was awesome to enjoy that experience with them and definitely made things easier.

What came easier for you after the position change: Batting or fielding?

Oh, fielding definitely. I played shortstop throughout high school and pitched. So I realized just how important fielding is to the entire team. In high school, I took hitting as a secondary component to fielding, but this past year I’ve really focused on my hitting.

Last year you pitched in the ACC and NCAA Tournament.

How excited are you to be an everyday contributor this postseason?

Evan Mendoza: It was a big shock. I wasn’t expecting anything like that. I just thought there might be another guy who goes off and hits like four or five home runs. That’s not the stuff you think about and just hope your best is better than someone else’s.

It’s going to be a little bit different, but it’s just baseball.

There might be a few more fans in the stands, but I’m going to treat it just like any other game.

I’m excited to really make an impact at the end of this month.

What has this season as a whole been like for you?

I really just always liked the seasons. I know that’s probably a dumb reason, but it’s the truth. (Laughs) In Florida, I kind of got tired of the constant sunshine and 85- to 90-degree weather. Sometimes it’s just overwhelming. I loved the seasons in Baltimore, and it’s a perfect mix here.

I also really wanted to play in the ACC and for a team that took me as a two-way player.

Aerospace engineering is also a passion of mine, and you don’t get that at many other schools.

That was a huge driving factor for me.

It’s actually taken a toll on my body. This is my first time playing a lot of games — high pressure, ACC games — consecutively.

Coming from playing 25-30 games at the high school level with long breaks, it’s a completely different atmosphere. I’ve struggled with that at times.

How did the conversation go in the offseason when you told coach Elliott Avent you wanted to be a position player?

I’ve always been a two-way guy, so they knew I could play the field. I was always out here hitting and taking ground balls, but I just needed to improve as a hitter. During the summer, I worked hard at upping my game to a level I never imagined I could be at.

What ultimately made you commit to NC State?

How has this team dealt with high expectations all season and continued to climb in the rankings?

You played with the Baltimore Dodgers in the Cal Ripken League, so that was like home for you, right?

Personally for me, I’m not a huge fan of rankings. You can be a great team on paper, but don’t have the energy on a specific day.

Anyone can beat anyone, so we have to be on top of our game every single day. That’s what makes it fun.

Yeah, I was born in Baltimore, so that was a perfect fit. My grandparents and some family lived up there, so it was a short

What was it like to be featured on SportsCenter’s Top 10 earlier this year for your defense?

That was probably one of the highlights of my year so far, aside from ACC Player of the Week.

Making SportsCenter gave me confidence that I can be the cornerstone of the hot corner here. Coming into the year as the pitcher moving to the lineup and just trying to find my way, that helped me tremendously.

My brother and I used to wake up early just to watch the SportsCenter Top 10.

What kind of response did you get from your family?

I was actually FaceTiming with my sister when it aired. The first thing she did was just cover her mouth because she was in so much shock. That really made me feel good. She’s always been a huge supporter of me, sacrificing birthdays to go to banquets and a state championship, so that was like a payoff moment.

So would she be the biggest motivation for you in

Evan Mendoza Year: Sophomore Hometown: Sarasota, Fla. High School: Sarasota Position: Pitcher/Infielder Nickname: “Manny” Favorite Player: Manny Machado Favorite Team: Baltimore Orioles Twitter: @evan_mendoza8

baseball?

My parents have always been there for me and my brother has provided so much from a competition factor. But my sister made me a perfectionist. Instead of just settling, she always made me strive for more. If I called her and told her I hit a home run, she’d ask, “Why wasn’t it a grand slam?” (Laughs) She really drives me to be the best at everything I do. I can’t say enough about that.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 1, 2016

B4

North State Journal for Sunday, May 1, 2016

B5

The Chief M

Melissa Martin, center, and other players celebrate seconds after setting a record for the longest field hockey match on Sunday, May 1, 2016 at Forsyth Country Day School. Members of Greensboro Field Hockey Club and NC Triad Field Hockey Club played in a continuous 51-hour field hockey match.

Tales from the

world’s longest game of field hockey

elissa Martin knows the human body isn’t supposed to be able to run 26 miles or play field hockey for 51 hours. But that’s kind of the point.

Three weeks after running the Paris Marathon, Martin, who played field hockey at Wake Forest and with the U.S. National squad, took the field at Forsyth Country Day School to play in a world-record field hockey game that she organized.

“I love these challenging events,” said Martin “I love doing the marathon the other weekend. You just have to push yourself. We’re not built to do marathons. We’re not built to play 51 hours of field hockey, but obviously we can do all these things. People run marathons all the time. People run 100-mile races. We did this field hockey game. It just shows you can push yourself beyond your limits and anyone can do it.”

Martin, the founder and director of NC Triad Field Hockey, fielded 32 participants and coordinated more than 100 volunteers to help score, record and document the game. This is her spare time, mind you — she also continued to coach her travel teams, work in marketing at Hanes Brands and pursue her MBA at Wake Forest.

When the world record announcement was made over the PA, Martin sprinted up the field, surrounded by her players, friends and teammates. She yelled in exhaustion and exuberance, celebrating the incredible feat. And as the field emptied out, families taking home exhausted daughters and out-of-towners sprinting to their hotels, Martin sat on a metal bench and cracked a Guinness, a gift from the father of a player.

She celebrated her accomplishment for a few minutes before packing up and heading home, too. Though she had pushed herself to her physical limits, she had to rally and start a mental marathon beginning with a project due at 6 p.m. the next day and ending with a flight to India for a two-week MBA program case competition.

Martin isn’t satisfied (obviously?).

“51 hours, that’s nothing,” she said. “We’re still ready to go. The next record we’re breaking, we’re playing for 100 hours and the plan is to do that in two summers because next year we’re going to South Africa to play and volunteer. The following year, we’re going to break 100 hours.”

From left, Mati Maltba of the Blue Team defends Ashton Coley of the Green Team during a 51-hour continuous field hockey match on Sunday, May 1, 2016 at Forsyth Country Day School. The Blue Team defeated the Green Team, 551-541.

Top of the class P ackets of homework and upcoming AP exams weren’t stopping Mati Maltba.

The Reagan High School junior had an AP exam in the upcoming week but she wasn’t about to let a test get in the way of her chance to go down in the record books.

“Some [exams] are at 8 a.m. or 7:30 or something Monday,” Melissa Martin said. “I was just like, no excuses. We all have things to do the following week.

If you can push through, push through. If you have second guesses, this isn’t for you. These are the girls who are mentally tough and knew they could push through.”

When the weekend began, Maltba and friends — Skylar Holden-Bache and Carson Doub

Ned Erickson, the Hustle King P rior to April 29, Ned Erickson picked up a field hockey stick exactly one time in his life — four days earlier at his nine-year-old daughter’s field hockey practice.

But what the Winston-Salem father of two lacked in stick skills, he more than made up for in endurance experience, making him a perfect team member for the world-record attempt.

“I put him on the email because he is an endurance runner,” organizer Melissa Martin said. “He’s a really good athlete,

and he’ll go on these overnight runs. He’s so passionate about sports. His daughter is getting really into field hockey. I was like, ‘Do this for your daughter.

Come out.’ He didn’t think about it twice.”

Erickson, founder of the Winston-Salem Fellows nonprofit organization, set a record of his own in 2014 by running the 252mile North Carolina section of the Blue Ridge Parkway in four days, eight hours and 38 minutes.

So a 51-hour field hockey

— were energetic, bouncing around sidelines as they grabbed a couple quick snacks before subbing in.

With the exception of Doub, who had to leave Friday night with strep throat and a double ear infection, their enthusiasm lasted the first 25 hours or so.

Maltba and Holden-Bache, both on the blue team, swapped places through the night, each taking four-hour shifts beginning at midnight.

“At 4 in the morning we were all beat and just walking,” Maltba said.

Though Maltba usually plays forward and Holden-Bache stays at midfield, the pair rotated goalie duties Saturday afternoon, giggling as they talked about their newly found cage skills while

game? Surprisingly pretty minor.

“I do run marathons and have some endurance sport experience,” Erickson said. “What I fail in talent, I try to compensate with just hustle.”

So Erickson borrowed one of Martin’s sticks and headed out to the field Friday afternoon.

“Melissa Martin can be very persuasive,” Erickson said. “She’s such an inspiration, and I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.”

And when the weekend was over and the blue team beat the

swapping pads.

With two hours to go to break the record, Maltba and Holden-Bache were still going strong thanks to a burst of adrenaline.

Partly out of hustle and mostly out of comedic exhaustion, Maltba dove on the ground after a loose ball. She was slow to rise with her achy muscles, but she kept a smile on her face the whole time.

When it finally finished, Maltba and her friends took hundreds of pictures, posing to commemorate the moment. But within 30 minutes of capturing the record, the stadium was nearly empty.

The real world called again.

“Shower,” said Maltba, her voice scratchy as she listed off her priorities. “And get right in my bed. My bed will feel sooo nice.”

green team 551-541, Erickson earned a stick of his own, fighting through fatigue and thunderstorms to win the men’s MVP award for scoring a game-high 74 goals. Yes, 74 goals.

“The natural elements have been challenging,” he said. “It rained, it was misting for a good half of our time here. The girls, their spirits were high the whole time. It was really amazing.

“Field hockey requires you to bend over and there’s muscles that I just have not used ever that are screaming at me right now.”

By Brooke Pryor Photos by Christine Nguyen North State Journal

W Arul Palaniappan of Texas stretches as he takes a break from the field hockey game on Sunday, May 1, 2016 at Forsyth Country Day School. Christine T. Nguyen/North State

The Dallas dropouts W hen Jamie Celk got a text from Melissa Martin asking her to participate, the senior didn’t think twice.

Sure, it was 1,100 miles and a three-hour flight away from her home base of North Texas, and, yes, finals were on the horizon, but she wasn’t about to turn down a historical field hockey game.

“I have finals coming up, second week in May, two exams on Tuesday,” Celk said. “I brought my stuff with me and sadly, didn’t have a chance to study. Either I was struggling to sleep or I was trying to get stretched out and ready to play.”

The airline did Celk and three other players from Dallas no favors, forcing them onto the field without a key item: their sticks. The equipment showed up six hours into the game, but they were forced to use loaners to kick things off.

The lost luggage wasn’t even the toughest part for Celk, who was forced into more substantial shelter than her tent when temperatures and rainy weather collided for rough

sleeping weather.

“It was so cold at night. I slept in the girls’ locker room,” Celk said. “The tent wasn’t working for me at all.”

Guinness’ delayed approval of the game left the four players from Dallas just about a month and a half to train, but Celk said she added in more cardio and P90X over the last month.

Arul Palaniappan, a native of India who learned to play the game in his home country, leaned on experience playing in jam-packed tournaments with the Dallas Field Hockey club.

“Playing in tournaments, it’s like 7 or 8 games in two days continuously,” he said. “The attitude then is we have to win. During that time, those days are tough.”

With an hour left, Palaniappan sat on the track around the field, methodically stretching. He knew he’d be sore afterwards, but he wasn’t too worried.

“Probably one day is enough time,” he said of his recovery time. “I’ll probably have after effects for a week, but I’ll be able to keep moving.”

INSTON-SALEM — What did you do this weekend? Grill out? Netflix binge? Do some chores?

Bet you didn’t play field hockey for 51 straight hours.

While most everyone else was enjoying a Friday afternoon happy hour on April 28, 32 players gathered at Forsyth Country Day’s Rea Stadium for a field hockey game.

Unlike a normal game, this one didn’t end after 70 minutes.

Instead, this game lasted for more than two days as the group, spearheaded by Melissa Martin, (hopefully) set a new world record for the longest field hockey game ever played at 51 hours.

A group in the United Kingdom currently holds the record at 40 hours, but when Martin heard the same group recently played a 48-hour game and was waiting on Guinness verification, she didn’t want to take any chances and set her goal at 51 hours.

Because Martin received clearance to conduct the game without a Guinness representative present, everything was meticulously documented with stat sheets, videos and photos.

With the exception of misty, chilly nights and humid days, a 45-minute thunderstorm and a broken finger Friday night, the event went pretty smoothly.

During the thunderstorm, only players who were out of college were allowed to stay on the field, reducing the game to a 2-on-2 affair (international field hockey rules don’t have a minimum player requirement per team) while everyone else took shelter in the girls’ locker rooms in the stadium complex.

As for the broken finger, the injured player tried to stay and fight through the pain, but with a compound fracture revealing her bone, she left in the middle of the night for the emergency room and was disqualified. Per Guinness guidelines, once a player left the fenced enclosure around the field, he or she could not return. The departure didn’t disqualify the game, but the teams couldn’t replace the missing player. By the end of the weekend, the group lost only four players. Here are the stories of those who stayed.

Ned Erickson of Winston-Salem, center, raises a field hockey stick after being named men’s MVP on Sunday, May 1, 2016 at Forsyth Country Day School. Erickson had never played field hockey before the marathon three-day game.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

B6

nba draft

Combine invitations may help local players make draft decision

By Shawn Krest | North State Journal he NBA sent invitations to May’s Draft Combine to approximately 70 T players. It’s the first concrete feedback

college underclassmen will receive from the league, indicating whether they should return to school or remain in the draft.

ESPN’s Jeff Goodman tracked down 64 of the recipients, as well as 13 players selected as alternates. Of course, there are still at least a half dozen players with invitations that didn’t RSVP to Goodman, and just because a player wasn’t invited to the

Combine doesn’t mean he’ll head back to school.

Let’s look at the list of area players either in or out and break down the prospects, courtesy of mock drafts from NBADraft. net, Hoops Hype and Draft Express.

Who’s In:

Brandon Ingram SF, Duke

Brice Johnson PF, North Carolina

Anthony “Cat” Barber PG, NC State

Marcus Paige G, North Carolina

Justin Jackson F, North Carolina

The question wasn’t whether Ingram would receive an invitation, but whether the one-and-done Blue Devils star would RSVP or skip the event.

He’s a consensus top two draft pick. Either he or LSU’s Ben Simmons will be the first named called in the 2016 NBA Draft.

The four-year player evolved into one of the ACC’s best players in his senior year, averaging a double-double.

Johnson is a likely first-round pick, just outside of the lottery according to most mocks.

Worth noting: Draft Express has him dropping out of the first round entirely.

The junior already announced he’s remaining in the draft and will get a chance to crank up his draft stock in head-to-head competition with other guards.

NBADraft.net and Hoops Hype have Cat going at the end of the first round. Draft Express has him going late in the second round.

The senior battled injury and a shooting slump this year, but he still earned a long look from the NBA based on his four-year career and clutch shooting in March and April. Paige was the preseason ACC Player of the Year but could very well go undrafted if you believe the mocks.

The sophomore is the only area player with an invitation who hasn’t already made up his mind to stay in the draft.

The expectation is he’ll return to UNC. Draft Express has Jackson going 27th overall in the 2017 mock draft.

Who’s Out:

BeeJay Anya C, NC State

Abdul-Malik Abu F, NC State

Marshall Plumlee C, Duke

Anya’s blocks were down slightly from his sophomore season, and he still didn’t average five points per game.

He’d also benefit from staying for his senior year.

He went from a promising freshman to averaging a near double-double as a sophomore.

Abu apparently didn’t get an invitation, but he told ESPN he’s considering staying in the draft or potentially transferring.

Wolfpack fans are holding their breath awaiting his decision.

He developed into a team leader and a consistent producer during his fifth year with the Blue Devils. He’s an officer in the Army reserves, and that service commitment may have caused the NBA to shy away.

charlotte hornets

Hornets exceed everyone’s expectations in strong 2016

By Brian Geisinger North State Journal had a strong seain 2016.

TNohesonHornets NBA team shattered pre-

season expectations more than the Charlotte Hornets. Even the Golden State Warriors were more likely to set the single-season wins record (they did, with 73) than Charlotte was to win 48 games, tie for first in the division and come within a half game of the third seed in the Eastern Conference. The fun ride is over, though, after the Hornets dropped Game 7 of their first round playoff series against the Miami Heat.

Charlotte saw visions of a long postseason run, but there’s no need to hang any heads in defeat.

Year three for Steve Clifford in Charlotte was a wild success.

Exceeding expectations Most pundits pegged this team as a lottery-bound squad destined to win a measly 25-30 games. Brent Musberger’s friends in the desert set Charlotte’s win total at 32.5 heading into the season. Even the most optimistic of predictions labeled the Bugs as a team to tread water, finish with a record near .500 and squeeze into the playoffs as the eighth seed — the Eastern Conference’s sacrificial lamb for Cleveland in the first round.

Instead the Hornets won 48 games, the fifth-highest win total in franchise history. Charlotte also finished near the top half of the league in attendance: 716,894, according to Basketball-Reference. This is 12,000 person bump from the 2014-15 season — an average of about 300 more people at Time Warner Cable Arena per game.

Charlotte also won a playoff game for the first time in 14 years. They got bounced in the first round, but Charlotte still hosted three playoff games. Television revenue is king when it comes to professional sports,

but money derived from hosting playoff games is significant, too.

Next year’s goal: win a playoff series for the first time since 2002.

A subtle trade changed everything Expectations for the Hornets plummeted even further prior to the season when the team lost forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, their best defensive player, to a torn labrum. For half of the season, Charlotte was content to run P.J. Hairston out as their second wing, along with Nicolas Batum. A low-risk trade GM Rich Cho swung at the trade deadline — acquiring Courtney Lee as the principle in a three-team transaction that saw the Hornets give up Hairston, Brian Roberts and some second round picks — changed everything.

Lee was integral for the team’s success, shooting 39 percent on 3-pointers. Charlotte scored better than 1.11 points per possessions with him on the floor and won 20 out of 28 games with him in the lineup.

For the last three seasons, Al Jefferson has been a model of consistency at center for the Hornets. Jefferson only played in 47 games (18 starts) this season, thrusting Cody Zeller into a prominent role. The third-year big man delivered, starting a career-high 60 games, and posting highs in points, rebounds, blocks and shooting percentage. Zeller has good speed and used that to his advantage, scoring 1.22 points per possession when he was the screener in a pick and roll, according to NBA.com.

The ability to seamlessly add guys to the roster, and have others adjust to new roles, correlates with strong chemistry.

Scoring is fun, too The Hornets were one of only five teams to finish in the top-10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency along with Golden State,

Steve Mitchell | USA TODAY Sports

San Antonio, Cleveland and the Los Angeles Clippers. Adjusted for pace, Charlotte finished with the eighth-best point differential in the entire NBA. Under Clifford’s tutelage, Charlotte’s calling card has been defense, and this season the Hornets finished with a top-10 defense for the third-straight year. Scoring has been more difficult but things changed over the course of a single offseason, thanks in large part to the wholesale improvement of Kemba Walker.

Mix in the additions of Batum and Jeremy Lin and the Hornets became a gifted offense. Charlotte finished the 2014-15 season ranked No. 28 in offensive efficiency, but with the injection of talent and a greater emphasis on shooting threes (Charlotte made 873 3-pointers this season, fourth most in the league), the Hornets scored 7.5 points more points per 100 possessions in

2016.

What’s next?

The Hornets own the No. 22 overall pick in the June draft. It’s near impossible to select franchise-altering talent that late in the draft, but smart drafting from Cho and Michael Jordan could land another young, cost-controlled, rotation player to the roster.

A great deal of importance will be put on free agency. Batum, Lee, Marvin Williams and Jefferson will all be unrestricted free agents after the season. Lin, who has a player option for 201617, will likely decline that, and hit free agency as well.

This particular iteration of the roster played so well together — the front office would probably love to bring everyone back. Some players feel the same, expressing serious interest in returning to Charlotte during end-of-season

Charlotte Hornets head coach Steve Clifford (left) listens to Hornets guard Kemba Walker (right) during the second half in game seven of the first round of the NBA Playoffs against the Miami Heat at American Airlines Arena. The Heat won 106-73.

media sessions. Jefferson even said he’d take a pay cut to stay in North Carolina.

Batum should be the top priority, even though he will be expensive. The Frenchman played like an All-Star and gave Charlotte another playmaker to partner with Kemba. He will likely fetch $20 million annually under the new cap structure (the cap is set to explode to around $92 million this offseason thanks to new TV money). It’s a huge number for someone like Batum, but it’s also the cost of doing business in the NBA in 2016.

That salary won’t look as gaudy in 14 months when the cap jumps to a projected $108 million in 2017.

Batum wants to return, and Charlotte possesses his bird rights, which means they can offer more years and more money with higher annual salary increases.

That’s an advantage for Cho. Once Batum’s in the mix, the front office can make decisions on Marvin, Big Al and Lin.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

B7

2016 NFL Draft | panthers

The 2016 NFL Draft put the Panthers in a corner

By Shawn Krest North State Journal arolina spent 60 percent of its picks on one position: C cornerback.

The Panthers drafted for need following the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft, and they did so with a vengeance.

After Carolina rescinded his franchise tag, Pro Bowl cornerback Josh Norman left as a free agent the week before the draft.

Carolina was left with a gaping hole in the secondary and the front office filled it in historic fashion.

“It’s only happened two other times,” GM David Gettleman said, “where a team drafted three straight corners.”

The Panthers became the third team in draft history to select three straight cornerbacks after taking Samford’s James Bradberry in the second round, moving up in the third to take West Virginia’s Daryl Worley (while trading a fourth-round pick in the process), and choosing Oklahoma’s Zack Sanchez in the fifth.

The other two teams to go corner with three straight picks?

The 2005 Broncos (Darrent Williams, Karl Paymah and Domonique Foxworth) and the 1989 Saints (Robert Massey, Kim Phillips, Michael Mayes).

Clearly, Gettleman wanted to not just replace Norman but to make sure corner wouldn’t be a problem in future seasons.

“We’ve been rotating players through there since I got here,” Gettleman said of the secondary.

“We don’t want to do that. We want to have a core. Obviously, we want to have stability.”

Bradberry and Worley are both big corners who Gettleman has slotted to play outside.

“Both of them are big. Both are long. Both can run. Both are physical. Both have really good ball skills,” Gettleman said. “We’re pleased we were able to get them both. We had second-round values on both of them.”

Sanchez is a likely candidate to line up inside and defend slot receivers.

Vernon Butler (Louisiana Tech) after being selected by the Carolina Panthers as the number thirty overall pick in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft at Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on April 28.

Kamil Krzaczynski | USA TODAY Sports

“Zach played nickel as a redshirt freshman,” Gettleman said.

“He’s got nickel feet. He’s quick, not as big as the first two guys. Of the three, he’ll work the inside.”

Gettleman said the priorities when evaluating corners were intelligence and aggression. All three draft picks played press coverage in college. He described Sanchez as “a gambler”.

“He’s like the basketball player that scores 25, and his guy scores 18,” Gettleman said. “We’ll take it.”

“I love to play in a defense that’s more physical, has more teeth,” Worley said. “I’d rather play an aggressive, attacking style, rather than sitting back on your heels and scheming a team.”

Gettleman also raved about the football IQ of the three corners.

“There were corners that were drafted — some very high — that we didn’t have on our board,” Gettleman said. “There are real-

ly talented guys that don’t fit us.

There are really talented guys that aren’t smart enough to fit us either.”

There were concerns about the speed of Bradberry and Worley, but Gettleman was hardly concerned.

“When we drafted Tre Boston, he was a 4.57,” Gettleman said.

“Bene [Benwikere], he was a 4.57.

But you’ve seen him run down the field with some 4.3 guys. It’s not about what a guy runs in their underwear. The game’s not played in your underwear.”

The Panthers bookended their corner-heavy draft by selecting Montana State tight end Beau Sandland.

“I can be an all-around, complete tight end,” Sandland said.

“There are a lot of one-dimensional tight ends — guys who are great receivers but can’t do the dirty work, or guys that are great blockers, but don’t have natural hips and hands.”

Carolina Panthers 2016 Draft Class Player

College

Position Round Overall Pick

Vernon Butler

Louisiana Tech

DT

1

30

James Bradberry Samford

CB

2

62

Daryl Worley

West Virginia

CB

3

77

Zack Sanchez

Oklahoma

CB

5

141

Beau Sandland

Montana State

TE

7

252

Sandland was the only offensive player chosen by the Panthers this year. Part of that was necessitated by the last-minute loss of Norman, but Gettleman denied that it was a need-based draft.

“You can’t deny your need, but you can’t overdraft either,” he said. “It’s a fragile balance. If you overdraft a guy, you go to camp, and you’re going to be ticked off.

You’re going to be cranky with

the kid, and it’s not his fault.”

Gettleman and the Panthers made it clear that the team doesn’t expect any of the cornerbacks to replace Norman on their own. At least not right away — Gettleman fired his shot over the weekend to shore up a weakness of the Panthers for the long haul. If history is any indication, he could come out of this draft with a refreshed secondary down the road.

2016 NFL Draft | redskins

Redskins 2016 NFL Draft class rare model of consistency

By Sean Labar North State Journal he Redskins are drawing rave reviews for their 2016 NFL Draft class, the second withgeneral manager Scot McCloughan at the helm. It makes sense, because they largely stood pat, drafted the best players available and picked up three extra draft picks for 2017.

The Redskins look like they’re moving in the right direction, which is not something normally associated with the organization. This is a good draft class, so let’s take a closer look at what Washington did.

T

Josh Doctson Round 1, No. 22 overall pick, WR, TCU Need is the biggest fallacy of NFL roster construction. The Redskins don’t “need” Doctson because of DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon on the roster. But both guys will be free agents soon and Doctson was arguably the best wide receiver in the draft. Jay Gruden believes the former TCU standout can replicate what A.J. Green did for him in Cincinnati in terms of attacking the ball downfield and becoming a true No. 1 wideout.

Su’a Cravens Round 2, No. 53 overall pick, LB/S, USC Cravens is a modern-day NFL linebacker and straight-up playmaker. The former USC bruiser announced last week he would wear No. 36 for the Skins, the rookie number for the late Sean Taylor. Cravens caught eyes as an inside linebacker in college, but has shown versatility to play safety. He should play a pretty large role in Washington’s nickel

and dime packages while immediately contributing on special teams.

“The thing that’s really cool about him is the diversity he brings – safety, linebacker, maybe nickel linebacker, maybe a nickel corner,” McCloughan said.

“He’s smart, Day 1 he walked in the building [at USC]; he started there, played in a lot of big games and made a lot of big plays.”

Kendall Fuller Round 3, No. 84 overall pick, CB, Virginia Tech There have been mixed reviews on this selection. Bucky Brooks of the NFL Network said Fuller will be the biggest sleeper pick in the NFC East, but the jury is still out. When healthy, there’s no question the former Hokie can be a starting corner in the league. At the moment, he’s coming off a torn meniscus and there’s no timetable for when he will be able to begin practice. Fuller comes from a strong bloodline with his three older brothers all playing in the NFL, so there is certainly a logic behind the high expectations.

Matt Ioannidis Round 5, No. 152 overall pick, DT, Temple This isn’t a sexy choice, but this guy fits McCloughan’s mold.

Ioannidis fits the “football player” mold for the Skins GM. At 299 pounds, he will be versatile enough on the defensive front to rush the quarterback but his main role will be stuffing the run, a presence Washington desperately needs with the departure of Terrance Knighton.

Nate Sudfeld Round 6, No. 187 overall pick, QB, Indiana

Kamil Krzaczynski | USA TODAY Sports

Probably the most unpopular of Washington’s selections because quarterback isn’t considered a need. But drafting a quarterback late is a quality plan for any organization. It gives the Redskins a young arm to groom behind Kirk Cousins and Colt McCoy, even if Sudfeld doesn’t look like anything more than a career back-up. He threw for 3,573 yards, 27 touchdowns and just 7 picks, so there is certainly promise, even if most draft experts said there were better quarterback options on the board at No. 187.

Washington Redskins 2016 Draft Class

Steven Daniels Round 7, No. 232 overall pick, ILB, Boston College

linebacker corps.

Daniels is solid against the run, but struggles in pass coverage. If he makes the team, he will likely serve as a special teams contributor while learning behind the Skins veteran

Josh Doctson (TCU) with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell after being selected by the Washington Redskins as the No. 22 overall pick in the first round of the 2016 NFL Draft at Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.

Player

College

Position

Round

Overall Pick

Josh Doctson

TCU

WR

1

22

Su'a Craven

USC

S

2

53

Kendall Fuller

Virginia Tech

CB

3

84

Matt Ioannidis

Temple

DT

5

152

Nate Sudfeld

Indiana

QB

6

187

Steven Daniels

Boston College

LB

7

232

Keith Marshall

Georgia

RB

7

242

Keith Marshall Round 7, No. 242 overall pick, Georgia Maybe the most interesting pick of the entire draft, considering the state of Washington’s running backs group. Sec-

ond-year workhorse Matt Jones is assumed to be the guy, but had a fumbling problem last year.

Alfred Morris is gone to Dallas.

Marshall, a Raleigh native, aced the 40-yard dash with a time of 4.31 seconds at the NFL Combine. If nothing else, he will be the fastest guy wearing burgundy and gold.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

B8 carolina baseball

Stallings returns home to offer advice for Heels baseball team

By Brooke Pryor North State Journal URHAM — Five years after sweeping Duke in his senior season at North Carolina, Jacob D Stallings returned to Durham and stole another

series from the local team.

This time around, the former UNC catcher came to Durham Bulls Athletic Park as a member of the Indianapolis Indians, a Triple-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and helped his team take the series against the Durham Bulls.

“I have a history here,” said Stallings, who’s averaging .233 at the plate in his first season in Triple-A. “Playing Duke here, playing in the ACC Tournament here. I think this has probably been the most fun for me to come back here and get to kind of relive those old memories and see a bunch of people and have a bunch of people come to the games. It’s been fun.”

Playing just a few miles away from his alma mater for the first time since he graduated, “He probably saw Stallings used the opportunity to visit with us all yesterday his college coaches. morning and Before Monday night’s game, Stallings bor- probably none rowed his sister’s car of us looked like — she’s an undergrad we’d slept any, at UNC — and drove to Chapel Hill for the which is true. And morning to check in on he was trying to UNC baseball coach pick us up.”

Mike Fox and his staff.

The UNC baseball Mike Fox, team was coming off a disappointing week- UNC Baseball coach end in Winston-Salem where they were swept

by Wake Forest, but Stallings reassured his coaches that everything would turn out alright.

“These former players, we hear from some of them, it’s crazy, they’re so calm and positive now,” Fox said. “They weren’t like that when they played.

Now they’re all like, ‘oh, it’ll be OK, coach!’ I’m like OK, appreciate that.

“Jacob always had that demeanor, kind of the coach’s son in him. Just trying to make us feel good. He probably saw us all yesterday morning and probably none of us looked like we’d slept any, which is true. And he was trying to pick us up.”

Since he was drafted by Pittsburgh in the seventh round of the 2012 draft, Stallings has been working his way through the farm system.

When and if the major league call comes, it’ll be a dream come true on many levels. Not only will Stallings be playing in the MLB, but he’ll also be playing close to his dad, Kevin Stallings, the new head basketball coach at Pittsburgh after a 17-season stint at Vanderbilt.

“He’s been at Vanderbilt since I was in the fourth grade,” Stallings said. “It’s all I’ve ever known. But I’m happy for him. I think he’s excited, but it’s definitely weird. I know the guys on the team and obviously have a good relationship with them. So I’ll always cheer for Vanderbilt but now I’ve got to change my allegiances a little bit.”

Though the possibility of playing in the big leagues with his dad nearby isn’t too far off, Stallings isn’t looking ahead too much.

“It’s fun to think about for sure,” he said. “I know I have a lot of work to do to get up there. I’m trying not to look too far ahead and just be where my feet are and just get better day by day, and if it happens, that would be a really cool thing to get to experience.”

Madeline Gray | North State Journal

The 2016 class of nine athletes is introduced as inductees into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame on Thursday at the Museum of History in Raleigh.

Hall OF FAME from page B1 Rod Brind’Amour Rod Brind’Amour’s Carolina Hurricanes career changed the face of North Carolina professional sports.

The first (and only) Canes captain to hoist the Stanley Cup, Brind’Amour was one of the most important players in team history after being traded from the Philadelphia Flyers in 2000. After a 21-year playing career, he still remains on the Hurricanes coaching staff as an assistant and development coach.

“This is a great honor and to me it’s special because it shows what hockey has done and what it is doing here in North Carolina,” Brind’Amour said.

“You look at all the other sports and it’s relatively new. But we’re starting to create our own niche and history, and this honor just shows how far we’ve come as a sport.”

Eric “Sleepy” Floyd Sleepy Floyd is most famous for his playoff record 29 points in a quarter and 39 points in a half (51 total points) in the 1987 Western Conference Semifinals for the Golden State Warriors. He still stands as one of only 20 players to score more than 50 points in a playoff game. Floyd was a high school star at Gastonia’s Hunter Huss High School and went on to play for Georgetown before a 13-year NBA career.

“This is one of the biggest accomplishments in my athletic career,” Floyd said. “This puts things into perspective that, you know what, maybe I really did make my parents proud. That’s what it’s all about. When you put that smile on their faces, you know you’re doing something right.”

David Fox After winning seven ACC championships and an NCAA national championship with NC State, David Fox went on to claim a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay.

The Raleigh native found success in the national spotlight after being a standout on the YMCA of the Triangle (YOTA) swim team at an early age.

“As a native of Raleigh and from the state of North Carolina, this is the highest honor I can be affiliated with,”

Fox said. “As you can see by the guys on this stage, it’s not an easy club to be a part of. So I really appreciate the chance to have my name join everyone already here.”

James “Rabbit” Fulghum Former Greene Central baseball head coach James “Rabbit” Fulghum won five state championships over four decades at the high school level.

Fulghum, a four-year starter at Barton College (formerly Atlantic Christian College), is already a member of the NC Legion Baseball Hall of Fame and NCHSAA Hall of Fame.

“This just means so much to me,” Fulghum said. “I feel so inferior to the rest of these guys. I’m kind of like the batboy of a baseball team in this class. This isn’t about me, though. It’s about the county I represent and that has given so much to me.”

Antawn Jamison A unanimous choice for Player of the Year, ACC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament MVP and NCAA Regional MVP as a junior at North Carolina, Antawn Jamison left very few stones unturned in Chapel Hill. Prior to his success with the Tar Heels, Jamison was a standout with Providence in Charlotte. After his college tenure, Jamison was the fourth-overall pick in the 1998 NBA Draft and enjoyed a 16-year career in the NBA. “You always want to do this the right way,” Jamison said. “During my career I’ve won a lot of awards and been acknowledged for a lot of things, but this ranks up there. North Carolina holds a special place in my heart ... I’m grateful to be a part of this special moment.”

Haywood Jeffires Haywood Jeffires not only excelled at football, but also thrived in basketball prior to his collegiate career. Jeffires was a two-sport athlete at Page High School in Greensboro before an All-America tenure as a wide receiver at NC State and a 10-year NFL career with three Pro Bowl seasons from 1991-93.

“This is such a special occasion when you get to be a part of something like this,” Jeffires said. “I hope you all understand how special this is for me. ... This is not really about me, it’s about [the NC HOF] for

giving me this opportunity.”

Freddy Johnson Greensboro Day School has transformed into a force in the basketball world under the leadership of Freddy Johnson. The all-time leader in wins in North Carolina with more than 950 in his career, Johnson has also coached the North Carolina Gaters at the AAU level for kids in Greensboro to hone in on their skills.

“Really, my players are the ones that deserve this honor,” Johnson said. “They put me in the position I’m in. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be standing up there with those amazing athletes. I’m not an outstanding athlete by any stretch, but I’ve been very fortunate to have great players to get me here.”

Ray Price Less than five months after his death at the age of 78 on Dec. 16, 2015 in Raleigh, Ray Price was honored by the NC Hall of Fame.

The “Father of the Funnybike” was the first motorcycle drag racer to be sponsored by Harley Davidson and is credited with designing the first wheelie bar in motorcycle drag racing.

The Johnston County native helped grow the sport and opened Precision Cycle in 1973, which was later renamed Ray Price Harley Davidson. A community activist in Raleigh and across the state, Price was more than just a sports icon in North Carolina.

Susan Yow The sister of former NC State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow and current Wolfpack Athletics Director Debbie Yow was an AllAmerican herself at NC State and women’s basketball player at Elon.

The Gibsonville native is the third sister to be inducted into the NC Hall of Fame and still serves as the head women’s basketball coach at Queens University of Charlotte.

“You never think about this type of stuff during your career,” Yow said.

“To have two other siblings and Virgil Yow (cousin) already in makes this so special for me. ... To be recognized by the state of North Carolina, and to know they recognized my contributions, is the highest honor for me.”

beamon from page B1 Beamon drew 3,500 to his last outing, a February win at Dorton.

So he’s well on his way to toppling the Macho Man from the state record books.

The Goldsboro native was a latecomer to the squared circle.

“My parents wouldn’t let me box,” he says. “I was a football and basketball star, and my parents knew that would get me a scholarship.”

He played both sports at Southern Virginia University, but living away from home, Beamon was able to use his free time to pursue his passion without anyone knowing, practicing his boxing skills on the sly.

“I was boxing behind everybody’s back,” Beamon said. “My coaches didn’t know and would not have approved of it.”

When his football coach finally found out, he gave Beamon some advice. “He told me not to do it halfway,” Beamon recalls.

“He said that, if I’m going to do it, I should go 100 percent.”

Beamon took the words to heart. “I’ve been boxing fulltime, even back when I was still an amateur,” he says. “I haven’t had another job since...” he looks to Yessica for help “...at least two, two and a half years.”

Had he remained an amateur

Madeline Gray | north state journal

Dewayne Beamon, right, prays with trainer Dave Hawkins, left, after practice on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at Retro Fitness in Raleigh. Beamon will fight Rudolph Hedge for the Universal Boxing Federation (UBF) All-Americas title at Dorton Arena on May 13. for another year, Beamon would have stood a good chance of making a run at the 2016 Olympic team. He decided against it, however.

“I’d beaten just about every-

body that was in the running for the Olympics. But coming out of the trials, there’s still a selection process,” he says. “And I know where I’m from. Nobody’s going to select a North Carolina fighter.

They’ll put me number one, like they did, but they won’t let me represent. I have no-name coaches. I’m from a non-boxing state.”

“I know my demographic,” he concludes. “I know where I stand

in the boxing world. They’ll give me a lot of praise, but in the end, they won’t select me.”

As a pro, Beamon has also done what he could to avoid boxing politics.

As his own promoter, he’s calling his own shots, which has put him on the cusp of a title shot.

“I didn’t know it would come this soon, but when you’re ready, you’re ready,” he says.

After that fight, Beamon has his future mapped out.

“I’d like to defend the title two or three times here. Then I’ll go to Tokyo, to fight in January next year,” he says. “There’s a Japanese fighter [WBC World champion Shinsuke Yamanaka] that I’m chasing. But you really can’t get a shot with him unless you go over there and fight.

“A lot of American fighters are scared to go over there and fight, but I’m not. Whoever he’s fought, I’ll fight and beat them worse than he did, until he has to recognize me.”

Of course, going to Yamanaka’s home country will put Beamon at an even bigger disadvantage than the Olympic selection.

“They’ll get you over there,” he says. “I know I can’t give any rounds away. I have to punish people to get a win.”

“But I haven’t lost a round yet as a pro.”

NS J

gather Take a spin with us at the Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance, a Sandhills tradition that blends motorsports, golf, and the military. See page C4

the good life IN A NORTH STATE OF MIND

curriculum

SUNDAY

5.8.16

playlist May 9-15 Celebrate the Old North State!

High Point Bring North Carolina history to life featuring historic architecture, art, music, culinary cuisine, gardens, and much more! This is a big event spanning seven days with more than 35 programs. theoldnorthstatehp.com

May 13-14 Cleveland County Strawberry Festival Shelby Contests, rides, attractions, arts & craft vendors, food vendors, dancing, and family fun will all be at this festival. Don’t forget the amazing strawberry desserts! clevelandstrawberryfestival. com

May 11-14 Tryon Equestrian Spring Horse Show IV Mill Spring

PHOTOS BY EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Carrie Whiteside helps her son Caleb, 4, with a writing lesson as her daughter Natalie, 6, left, works on school work in their Knightdale home, Wednesday, May 4. Carrie and her husband were both homeschooled and now they homeschool their four children including sons Isaac, 15, and Ethan, 13.

My teacher, my mom With homeschooling on the rise, how do women navigate the line between teacher and mom? We talked to four North Carolina homeschooling moms to find out.

By Dan Bain For the North State Journal

L

ast summer, homeschoolers in North Carolina recognized two milestones. First, July saw the 30th anniversary of Delconte v. State of North Carolina, in which the State Supreme Court upheld a parent’s right to educate their children at home in lieu of sending them to school.

Then, the state’s homeschool population surpassed 100,000 — and it was actually the second year in which homeschooled students outnumbered conventional private school students.

If homeschools were their own district, it would be the third largest in the state — homeschooling is a growing trend, and as Teacher Appreciation Week gives way to Mother’s Day, it’s a good time to examine the costs and benefits of the vocation that includes both of these important celebrants. When a woman holds two of the arguably most meaningful jobs influencing a child’s life, how does she differentiate between them? According to Tracy Scott, Morganton homeschooler to two kids, she doesn’t. “I really don’t distinguish between ‘mother’ and ‘teacher’ — they’re synonymous. Even parents I know with kids in public school, are teachers. In school or homeschooled, we are still responsible for their education,” she says.

May 13-16 44th Annual Hang Gliding Spectacular Nags Head The Hang Gliding Spectacular is the longest running hanggliding competition in the world! Join professional hang gliders, fans, and families at Jockey’s Ridge State Park for this Outer Banks tradition. The Hang Gliding Spectacular and Air Show is free for viewing with fun activities all day long. hangglidingspectacular.com

May 14 The 9th Annual Yee Haw River Paddle Graham Paddle the Haw River Trail featuring calm, flat water great for families and new paddlers. thehaw.org Markers lay on the school table in the Whiteside's Knightdale home.

Carrie Whiteside and her husband were both homeschooled and now they homeschool their four children including Isaac, 15, Ethan, 13, Natalie, 6, and Caleb, 4.

See MOTHER TEACHER, page C6

Inside

The Spring Series IV is a week of USEF "A" rated hunters and will include Level 4 Jumper classes, while hosting a $25,000 Welcome and a $50,000 Grand Prix. Saturday will feature a "Saturday Night Lights" event with many extra attractions and lots of food and entertainment. tryon.com

Frolic

A behind the scenes look at The New York Theatre Ballet’s visit to Tarboro to premiere their commissioned ballet, “Of Brewton House,” a centerpiece of the “Here’s to Hobson!” celebration.

See page C3.

North State Journal forSunday, May 8, 2016

C2

necessities sensibility

By Martha Schneider For the North State Journal fter attending the High Point Market this A spring I left full of fresh and

inspirational ideas for design.

The design concept that stood out the most for me was the use of big contemporary wall art. Everywhere I looked, I saw original and printed art on display.

Art continues to play a huge role in personalizing the design of your home. The paintings displayed were either a soft neutral palette of color or a bold dramatic visual feast. The use of the large art on an accent wall surrounded by neutral furnishings continues to be on trend.

Your neutral palette of furnishings can be textural in nature, thus adding dimension to your room. Accessorizing your room with colorful patterned or geometric pillows and unique tabletop decor can also tie the painting into the color story. Last but not least, your room needs the finishing touch of glamour whether it is in your electrified lighting or by candlelight.

My favorite lighting piece in my own store is a brass wired pendant light for over your island or a small kitchen table.

Don’t be afraid to mix metals for a finished look that feels both sexy and sophisticated.

history marked

just a pinch

May 8, 1953 The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) was created during a meeting of representatives from the Southern Conference in Greensboro. The initial members of the conference were Clemson, Duke, Maryland, UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, South Carolina, and Wake Forest. Virginia was accepted as a member later that year.

it’s raining, it’s

May 9, 1942 The U.S. Coast Guard sank German U-boat 352 off the Outer Banks. Thirteen German sailors died, and 33 were plucked from the water. They were taken to Fort Bragg and confined as prisoners of war. During the course of the war thousands of POWs—mostly Germans and Italians—were captured and sent to camps in North Carolina.

May 14, 1932 The North Carolina Symphony played its first concert at Hill Hall on the campus of UNC Chapel Hill.

The concert included music

by Wagner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and others, and featured 48 musicians from around the state under the direction of conductor Lamar Stringfield.

So what about the water level in your container gardens?

How do you know when to water and how much?

Watering is the most important task in maintaining foliage and flowering plants. If the first inch of soil is dry, it’s time to water. The type of containers you’ve chosen play a part — small pots dry out faster than big ones, terra cotta pots dry out faster than plastic ones, and of course, pots set in the shade stay moist longer than those in full sun. Happy gardening!

accolades MORGANTON, N.C. — The History Museum of Burke County has been honored as the first recipient of the Burke County Attraction of the Year award.

The nonprofit museum, which focuses on the time period from the early 1800s to the 1960s, was chosen for its quality visitor experience by the Burke County Tourism Development Authority.

“The museum is an excellent example of a cultural and historical attraction that enhances the tourism experience in Burke County,” said Ed Phillips, the county’s tourism director, in a statement. “The staff takes pride in producing interesting exhibits that not only tell our country’s history across the previous two centuries, but that of American life in general during that time.”

Featuring 10,000 square feet of display space, the many of the museum’s exhibits allow for visitors to interact with artifacts and simulate the events they’re depicting.

“We do as much as we can to make it come alive,” said Phyllis Wogan, the museum’s curator, in a statement.

Some of the museum’s offerings include a Civil War exhibit created to commemorate the war’s 150th anniversary, and an exhibit on local legend Frankie Silver. Much of the organizations content focuses on happenings in the South, also including an upcoming exhibit on public school desegregation.

Admission is free to the museum, where tours led by docents take about 90 minutes.

The museum is open Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

turn the page In honor of Mother's Day, here are a few books to inspire, relate with, and embrace the special women around you, whether that's your mom or someone who helped in your upbringing. These suggestions came from Malaprop's Bookstore in Asheville, so be on the lookout for them at your local bookstore.

“Woman who read are dangerous”

by Stefan Bollman

released March 15, 2016

“The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New”

by Annie Dillard

released March 15, 2016

“Poems That Make Grown Women Cry”

by Anthony and Ben Holden released April 5, 2016

“Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up”

by Marie Kondo

photo courtesy of the History Museum of Burke County

A World War II exhibit at the History Museum of Burke County.

released January 5, 2016

Voices Contributors to this section this week include: Dan Bain Samantha Gratton Josh Hyatt Laura Ashley Lamm Alison Miller Martha Schneider Shelby Stephenson

Tell us Know a North Carolina story that needs to telling?

Drop us a line at features@nsjonline.com.

stir it up “A caipirinha is a traditional cocktail from Brazil. It’s straightforward and simple: cachaça, sugar, and lime.

Cachaça is kind of like Brazilian hooch, so it was natural to think about moonshine when trying to do a North Carolina take on the drink.

The ginger is a natural complement to lime that adds a great little aromatic bite. The bitters—with wonderful notes of anise, cherry, and wood—adds some dimension. It’s fun to express a local spirit that we in the South have been enjoying for generations in a cocktail that’s known around the world.”

— John Parra, Fox Liquor Bar, Raleigh

Appalachian Caipirinha 1 small lime, cut into 8 wedges 1 pinch kosher salt 4 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters ½ ounce honey syrup* 2 ounces Troy & Sons Platinum Moonshine Blenheim Old #3 Hot - Red Cap Ginger Ale 1 large slice fresh ginger root *Make honey syrup by heating and stirring 3 parts honey and 1 part water until combined.

Muddle lime wedges and salt in a cocktail shaker. Add bitters, honey syrup, and moonshine. Add ice and shake aggressively for 5-7 seconds.

Pour in an ice-filled double rocks glass, top with ginger ale, and garnish with a slice of fresh ginger root.

North State Journal for May 8, 2016

C3

frolic Here’s to Hobson! | Kinston

PHOTOS BY MADELINE GRAY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Mayu Oguri, left, and Stephen Campanella, right, both dancers with the New York Theatre Ballet, rehearse a piece titled “Of Brewton House” at Edgecombe Community College in Tarboro on Thursday, April 28. The town commissioned the piece to commemorate the work of local painter Hobson Pittman.

By Laura Ashley Lamm North State Journal obson Pittman sat down in his favorite chair, picked up his paintbrush, adjusted his straw hat, and began to weave watercolors across a blank canvas.

Capturing the romantic and nostalgic remembrances of the South, he included the people and places he adored and the childhood he long remembered.

“Tarboro has always been committed to historic preservation and to nature with our gardens. The artistic aspect rounds out our community by adding to the already wonderful lifestyle we have here,” said Anthony Edwards, president of the Blount-Bridgers House Foundation.

The Blount-Bridgers House, a federal style plantation home built by General Thomas Blount in 1808, is a hallmark of the town’s 45-block historic district and the center of the town’s art culture. It is home to the Hobson Pittman Memorial Gallery which contains 400 pieces of the artist’s personal collection.

“When Hobson’s niece, Alice Weeks Gordon Patrick, donated this collection to the Town of Tarboro we did two things—we saved a very important historic house and created a museum of art that has been vital in our community,” said Edwards.

Pittman, born in 1899, spent his childhood in Tarboro where he began to foster a love of art and a deep appreciation for the artistic beauty that surrounded him. He studied and painted all over the world gradually making a name for himself. Pittman is best known for his oil and watercolors of interiors, his still life work, and dream-like landscapes.

“Hobson’s work was often influenced by his childhood in Tarboro,” said Buddy Hooks, curator. “His work is full of nostalgia and different periods of his life — whether he was lonely or more secure — was demonstrated in his work.”

Hooks and fellow curator Motsie Brooks, helped design a Collectors’ Exhibit of Pittman’s work, on loan from private collections and museums around the country, which opened the evening of April 30 and will run through May 31.

“He was often known as the poet of the empty room or empty chair, as they were features of his work. He always wanted you to make up your own story about his paintings,” said Brooks.

Creating one’s own story was the essence of "Of Brewton House,” a modern ballet piece derived from Pittman’s painting, “The Miles Brewton House.” Steven Melendez, principal dancer of the New York Theatre Ballet was commissioned to choreograph the original ballet which held its world premiere in the town last week.

While visiting Charleston, South Carolina, Pittman became enthralled with the Miles Brewton House, a Georgian style townhouse and National Historic Landmark, built in 1769 for Miles Brewton. It was from Pittman’s memory of visiting this house that he painted one of its interior rooms in a beautiful pastel in 1947.

“I think most creative processes are similar to this and when there is a collaboration like the one we are involved in, there are lots of points of influence that craft the final product,” said Melendez.

To further involve the community in the project, Meledez and fellow dancers hosted 10 days

Mayu Oguri, a dancer with the New York Theatre Ballet, warms up before rehearsals at Edgecombe Community College in Tarboro.

A pastel work titled “Miles Brewton House” by artist Hobson Pittman sits in the BlountBridgers House museum in Tarboro. The New York Theatre Ballet company used this artwork as inspiration for a dance that the town of Tarboro commissioned which the ballet titled “Of Brewton House”.

of open rehearsals and public school visits in which they taught children about art and dance.

As an exhibit and a ballet were carefully crafted, the community offered one final toast to the artist, to this historic house and to the people of the town in a festive gala dubbed, “Here’s to Hobson!” which served as fundraiser to support the efforts of the Blount-Bridgers House in preservation of the home and collection.

The gardens of the plantation were surrounded by torches, live music waffled through the air, the Collectors’ Exhibit held its grand opening, and guests were treated to a vignette performance of the Pittman-based ballet.

“’Here’s to Hobson!’ was so much more than a beautiful and fun evening. It’s a shining example of a group of great minds, unique talents and the selfless volunteerism that only the community of Tarboro can demonstrate. There is something so special about being a part of an idea that evolved beautifully through the individuals who have seen it through,” said Marian Barnhill, gala chair.

Just as Pittman created a visual revolution on a canvas, the people of the small town of Tarboro came together one-by-one with their vast array of talents to develop a celebration of Hobson Pittman that embodied the spirit of artistic expression and community.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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gather concours d’elegance | Pinehurst Left, A detail look inside the engine bay of a Jaguar XJ220 owned by Gordon Logan, of Georgetown, T.X. Right, A detail look inside the engine bay of a Jaguar XJ220 owned by Gordon Logan, of Georgetown, T.X. Right, A detail look at the hood ornament of a 1935 Auburn Custom 653 owned by John Bools, of Hickory, N.C., as it sits in front of the Carolina Hotel at the Pinehurst Resort before the Iron Mike Rally, Friday, April 29.

A view of the front end of a 1963 Morgan 4/4 owned by Jack and Pat Zimmerman, of Pinehurst, as it sits in front of the Carolina Hotel at the Pinehurst Resort before the Iron Mike Rally, Friday, April 29.

By Josh Hyatt North State Journal t was a homecoming, of sorts, for this former soldier. But this time, this vet drove home in a Vette.

Don Meluzio, now a car dealership owner from York, Pa., drove his one-of-a-kind pearlescent blue metallic 1964 Chevrolet Corvette styling car in the fourth annual Iron Mike Rally on April 29.

What a long, strange trip it’s been for a man whose sole job, at one time, was to deter Soviet aircraft from entering German airspace via shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

The rally event, staged the day before competition started at the Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance, is one of the most potent draws for collectors when deciding whether or not to make a trip to Pinehurst part of their concours schedule for the year.

Not to mention, the proceeds of its various events benefit the United Service Organization of North Carolina, the first and oldest continuously operating USO in the world, which assists the nearly 25 percent of the U.S. armed forces that call N.C. home.

Juxtaposing the history and prestige of both venues, the Iron Mike Rally features a procession of the competition’s entrants, who make the roughly 70-mile round-trip trek from Pinehurst to Fort Bragg to show their vehicles there as a gesture of respect and appreciation for our armed forces.

For Meluzio, even though his Corvette — which was originally custom-made by famous GM designer Bill Mitchell for Ozzie Olson’s wife — won a Pinehurst Award, participating in his first Iron Mike Rally made the trip worthwhile.

“I did my basic training at Fort Bragg,” he said. “And although it was tough, I loved it. And I always loved Fort Bragg. When I was told about the event, they told me they do the Iron Mike Rally. I’m much more interested in coming to the Iron Mike Rally than I was coming to the concours. This is lovely, they do a really good job, but I wanted to go to Fort Bragg. I was always proud of the 82nd Airborne connection.”

Meluzio was stationed in Germany from 1969 to 1970 as a redeye gunner.

“Redeye is a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile,” he said. “Of course you didn’t take that to Vietnam, because if they took that they could shoot our helicopters down. So I went to the Fulda Gap in Germany, and our objective was to keep the Russians out of Germany. You would think that sounds a little facetious, but…they invaded Czechoslovakia and the Americans were afraid that they would keep on going.”

After 18 months stationed in the Fulda Gap, Meluzio came home with a newfound appreciation for German cars and road racing. So he bought a Porsche as soon as he could afford it. He is now the proud owner of a fleet of 15 self-proclaimed “weird” and “really strange” vehicles, perhaps most notably including the only Porsche 901 prototype known to exist.

When asked if the folks he met at Fort Bragg reminded him of himself when he was there decades ago, he quickly — and humbly — said “no.”

“All these guys are true heroes. I went to Germany and drank beer,” he said. “These guys went to Iraq and Afghanistan six and seven times. Whoo, man, it’s just something else.”

One soldier who calls Fort Bragg home now, Sgt. Brenton Jackson, was caught roaming wide-eyed amongst the showcase of vehicles. Currently working on his own project — a 1972 El Camino — he was smiling ear to ear while viewing the variety of cars and trucks that both collectors and base attendees had brought.

“I love it,” he said. “It’s also really good to see people who’ve served and give back to Fort Bragg. For them to bring their cars out here, it’s really a lot of motivation for me. Because I’m working on my own car and hopefully when I get to their point I want to be able to do the same thing.”

While Meluzio traveled from out of state, many of the competitors came from various parts of N.C., including Jim Meek, a Greenville native, who is also Ferrari Club of America’s Southeast regional director.

Meek brought his rare black “single mirror” 1986 Ferrari Testarossa to the concours, which he says took him six to eight months of ownership just to get the vehicle running again. It hadn’t had a belt change in 12 years.

“It actually was a barn find, really bad shape, about two years ago,” Meek said. “I do all the restoration work myself, it’s what I do for a hobby — I take the cars apart and put them back together.”

By the end of the two-day event, which featured 100 vehicles in the concours, more than twice that on the fairway, and catered to roughly 12,500 visitors, Peter Boyle had stolen the show. Boyle, the owner of a sublime 1928 Isotta Fraschini 8ASS, had captured his second Best in Show in the event’s four-year history, becoming the first Pinehurst Concours alumnus to tally multiple wins.

While that is truly a marvelous accomplishment, Bob Ingram, the pharmaceutical business guru who is the chairman of the concours, said his most rewarding experience happened during the Iron Mike Rally.

“The highlight of my weekend was yesterday,” he said, with tears in his eyes and hesitation in his voice. “I rode as a passenger in one of my cars with a Silver Star, two-time Bronze Star with Valor, soldier. Green Beret. Magnificent guy. And he’s thanking me — I should be thanking him.”

PHOTOS BY EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Gordon and Bettye Logan, of Georgetown, T.X., drive up in their 1936 Auburn 852 S/C Boartail Speedster to accept the best in class award for Class 1: Pre-War American (Open & Closed Until 1942) during the fourth annual Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance, Saturday, April 30. The vintage car showcase takes over a fairway at the iconic golf resort to display historic and rare automobiles while raising money for charities like the USO of North Carolina.

Tom Zarrella, of Gloucester, MA, gives a ride to Sergeant First Class Alan Leturno of the Army Airborne in his 1958 Porsche Speedster during the Iron Mike Rally, Friday, April 29. Part of the fourth annual Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance, the Iron Mike Rally brought together rare, classic automobiles and Fort Bragg soldiers for a 70-mile roundtrip cruise from Pinehurst Resort to Fort Bragg to honor members of the military.

Rare automobiles head to Fort Bragg during the Iron Mike Rally, Friday, April 29. Part of the fourth annual Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance, the Iron Mike Rally brought together rare, classic automobiles and Fort Bragg soldiers for a 70-mile round-trip cruise from Pinehurst Resort to Fort Bragg to honor members of the military.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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perspectives Ikea | Charlotte

By Samantha Gratton North State Journal

M

other’s Day has taken on a new meaning for me. Expecting my first child at the end of August, I recently began my rite of passage into motherhood that the books and blogs call “nesting.”

For those unfamiliar with all that nesting entails, it is a dizzying time of countless decisions all aimed at providing a perfect homecoming for your little one. There are all the must-haves like diapers, carseats, strollers, and cribs. But it doesn’t stop there.

What will you do about baby wearing?

And childcare? And preparing a Pinterest-worthy nursery? (I’m going to throw up, that’s what, and blame it on morning sickness.)

With a limited budget and a small space to work with, there was only one logical place to go to solve my nursery woes — IKEA. If you have ever made the trek through the winding path of Swedish furniture, you know what a blessing and a curse this journey can be. Decently priced and modern-looking furniture can be bought in exchange for hours of your life wandering their store and then later assembling each item yourself with the picture book they call “directions” as your guide.

I came prepared with a detailed list and my patient husband in tow with one primary goal in mind: buy a crib. We started the afternoon with meatballs from the cafeteria and set out at a pleasant pace through the showroom filled with the looks and interior design you could create in your own home. I confidently thought to myself, “We’re doing so well! Look at us just flying through and making great time. This is such a fun way to spend the day together.”

The children’s section is at the end of the showroom and quite frankly, could not be any cuter. It promises adorable little beds and furniture sets without the reality of crying babies or smelly diapers. There were a number of cribs to choose from but not so many that it got overwhelming. He wanted a white crib to match the changing table/ dresser we found along the way, and my criteria included a crib that would later convert into a toddler bed. We picked our final choice and wrote down the item number and its location in the warehouse with ease.

It felt too good to be true.

Scott gratton | for the NORTH STATE JOURNAL

From there, we headed to the marketplace which is the area of IKEA where you can actually start adding items to your cart, but before you get to the boxes of furniture.

We perused the kitchen, bathroom, and storage sections simply picking up odds and ends before we basically lost our minds for at least an hour in the textiles section. Who knew curtains and throw pillows could be so complicated? Our brains turned to mush as we debated how dark the baby’s room needed to be and slowly lost all concept of what colors looked like beyond the fluorescent lights in the lower level of IKEA. Thus began the vicious color cycle conversation.

“Is that gray?”

“No! It’s blue…or is it green?”

“Maybe it’s mislabeled because that is clearly brown.”

“We don’t want a brown baby room, do we? But I like the fabric…so maybe in the living room?”

Once we finally broke free of textiles with a curtain set that neither of us seemed

thrilled about, we hit the light section. I’m not sure if it was the time we spent struggling with curtains or our uncertainty about what actual colors were, but my husband found himself in a slight trance while looking at the multi-colored LED lights.

Will it later be a strange nightlight during midnight diaper changings? I no longer cared but instead threw it in the cart and made a dash for frames and art. We were so close to the end, we could smell it. Well, actually that was just the scent of all the candles placed at the end of the marketplace before you entered the self-service warehouse, but close enough.

We got our furniture cart and all but limped our way down the aisles piled high with boxes of furniture as my pregnant body started to feel the impact of four hours of nonstop walking. We grabbed the changing table, picked up the baby mattress, and all that was left was the crib—our primary purpose of the trip. Alas, our crib was nowhere to be found. There was only a label

of where it should be. After flagging down an employee, my fears were confirmed: this crib was out of stock with no new shipment in sight.

I would not, could not accept failure. We were buying a crib at this point, no matter what. So, it came down to two options—a white ornate crib or a slightly more expensive convertible crib. It was our first real style versus function decision for our baby, and I chose function. We called it good and jammed all of our new favorite belongings in the car.

Two days later, I called my husband in a panic. After hours of internet searching and going down the baby gear rabbit hole I had returned to our plight for a crib. The ornate crib that he preferred? It is not only cheaper but in fact, does convert to a toddler bed.

Therefore, we decided to make the 150mile drive to IKEA once more in order to get our kid the perfect crib. Happy Mother’s Day to me.

MOTHER TEACHER from page C1 Jett Wrenn, homeschooling mother of four in Wake Forest, agrees, “Moms are teachers; that’s what we do. Even if we’re not teaching academia, we’re teaching how to live our beliefs, how to cook a meal, how to navigate the world.

In addition to those things, I also teach how to write, read, add. But I don’t stop being mom or teacher. They’re intertwined.”

That lack of clear differentiation can be a hindrance at times, says Scott, who believes children act up more for the people they’re closest with, and therefore are less likely to cooperate in a homeschool environment than they would be in a public or conventional private school.

Carrie Whiteside, who teaches her four children at home in Knightdale, says the lack of delineation means a woman fills both roles simultaneously, which can be demanding. “If your child has a difficult project, instead of coming to mom for help, they’re blaming mom for assigning the project in the first place,” she says.

“The mother-child relationship can be strained, and it takes a lot of effort to keep that in balance.”

There are other sacrifices inherent in the jobs, not the least of which are time and money, according to Natalie Price, Apex mom and homeschool teacher to three. A homeschooling mom misses out on things that her stay-at-home counterpart might take for granted, such as the opportunity to run errands while the kids are in school. “I’m with them all the time,” Price says.

“We have to be intentional when making appointments.”

Adds Whiteside, “Running a household is a lot more difficult when there are five people here every day. It’s a big job to be a homemaker and a homeschooling mom at the same time.”

Wrenn concurs, “I don’t get as much alone time or to pursue my interests. I’m not even sure what moms do who send their kids off.”

Homeschooling can take an emotional toll as well. Scott says her frustration with a non-compliant student can easily carry over into the rest of the day, impacting the familial relationship.

As with other facets of life, it’s the moms making the sacrifices, while the kids seemingly don’t mind. Having been homeschooled as a child — and having married another homeschool alumnus — Whiteside is qualified to judge the experience from a student’s perspective. “I loved it,” she gushes. “I think my husband really did, too. We both come from family-oriented homes; we enjoy being together.”

All four agree their pupils show no signs of regret at learning from mom, and Wrenn points out that any challenge in learning at home,

PHOTOS BY EAMON QUEENEY | NORTH STATE JOURNAL

Carrie Whiteside goes over a geography lesson using a blow-up globe with her son Caleb, 4, left, and daughter Natalie, 6, center, in their Knightdale home, Wednesday, May 4. Carrie and her husband were both homeschooled and now they homeschool their four children including sons Isaac, 15, and Ethan, 13.

would have been the same challenge in another environment. “If math is hard here, it would be hard there,” she expounds, adding that her kids are happy to escape catching a 6:30 a.m. bus and sitting behind a desk for most of the day.

Another way to look past the sacrifices, the four agree, is to consider the rewards. For Scott, those include the opportunity for her kids to spend more time with their father, who works most evenings — if their kids were in school, they wouldn’t get to see him as much.

Whiteside feels it’s amazing to see all of her kids’ firsts that might have occurred in school, away from her. Wrenn, a former school teacher, relishes the chance to give the gift of learning to her own kids. And Price cherishes the opportunity to simply spend more time with her children. After all, she says, “I only get 18 years with them under my roof.”

Caleb Whiteside, 4, paints a Zebra during an art project in his Knightdale home.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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Sunday Poem C7

Bundling tobacco in the packhouse with WCKY EDITOR’s NOTE

In a poem, the words take center stage. The rhythmic quality of language, the break of a stanza— each are chosen by the poet to illustrate the story. For the month of May we invite you to enjoy this verbal music provided by North Carolina’s poet laureate, Shelby Stephenson, in a series of poems for the North State Journal.

illustration for the north state journal | Jessie judge

Those days haunt me with a definite charm, The packhouse’s evenings in yellow light — Tobacco-Tying — grasping a bundle, One hand, rolling with the other the wrapped Leaf pressed roundly to tie the tobacco, Then to shake the leaves out to see it tight.

Want to hear a piece of the rest they wrapped Harmoniously selling tobacco: For with Tube Rose, believe you me — Oh, charm?

You get gifts for free — free — a whole bundle.

I’ll recite a bit of an ad, a tight Lord’s Last Supper Table Cloth spot — a light

I vision Romance holding its head tight Around the room, my family a charm In that odor of curing tobacco, The evenings made more special by a light, The veiled glow of the Philco’s music wrapped In that gradin-room, one solid bundle.

Shining on Judas! One sings the price, the light Moves a line along — get the picture? Wrapped Disciples, twelve, “including Judas!” Tight Medicine to believe that tobacco And Jesus might save us in one bundle; So we should buy mercy in one big charm.

WCKY — dialed for our bundle, As autumn’s harvest fell in close, tick-tight Western swing of the Spade Cooley Band wrapped In our ears: “Steel Guitar Rag,” the same charm And theme for the Jamboree and our light, The joy of sounds just for our tobacco.

We never wrapped our lives in things real tight.

We worked for light, our main crop, tobacco.

Raney and Glosson would do tobacco Ads for Tube Rose Snuff: we’d tie a bundle Faster when the duo twanged corny light Parodies of novelty country — tight Stuff: If your snuff’s too strong, it’s wrong — what charm!

Get Tube Rose, get Tube Rose — their voices wrapped.

For she was a light for his loosely tight Wads, a bundle, we neither made nor wrapped.

My mother’s charm built a new house — and light.

My father wrapped himself in her bundle —

Shelby Stephenson grew up on "Paul's Hill," a farm named after his father in Johnston County. Stephenson is a lifelong poet, musician, and teacher. He resides on his family farm with his wife and serves North Carolina as poet laureate.

COMING UP in the good life Giddy-up

We’re heading to the North Carolina High School Rodeo for a view into this sport as they lead up to their state championship.

Up a tree

What’s up with the recreational tree climbing group in N.C.?

We can’t wait to tell you all about it.

I scream, you scream...

We all scream for Simply Natural Creamery after a visit with their Jersey girls and sampling the wares.

North State Journal for Sunday, May 8, 2016

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pen & Paper pursuits I reckon . . .

Your guide to what’s what, where, why, and how to say it.

Saxapahaw

color AWAY!

Celebrate your mother, grandmother, or mother-like figure in your life with our tea party coloring and remember to share your work with us at #coloraway.

Nestled in the Piedmont, this unincorporated hamlet in Alamance County is a former mill town, and if you ask a local they will pronounce it SAX-puh-haw. If you find yourself on I-85 unable to deal with the traffic or want to put a fun outing on your N.C. bucket list, go check it out— there’s an outstanding general store and a mighty fine music venue to be found there.

Janric classic sudoku

Solutions to puzzles from 5.1.16

illustration for the north state journal | AMY RICHARDS