the BRIEF this week
10 people shot at holiday weekend
S.C. boat party
Little River, S.C. Authorities say 10 people were shot during a ght that started on a private boat holding a holiday weekend party on the South Carolina coast. Horry County Police say no one died in the shooting in Little River around 9:30 p.m. Sunday, although some of the wounded are in critical condition. At least one person was taken to the hospital who was not hurt by gun re. Police said the shooting happened around a dock where a private charter boat leaves for cruises. The boat was docked, and police are trying to determine where the ght and shooting began.
NPR sues Trump admin over funding cuts to public media
National Public Radio and three local stations are suing President Donald Trump, arguing that an executive order aimed at cutting federal funding for the organization is illegal. The lawsuit was led in federal court in Washington, D.C., by NPR, Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE. It argues that Trump’s order to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR violates the First Amendment. Trump issued the order earlier this month, instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and requires they work to root out indirect sources of public nancing for the news organizations.
Wolfspeed shares fall by half on bankruptcy rumors
Report: A Chapter 11 ling could come within weeks
By Dan Reeves Chatham News & Record
DURHAM — Shares in Wolfspeed fell more than 50% last week on a report that the Durham-based semiconductor maker is preparing to le for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Wolfspeed could le within weeks and is working on a “prepackaged” bankruptcy — a plan already negotiated with creditors to buy time for a company to con-
tinue operations while reorganizing its debts and assets.
Wolfspeed, formerly known as Cree, has turned down recent o ers to restructure portions of its debt, the rst of which is due in 2026. Instead, the company is seeking what it called a more “comprehensive solution” to its nancial challenges.
“Optimizing our capital structure has been a stated priority,” Wolfspeed head of investor relations Tyler Gronbach said in a statement after the story was released. “We are evaluating a number of potential alternatives and may implement
See WOLFSPEED, page A10
Chatham gathers to honor the fallen
Memorial Day is about much more than barbecue
By Bob Wachs For Chatham News & Record
SILER CITY — Aging men with graying heads and beards, some younger ones who could still stand straight, others with canes, some in uniform or colors, even a few on motorcycles, a handful of women veterans — they all came to the West Chatham Veterans Memorial in Siler City on Monday.
The occasion was a Memorial Day observance that would, as Richard Caviness of Liberty American Legion Post 81 said, “let our memory be the least we could o er for what they gave.”
But they weren’t alone. Along with the veterans and their memories that showed up, there were wives and mothers and sweethearts and public o cials and interested onlookers.
See MEMORIAL, page A7
The Chatham County budget is up signi cantly from the prior year
By Ryan Henkel Chatham News & Record
PITTSBORO — The Chatham County Board of Commissioners held its rst public hearing for the recommended FY 2025-26 budget on May 19.
The budget totals approximately
$288 million, a sizable increase from the prior year’s budget which ended up ballooning to around $205 million.
Some of the biggest increases in expenses include the full-year implementation of the new pay plan, a 4% salary adjustment for employees, an expansion of county positions (16), bene t increases and contractual and operational increases due to in ation and more.
Two key investments in this budget
also involve both education and public safety.
The county is appropriating approximately $3 million in additional funding for Chatham County Schools to address compensation and xed cost bene t adjustments, supplement increase for teachers as well as capital outlay needs.
For the Sheri ’s O ce, the budget calls for approximately $2.3 million in increased funding to support continuation of full body-camera rollouts, contractual increases, operating costs, increased sta ng and capital outlay needs.
“Signi cant nancial pressures are being recognized in the upcoming scal year, primarily around education and public safety,” said County Manager Bryan Thompson. “We are organized and positioned to address challenges around
BOB WACHS FOR CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Respects were paid with a solemn ceremony at the West Chatham Veterans Memorial in Siler City on Memorial Day.
PJ WARD-BROWN / CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
The Wolfspeed construction site outside Siler City was quiet on Tuesday.
May 18
• Patricia Simmons Nettles, 59, of Pittsboro, was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence.
• Angela Wyatt, 30, of Kenly, was arrested for resisting a public o cer and assaulting a government o cial.
• Ricardo Uriel Nava, 25, of Siler City, was arrested for driving while impaired, driving with a revoked license, and not wearing a seatbelt.
May 21
• Cornellius Laytray Curtis, 48, of New London, was arrested for communicating threats.
• Edwin Silva-Badillo, 22, of Carrboro, was arrested for statutory rape of a child 15 or younger, taking indecent liberties with a child, and statutory sex o ense with a child 15 or younger.
• Omar Sharif Reaves, 45, of Pittsboro, was arrested for possession with intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver cocaine, selling or delivering cocaine, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
• Angela Anastasia Wyatt, 30, of Kenly, was arrested for misdemeanor larceny.
from page A1
growth and development and we’re preparing to make adjustments as we do leading into the next scal year as things may change.”
Thompson also noted that the county is projecting a slow down in locally collected sales tax (4% below prior year), which is trailing statewide growth (3% above prior year).
“It is a very unique time for Chatham County as we have seen marked changes in consumer spending and a slowdown in new residential development, yet we are still in the midst of signi cant growth and change within the county,” Thompson said.
Along with the proposed budget, county sta are recommending a tax rate of $0.60 per $100 valuation as opposed to the revenue neutral rate of $0.5296 per $100 valuation.
Currently, the tax rate is $0.725, so the proposed rate is a reduction of $0.125.
However, due to the recent property reevaluations, most property owners will still more than likely see an increase in their tax bill despite the lowered tax rate.
“As we move forward into
$288.3M
The recommended county budget for 2025-26
the next scal year, I am condent that this budget will enable us to address current challenges, seize opportunities for growth and innovation and continue building a stronger, more resilient Chatham County,” Thompson said.
The recommended budget also features a few fee increases including a $20 increase in annual solid waste fee, $5 per tonnage increase in yard waste disposal fee and a $15 per tonnage for land clearing and inert debris disposal fee.
“This is strictly to keep up with the cost of doing business and maintain the enterprise nature of this fund so that it does pay for itself,” Thompson said.
The board is slated to vote on approval of the budget on June 16.
At that same meeting, the board also held a quasi-judicial hearing for a special use
permit revision for the Chatham Downs shopping center, located at 88 Chatham Downs Drive.
The revision would allow for the construction of a Harris Teeter gas station to the site.
“Chatham Downs was originally approved in 2003,” said Zoning Administrator Angela Plummer. “There’s various uses in this conditional use B-1, which is the legacy zoning district that we no longer have, but because it was approved under a conditional use permit they could come in and ask for a revision to that permit to change the site plan and add an additional use.”
The gas station will be built upon a 0.8 acre tract and will have eight, 24/7 pumping stations.
“At the time, Chatham Downs was approved, there were maybe a couple uses that were excluded and this was not one of them, so it’s something they’re allowed to come and ask for,” Plummer said.
Following the hearing, the board referred it back to the planning board for nal approval.
The Chatham County Board of Commissioners will next meet June 16.
Here’s a quick look at what’s coming up in Chatham County:
May 30
Briar Chapel Farmers Market 4-6 p.m.
Every Friday, 10 local vendors gather on the Green of Green Meadow Park to o er an assortment of fresh produce, meats, baked goods, oral arrangements and foods to eat. The last Friday of each month also hosts a selection of local and regional artisans selling their crafts.
161 Salt Cedar Lane Chapel Hill
Jack the Radio at Bynum Front Porch
7-8:30 p.m.
Family-friendly, free musical performance with donations welcomed. Concessions will be available onsite. Free parking.
Front Porch, Bynum General Store 950 Bynum Road Bynum
May 31
Chatham Mills Farmers Market
8 a.m. to noon
This weekly outdoor farmers market is a producers-only market, which means the wide variety of goods o ered there, from fresh produce to other groceries, including eggs, cheese and meat, along with health and wellness items and crafts, are produced or created by the vendors themselves.
Lawn of the historic Chatham Mills
480 Hillsborough St. Pittsboro
June 1
Vegan Eggs
Cooking Class
11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Cooking instructor Monika Soria Caruso will lead this class, where participants will learn how to create delicious, assorted cuisine dishes using vegan eggs. Enjoy free food samples, take home recipes to try and receive a free carton of vegan eggs. $20/person. Piedmont Farm Animal Refuge
Refuge Pavilion
7236 N.C. Highway 87 Pittsboro
June 4
Jazz Night at The Sycamore at Chatham Mills
6-9 p.m.
Every Wednesday night from 6-9 p.m., The Sycamore at Chatham Mills hosts live Jazz Nights. The series features a rotating list of local musicians. The Sycamore also o ers its Lounge Menu in the dining room on Wednesday nights. Reservations are highly recommended.
480 Hillsboro St, Suite 500 Pittsboro
CRIME LOG
Chatham Animal Resource O cer Justin Green holds a baby hawk that was rescued from a busy roadway on May 15. The young raptor was found sitting motionless near the intersection of N.C. 22 and N.C. 42 by CCSO Investigator Jon Murray. The hawk is now receiving care at Holly’s Nest Animal Rescue until it’s old enough to survive on its own.
Two charged after Bonlee convenience store altercation rescued
One man was airlifted to the hospital with a broken leg after being hit by a car
Chatham News & Record sta
BONLEE — The Chatham County Sheri ’s O ce has charged two men following a May 8 altercation outside a convenience store that involved both a reported stabbing and a person being struck by a vehicle.
Deputies responded to the Quick N Easy on Old U.S. 421 Highway after receiving reports of a stabbing and a person being hit by a vehicle, according to a sheri ’s o ce press re -
lease. When deputies arrived, they found Gary Wayne Goldston, 61, of Siler City, with a broken leg. Goldston was treated at the scene and later airlifted to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill for additional care. A knife was recovered near where Goldston was found. After reviewing surveillance footage from the store and interviewing Tim Alan Martin, 64, of Bonlee, deputies arrested Martin and charged him with one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill in icting serious injury.
According to court documents, Martin allegedly as-
saulted Goldston with a silver Chrysler Sebring car, which accounts for Goldston’s broken leg. Martin posted a $25,000 bond and is scheduled to appear next month in Chatham County District Court. Goldston was charged with one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and one misdemeanor count of injury to real property. These charges do not appear to have been served yet.
The sheri ’s o ce did not indicate whether Martin sustained injuries in the incident or required medical treatment, nor the circumstances that led to the altercation between the two men.
Join Us On Wednesday, June 4
Noon – 1 p.m.
silercityfbc.org
FIRST WESLEYAN CHURCH 608 N. Third Avenue
We will be having a yard sale, Saturday, June 7 (Rain date – Saturday, June 14) 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Come out and get a bargain!
Many items to choose from. All proceeds will go toward our 100-year Homecoming expenses
Early morning crash kills pedestrian in Pittsboro
No charges expected to be led against the driver
By Melinda Burris Chatham News & Record
PITTSBORO — In the early hours last Monday, a pedestrian was struck and killed near Hillsboro Street and Park Drive in Pittsboro.
Police and EMTs responded to a 911 call at 4:45 a.m. and initiated treatment on the pedestrian, identi ed as Christopher Burns, 56, of Vass, who died at the scene.
Burns was walking in the middle of Hillsboro Street’s southbound lane when he was hit by a vehicle after the driver failed to see him, said a spokesperson for the Pittsboro Police Department. There is no sidewalk access in either direction at the intersection where the collision occurred.
Pittsboro Police Chief Shorty Johnson expressed his condolences to Burns’ family and friends, before saying, “We also recognize the emotional impact events like this have on everyone involved, including the responding o cers and the driver.”
The police department does not expect to le charges against the driver.
This is Pittsboro’s second pedestrian death so far this year, a police department spokesperson said, and comes as pedestrian deaths have been on the rise across the country over the past few years. In 2022, North Carolina experienced the largest annual increase in pedestrian and bicyclist deaths in more than 30 years.
According to the N.C. DMV’s 2023 Tra c Crash Facts Report, some 250 pedestrians died in 2023, that’s a 7.1% decrease from 2022.
COURTESY CHATHAM COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
THE CONVERSATION
Neal Robbins, publisher | Frank Hill, senior opinion editor
COLUMN | ANDREW
A graduation card … for yourself
Your list of things that you like about yourself should always be longer than your list of self-improvements
HERE’S TO THE class of 2025! We are proud of each and every single one of you for your accomplishment. Hopefully, the people closest to you will give you cards that include money!
I would like to share a card-making practice with you that I learned from my 71⁄2-year-old daughter. The directions are simple, yet I think it o ers a valuable lesson.
Step one: Fold a blank piece of paper in half.
Step two: Write your name on the cover and draw a picture of something that makes you smile, perhaps a favorite animal or food. Maybe a self-portrait. Tip: Bubble or block letters are a fun way to write your name. You can also use bright colors!
Step three: Open the card, and on one side write a list of the things that you like about yourself. Use I-statements, such as “I like to make art and teach it to my dad.”
Step four: On the opposite side of the paper, write things that you would like to work on or improve about yourself. Again, use I-statements: “I would like to spend more time making art with my daughter.”
Now, my daughter wants you to know that your list of things that you like about yourself should always be longer than your list of self-improvements. I think this is her most precious insight. I am reminded of the ancient advice: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything
COLUMN | BOB WACHS
worthy of praise, think about these things.” I might add, “Appreciate these things.”
When I was in graduate school, I studied something called Appreciative Inquiry. The basic idea is, rather than approaching a situation, organization or person as a problem in need of solving and thereby identifying what is wrong, begin with appreciation. What is going well? What is working? What is life-giving, delightful, and true?
Dear graduates, wherever you go in life, whatever your next steps are, you will encounter challenges, which can encourage you to learn and grow. However, frustrating roadblocks can also cause you to doubt yourself. Try to remember to appreciate what you have going well, especially your gifts, graces, talents and treasures. With that positive self-understanding of your sacred worth as your foundation, you can then build new skills and address areas for improvement.
I hope this little column makes it into your hands, and more importantly, you remember the basic message of naming your self-worth. I hope that you make yourself this kind of graduation card, possibly with your name spelled out in bright, bubble letters. You are special.
Andrew Taylor-Troutman’s newest book is This Is the Day. He serves as pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church as well as a writer, pizza maker, co ee drinker and student of joy.
Driving toward helping take care of our friends
The bottom line, I think, is this: People and animals share much of the same territory.
I HAVE A HIGH regard for life — the living, breathing, moving kind.
Doesn’t matter if it’s a plant, animal or human; most of the time, I’m into “live and let live.”
Now that doesn’t mean I cultivate poison ivy or am against drawing a bead on a coyote with my ri e, especially if he’s hanging out around some baby calves. I’m also not adverse to doing away with the yellow jacket that just stung me. And if a y gets into my soup, he’s not going to stay there long. But it does mean that I sort of live in a place that says, “I didn’t create or give life, so as a normal mode of operation, I’m not going to do away with it just because I can.”
But lest my vegan, nonmeat, nonegg or milk or other dairy product-eating friends raise their eyebrows, I’m also not talking about the New York strip I like to see on my plate once in a while. I’m talking about the random wanton destruction of life that conveys, I think, an attitude of “I-don’t-care.”
One of the places we see that is on the highways and byways of our world, especially for those of us who avoid the concrete sidewalks of urban life.
Obviously, sometimes, this taking of wildlife life can’t be helped. Bambi and her friends lead the list or are right there at the top. I’m not sure where deer fall in the animal kingdom ranking of bright beings, but if I had to say, I’d say not at the top. If they did, they wouldn’t try to cross the road in front of a semi hauling a load of hogs.
One year, my better half and I got ve of the white-tailed eet-footed creatures, including the one that saw us, turned back away toward the woods from which she came and then did an about-face and broad-sided us. Maybe she was having a bad day, or maybe she saw and remembered when we got one of the other four. ... I don’t know, but I do know it was not a good decision on her part.
In addition to the deer, Mr. Squirrel is also on the list of roadway endangered species. If you’ve ever driven up behind one of the furry little rodents lolly-gagging in the middle of the road you see them — as soon as they see you — run here and there, take a couple of steps to the left, then zig right before trying to outrun you or bolting o to the other side. Most of them make it, but not all; but, hey, Mr. Buzzard also has to eat.
The bottom line, I think, is this: People and animals share much of the same territory. Most of the time, we’re bigger than they are, so it pays to pay attention. Don’t have a wreck trying to avoid Mr. Possum, and it’s not a good idea to get out of your vehicle to move something.
I’ve hit my share of animals through 60-plus years of driving and still remember how sick it made me when, years ago, I couldn’t avoid a dog that appeared from a grassy shoulder and tried to outrun me before I could slow down to miss him.
But — and here’s the big but — it’s not cool to go out of your way to smush something. On a nearby paved road the other day, I saw a perfect example of that random, wanton destruction of life. Mr. Turtle did not make it on his journey from one side to the other. I’ve always heard those folks cross the road on their travels, looking for water. Unfortunately for them, it can take a while to complete the task, and they either need a better travel agent or to ask the chicken how to cross the road.
The thing that struck me as I motored on was that Mr. Turtle met his end not on the edge of the pavement or near the center line where the left wheels would ride. Instead, he was lying there in bits and pieces, dead (no pun intended) in the middle of the travel lane. I’m pretty sure, unless the o ending driver was skimming along in something only two inches above ground, that he could have spared Mr. Turtle for another day.
That was especially noticeable and galling to me because earlier in my travels on that same road, while going in the opposite direction, I had observed Mr. Turtle in the middle of a lane just sort of hanging out, apparently enjoying life as a turtle.
So why do it? Don’t know ... maybe a sense of power and control, maybe because the driver is a jerk. I do know it’s not a nice thing to do.
As you come and go on the highways and byways, drive safely; make sure you get home.
And do your best to make sure the critters get home to their families, as well.
Bob Wachs is a native of Chatham County and emeritus editor at Chatham News & Record. He serves as pastor of Bear Creek Baptist Church.
Life lessons from rubber duckies
This lost-atsea rubber ducky cohort actually morphed into a tool for observing ocean currents across the globe.
HOLY MACKEREL!
No, no, no! Not holy mackerel. ’Tis holy rubber duckies in this particular moment. Rubber duckies?
Yep. Ready to move on?
Okey-doke.
During a recent Sunday scroll online, a very dated NPR headline caught my eye: “When 28,800 Bath Toys Are Lost At Sea.” Betting it would’ve caught your eye, too. Of course, it would have. C’mon, be truthful. How many of us have soft hearts and a fondness for yellow rubber duckies? Takes us back to our leisurely childhood baths and wading pools.
… But moving on.
In 1992, a ship-bound consignment of 28,800 rubber duckies was washed into the Paci c Ocean during a storm. (28,800!)
Over the documented course of 15 years, our plucky rubber duckies made landfall in widely disparate places such as Hawaii, South America, Australia, the Paci c Northwest, the U.S. Eastern seaboard, as well as British and Irish shores. Some of those yellow rubber quackers are probably still riding the waves, honing sur ng skills, awaiting landings in unexpected places. This lost-at-sea rubber ducky cohort actually morphed into a tool for observing ocean currents across the globe. Who would’ve thought a covey of cast adrift rubber duckies, showing up in Zanzibar or Costa Rica, would ultimately become
| SUSAN ESTRICH
Blind loyalty
There is a Constitution to uphold.
HOW COULD THEY do it? How could they manipulate his schedule and control his appearances so that no one outside the circle of loyal insiders would see the man we saw the night of that debate?
They were loyal.
In politics, I learned this de nition of loyalty. “Loyalty is not about standing by a friend/the candidate/the boss when they’re right. That’s just good judgment ...” Right or wrong. The closer you get to power, the more you see; loyalty is the price of admission. Everyone has limitations, strengths and weaknesses. When you’re loyal, you recognize them and work around them; you protect the principal, especially from himself.
One of my favorite stories my old friend, the late, great Paul Tully, used to tell recruits to campaigns was about your commitment to the candidate. It’s like a bacon-and-egg breakfast. The chicken was involved. The pig was committed.
Biden’s top aides were committed to him.
They did their jobs well enough that the Democratic Party rallied around an (unfairly) unpopular president who had all but promised not to seek a second term and anointed him.
They had, no doubt, been doing it so well for so long that they managed to convince themselves that they could keep doing it for another term and that the country would be better for it than Donald Trump. That was, obviously, wrong on all counts: wrong in the sense that they overestimated their skills, they could not protect him from himself; and wrong about him being able to beat Trump. And it answered the wrong question.
Loyalty and commitment are rightly valued until and unless they blind you to the greater good, in this case of the country. Blind loyalty is no better than following orders. Their failing was not that they
teaching tools? Not me. Quite honestly, although I’m very, very happy for all you oceanic scientists out there, I don’t really care.
I, however, am truly captivated by the metaphor of unexpected rubber ducky arrivals, well, everywhere. Everywhere! My god, you turn around and suddenly it’s “What’s a rubber ducky doing here? In my living room, of all places!” (OK, just use your imagination.) And suddenly, I’m smiling and feeling happier. Wouldn’t seeing an unexpected rubber ducky in your living room give you pause to smile?
The 1992 rubber ducky sea catastrophe led me directly to the creation of a new theorem: “Life lessons from rubber duckies.” In short (is that really possible?), the world-wide rubber duck odyssey shows me that, at any moment, or place, expect the joyfully unexpected. Feeling a bit bored, I look around, imagine I see a yellow rubber ducky out of the side of my eye, and just light right up. I mean it!
Those cast adrift rubber duckies have wandered all over the globe, likely, giving joy to whoever nds them. Me? My psyche just basks in the reality of those rubber oaters and welcomes them into the way I see the world.
Jan Hutton, a resident of Chatham County and retired hospice social worker, lives life with heart and humor.
couldn’t pull it o , but that they even tried.
Blind loyalty is precisely what Trump is demanding. It is the measure by which he judges people, the ticket for admission to insider status or to the Cabinet. The result is that he is surrounded by sycophants. And he demands it not only from those who he holds close, but from Republicans in Congress, who know better than to be “disloyal” to the president. Never have demands for loyalty to a president been so blatantly marked up in dollars to be spent against you.
I know there are more than a handful of Republicans in Congress (and, literally, all it would take is a handful) who believe that this president is a dangerous man who is shredding the Constitution, driving the economy into recession, giving tax cuts to the wealthy, destroying the planet, attacking our allies and cozying up to our enemies, and whatever else you can add to the list, and making a fortune while doing it. I know there are Republicans as troubled as I am by Trump and his administration’s outing of the rule of law. And yet, their voices are muted. They are as blindly loyal as Biden’s aides were, with no excuse except the sel sh one of self-preservation.
Presidential politics is, ultimately, transparent. You can run, but there is a limit — albeit being tested now — to how long you can hide. Blind loyalty has no place in the White House. There is a higher calling, certainly there. There is a Constitution to uphold. The loyalty of the Biden inner circle ultimately did not hold. There were enough leakers to ll two books and counting. Ultimately, the history of this moment will be written, and the heroes will be those who had the courage and character to stand up for something more than Donald Trump Inc.
Susan Estrich is a lawyer, professor, author and political commentator.
Letters to the editor may be sent to letters@nsjonline.com or mailed to 1201 Edwards Mill Rd., Suite 300, Raleigh, NC 27607. 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. Contact a writer or columnist: connect@northstatejournal.com
COLUMN MICHAEL BARONE
Democrats are discredited and o -kilter
HOW DOES a political party with overwhelming advantages, including increasing support from the growing bloc of highly educated and a uent voters, almost monopoly support from the press and broadcast media, and with burgeoning nancial and high-tech sectors of the economy, manage to lose just about everything across the board?
The Biden administration has been repudiated by voters over the in ation that resulted from its heedless spending and open border policy on immigration, and it has been discredited by recent disclosures of former President Joe Biden’s incapacity and by Democrats in and outside the White House who concealed and lied about his condition.
Most of what used to be called the mainstream media has also been discredited, long since distrusted by perhaps half of Americans, and now shown to have been incompetent or partisanshiply complicit. The Democratic Party’s hopes that President Donald Trump’s job approval rating would zoom down toward zero have been temporarily frustrated, as it has risen slightly in May and is higher than at any point in his rst term.
To illustrate the pickle Democrats are in, it’s helpful to provide a little historical perspective, at least as far back as a dozen years, on the very di erent political climate following the 2012 election. That saw the third consecutive reelection of an incumbent president, something not seen since 1820.
The respected Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg argued that Democrats’ increased support from college graduates, plus huge margins from blacks, Hispanics and young people, would form a “coalition of the ascendant” dominant for years to come. Greenberg was right about trends up to that point. However, he failed to account for the Newtonian law that says for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. His coalition spurred a coalition of the nonascendant. White non-college-educated people living outside milliondollar-plus metropolitan areas spurned Democrats and elected Trump over Hillary Clinton. A similar coalition in Britain produced the unexpected victory for Brexit ve months before. By 2024, after one term each from Trump and Biden, that movement continued, including among non-college-educated Hispanics, Asians and blacks. Figures compiled by the Democratic rm Catalist and spotlighted by Republican pollster Patrick Ru ni showed Republicans gaining 36 points among Latinos aged 18 to 29, 33 points among black men, and 30 points among noncollege-educated Asians between 2012 and 2024. In the process, the Democratic Party has become increasingly dominated by white college-educated people who reliably turn out to vote, contribute lots of money and have poor judgment about what matters will appeal to majorities of the entire electorate. As the nancial adviser Dave Ramsey put it, “The hardest people to convince to use common sense are the smart people.”
High-education voters, repelled by Trump’s crudeness, provided the enthusiasm behind the Russia collusion hoax and the various lawfare prosecutions and attempts to remove Trump from o ce somehow. They provided the impetus behind the awed “science” to extend school closings and other undue COVID-19 restrictions.
After George Floyd’s death in May 2020, they gave support or silent acquiescence to radical calls for defunding the police, to reparations for descendants of slaves, and to continued racial quotas and preferences — all positions opposed by large majorities of voters. Biden, having secured the nomination after winning the majority-black South Carolina primary, felt obliged to name a black woman for vice president, although the party nominated a black presidential candidate twice in the previous three contests. That didn’t happen when “the (mostly) safe middle” was typi ed by Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg’s non-college-educated housewife from Dayton married to a machinist. However, it has happened now that the voter looks like the college-educated professional woman married to a lawyer in the a uent suburbs of Philadelphia.
In contrast, transgender activists impinge on others. They insist that inevitably more muscular biological men must compete in female sports, and they pummel the rare Democrat, such as Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), when they question that. As transgender demands have become better known, they have lost support, as Pew Research reported.
Most voters are motivated by concrete concerns — direct economic interests and ethnic or racial concerns. College-educated voters tend to have more theoretical concerns. Sometimes they may alert others to injustice and persuade them to address it, such as supporters of equal rights for blacks. The danger is that their high regard for their own views leads them to take impolitic stands, such as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ support of government-paid transgender surgeries for prisoners and illegal immigrants. Every political party must strike some balance between the demands of its core constituencies and the beliefs of voters. That’s hard for a party dominated by college-educated activists with theoretical rather than practical concerns. The Democratic Party today, with its discredited leadership and its college-educated core, seems badly o kilter.
Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime coauthor of “The Almanac of American Politics.”
COLUMN
obituaries
Robert “Bobby” Albert Long Sr.
May 22, 2025
Bobby died peacefully May 22nd, 2025, surrounded by his loved ones in Bear Creek, North Carolina. He is preceded in death by his mother Margaret L Long (Walker) and father Joesph E Long Sr. He was also preceded in death by 3 brothers Joseph Long Jr., Edward “Leroy” Long, Johnny Long and his sister Lorraine Trapp.
Bobby grew up in Deale, Maryland where he enjoyed being a Volunteer re ghter and EMT for the Deale re department for many years. He also worked for Giant Foods where he got to dress up as di erent characters
JAMES
like O cer Teddy and King Louie for di erent events and even for the Ronald McDonald house. Some of his favorite things he got to do was play Santa Clause and the Easter bunny for the kids during the holidays or playing in a band Country Memories with his best friends. Anything he could do to put a smile on somebody’s face is what he loved.
He is survived by the love of his life, his wife of 63 years
Carol A Long (Brooks) and their children son, Robert Long Jr and his long-term girlfriend Connie and daughter Julie A Ward (Long). Also, his sister Bonnie Mutter (Long) and brother Ronald Raab-Long and his wife
Suzanne Raab-Long.
He loved his grandchildren
James V Bales II and his wife
Jenn Bales, Robert A Long III and Christina M Smith and her husband Zane Smith Sr. Along with his great grandchildren Nevaeh F Lawson (Bales) and her husband Jonathan Lawson and Zane Smith Jr.
A private celebration of life will be determined later. Smith & Buckner Funeral Home will be assisting the Long family. Online condolences can be made at www.smithbucknerfh. com
DENSON JONES MAY 21, 2025
James Denson Jones, 81, of Bennett, passed away on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at Randolph Hospice House in Asheboro. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, May 24, 2025 at 2:00 p.m. at Fall Creek Baptist Church, Bennett, NC. Burial will follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends in the sanctuary one hour prior to the service and after the service in the church fellowship hall. Joyce-Brady will be open from 1:005:00 p.m. on Friday, May 23, 2025 for friends to sign the register. Denson was a native of Chatham County, the son of the late James Ted Jones and Clara Routh Jones. He was a member of Fall Creek Baptist Church, where he served as Usher, Sunday School teacher and wherever he was needed. Denson was a farmer and worked at Union Carbide and Wilson Brothers over the years. He joined the Bennett Fire Department on October 24, 1988 and served as a volunteer reman and a First Responder. Denson was a beloved husband, father, uncle and great-uncle. He never met a stranger and was sure to leave you with a laugh. Time spent helping others was most important to him.
Celebrate the life of your loved ones. Submit obituaries and death notices to be published in Chatham News & Record at obits@chathamrecord.com
We offer an on-site crematory with many options of Celebration of Life services, Traditional, and Green Burials. Call us to set an appointment to come by and learn more.
Indianapolis Colts’ music-loving owner Jim Irsay dies at age 65
He led the colts from the bottom to be Super Bowl champions
By Michael Marot The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Jim Ir-
say, the Indianapolis Colts’ owner who leveraged the popularity of Peyton Manning into a new stadium and a Super Bowl title, died Wednesday at age 65.
Pete Ward, Irsay’s longtime right-hand man and the teams chief operating o cer, made the announcement in a statement from the team. He said Irsay died peacefully in his sleep.
“Jim’s dedication and passion for the Indianapolis Colts in addition to his generosity, commitment to the community, and most importantly, his love for his family were unsurpassed,” Ward said. “Our deepest sympathies go to his daughters, Carlie Irsay-Gordon, Casey Foyt, Kalen Jackson, and his entire family as we grieve with them.”
Irsay had a profound impact on the franchise.
With Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian, Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy and Manning, Irsay helped turn the Colts from a laughingstock into a perennial title contender. But Irsay had battled health
problems in recent years and became less visible following a fall at his home. Police o cers from Carmel, Indiana, a northern suburb of Indy, responded to a 911 call from Irsay’s home Dec. 8. According to the police report, the o cers found Irsay breathing but unresponsive and with a bluish skin tone.
Ward, the report said, told o cers he was worried Irsay was su ering from congestive heart failure and that Irsay’s nurse had said Irsay’s oxygen level was low, his breathing was labored and he was “mostly” unconscious.
A month later, he was diagnosed with a respiratory illness.
During his annual training camp news conference last summer, Irsay told reporters he was continuing to rehab from two subsequent surger-
“Jim’s dedication and passion for the Indianapolis Colts in addition to his generosity, commitment to the community, and most importantly, his love for his family were unsurpassed.”
Pete Ward, Indianapolis Colts COO
ies — though he remained seated in his golf cart. Irsay did not speak during the recent NFL draft as he typically did.
He had also battled addictions to alcohol and painkillers.
Irsay began his football life as a ball boy after his late father, Robert, acquired the team in a trade with the late Carroll Rosenbloom, who took over the Los Angeles Rams. The younger Irsay then worked his way up, becoming the youngest general manager in NFL history at age 24. He succeeded his father as owner in early 1997.
He also collected guitars, befriended musicians and often found inspiration in rock ’n’ roll lyrics.
ZACH BOLINGER / AP PHOTO
Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay in September 2021 in Indianapolis.
MEMORIAL from page B1
Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, is one of three military-themed national holidays, and these folks were on hand to note the day that honors those who gave their lives in defense of America. The other two holidays — Armed Forces Day and Veterans Day — are focused on those still serving or who have served.
Dodging a light afternoon sprinkle, the festivities got underway with a welcome from Post 93 commander Carin O’Brien, patriotic music, the Pledge of Allegiance, the reading of “In Flanders Field” by Post 277 commander Mark Brooks and a prayer by the Rev. Jason Golden asking God “for wisdom
to no longer enter into strife” while at the same time “remembering those who gave of themselves” and “asking for the ultimate love and peace of Jesus Christ.”
Siler City Mayor Donald Matthews was the keynote speaker, talking about valor and pointing out its meaning as “going above and beyond in the face of adversity, especially in con ict... by someone who will stand and ght.”
He cited two examples from World War II — Dorie Miller and Desmond Doss — as examples of that valor. Miller was an African American sailor stationed on the battleship USS West Virginia when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Al-
Longtime US Rep. Charles Rangel dead at 94
He represented New York for nearly half a century
By Deepti Hajela and Cedar Attanasio The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, an outspoken, gravel-voiced Harlem Democrat who spent nearly ve decades on Capitol Hill and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, died Monday at age 94. His family con rmed the death in a statement provided by City College of New York spokesperson Michelle Stent. He died at a hospital in New York, Stent said. A veteran of the Korean War, he defeated legendary Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell in 1970 to start his congressional career. During the next 40plus years, he became a legend himself as dean of the New York congressional delegation and, in 2007, the rst African American to chair the powerful Ways and Means Committee. He stepped down from that committee amid an ethics cloud, and the House censured him in 2010. But he continued to serve in Congress until his retirement in 2017.
Rangel was the last surviving member of the Gang of Four — African American political gures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics. The others were David Dinkins, New York City’s rst black
“They went above and beyond and fought for something they believed in.”
Donald Matthews, Siler City mayor
though he was a kitchen attendant at that time, during the attack, he carried a number of sailors to safety, including the ship’s captain. Although he had no training in gunnery, he manned an antiaircraft gun and, according to eyewitnesses, shot down as many as six enemy aircraft.
Doss was an Army medic, a conscientious objector who enlisted, saying he wanted to save lives rather than take them. During a particularly heavy day of ghting on Okinawa, he saved the lives of 75 soldiers by dashing back and forth in combat to bring them to safety.
“These were men of valor,” Matthews said. “They went above and beyond and fought for something they believed in, one overcoming adversity because of the color of his skin and the other because of his religion.”
But they were all Americans, as Matthews noted.
“There’s something about being an American that’s di erent from being someone else. We may not have the same pol-
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mayor; Percy Sutton, who was Manhattan Borough president; and Basil Paterson, a deputy mayor and New York secretary of state.
“Charlie was a true activist — we’ve marched together, been arrested together and painted crack houses together,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, leader of the National Action Network, said in a statement, noting that he met Rangel as a teenager. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Je ries issued a statement calling Rangel “a patriot, hero, statesman, leader, trailblazer, change agent and champion for justice who made his beloved Harlem, the City of New York and the United States of America a better place for all.”
Few could forget Rangel after hearing him talk. His distinctive gravel-toned voice and wry sense of humor were a memorable mix. That voice — one of the most liberal in the House — was loudest in opposition to the Iraq War, which he branded a “death tax” on poor people and minorities. In 2010, a House ethics committee conducted a hearing on 13 counts of alleged nancial and fundraising misconduct over issues surrounding nancial disclosures and use of congressional resources.
He was convicted of 11 ethics violations including failing to pay taxes on a vacation villa, led misleading nancial disclosure forms and improperly solicited donations from corporations with business before his committee.
itics or worship the same way, but a soldier is a soldier, and I’m proud to be an American. Every time we ght a war,” he concluded, “it’s for freedom. That’s what America has been about since its founding.”
Retired Air Force o cer Arnold Headen afterward spoke brie y, noting, “Our Creator has given us 200 years to ght for freedom. The gleam in our eye is to preserve the land of the free. I salute you for keeping freedom alive in the United States of America.”
The service concluded with a reading of “Beneath the Folded Flag” by retired Air Force veteran Je Williams and the playing of “Taps” by Cli Tilley at precisely 3 p.m.
LAUREN VICTORIA BURKE / AP PHOTO
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington in June 2016.
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HELP WANTED
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dishwasher are included in the rent. Rent starts at $630 and up. 400 Honeysuckle Dr., Pittsboro, NC 27312 919-542-5410 TDD 1-800-735-2962
Email: pittsborovillage@ECCMGT.com EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES
TAKE NOTICE
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY
FILE#25E000234-180
The undersigned, DANIEL JOSEPH NAGLE, having quali ed on the 30TH Day of APRIL, 2025 as ADMINISTRATOR of the Estate of MARY KENNEDY NAGLE, deceased, of Chatham County, North Carolina, does hereby notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against said Estate to exhibit them to him on or before the 8TH Day OF AUGUST 2025, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This the 8TH DAY OF MAY, 2025.
DANIEL JOSEPH NAGLE, ADMINISTRATOR 6304 BLAIRMORE COURT RALEIGH, NC 27612 Run dates: M8,15,22,29p
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
NORTH CAROLINA
CHATHAM COUNTY
FILE#19E000112-180
The undersigned, RONALD BROOKS, having quali ed on the 28TH Day of FEBRUARY, 2019 as EXECUTOR of the Estate of MILDRED WATSON BROOKS deceased, of Chatham County, North Carolina, does hereby notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against said Estate to exhibit them to him on or before the 22ND Day OF AUGUST 2025, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This, the 22ND DAY OF MAY 2025. RONALD BROOKS, EXECUTOR 1201 ALPHA ST. SILER CITY, NC 27344 Run dates: M22,29,J5,12p
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY FILE#25E000219-180
The undersigned, ALISON S. FLEMING, having quali ed on the 21ST Day of APRIL, 2025 as EXECUTOR of the Estate of SUSAN L. FLEMING, deceased, of Chatham County, North Carolina, does hereby notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against said Estate to exhibit them to him on or before the 29TH Day OF AUGUST 2025, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This, the 29TH DAY OF MAY 2025. ALISON S. FLEMING, EXECUTOR 313 ACADEMIA COURT DURHAM, NC 27713 Run dates: M29,J5,12,19p
NOTICE
“All persons having claims against the estate of DENNIS RAY APPLEYARD of Chatham County, NC, who died on March 13, 2025, are noti ed to present them on or before September 1, 2025 to Douglas Appleyard, Executor for the estate of Dennis Ray Appleyard, c/o Schupp & Hamilton, PLLC, P.O. Box 3200, Chapel Hill, NC 275153200, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery.” DATES: 05/29/2025, 06/05/2025, 06/12/2025,
NOTICE
FILE NO. 24CV2219-180 NORTH CAROLINA IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE
CHATHAM COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION
JACOBO PABLO PEREZ, } Plainti , ) vs. ) NOTICE OF SERVICE BY ) PUBLICATION
ASHLEY BREWER WILEY, ) Defendant.
) ) To: ASHELEY BREWER WILEY, defendant
Take notice that a pleading seeking relief against you has been led in the above-entitled action. The nature of the relief being sought is the recovery of money damages for personal injuries received in an automobile accident on September 30, 2024, in Johnston County, North Carolina. You are required to make defense to such pleading not later than July 1, 2025, said date being forty days from the rst publication of this notice. Upon your failure to do so, the party seeking service against you will apply to the Court for the relief sought. This the 8th day of May, 2025
GASKINS & GASKINS, P.A.
Herman E. Gaskins Attorney for plainti P. O. Box 933 Washington, N. C. 27889 Telephone: 252/975-2602
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
25E000204-180 NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY The undersigned, Atlas Cleveland Dunn III, having quali ed as Executor of the Estate of Atlas Cleveland Dunn, Jr., deceased, late of Chatham County, this is to notify all persons having claims against said estate to present them to the undersigned on or before the day of August 7, 2025, or this notice will be plead in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This the 9th day of May, 2025. Atlas Cleveland Dunn III Executor Marie H. Hopper Attorney for the Estate Hopper Cummings, PLLC Post O ce Box 1455 Pittsboro, NC 27312
NOTICE
NORTH CAROLINA IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION CHATHAM COUNTY BEFORE THE CLERK
22E000318-180 IN THE MATTER OF: ) ) THE ESTATE OF MAYBELLINE) ANN ARZATE ) NOTICE OF SERVICE OF ) PROCESS BY PUBLICATION )
TO: RAMIRO ARZATE BONITEZ Take notice that a pleading seeking relief against you has been led in the above entitled action. The nature of the relief sought is as follows: Petition for Determination of Lawful Heirs and Abandonment. You are required to make defense to such pleading not later than June 24, 2025, and upon your failure to do so, the party seeking service against you will apply to the Court for the relief sought. THIS, the 8th day of May, 2025. MOODY, WILLIAMS, ATWATER & LEE BY:_______________________________
W. BEN ATWATER, JR. ATTORNEY FOR PLAINTIFF Post O ce Box 629 Siler City, North Carolina 27344 Telephone: (919) 663-2850 Facsimile: (919) 663-3790 State Bar Number 6986
NOTICE
RONALD A. MOSS IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE -VSNOTICE KARA M. HENDERSON of 4002 SOUTHPOINT LANDING WAY Sale DURHAM, NC 27707 REAL PROPERTY 22 CVS 455 Under and by virtue of and pursuant to an Execution (including exhibit A, (additional order for satisfying judgment)) directed to the undersigned Sheri of Chatham County, NC from the Clerk of Superior Court of Vance County NC, in the above entitled action, I, will on Wednesday, June 11th, 2025 at 10:00a.m at the Chatham County Justice Center, Pittsboro, NC sell to the highest bidder for cash, at Public Auction, to satisfy said Process all rights, title, and interest which the above named defendant(s) have in and to the following described property: 551 OLDE THOMPSON CREEK RD, APEX, NC Place of Sale: Chatham County Justice Center, 40 E. Chatham St., Pittsboro, NC 27312 Time of Sale: 10:00a.m Wednesday June 11th, 2025 Terms of Sale: HIGHEST BIDDER FOR CASH, SUBJECT TO ANY MORTGAGES, LIENS, TAXES AND ANY OTHER ENCUMBRANCES AND/OR RESTRICTIONS WHATSOEVER THAT MAY BE OWED ON PROPERTY BY THE CURRENT OR FORMER OWNER(s) OF THE PROPERTY, OR WHICH OTHERWISE ENCUMBER/RESTRICT THE PROPERTY. BIDDERS ARE CAUTIONED THAT IT IS VERY LIKELY THAT THIS PROPERTY IS SUBJECT TO EXISTING LIENS, ENCUMBRANCES, AND RESTRICTIONS THAT ARE NOT EXTINGUISHED BY AN EXECUTION SALE. THE PROPERTY MAY BE SUBJECT TO DEBT AND CONDITIONS UNACCEPTABLE TO YOU. ALL BIDDERS ARE ADVISED TO DOA COMPLETE TITLE SEARCH ON THIS PROPERTY PRIOR TO ENTERING A BID. THE CHATHAM COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE, THE SHERIFF AND CHATHAM COUNTY MAKE NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND OR NATURE WITH REGARD TO TITLE OR TO THE SUITABILITY FOR ANY PURPOSE OR THE CONDITION OF THIS PROPERTY. NO CREDIT BIDS ACCEPTED. This 12th day of May 2025
Mike Roberson, Sheri Chatham County N. Frazier Deputy Chatham County Sheri ’s O ce
NOTICE
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF CHATHAM IN THE MATTER OF THE ) ESTATE OF JACK A. MOODY ) NOTICE TO CREDITORS ) DECEASED. ) The undersigned, having heretofore quali ed as Executor of the Estate of Jack A. Moody, deceased, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, hereby noti es all persons, rms and corporations having claims against said estate to present them to the undersigned on or before August 21st, 2025 or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of any recovery thereon. All persons, rms and corporations indebted to said estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This the 21st day of May, 2025 William Barden Moody, Executor Estate of Jack A. Moody, Deceased c/o Ronald P. Johnson, Esq. Carruthers & Roth, P.A. Attorneys & Counselors at Law 235 North Edgeworth Street (27401) Post O ce Box 540 Greensboro, North Carolina 27402 Publication dates: May 21st, 28th and June 4th and 11th, 2025.
4908-2207-9811, v. 1
LEGAL NOTICE
PUBLIC HEARING The proposed Fiscal Year 2024-2025 Budget for the Town of Siler City has been presented to the Town Board of Commissioners and is available for public inspection. To view the proposed budget, please visit www.silercity.org or contact Assistant Town Manager-Town Clerk Kimberly Pickard at 919-7424731 or kpickard@silercity.gov
A Public Hearing will be held on the budget ordinance for Fiscal Year 2025-2026 at the Board of Commissioners Regular Meeting Monday June 2, 2025 at 6:30pm in the Town of Siler City-City Hall Courtroom located a 311 North Second Ave. Citizens are invited to submit written comments to Deputy Town Clerk Briana Avalos @bavalos@silercity. gov or to Kimberly Pickard at kpickard@silercity.gov or by mail at PO Box 769, Siler City NC 27344
EXECUTOR’S NOTICE TO CREDITORS
NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY
All persons having claims against the estate of John Edward Hunt of Chatham County, NC, who died on the 19th of April, 2011, are noti ed to present them on or before August 22nd , 2025 to Geo rey E. Hunt, Executor for the Estate, c/o Schupp & Hamilton, P.L.L.C., P. O. Box 3200, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-3200, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery. Schupp & Hamilton, P.L.L.C. P. O. Box 3200 Chapel Hill, NC 27515-3200 For May 22nd , May 29th, June 5th , and June 12th of 2025.
LEGISLATIVE PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE
TOWN OF PITTSBORO, NC
On Monday, June 9, 2025, at 6:00 pm, the Pittsboro Board of Commissioners will hold the following legislative public hearings in person at the Chatham County Agriculture & Conference Center at 1192 Hwy 64 Business West, Pittsboro:
PB-25-73 – Blue Heel Development LLC has petitioned to have 21.28 acres of land, Parcel 0006844, currently zoned R-12 (Medium Density Residential 12,000 sf) to be reclassi ed as MRCZ (Multi-family Residential Conditional District). The property, located just north of Cambridge Hills Assisted living in the Town’s extraterritorial planning area along Old Graham Road is currently fully forested. The intention, following conditional rezoning, is to create a 98-lot single family or twofamily residential development.
PB-25-140 - Trilandco LLC have petitioned to have 29.6 acres of land, Parcels 60740, 7176, 82169, 79874, 7175, and 86195 currently zoned C-2 (Highway Commercial) and R-12 (Residential 12,000 sf) to be reclassi ed as an MUPD (Mixed Use Planned Development). The property, located along the eastern frontage of US Highway15-501 (Hillsboro Street), just south of McDonald’s and is adjacent to the Bellemont development. These parcels are currently utilized for a storage shed sales area and contain a closed convenience store. There are several other structures on site (including a few residential structures), all intended to be removed during construction of this mixed-use development. The hearing will be held in person. The public can also watch the hearing live on the Town’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@townofpittsboronc/ streams. Members of the public must attend in person if they wish to speak at the hearing. Contact the Town Clerk, Carrie Bailey, by 4 pm on June 9, 2025, with written comments or to sign up to speak at the legislative hearing. You can contact Carrie Bailey at cbailey@pittsboronc.gov, (919) 5424621 ext. 1104, or PO Box 759, Pittsboro, NC 27312.
NOTICE
Moncure Fire Dept Annual Meeting The Moncure Fire Department will be holding its annual meeting on Monday, June 9, 2025 at Moncure Fire Dept Station #8, 2389 Old US 1, Moncure NC 27559. The meeting will begin at 6:30 pm and cover the state of the re department, nancial report, and Board of Directors elections. If you reside in the Moncure Fire District and are a taxpayer, you are a member and invited to attend.
NOTICE
NORTH CAROLINA NOTICE TO CREDITORS CHATHAM COUNTY
HAVING QUALIFIED as Executor of the Estate of Matthew Ray Johnson, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against the estate of said deceased to present them to the undersigned on or before the 15th day of August, 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery.
This the 7th day of May, 2025. Amy Stackhouse Johnson, Executor of the Estate of Matthew Ray Johnson 596 R.E. Wright Road Snow Camp, North Carolina 27349 4tp
NOTICE
ALL PERSONS, rms and corporations having claims against Monnda Lee Welch, deceased, of Chatham County, N.C., are noti ed to exhibit the same to the undersigned on or before August 29, 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment.
This 29th day of May, 2025.
Anna Brothers, Executor 150 Saddle Tree Dr. Franklinton, NC 27525 IPL000176-180
NOTICE
Notice of Probate IN THE MATTER OF THE ESTATE OF Catherine Crowe Ragland, File number 25E00200-180.
Notice is hereby given that Catherine Crowe Ragland, whose last known address was 300 Clynelish Close, Pittsboro, NC 27312, died in Chatham County on February 9, 2025, and that an Executor has been appointed Personal Representative of the Estate of said deceased person by the Clerk of Superior Court for Chatham County, North Carolina. All creditors of said estate are hereby noti ed to present their claims to the Personal Representative at the contact information below within 3 months from the date of the rst publication of this notice, which is on or before August 10, 2025, or their claims will be barred forever.
Estate of Catherine Crowe Ragland 118 Monterey Lane Durham, NC 27713
Please be advised that a copy of the will of the decedent is on le with the Chatham County Superior Court and is available for inspection.
Date of First Publication: May 8, 2025
NOTICE OF SERVICE BY PUBLICATION
NORTH CAROLINA
CHATHAM COUNTY IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE SUPERIOR COURT DIVISION BEFORE THE CLERK FILE # 24SP001159-180
IN RE Estate of Julie Susan White, DECEASED.
To: The Unknown Heirs of Julie Susan White
Take notice that a pleading seeking relief against you has been led in the above-entitled special proceeding. The nature of the relief being sought is as follows: Petitioner is the duly appointed and quali ed administrator of the Estate of Julie Susan White; see Chatham County Estate File #23E000015-180. The purpose of this action is to determine the heirs of Julie Susan White and the ownership fractions of each heir.
You are required to make defense to such pleading not later than July 9, 2025 and upon your failure to do so the party seeking service against you will apply to the court for the relief sought.
This the 22nd day of May, 2025.
J. Grant Brown, Attorney for Administrator Law O ces of Doster & Brown, P.A. 206 Hawkins Avenue Sanford, NC 27330 Publish: 05/29/25, 06/05/25, 06/12/25
NOTICE
NORTH CAROLINA NOTICE TO CREDITORS
CHATHAM COUNTY
HAVING QUALIFIED as Executor of the Estate of Billy Edward York, Jr., late of Chatham County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against the estate of said deceased to present them to the undersigned on or before the 7th day of August, 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery.
This the lst day of May, 2025.
Linda N. York, Executor of the Estate of Billy Edward York, Jr. 3730 Piney Grove Church Road Siler City, North Carolina 27344
MOODY, WILLIAMS, ATWATER & LEE
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
BOX 629
SILER CITY, NORTH CAROLINA 27344 (919) 663-2850 4tp
NOTICE
NORTH CAROLINA NOTICE TO CREDITORS
CHATHAM COUNTY
HAVING QUALIFIED as Executor of the Estate of David Anthony Cook, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against the estate of said deceased to present them to the undersigned on or before the 7th day of August, 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. This the lst day of May, 2025.
Susan Dowd Wustrow, Executor of the Estate of David Anthony Cook 1142 Bonlee Bennett Road Siler City, North Carolina 27344 MOODY, WILLIAMS, ATWATER & LEE
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
BOX 629 SILER CITY, NORTH CAROLINA 27344 (919) 663-2850 4tp
NOTICE
NORTH CAROLINA NOTICE TO CREDITORS
CHATHAM COUNTY
HAVING QUALIFIED as Administrator CTA of the Estate of Nancy Cary Peter late of Chatham County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against the estate of said deceased to present them to the undersigned on or before the 20th day of August, 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery.
This the 14th day of May, 2025. Linda P. Crabtree, Administrator CTA of the Estate of Nancy Cary Peter 25 Joe Brown Road Bear Creek, North Carolina 27207
MOODY, WILLIAMS, ATWATER & LEE
ATTORNEYS AT LAW BOX 629
SILER CITY, NORTH CAROLINA 27344 (919) 663-2850 4tp
Notice to Creditors
ALL PERSONS, rms and corporations having claims against Joan Estelle Marsh, deceased, of Chatham County, NC, are noti ed to exhibit the same to the undersigned on or before August 8, 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment. This the 8th day of May, 2025. Ann Marie Marsh, Executor, c/o Bagwell Holt Smith P.A., 111 Cloister Court, STE 200, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
NOTICE TO CREDITORS NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY 25E000141-180 ALL persons having claims against Elliott Milton Baron, deceased, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, are noti ed to exhibit the same to the undersigned on or before Aug 22 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment. This the 22nd day of May, 2025. MOLLY BAARS, Executor C/O Law O ces of Amy Whinery Osborne, PC P.O. Box 7 Cary, NC 27512 M22, 29, 5 and 12
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF CHATHAM
The undersigned, James C. Bowers, having quali ed as Administrator of the Estate of James A. Bowers, Deceased, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, hereby notify all persons, rms, and corporations having claims against the Estate to present such claims to the undersigned in care of the undersigned’s Attorney at their address on or before August 22, 2025 or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons, rms, and corporations indebted to the said Estate will please make immediate payment to the
named Administrator. This the 22nd day of May, 2025. James C. Bowers, Administrator Estate of James A. Bowers John Stephens, Esq. Carolina Estate Planning 380 Knollwood St. Suite 500 Winston Salem, NC 27103 May 22, 29, June 5 and 12, 2025
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY
FILE#25E000240-180 The undersigned, BRIAN PATRICK WHEELER,
29TH DAY OF MAY 2025. CATHERINE M. RIEHM, EXECUTOR PO BOX 194 APEX, NC 27502 Run dates: M29,J5,12,19p
NOTICE TO CREDITORS AND DEBTORS OF MARIJANE K. WHITEMAN All persons, rms and corporations having claims against MARIJANE K. WHITEMAN, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, are noti ed to exhibit them to Patricia McDonough as Administrator CTA of the decedent’s estate on or before August 30, 2025, c/o Janet B. Witchger, Attorney at Law, 1414 Raleigh Rd., Ste. 203, Chapel Hill, NC 27517, or be barred from their recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment to the above-named Administrator CTA. This the 29th day
claims against Floyd Fried, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, are noti ed to exhibit them to Daniel Fried as Executor of the decedent’s estate on or before August 30, 2025, c/o Janet B. Witchger, Attorney at Law, 1414 Raleigh Rd., Ste. 203, Chapel Hill, NC 27517, or be barred from their recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment to the above-named Executor. This the 29th day of May, 2025. Daniel Fried, Executor c/o Janet B. Witchger, Atty. TrustCounsel 1414 Raleigh Rd., Ste. 203 Chapel Hill, NC 27517
NOTICE TO CREDITORS NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY 25E000254-180 ALL persons having claims against STEPHEN CHARLES ALLARIO, deceased, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, are noti ed to exhibit the same to the undersigned on or before Aug 22 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment. This the 22nd day of May, 2025. KIMBERLY D. ZIERMAN, Executor C/O Privette Legacy Planning 1400 Crescent Green, Suite G-100 Cary, NC 27518 M22, 29, 5 and 12
NOTICE TO CREDITORS NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY
FILE#25E000247-180 The undersigned, MARK BRAUND CARPENTER, having quali ed on the 2ND Day of MAY, 2025 as EXECUTOR of the Estate of JEAN MITCHELL CARPENTER deceased, of Chatham County, North Carolina, does hereby notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against said Estate to exhibit them to him on or before the 22ND Day OF AUGUST 2025, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This, the 22ND DAY OF MAY 2025. MARK BRAUND CARPENTER, EXECUTOR 7409 RUSSELL
NOTICE
Scars from Helene healing slowly in one Appalachian tourist town
Chimney Rock Village was one of the hardest hit hamlets
By Allen G. Breed The Associated Press
CHIMNEY ROCK VILLAGE — The brightly colored sign along the S-curve mountain road beckons visitors to the Gemstone Mine, the “#1 ATTRACTION IN CHIMNEY ROCK VILLAGE!” But another sign, on the shop’s mud-splattered front door, tells a di erent story.
“We will be closed Thursday 9-26-2024 due to impending weather,” it reads. It promised to reopen the next day at noon, weather permitting.
That impending weather was the remnants of Hurricane Helene. And that reopening still hasn’t arrived.
The storm smashed into the North Carolina mountains last September, killing more than 100 people and causing an estimated $60 billion in damage. Chimney Rock, a hamlet of about 140 named for the 535-million-year-old geological wonder that underpins its tourism industry, was hit particularly hard.
Eight months later, the mine, like most of the surviving businesses on the village’s quaint Main Street, is still an open construction site. A ashing sign at the guard shack on the town line warns: “ROAD CLOSED.
LOCAL TRAFFIC ONLY.”
Village Mayor Peter O’Leary had optimistically predicted that downtown would open in time for Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer tourist season. He now realizes that was too ambitious.
“We had set that date as a target, early on,” he said, sitting in the still-stripped main room of his Bubba O’Leary’s General Store. “But I always try to remind people you don’t always hit the target. Anybody that’s shot a gun or bow and arrow knows you don’t always hit the target.”
The Broad River — which gave the restaurants and inns lining its banks their marketable water views — left its course, carving away foundations and sweeping away the bridge to Chimney Rock State Park. O’Leary said about a third of the town’s businesses were “totally destroyed.”
Several are gone for good.
At the north end of town, all that remains of Bayou Billy’s Chimney Rock Country Fair amusement park is a pile of twisted metal, tattered aw-
nings and jumbled train cars. A peeling, cracked yellow carousel horse that owner Bill Robeson’s children once rode balances precariously on a debris pile, its mouth agape to the sky.
At 71, Robeson — who also lost a two-story building where he sold popcorn, pizza and souvenir tin cups — said he doesn’t have the heart to rebuild.
“We made the dream come true and everything,” said Robeson, who’s been coming to Chimney Rock since he was in diapers. “I hate I had to leave like it was. But, you know, life is short. You just can’t ponder over it. You’ve got to keep going, you know?”
At the other end of town, the Carter Lodge boasted “BALCONIES OVERLOOKING RIVER.” Much of the back side of the 19-room hotel now dangles in midair, an angry red-brown
NC Supreme Court says it’s OK to swap jurors while they are deliberating
Jurors must restart discussions with the new jury
By Gary D. Robertson The Associated Press
RALEIGH — North Carolina’s highest court on Friday left intact a murder conviction that a lower appeals court had thrown out on the grounds that a jury shake-up during deliberations violated the defendant’s rights and required a new trial.
By a 5-2 decision, the state Su-
TAKE NOTICE
PUBLIC NOTICE
CHATHAM COUNTY ABC
preme Court reversed last year’s decision of a state Court of Appeals panel that had sided with Eric Ramond Chambers, who has been serving a sentence of life in prison without parole.
The state constitution says no one can be convicted of a crime except by “the unanimous verdict of a jury in open court” that state justices have declared in the past repeatedly must be composed of 12 people.
A 2021 state law says an alternate juror can be substituted for one of the 12 after deliberations begin as long as the judge
The Proposed Budget for the Fiscal Year beginning July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026 has been submitted to the Chatham County ABC Board. A copy of the proposed Budget is available for public inspection in the o ce of the general manager of the Chatham County ABC Board at 10435 US 64 HWY E. Apex, NC 27523, and may be reviewed by the public during normal working hours. Interested citizens are invited to make comments orally at a Public Hearing to be held on Wednesday, June 4th, 2025, at 11:00 A.M. at the Chatham County ABC o ce located at 10435 US 64 HWY E. Apex, NC 27523. Written comments may be submitted prior to that date and should be addressed to the Chatham County ABC Board at 10435 US 64 HWY E. Apex, NC 27523. Matthew Williams General Manager Chatham County ABC NOTICE TO CREDITORS NORTH CAROLINA
CHATHAM COUNTY FILE#___25 E000233-180_
The undersigned, (Cathleen S Cutlip), having quali ed on the 29th of April, 2025 as EXECUTOR of the Estate of, Robert David Shea deceased, of Chatham County, North Carolina, does hereby notify all persons, rms and corporations having claims against said Estate to exhibit them to him on or before the 8TH Day OF AUGUST 2025, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate will please make immediate payment to the undersigned. This the 8TH DAY OF MAY, 2025. Cathleen S Cutlip 1068 Saint Cloud Loop Apex, NC 27523 Run dates: M8,15,22,29p
PUBLIC NOTICE
instructs the amended jury to begin deliberations anew. The judge at Chambers’ 2022 trial did just that when an alternate juror joined deliberations because an original juror couldn’t continue the next day due to a medical appointment.
The original 12 had deliberated for less than 30 minutes the day before. Chambers, who was representing himself in the trial, was not in the courtroom when the substitution occurred. By midday, the reconstituted jury had reached a verdict, and Chambers was convicted of
The tentative budget meeting for the scal year beginning July 1st, 2025, for the Goldston Gulf Sanitary District was presented to the Goldston Gulf Sanitary District Board on May 6th, 2025, and is available for public inspection at the Goldston Gulf Sanitary District, JR Moore and Son Store located in Gulf and/or the Goldston Public Library. A public hearing will be held on June 17th, 2025, 6:00pm, at the Goldston Town Hall Building in Goldston, NC at which time any persons who wish to be heard on the budget may appear. Danny Scott, Treasurer Board of Directors Run dates: May 29th, June 5th
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
NORTH CAROLINA CHATHAM COUNTY 25E000190-180 ALL persons having claims against PHILLIP NORMAN COOPER, deceased, late of Chatham County, North Carolina, are noti ed to exhibit the same to the undersigned on or before Aug 29 2025, or this notice will be plead-ed in bar of recovery. Debtors of the decedent are asked to make immediate payment. This the 29th day of May, 2025.
LINDA WASMUTH, EXECUTOR C/O GLENN B. LASSITER, JR. PO Box 1460 Pittsboro, NC 27312 M29, 5, 12 and 19
gash in the soil that once supported it.
Barely a month before Helene, Linda Carter made the last loan payments on repairs from a 100year ood in 1996. Contractors estimate it will cost $2.6 million to rebuild.
So the widow said she’s waiting to see how much the federal government will o er her to let the lot become a ood-mitigation zone.
“I just don’t have it in me,” said Carter, who lived in the hotel. “I’m 74. I don’t want to die and leave my children in debt. I also don’t want to go through the pain of rebuilding.”
But others, like Matt Banz, still think Chimney Rock is worth the risk of future heartache.
The Florida native fell in love with a fudge shop here during a vacation more than 30 years ago.
Today, he and his family own
rst-degree murder and a serious assault charge for the 2018 shooting in a Raleigh motel room.
Chambers petitioned the Court of Appeals, which later ruled that his right to a “properly constituted jury” had been violated and the 2021 law couldn’t supersede the state constitution because 13 people had reached the verdict. State attorneys then appealed.
Writing for last Friday’s majority, Chief Justice Paul Newby said the 2021 law doesn’t violate Chambers’ rights because it provides “critical safeguards that ensure that the twelve-juror threshold remains sacrosanct.”
Newby wrote the law says no more than 12 jurors can participate in the jury’s deliberations and that a judge’s instruction to begin deliberations anew means “any discussion in which the ex-
WOLFSPEED from page A1
a transaction through an in-court solution.”
The company had about 5,000 employees globally as of last summer, with most based in the Triangle region. Since then, Wolfspeed has cut its workforce by roughly 25% through layo s, buyouts and attrition. It is also closing its Durham device factory as it prepares to open a new facility in Chatham County.
The 38-year-old company shifted in recent years from LED lighting to producing silicon carbide, a specialized semiconductor used in electric vehicles and other high-power applications. Wolfspeed has taken on substantial debt to fund that transition, including building a fabrication plant in New York and a materials facility in western Chatham County, set to open this summer.
four businesses in town, including the gem mine and the RiverWatch Bar & Grill.
“The day after the storm, we didn’t even question whether we were going to rebuild,” Banz said, with workers rebuilding the riverfront deck on new cement footers. “We knew right away that we weren’t going to let go.”
O’Leary, Banz and others say federal relief has been slow. But volunteers have lled the gaps. Down the street, Amish workers from Pennsylvania pieced together a mold before pouring a new reinforced foundation for the Broad River Inn, among the oldest businesses in town. The river undermined the back end and obliterated the neighboring miniature golf course.
“We de nitely could not have done what we’re doing without them, that is for certain,” inn co-owner Kristen Sottile said. “They have brought so much willpower, hope, as well as many other things to our community.”
The Amish are working in concert with Spokes of Hope, a Christian nonpro t formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, which hit the Carolinas in September 2018. Jonathan Graef and his siblings bought the Best View Inn in late 2023 and were halfway through renovations when Helene struck. They’ve been ooded twice since, but the new rafters and framing the Amish workers constructed have held.
“It’s really trying to kick us down,” said Graef, whose property borders what is left of the Bayou Billy’s park. “But our spirits are high, our hopes are high and nothing’s going to stop us from opening this place.” Throughout town, the ring of hammers and saws mingles with the sizzle of welding and the rumble of debris-removal trucks.
Workers lay sewer lines. A temporary steel bridge to the state park — replacing the ornate stone and concrete span that washed out — should be ready soon, O’Leary said.
“In a normal year, they easily have 400,000 visitors that come to the park,” he said. “That’s
cused juror participated is disregarded and entirely new deliberations are commenced by the newly-constituted twelve.”
The four other justices who are registered Republicans joined Newby in his opinion.
In a dissenting opinion to retain the new trial, Associate Justice Allison Riggs wrote the 2021 law is an unconstitutional departure from the concept of 12-member juries and “endangers the impartiality and unanimity of the jury.”
No matter what directions a trial judge gives to jurors to begin deliberations anew, Riggs added, “we must assume by law that the original juror’s mere presence impacted the verdict.”
Associate Justice Anita Earls — who with Riggs are the court’s two registered Democrats — also dissented.
company to address its near-term debt before issuing the funds. In recent months, leadership has shifted. The company red CEO Gregg Lowe in November, and CFO Neill Reynolds is expected to depart at the end of May.
“Optimizing our capital structure has been a stated priority. We are evaluating a number of potential alternatives and may implement a transaction through an in-court solution.”
Wolfspeed had committed to hire 1,800 workers at the Chatham plant near Siler City. However, soft electric vehicle demand and delays at its New York site have strained the company’s nances. Wolfspeed also has yet to receive funding from a $750 million CHIPS Act grant announced in October, as federal o cials required the
Tyler Gronbach,
Wolfspeed
Wolfspeed’s stock, which peaked at $140 in late 2021, dropped to just over $1 last Tuesday and slid below 90 cents by Wednesday morning. It recovered to near $1.50 by Tuesday, still well under the $3.13 share price from the day before the report was released.
Under U.S. bankruptcy law, shareholders are typically the last to be repaid, meaning investors could lose their equity. Even among creditors, repayment order matters. Disputes have emerged among investment rms over who gets paid rst. Some junior debt holders have pushed for a debt restructuring to avoid bankruptcy, while others have favored the Chapter 11 path. Apollo Global Management, the investment rm leading recent negotiations, is positioned to be the rst creditor repaid in liquidation proceedings. Given the falling stock price, Wolfspeed could be an acquisition target even with its billions in debt.
ALLEN G. BREED / AP PHOTO
David Cruz mixes cement in the bucket of an end loader for a sewer manhole on Main Street in Chimney Rock Village.
really the draw that brings people here.”
One recent evening, Rose Senehi walked down Main Street, stopping to peer into shop windows to see how much progress had been made.
Twenty-two years ago, the novelist stopped in town to buy an ice cream cone.
As she licked, she crossed a small bridge, climbed a rickety staircase to a small house, looked around “and saw that mountain.”
“Within an hour, I signed the contract and bought it.
Out of the blue,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “Never been to this town. But I knew this is what I wanted.”
The bridge is gone. So is that ice cream shop. But Senehi said there’s more to this place than stores and treats.
“There’s something about this area that, it’s just compelling. The mountains. The green. It’s just beautiful,” she said. “It’ll de nitely come back. And it won’t be the same; it’ll be better.”
O’Leary said he thinks some Main Street business-
es will be open sometime this summer. The council is looking for village-owned properties that can be leased or sold to business owners.
“I can see progress on all fronts,” said O’Leary, who came for a park job 35 years ago and never left. But he cautions that recovery will be slow.
“We don’t want everybody to come at the same time, but we do want people to visit and be patient with us,” he said.
“This is a long rebuild. But I think it’s going to be worth it.”
ALLEN G. BREED / AP PHOTO
The Carter Lodge hangs precariously over the ood-scoured bank of the Broad River in Chimney Rock Village earlier this month.
SHELLY MCCORMACK VIA AP
Amish volunteers from Pennsylvania rebuild a deck along the banks of the Broad River in Chimney Rock Village earlier this month.
Two border collies fend o wildlife at West Virginia’s busiest airport
Hercules and Ned go after geese and visit with passengers
By John Raby The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. —
Hercules and Ned have quite the spacious o ce at West Virginia’s busiest airport.
The border collies and their handler make daily patrols along the milelong air eld to ensure birds and other wildlife stay away from planes and keep passengers and crew safe.
Hercules is also the chief ambassador, soaking in a ection from passengers inside the terminal while calming some nervously waiting to board a ight at West Virginia International Yeager Airport.
Chris Keyser, the dogs’ handler and the airport’s wildlife specialist, said preventing a bird from hitting a plane “can make a di erence for someone’s life.”
How it started
Collisions between wildlife and planes are common at airports nationwide. With that in mind, Yeager management in 2018 bought Hercules at the recommendation of a wildlife biologist.
Hercules spent the rst 18 months of his life training to herd geese and sheep around his birthplace at Charlotte-based Flyaway Geese, which teaches border collies to help businesses address nuisance wildlife problems.
When Hercules stepped onto Charleston’s air eld for the rst time, “I held my breath,” Flyaway Geese owner Rebecca Gibson said. “But boy, he took hold of the reins. It was his place.
“He’s done an amazing job and has just been a great dog for them. We’re very proud of him.”
Along the way, Hercules became a local celebrity. He has his own Instagram and TikTok accounts and regularly hosts groups of schoolchildren.
Now 8, Hercules has some help. Ned was 2 when he was welcomed into the fold last year from another kennel where he trained to herd goats and geese. Ned has shadowed Hercules, following commands from Keyser and learning safety issues such as not venturing onto the runway.
“Ned’s ready to go,” Keyser said. “He’s picked up on all that. He’s doing fantastic, running birds o .”
Inside the airport operations center, Hercules is laid back until he’s told it’s time to work, barking at the door in anticipation. Ned, on the other hand, is always moving. When not out-
side, he’ll bring his blue bouncy ball to anyone willing to play fetch.
A mountaintop menagerie
Charleston’s airport is on top of a mountain and has a menagerie of wildlife, including Canada geese, hawks, ducks, songbirds and bats. After it rains, worms come to the surface and cause an increase in bird activity, Keyser said.
In addition to taking the dogs on their regular rounds, Keyser is in constant contact with the airport tower, which looks for birds on the eld or relays reports from airplanes that see wildlife nearby.
“We get plenty of exercise,” Keyser said. “You don’t gain no weight in this job. It’s an all-day job. You’re always got your eyes
on the eld, you’ve got your ears open listening to the radio.”
Border collies are among the most energetic dog breeds. They’ve been used for decades to shoo Canada geese o golf courses. They’ve also scared away birds at other airports, military bases, and locks and dams.
The dogs’ instincts are to herd, not to kill. “But in the mind of the bird, they’re no di erent than a coyote or a fox, which is a natural predator for the bird,” Gibson said.
Bird strikes cause delays
About 19,000 strikes involving planes and wildlife occurred at U.S. airports in 2023, of which 95% involved birds, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database. From 1988 to 2023, wildlife collisions
in the U.S. killed 76 people and destroyed 126 aircraft.
Perhaps the most famous bird-plane strike occurred in January 2009 when a ight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport almost immediately ew into a ock of Canada geese, knocking out both engines. Pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger guided the powerless jet into the frigid Hudson River. All 155 people on board survived the incident, which was captured in the 2016 movie “Sully,” starring Tom Hanks.
At the Charleston airport, wildlife-plane incidents vary each year from a few to a couple dozen.
“Anytime a plane hits a bird, it has to be inspected, and it causes a delay in the ight,” Keyser said. “And sometimes you don’t make your connecting ights. So that’s how important it is to keep everything going smooth.”
In 2022 alone, there were ve airplane strikes at the airport involving bats. In December 2000, a plane collided with two deer after landing. The tip of the right engine propeller blade separated and punctured the plane’s fuselage, seriously injuring a passenger, according to the FAA.
A comforting paw
Inside the terminal, Hercules wags his tail as he moves about greeting passengers. Among them was Janet Spry, a Scott Depot, West Virginia, resident waiting to board a ight to visit her daughter and grandchildren in San Antonio.
Spry needed a bit of cheering up. In addition to having a fear of ying, Spry’s 15-year-old cat was euthanized the previous day after being diagnosed with an inoperable condition.
An impromptu visit from Hercules brought a smile — and more. Hercules placed a paw on Spry’s arm and delivered plenty of wet kisses.
“He’s making my day better,” Spry said.
She also joked whether the airport might want to let Hercules stay with her a while longer.
“I think there was an empty seat on the plane beside me,” Spry said.
JOHN RABY / AP PHOTO
Ned and Hercules pose at West Virginia International Yeager Airport in Charleston, where they are used to keep birds and other wildlife away from the air eld.
CHATHAM SPORTS
ASHEEBO ROJAS / CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Viana addresses his team following the loss to Franklin Academy on May 22.
Seaforth, Woods Charter girls’ soccer fall in fourth round
Caitlin Erman nishes her career as Seaforth’s all-time leading scorer
By Asheebo Rojas
Chatham News & Record
WAKE FOREST — Seaforth’s quest for another girls’ soccer state title fell short in familiar territory — a rematch of last year’s North Carolina High School Athletic Association 2A East playo s fourth round.
After beating Franklin Academy in the same stage in 2024, the fourth-seeded Hawks fell to the top-ranked Patriots 3-0 in the fourth round at Wake Prep Academy on May 22. Junior Kayla Rice found herself responsible for all three goals, keeping the Patriots undefeated on the way to the regional nal.
Rice assisted sophomore Audrey Keith with a score just six minutes into the game, putting Seaforth in a de cit for the second time in the playo s. Nearly seven minutes into the second half, Rice corralled a rebound from a series of missed shots and knocked it in for her own score. And with 22 minutes left to play, she sent a cross to junior Rylee Caine who scored the game-icing goal.
“We couldn’t keep up with their speed on the wings,” Seaforth coach Giovanni Viana said.
Outside of containing Rice’s o ensive impact, the Hawks’
biggest problem was missed opportunities.
Seaforth ran behind the Patriots’ defense numerous times for good looks at the goal and saw two free kick opportunities, but it just couldn’t execute. Arguably the de ning moment of the type of night it was for Seaforth’s o ense came in the rst half when senior Caitlin Erman faced Franklin Academy goalkeeper Gri n Coward one-on-one from close range, and Coward caught the shot attempt.
“We missed too many scoring chances,” Viana said.
“Against a good team like this, when you miss them, they come back to haunt you. And that’s what it was tonight. We had two or three in the rst half that if we bury, it’s a di erent game.”
Despite another dominant season in which the Hawks won 20 games and didn’t allow a single goal in conference play (13-0 as Mid-Carolina 1A/2A conference champions), it’s also been a di erent year for Seaforth.
The Hawks lost four players that were on last year’s state title team due to injuries or “other circumstances,” per Viana.
Junior mid elder and striker So a Viana also missed some time during the season with injuries and illnesses.
Forced to play some freshmen to ll those gaps, Seaforth was tested much earlier in this year’s playo run compared to
“We had two or three in the rst half that if we bury, it’s a di erent game.” Giovanni Viana
2024. The Hawks found themselves in a dog ght against NCSSM-Durham in the second round and had to come from behind to beat Manteo in overtime in the third round. Last year, Seaforth outscored its rst three playo opponents 29-0. Seaforth will graduate two seniors, Erman and defender Chloe Price, this o season. Erman nished her career as the program’s all-time goals leader with 163.
“We’re going to miss them next year,” Viana said. “It was a joy to watch Caitlin play for four years and get to see Chloe when she came back for two years. So, it’s all as a coach you can hope for to have players like this.”
Seaforth boys’, girls’ lacrosse teams nish memorable run
Both teams nished with program-best records
By Asheebo Rojas Chatham News & Record
PITTSBORO — Historic lacrosse seasons came to an end at Seaforth on May 20.
In a North Carolina High School Athletic Association 1A/2A/3A playo double header, the Hawks’ boys’ and girls’ lacrosse teams fell in their second post season bouts.
After a second-quarter takeover by No. 6 Orange, Seaforth’s boys, the No. 3 seed, fell to its Central/Mid-Carolina conference rival 10-8 in the third round. Orange sophomore Owen
Wimsatt led the Panthers with four goals.
Seaforth got o to a hot start, taking a 4-1 lead in the rst quarter. After senior Cameron Exley notched his rst score early in the quarter, the Hawks scored three goals in a span of two minutes near the end of the period.
Things took a sharp turn in the second quarter, though. Less than a minute into the period, a goal from Orange junior Matthews Macneir started a 5-0 run in which the Panthers controlled much of the possession. The Panthers tied the game three minutes into the second quarter with Wimsatt’s rst score, and an assist from
In the 1A East bracket, No. 2 Woods Charter lost to No. 3 Lejeune 3-1 in the fourth round on May 22. The Devil Pups, going to the regional nal for the rst time in program history, set the tone early. Sophomore Jaycie Canaienne scored and gave Lejeune a See LACROSSE, page B4
See SOCCER, page B3
More local athletes make college decisions
Woods Charter, Chatham Central and Seaforth send athletes to the next level
By Asheebo Rojas Chatham News & Record
MORE CHATHAM County athletes that have recently revealed where they’ll continue their athletic careers beyond high school.
Luke Gaines (Guilford College, football, senior)
Chatham Central receiver and defensive back Luke Gaines signed with Guilford College to play football. In two seasons on the gridiron, Gaines hauled in 65 catches for 1,311 yards and seven touchdowns. Defensively, he recorded 32 total tackles and two interceptions. He had multiple 100-
yard receiving performances in his high school career, including 133 yards and a touchdown on ve catches against Jordan-Matthews in 2023 and 131 yards and a touchdown (10 receptions) against Bartlett Yancey last fall. Gaines also played baseball and basketball at Chatham Central, averaging career numbers of 8.3 points and 3.9 assists per game on the hardwood. He will join a Guilford football program that went 3-7 in 2024. Guilford, located in Greensboro, is a NCAA Division III program that competes in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.
Karaleigh Dodson (Meridith College, volleyball, senior)
Chatham Central outside hitter Karaleigh Dodson signed with the Meredith College
See ATHLETES, page B4
PJ WARD-BROWN / CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Seaforth freshman Montgomery Reece tries to nd a scoring opportunity during the Hawks’ playo game against Swansboro. Seaforth’s season came to an end in a 7-6 loss.
Natalie Boecke
WARD-BROWN / CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Seaforth, girls’ lacrosse
Seaforth sophomore Natalie Boecke earns athlete of the week honors for the week of May 19. Boecke, a mid elder on the girls’ lacrosse team, ended the season doing all she could for the Hawks in their 7-6 second round loss to Swansboro in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association 1A/2A/3A East playo s. She joined teammates Mia Moore and Renee Rizvi as the only Seaforth scorers with two goals, and she grabbed four ground balls. Boecke also caused four turnovers and controlled seven draws as the Hawks tried to erase a 6-2 de cit.
Coming over from Northwood after a standout freshman season, Boecke ended her sophomore year as the Hawks’ leading scorer with 95 goals. She also led the team with 83 ground balls, 33 caused turnovers and tied with junior Claire Cantrell for a team-high 20 assists.
Siler City rolls out new youth athletic programs
Tackle football will return in the fall
By Asheebo Rojas Chatham News & Record
THE TOWN of Siler City has rolled out and announced new athletic programs for its surrounding community.
Siler City Parks and Recreation announced the return of youth tackle and ag football for the upcoming season and a new youth soccer league. The town has also begun its new JumpStart Program, a series of nonsport speci c training sessions designed to help kids build a solid athletic foundation.
The returning tackle football league will hold four age divisions — 8U, 10U, 12U and 14U. It will stand in place of the Siler City Youth Football League program started and ran by former town parks and recreation director Donald Dones last year. Players can register for $60, per the town’s registration site. Practices will be held at Bray Park and the Paul Braxton Park multipurpose eld. More details on the league and dates will be released later.
Treiston Burnette, the newly hired town parks and recreation director and a Jordan-Matthews football alum, said it was “big”
for him to get tackle football started again to give kids a better chance at success on the eld and with going to college.
Jordan-Matthews’ football program has been negatively impacted over the years with scarce or non-existent local opportunities to play youth football, especially at the middle school level. Many kids move on to the high school level after not playing for multiple years and either lose interest in the sport or are forced to jump into the varsity level due to a lack of numbers needed for a stable JV program.
“Everything that we do, we’re a feeder system for the high school,” Burnette said.
“I’ve been coaching college football now for 16 years, and one of my goals and dreams as a kid was for me to get out of Siler City and learn as much as I could from as many coaches I possibly could about running football.
Lord willing, I was able to do it, and now I’m back, and I’m trying to pour everything I can into the kids as well as the parents and most importantly to these coaches. I’m just giving everything I got so these kids can be successful.”
Burnette and the town will also expand its ag football program with co-ed competition for ages 4-7 and a focus on girls’ par-
ticipation from ages 8-14. The cost to register for the fall will be $35, and practices will occur at the same location as tackle football.
“It’s another avenue for these young ladies to get scholarships and just not be content at playing the sports that are o ered,” Burnette said. “They can do things the guys do as well on a safer playing eld.”
The new youth soccer program will be open for ages 3-12 with games and practices held at Bray Park, Landrus Siler Park and Paul Braxton Park. The registration fee is $20.
The JumpStart program, for ages 3-14, meets from 6 to 7 p.m. at Bray Park on Field 1 every Tuesday until July 28. Athletes can sign up for a one-time fee of $10 and will learn development skills in speed, agility, strength and conditioning.
“We’re starting out with a baseline of just doing proper mechanics as far as how to move your body when it comes to running, proper technique, proper form,” Burnette said. “This is one of the most important things that you have as a kid is knowing how to actually do it.”
Burnette hopes to add more athletic programs provided by the town in the future, especially wrestling.
COURTESY TREISTON BURNETTE
Treiston Burnette instructs young athletes during a JumpStart session.
Seaforth girls’ basketball coach earns NCHSAA honor
Charles Byrd has coached the Hawks to three straight regional nals
By Asheebo Rojas Chatham News & Record
SEAFORTH GIRLS’ basketball coach Charles Byrd earned recognition from the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.
The NCHSAA named Byrd as the Region 5 recipient for the Homer Thompson “Eight Who Make a Di erence” Award.
In partnership with the North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, the award honors eight coaches across the state who display “exceptional sportsmanship” and “serve as inspiring role models for student athletes.” Homer Thompson, whom the award is named in honor of, served 35 years as a head football coach and sportsmanship advocate, spending 26 years at Parkland High School.
Byrd received the honor for his success with the program and how his coaching goes beyond the basketball court.
“Emphasizing the philosophy of ‘family,’ Coach Byrd fosters deep connections with his players, teaching lessons that extend beyond basketball,” the NCHSAA said in a release. “Through every tough loss, he encourages growth — reminding his team to ‘Grow 1% every day.’ His focus on character and sportsmanship has shaped the foundation of the Seaforth program.”
Byrd has coached Seaforth’s
girls’ basketball team since the school opened in 2021. After leading a group of mostly freshmen to a 19-win season and the state playo s in their rst year, Byrd led the Hawks to the regional nal in each of the last three seasons, including a
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state title appearance in 2023.
Over the four years, Seaforth has achieved a 102-19 record. The Hawks lost one regular season Mid-Carolina 1A/2A conference game in that span and won or earned a share of the regular season conference title each year.
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PJ WARD-BROWN / CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Emma Burke takes a swing in a Heroes League game against North Wake last season.
Chatham County Post 292 set for another season in Heroes League
The summer softball team will have 16U and 18-19U squads this year.
By Asheebo Rojas Chatham News & Record
IT’S TIME for summer softball in Chatham County. Chatham County Post 292 will start another season in the USA Softball Heroes League next week. Post 292 will have a 16U and 18-19U team this year and play its home games at Jordan-Matthews High School. Todd Brown will once again coach the 18-19U team, and Timbo Allred will coach the 16U team. Both teams will compete in Area 3. The 16U team will join Alamance, Randolph, South Wake, North Wake, Johnston County and Orange in the area.
who are still in the age range to play. In its inaugural season last year, the 18/19U team nished with a 10-6 overall record (10-4 in the regular season) and competed in the state postseason tournament.
“His focus on character and sportsmanship has shaped the foundation of the Seaforth program.”
Like Chatham’s American Legion baseball team, Post 292 brings together players from around the county and surrounding areas. The 18-19U team will include graduating seniors and college freshmen
1-0 lead just under three minutes into the game, and 11 minutes later, senior Jazzalynn Miller scored on an assist from senior Olivia Shuler for a 2-0 advantage.
Woods Charter sophomore Lucy Poitras scored seven minutes before halftime, but early in the second half, Lejeune went back up by two scores with a goal from sophomore Scarlett McLean.
The Wolves ended their season with a 16-5-1 overall record, going undefeated (12-0) in the Central Tar Heel 1A con-
As of Monday, the 16U schedule has been nalized. For the 16U division, game nights will be ve-inning double headers starting at 6:30 p.m. The 18-19U schedule will be posted in the online version of this story. Here’s the 16U schedule: June 3 — vs. Alamance; June 5 — at Alamance (Western Alamance High School); June 10 — at North Wake (Optimist Park); June 12 — vs. North Wake; June 16 — vs. Randolph; June 17 — at Randolph (Randleman High School); July 8 — at South Wake (Middle Creek High School); July 10 — vs. South Wake; July 15 — at Johnston (Campbell University); July 17 — vs. Johnston; July 22 — vs. Orange; July 24 — at Orange (Cedar Falls Park); Aug. 4 — State tournament begins (Burlington Springwood Park)
ference for the fourth season in a row.
After making the state title game for the third straight time in 2024, Woods Charter lost 10 seniors, leaving the 2025 squad without any seniors and only three juniors. But for coach Graeme Stewart and his elite program, the youth and inexperience didn’t matter much. The Wolves earned a top two playo seed for the fourth straight season and found themselves one game away from returning to the regional nal. Woods Charter can return this entire roster for 2026.
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GENE GALIN FOR CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Charles Byrd watches his team during a 2024 playo game against St. Pauls.
junior Brett Clark to senior Gray Crabtree gave them their rst lead of the game.
Orange never trailed for the rest of the night.
“A little more tough on ground balls and a few other things,” Seaforth coach Joe Hubbard said. “That’s what the scoreboard re ected.”
After trailing 6-4 at the half, Seaforth remained in range of a comeback, but the Hawks couldn’t get a goal to land.
Orange grew its lead to four halfway through the fourth and held its advantage despite a late two-goal surge from Seaforth in the nal ve minutes.
Seaforth ended its season with an 18-4 record, achieving a program-best in overall wins and conference wins with 15 ( nished as co-conference champions with Orange). Prior to the third-round loss, the Hawks went on an eight-game win streak which was its longest in program history.
“Everyone is proud of them,” Hubbard said. “One game doesn’t de ne them.”
The Hawks will graduate seven seniors, some who started the program four years ago, in-
cluding mid elder Layne Armstrong, mid elder Edwin Ledbetter, defender Anson Shoaf, attack Connor Yalch, mid elder Jackson Powell, attack Cameron Exley and defender Ethan Kuball.
Along with rising senior and one of this season’s leading scorers Ivan Grimes, Seaforth will
volleyball program. Acros four seasons, Dodson accumulated 903 kills, 343 digs and 123 aces and helped the Bears to four playo berths. Dodson put together some dominant performances in her career, including a 25-kill, 26dig game to beat Northwood last fall. She also played softball for a season and basketball, averaging 15.2 points and 10.5 rebounds per game as a senior. The Meredith volleyball team, competing in the USA South Athletic Conference (NCAA Division III), went 16-12 in 2024. Meredith is in Raleigh.
Chloe Scott (Meredith College, basketball, senior)
Chatham Central guard Chloe Scott signed with the Meredith women’s basketball program. Scott averaged 11.9 points (second on the team) and 3.5 rebounds per game as a senior. In 2025, Scott led the Bears’ three-point attack, knocking down a team-high 66 threes on 218 attempts (30%). She recorded three performances of at least 20 points last season. Scott scored 21 points against Cummings on Jan. 3, 28 points against North Moore
on Jan. 30 and a season-high 30 points against Graham the following night. Last winter, she earned basketball all-conference honors. Scott also played softball for the Bears mostly as an out elder. Meredith went 8-17 in their 2024-25 campaign.
Ivan Grimes (Messiah University, lacrosse, junior)
Seaforth junior Ivan Grimes committed to the Messiah University men’s lacrosse program. This past season, Grimes led the team in assists, with 50 and nished second on the team in goals, with 76. Through three seasons, he’s notched totals of 142 goals and 116 assists. Grimes has helped the Hawks to three playo berths. Against Union Pines in the spring, Grimes tied his career-high with six goals. Messiah, located in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is a NCAA Division III program and a member of the Middle Atlantic Conferences. The Falcons went 6-11 in 2025.
Maya Sheridan (Swarthmore College, volleyball, senior) Woods Charter setter and
return some talented young players who impacted winning this spring, including, but not limited to, rising junior attack Oscar Ditter, rising sophomore goalkeeper Finn Prospero and rising sophomore mid elder Tyler Watkins.
“Very excited not only for them, but for the guys that
opposite hitter Maya Sheridan committed to the Swarthmore volleyball program. Sheridan recorded 1,597 assists, 864 digs and 575 kills across four seasons, leading the Wolves in digs (321), kills (287) and serving aces (78) in 2024. She earned multiple Central Tar Heel 1A all-conference selections and two NC Volleyball Coaches Association all-region selections. This past fall, Sheridan earned NCVBCA second-team all- state honors. Swarthmore, located in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, is a NCAA Division III program competing in the Centennial Conference. The Phoenix went 17-10 in 2024.
Sydney Batey (Montreat College, track and cross-country, senior)
Woods Charter runner Sydney Batey will continue her athletic career at Montreat College. Batey ran personal bests of 6 minutes, 42.95 seconds in the outdoor 1,600 (6:47.35 indoor), 14:49.70 in the outdoor 3,200 (14:33.50 indoor), 2:56.57 in the outdoor 800 and 24:02.54 in the 5,000. Montreat is a NAIA program in the Appalachian Athletic Conference.
“We’ll be back. You better believe it. We’ll be back.”
Joe Hubbard
are coming in,” Hubbard said. “We’ve had some camps and some clinics here in our community with the youth leagues, and we’ve seen them, and we know what we’re going to start coaching them on.”
Said Hubbard, “We’ll be back. You better believe it. We’ll be back.”
On the girls’ side of the 1A/2A/3A East playo s, No. 4 Seaforth fell short of a thirdround berth in a 7-6 loss to No. 5 Swansboro.
The Hawks had no answer for Swansboro’s sophomore mid elder Addison King who notched a team-high four goals.
Up 3-2 late in the second quarter, King started the Pirates’ game-turning run with a score right before halftime. She scored two straight goals to start the third period, giving the Pirates a commanding 6-2 lead six minutes into the second half. Out of a timeout, Seaforth
found its footing with two straight scores from junior midelder Renee Rizvi and junior mid elder Mia Moore, who created space with a juke move before launching the shot.
However, King halted the momentum with her nal score late in the third quarter to put Swansboro back ahead by three.
The Hawks continued to ght in the fourth quarter. After penalty by Swansboro near its own goal, Seaforth’s sophomore midelder Natalie Boecke scored her second goal of the night. With four minutes left to play, another Rizvi score brought the Hawks within one, but they couldn’t nd the back of the net again.
Seaforth ended the season with a program-best 10-7 overall record, including a program-best 8-4 conference record. For the rst time, Seaforth nished the highest amongst the 1A/2A/3A teams in the DC 6/ Northern Lakes Athletic/Central/Mid-Carolina conference, coming in at third overall behind two 4A teams. The Hawks will only graduate two seniors, defender Claire McClintock and defender Ellie Johnson, and look to reload with a highly experienced roster in 2026.
Anna Peeler (Catawba College, track and cross-county)
Woods Charter runner Anna Peeler will join the Catawba College track and cross-country program. Peeler recorded personal bests of 5:27.67 in the outdoor 1,600 (5:43.40 indoor), 12:39.92 in the outdoor 3,200 (13:08.08 indoor), 2:28.22 in the outdoor 800, 3:16.24 in the indoor 1,000 and 20:27.52 in the 5,000. She earned multiple all-conference honors, including multiple conference girls’ runner of the year selections. Catawba, located in Salisbury, is a NCAA Division II program that competes in the South Atlantic Conference.
PJ WARD-BROWN / CHATHAM NEWS & RECORD
Natalie Boecke works her way through the Swansboro defense in the Hawks’ playo loss.
CHATHAM CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL / FACEBOOK Chatham Central signees celebrate their college decisions at their signing ceremony last week.
Palou makes history as 1st Spanish driver to win Indianapolis 500
The three-time IndyCar champion earned his rst Indy 500 win
By Jenna Fryer The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Alex
Palou took the ceremonial swig of milk in Victory Lane at the Indianapolis 500. He allowed his wife to have a sip, she in turn gave a sip to their baby, and team owner Chip Ganassi ended up with the bottle and took a drink, as well.
Then, the rst Spaniard to win “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” took a victory lap with them around Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the back of a pickup truck. At one point, Palou climbed onto its roof and raised his arms in triumph, the winning wreath draped around his neck.
“All my family around, it’s amazing, honestly,” he said, smiling. “All the team around, they make me look really good
on the track.” Palou came to the speedway as the two-time defending IndyCar champion — he has three titles in four years — and had opened this year with victories in four of the rst ve races. It’s the kind of start not seen since
1964, when A.J. Foyt won the rst seven races of the season, including the Indy 500.
But it was win No. 6 that Palou had circled on his calendar. Without an Indy 500 win, he said, his career would be incomplete.
He was in fuel-saving mode over the closing laps, following former Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Marcus Ericsson. Palou got tired of staying put with 16 laps remaining and charged ahead — a move Ericsson said “will keep me up at night. What I did and what I didn’t do.” Palou was never challenged from there, taking the checkered ag as a crash brought out a caution. He was engulfed by his father, Ramon, and his team in a jubilant celebration.
Scott Dixon gave him a big hug, as did Dario Franchitti, as the Ganassi Indy 500 winners welcomed him to an exclusive club.
“I cannot believe it. What an amazing day. What an amazing race,” Palou said. “I cannot believe it. It was tough. Tough conditions out there, especially if you were like, third or fourth in the pack. Even leading, the fuel consumption was super high, so they didn’t want me to lead. I wanted to lead, honestly,
so yeah, made it happen.” Meanwhile, Ericsson climbed from his car in pit lane and pressed his hands to his face, the disappointment of coming oh-so-close to a second Indianapolis 500 victory etched across his face. David Maluks was third for A.J. Foyt Racing.
“It’s pretty painful,” Ericsson said of his second career Indy 500 runner-up nish. “I need to look at it again. You replay it in your head a million times after the nish, wondering what I could have done di erently. Second means nothing in this race.”
Josef Newgarden’s bid to win three consecutive Indy 500s ended with a fuel pump issue.
Will Power wound up 19th, the highest- nishing Team Penske driver.
It was the sixth Indy 500 win for Ganassi, who has been on a dominating wave since hiring Palou before the 2021 season. Palou won the championship in his rst year with the team, added two more titles and now seems on pace for a fourth one.
“The guy is just unbelievable. I don’t know what else to say,” Ganassi said. “It is an incredible thing. (The Indy 500) is going to make Alex Palou’s career. It is going to make his life. And it has certainly made mine.”
College Football Playo shifts to straight seeding model
The change should allow the best teams to play each other later in the playo
By Eddie Pells The Associated Press
THE COLLEGE Football
Playo will go to a more straightforward way of lling the bracket next season, announcing it will place teams strictly on where they are ranked instead of moving pieces around to reward conference champions.
Ten conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director came to the unanimous agreement they needed to shift the model that drew complaints last season.
The new format will no longer guarantee an opening bye week for the four highest-ranked league champions, reserving that bene t for the four top-ranked teams in general. The change was widely expected after last season’s jumbled bracket gave byes to Big 12 champion Arizona State and Mountain West champion Boise State, even though they were ranked 12th and ninth, respectively, by the playo selection committee.
That system made the rankings and the seedings in the tournament two di erent things and resulted in some matchups — for instance, the quarter -
“The
CFP Management Committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment.”
Rich Clark, CFP executive director
nal between top-ranked Oregon and eventual national champion Ohio State — that came earlier than they otherwise might have.
“After evaluating the rst year of the 12-team Playo , the CFP Management Committee felt it was in the best interest of the game to make this adjustment,” said Rich Clark, executive director of the CFP.
The ve highest-ranked conference champions will still be guaranteed spots in the playo , meaning it’s possible there could be a repeat of a di erent sort of shu ing seen last season when CFP No. 16 Clemson was seeded 12th in the bracket after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference. That ended up costing 11th-ranked Alabama a spot in the playo .
Under the new arrangement, the four top-ranked conference champions will still receive $8 million for their leagues — representing the $4 million they earn for making the playo and
The College Football Playo National Championship Trophy on display before the Ohio State Buckeyes National Championship celebration. The path to the title should be less convoluted with the CFP’s change.
$4 million for advancing to the quarter nals.
sue as leverage for the next set of negotiations, which will come after this season and could include an expansion to 14 teams and more guaranteed bids for certain leagues. The SEC and Big Ten will have the biggest say in those decisions.
As it stands, this will be the third di erent playo system for college football in the span of three years. For the 10 years leading into last season’s inaugural 12-team playo , the CFP was a four-team a air.
A look at possible rst-round matchups had straight seeding been in play last season:
• No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Notre Dame. The Tigers still would have gotten in despite being ranked 16th. Notre Dame, a team without a conference, could bene t from this new arrangement because it is now eligible for a bye.
• No. 11 Arizona State at No. 6 Ohio State. The Sun Devils face a juggernaut instead of receiving a rst-round bye.
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey was among those who pushed for the change in the upcoming second year of the 12-team playo , though he remained cautious about it being approved because of the unanimous vote needed.
Smaller conferences had a chance to use the seeding is-
“That was the commissioners’ way of — at least for this year — holding to the commitment that they have made nancially to those teams, those conference champions in particular, that would have been paid those amounts under the former system that we used last year,” Clark told ESPN.
• No. 10 SMU at No. 7 Tennessee. Yes, Alabama, 11th in CFP’s nal ranking, still would’ve been the odd man out because of Clemson.
• No. 9 Boise State at No. 8 Indiana. It could’ve been Ashton Jeanty vs. the Hoosiers in a matchup of two of the season’s best stories.
Byes: No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Texas, No. 4 Penn State.
Advertisement of 2025 Tax Liens on Real Property
Advertisement of 2024 Tax Liens on Real Property
Under and by virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 105-369 of the North Carolina General Statutes and pursuant to an order of the Board of Commissioners of Chatham County, I am hereby advertising tax liens for the year 2024 upon the real estate described below. The amount advertised includes interest and costs, and the omission of such from the amount advertised will not constitute a waiver of the taxing unit’s claim for those items. The real estate parcel that is subject to the lien, the name of the person to whom the property was listed for taxes, the current owner’s name if the property was transferred in the year 2024 and the principal amount of the taxes are set out below. When
a parcel was subdivided after January 1, 2024 and ownership of one or more of the resulting parcels was transferred, the amount of the tax lien on each parcel, as shown in this advertisement, is the amount of the lien on the original parcel as it existed on January 1, 2024 and is subject to adjustment when the taxes are paid or the lien is foreclosed. If the taxes remain unpaid after this advertisement is completed, the taxing unit may foreclose on the property to satisfy the tax lien unless taxpayers are protected by bankruptcy.
This the 14th day of May, 2025.
Jenny Williams Chatham County Tax Collector
County of Chatham
JOE MAIORANA / AP PHOTO
AJ MAST / AP PHOTO
Alex Palou, left, of Spain, has his winner’s ring kissed by his daughter Lucia on the Yard of Bricks on the start/ nish line after winning the Indianapolis 500.
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Strauss’ ‘Blue Danube’ waltz launching into space to mark 200th birthday
The piece is heard in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”
By Marcia Dunn The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Johann Strauss’ “Blue Danube” is heading into space this month to mark the 200th anniversary of the waltz king’s birth.
The classical piece will be beamed into the cosmos as it’s performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The celestial send-o on May 31 — livestreamed with free public screenings in Vienna, Madrid and New York — also will celebrate the European Space Agency’s founding 50 years ago.
Although the music could be converted into radio signals in real time, according to o cials, ESA will relay a prerecorded version from the orchestra’s rehearsal the day before to avoid any technical issues. The live performance will provide the accompaniment.
The radio signals will hurtle away at the speed of light, or a mind-blowing 670 million mph.
That will put the music past the moon in 1½ seconds, past Mars in 4½ minutes, past Jupiter in 37 minutes and past Neptune in four hours. Within 23 hours, the signals will be as
BOOK REVIEW
FRITZ LUCKHARDT VIA WIKIPEDIA
Johann Strauss II was an Austrian composer best known for his waltzes, including “The Blue Danube.”
far from Earth as NASA’s Voyager 1, the world’s most distant spacecraft at more than 15 billion miles in interstellar space. NASA also celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2008 by transmitting a song directly into deep space: the Beatles’ “Across the Universe.” And last year, NASA beamed up Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” toward Venus. Music has even owed from another planet to Earth — courtesy of a NASA Mars rover. Flight controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
sent a recording of /will.i.am ‘s “Reach for the Stars” to Curiosity in 2012, and the rover relayed it back.
These are all deep-space transmissions as opposed to the melodies streaming between NASA’s Mission Control and orbiting crews since the mid1960s.
Now it’s Strauss’ turn, after getting passed over for the Voyager Golden Records nearly a half-century ago.
Launched in 1977, NASA’s twin Voyagers 1 and 2 each carry a gold-plated copper phonograph record, along with a stylus and playing instructions for anyone or anything out there.
The records contain sounds and images of Earth as well as 90 minutes of music. The late astronomer Carl Sagan led the committee that chose Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Stravinsky pieces, along with modern and Indigenous selections.
Among those skipped was Strauss, whose “Blue Danube” graced Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci- opus “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
The tourist board in Vienna, where Strauss was born on Oct. 25, 1825, said it aims to correct this “cosmic mistake” by sending the “the most famous of all waltzes” to its destined home among the stars.
New essays from bestselling writer Russo on how his life informs his art
“Life and Art” is divided into personal memoirs and cultural criticisms
By Rob Merrill The Associated Press
RICHARD RUSSO, whose “Fool” trilogy is beloved for the characters he created to populate a ctional upstate New York town, freely admits he’s always pulled from his real life to write his novels.
“I was born in exactly the right place at exactly the right time,” he writes in one of 12 essays that make up his slim new volume “Life and Art.”
Russo scholars — there must be some in American literature departments somewhere, right? — will devour this book. Russo writes lovingly of both his father and mother, draws explicit connections between his characters and people from his real life, takes a road trip back to his hometown Gloversville, and even throws in an homage to the late Paul Newman, whose portrayal of Sully in his “Nobody’s Fool” helped Russo’s work nd an audience well beyond readers.
The 12 essays here are divided into the two parts noted in the title. “Life” is more memoir, with Russo sharing what he did during the COVID-19 pandemic, among many other things.
“I’d been waiting for more than a decade … for somebody to tell me to go home and stay there, and somebody nally had.”
The rst half is stu ed with stories about his mother and father, anchored by “Marriage Story,” which reveals the illnesses they both su ered (gambling and alcoholism for Dad, anxiety for Mom), and how the dream life his mother envisioned after her husband survived World War II never materialized (“She and my father stalled.”). But Russo doesn’t write to assign blame. At age 75 and with both parents buried, he takes a more thoughtful approach in these essays. Not yet a teenager when Dad left, he realizes now that Mom was just doing what he does for a living as a storyteller — controlling the narrative. Aspiring writers should appreciate the advice Russo doles out in these pages. He credits his childhood and the people who loved him as his “greatest strength” — “Like Faulkner, I’d been gifted the perfect lens through which to view America” — and tells would-be authors, “No matter how gifted you are, or how hardworking, you’re never going to be any good until you know who and what you love, because until then you won’t know who you are.”
KNOPF VIA AP
“Life and Art” is the latest book by Richard Russo.
this week in history
Joan of Arc burns for heresy, Battle of Midway begins, bloodshed at Tiananmen Square
MAY 29
1790: Rhode Island became the 13th and nal original colony to ratify the United States Constitution.
1914: The Canadian Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the St. Lawrence River in eastern Quebe. Of the 1,477 people on board the Empress of Ireland, 1,012 died.
1953: Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal became the rst climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
1977: Janet Guthrie became the rst woman to race in the Indianapolis 500, nishing in 29th place.
MAY 30
1431: Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
1911: The rst Indianapolis 500 auto race was held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
1922: The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated Washington, D.C.
1935: Babe Ruth played in
his last major league baseball game for the Boston Braves, leaving after the rst inning of the rst game of a double-header against the Philadelphia Phillies.
MAY 31
1790: President George Washington signed into law the rst U.S. copyright act.
1921: A two-day massacre erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as white mobs began looting and burning the a uent black district of Greenwood over reports a black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator.
1949: Former State Department o cial and accused spy Alger Hiss went on trial in New York, charged with perjury.
JUNE 1
1813: Capt. James Lawrence, mortally wounded commanding the USS Chesapeake, ordered, “Don’t give up the ship,” during a losing battle with the British HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.
1962: Former Nazi o cial Adolf Eichmann was executed after being found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his actions during World War II.
1980: Cable News Network, the rst 24-hour television
news channel, made its debut.
JUNE 2
1924: Congress passed, and President Calvin Coolidge signed, the Indian Citizenship Act, a measure guaranteeing full American citizenship for all Native Americans born within U.S. territorial limits.
1941: Baseball’s “Iron Horse,” Lou Gehrig, died in New York at 37 from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig’s disease.
1953: Queen Elizabeth II was crowned at age 27 at a ceremony in London’s Westminster Abbey.
JUNE 3
1888: The poem “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer was rst published in the San Francisco Daily Examiner.
1935: The French liner SS Normandie set a record on its maiden voyage, arriving in New York after crossing the Atlantic in just four days.
1943: A clash between U.S. Navy sailors and Mexican American youth in Los Angeles sparked the Zoot Suit Riots, with white mobs injuring more than 150 people citywide.
JUNE 4
1812: The U.S. House of Representatives passed its rst war declaration, approving by a vote of 79-49 a declaration of war against Britain.
1940: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared to the House of Commons: “We shall ght on the beaches, in the elds, streets, and hills; we shall never surrender.”
1942: The World War II naval Battle of Midway began.
1989: Thousands of pro-democracy protesters and dozens of soldiers were killed when Chinese troops crushed a seven-week protest in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Chris Brown freed on $6.7M bail in assault case
The rapper is accused of attacking producer Abe Diaw
By Brian Melley
The Associated Press
LONDON — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown was released on $6.7 million bail last Wednesday while facing allegations he beat and seriously injured a music producer with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023.
The decision by a London judge to grant bail will allow Brown to launch a world tour next month that had been thrown into doubt last week when a district judge in Manchester ordered him into custody after he was charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Judge Tony Baumgartner in Southwark Crown Court said that Brown could go on tour, including several stops in the U.K., but would have to pay the bail to guarantee his court appearance.
Brown, who was not in court for the hearing, was released in the late afternoon from a jail in Salford, outside Manchester, where he had been arrested at a hotel last week.
Brown was initially scheduled to return to court on June 13. Had he remained in
custody, he would have missed the rst two nights of his upcoming European tour, which starts next month.
Brown, 36, is accused of an unprovoked attack on producer Abe Diaw at a bar in the Tape nightclub in the swanky Mayfair neighborhood in February 2023 while he was on his last tour.
Prosecutor Hannah Nicholls said last week in Manchester Magistrates’ Court that Brown struck Diaw several times with a bottle and then punched and kicked him in an attack caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people.
American musician Omololu Akinlolu, 38, who performs under the name Hoody Baby and is a friend of Brown, was also charged in the assault.
Neither Brown nor Akinlolu have entered a plea yet. Both men were ordered to appear in court again on June 20.
Brown, who burst onto the music scene as a teen in 2005, won his rst Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for “F.A.M.E.” and then earned his second in the same category for “11:11 (Deluxe)” earlier this year. His hits include songs such as “Run It,” “Kiss Kiss” and “Without You.”
His tour is due to kick o June 8 in Amsterdam before starting North America shows in July.
solutions
AP PHOTO
Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy on May 30, 1431.
SCOTT ROTH / INVISION / AP PHOTO
Chris Brown performs at the 2015 Hot 97 Summer Jam at MetLife Stadium. He was released on bail last week after being accused of assaulting a music producer in a London bar.
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