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Happy New Year

Thank you to all who helped make this past year truly special. Here’s to a joyful, successful, and prosperous 2026! Jessica Haverland

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Honoring Gisela and Dan Hood

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In the late 1970s, Gisela and Dan Hood were typical graduate students at Clemson. For fun, they ran nearly every single day (it was free entertainment!). When Dan looks back on those days, he realizes that all that exercise probably masked his mounting type 1 diabetes symptoms by keeping his blood sugar in check. But something strange happened in early 1980—right before their ﬁrst child, Daniel, was born.

Dan vowed, “I will never let diabetes deﬁne me…or hold me back…or keep me from doing anything.” Gisela wholeheartedly agreed. They’ve traveled the world, experiencing the wildest of adventures— with only a few T1D challenges along the way.

The Hoods moved to the Piedmont Triad in 1984, a few months before their daughter, Karoline, was an o an H born. T1D was just part of the family’s life, d K ar olin e according to Karoline, the Gala’s Fund A Cure Chair. A Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and a Professor who leads the Advanced Math Program at West Point, Karoline is 100% committed to any project she undertakes—including fundraising to cure type 1. In that way, she’s following in the footsteps of our Piedmont Triad Chapter founders. While Breakthrough T1D was formed in 1970, it didn’t gain a foothold in the Piedmont Triad until 1995, when our local Chapter was founded by Anne Hummel of Greensboro and Buff Perry of Winston-Salem, whose daughters had been diagnosed with T1D as children. Anne’s husband, Sam Hummel, met Dan through Rotary, and encouraged him to get involved with what was then known as JDRF (“Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation”), but Dan resisted for years, saying that he “wasn’t a ‘juvenile.’” He ﬁnally gave in, and he and Gisela have been strong supporters for decades.

He was diagnosed a few months later, after returning from a 10-day business trip to Europe with an unquenchable thirst and “emaciated,” as Gisela explained. On April 1, Dan went for his annual physical to renew his pilot’s license. The ﬂight surgeon told Dan he had diabetes and that he’d have to take insulin shots every day for the rest of his life. This was no April Fool’s joke; it was a wake-up call for the Hoods, who had to adjust their lifestyle to accommodate the realities of diabetes.

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“I was looking forward to seeing Ralph Sampson and the Virginia Cavaliers play against Clemson at Littlejohn Coliseum,” Dan said. “Our seats were right behind the backboard. But I couldn’t make out Sampson’s name on his jersey.” A pilot, Dan had always had perfect vision. He knows now that blurry vision can be a warning sign of T1D. At the time, he had no idea.

When Gisela and Dan ﬁrst became involved with Breakthrough T1D, they often participated in the local Walk with Roy and Vanessa Carroll, who poured themselves into ﬁnding cures for type 1 after their oldest daughter, Brittany, was diagnosed in 2003 at the age of 12. Brittany has taken on many leadership roles for Breakthrough T1D (including Board member and 2024 Gala Honoree, along with her mom). This year, she’s serving as Auction Chair, partnering with Alejandra Thompson de Jordan, who was diagnosed at age 15, right around the time that the Piedmont Triad Chapter began hosting the annual Hope Gala.

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life they want…and refusing to let T1D get in their way.

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As the Hoods became more entrenched in the local T1D community, Dan shared his passion for curing this disease with his fellow Rotarians. He’s tapped two of them to serve in Gala leadership positions. Rotarian Ashby Cook and his wife, Katherine, are serving as Gala Chairs, while another long-time Rotary friend, Lane Schiffman—who served as Breakthrough T1D’s Greensboro Walk Chair in 2018—is taking on the dual role of Corporate and Community Chair.

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With the debut of the Hope Gala, Alejandra’s parents, Alejandra and Cliff Thompson, and Wendy Calloway (whose own daughter, Katelyn, had recently been diagnosed at the age of 5) joined forces to elevate the Gala experience. Together, Alejandra, Cliff, and Wendy took on the role of Event Experience Chairs. Every year, the trio—aided by hundreds of volunteers—creates a breathtaking ballroom, including our signature chandelier.

To underscore Breakthrough T1D’s roots across the Triad, the Gala alternates between Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Silent and Live Auctions feature incredible packages at all price points. Supporters anywhere may take part in the Silent Auction, which will open online to the public on February 16. One lucky person will win an exquisite piece of jewelry through the Windsor Jewelers Sweepstakes. Hope will absolutely be running wild at the Gala! And nothing gives more hope to people living with T1D than Fund A Cure, when guests make donations that go 100% to fund type 1 research—research that is moving forward at breathtaking speed. Last year, Breakthrough T1D announced Project ACT (Accelerate Cell Therapies), a holistic, strategic effort to make cell therapies a reality for millions living with type 1. Cell therapies place insulin-producing cells inside the body of someone with T1D. These cells replace damaged or non-functioning beta cells, which are the pancreatic cells that produce insulin. Cell therapies could effectively cure T1D. Three late-stage clinical trials are showing tremendous results, with many participants no longer needing insulin. Stay tuned for progress. With your support, hope for T1D cures is running wild!

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January 2026

DEPARTMENTS 11 Chaos Theory By Cassie Bustamante 15 Simple Life By Jim Dodson 18 Sazerac 23 Tea Leaf Astrologer By Zora Stellanova 25 Life’s Funny By Maria Johnson 28 The Omnivorous Reader By Stephen E. Smith 30 Home Grown By Cynthia Adams 33 Birdwatch By Susan Campbell 35 Wandering Billy By Billy Ingram 77 Events Calendar 94 GreenScene 96 O.Henry Ending By Danielle Rotella Guerrieri Cover photograph by Amy Freeman Photograph this page by Bert VanderVeen 6 O.Henry

FEATURES 39 The Other Side of the Mirror Poem by Linda Annas Ferguson 40 Barbecue, Bourbon, Boutiques

By Danielle Rotella Guerrieri A journey into Jamestown

46 A Culinary Course in Community

By Cassie Bustamante Tina Firesheets and Ling Sue Withers weave women’s stories into supper

52 Throwing Stones, Sweeping Ice

By Ross Howell Jr. In the Gate City, curling is very cool

56 Dream Home

By Billy Ingram A Loewenstein lives on in Irving Park

87 January Almanac

By Ashley Walshe

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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David Woronoff david@thepilot.com Andie Rose, Creative Director andiesouthernpines@gmail.com Cassie Bustamante, Editor cassie@ohenrymag.com Jim Dodson, Editor at Large jwdauthor@gmail.com Keith Borshak, Senior Designer Miranda Glyder, Senior Designer CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

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8 O.Henry

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels III, David Woronoff In memoriam Frank Daniels Jr. © Copyright 2026. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. O.Henry Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC

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chaos theory

From Sourdough to Salem Making a list and checking things off

By Cassie Bustamante

The Roman god Janus, after

ILLUSTRATION BY MIRANDA GLYDER

whom January was named, had two faces, one that looked to the past and one that looked to the future, symbolizing his domain over beginnings and endings. Last fall, too many endings piled up suddenly. Within the span of one week, a friend’s brother died unexpectedly, we said goodbye to a book club pal’s husband, an integral part of the Greensboro community whose effervescent life was cut much too short by cancer, and another friend tragically lost her beloved dog — all of this a month after my own Aussie-Weimaraner sidekick crossed the rainbow bridge. This perfect storm of grief and loss left me stunned and looking inward, and, frankly, ready to forge my own new beginning. Plus, I’d just read about Greensboro Public Library’s “One City, One Book” pick, My Father’s List, by Laura Carney. When Carney discovered her late father’s bucket list among his belongings, she decided to honor him by checking off the boxes left incomplete. Instead of pondering how I want to be remembered, hopefully decades from now, I thought about how I want to live. Inspired by Carney and driven by the mission to make the most of my days, I texted one of my best friends: “It’s a few months away, but next year in January, instead of a big goal for the year, I am going to make a 2026 bucket list and fill it with things I want to do.” No lofty goals of writing my first book or finally having six-pack abs. (At 47, it might be time to toss in the gym towel on that one.) In December 2024, this particular friend and I had together decided to tap into our creativity in 2025, meeting once a month for a craft night. We managed only a few, but those rare evenings The Art & Soul of Greensboro

were precious to me. Our young kids would play while we made denim bracelets, pounded flowers — zero stars for that one, a total fail — and caught up on each other’s lives. Her reply came almost immediately: “Could one of our craft nights be to make a tangible bucket that we put these little notes into?” A couple hours later, another text came — this time, an image of a Halloween-decorated porch featuring a little cauldron. “Also . . . cauldron for bucket list?” It was a big ol’ “yes” from me. I love all things witch adjacent. After all, I was named after a witch, Cassandra, on the vampirethemed soap opera of the 1960s, Dark Shadows, and I grew up not far from where the infamous Salem witch trials took place. I’m just accepting my destiny. Crystals sit on my dresser, a manifestation candle on my nightstand. I do not own a Ouija board — that’s a portal too far for me. In December, I took some time to jot down my very own O.Henry 11

chaos theory

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12 O.Henry

“cauldron list.” The idea is that, upon completion, I drop the slip of paper featuring the written task into the cauldron: Write a short piece of fiction. Some people say you should do something that scares you each day and this one definitely makes my knees quake. Learn to make sourdough bread. Yes, I’m six years late to this trend, but do you know what never goes out of style? Crusty, carby, sourdough bread. In fact, it’s been around for possibly more than 6,000 years. But, in my house, it only sticks around for a day or two. Get a colonoscopy. Not nearly as appealing as some of my other items, but necessary. To ease my mind around this one, I just googled “what happens during a colonoscopy” and do not recommend you do the same. Take Wilder on the challenging hike at Stone Mountain State Park. At just 7, he doesn’t know it, but he’s in training to hit up Yosemite, Yellowstone, Acadia and many more national parks with me and my husband, Chris. Read Just Kids by Patti Smith. I bought this book five years ago and have yet to crack it open. My own editor even asked me recently if I’d read it. “Well, I own it. Does that count for something?” Nope. Make an autumnal pilgrimage to Salem, Massachusetts. This trip has been on my mental bucket list for years and it’s time to pay homage to the witches who have gone before me. And the list goes on — but not too much. The point is to embrace my life, not consume what little free time I already have. A year from now, I hope I can tell you that 2026 was the year that I learned to live each day like it was a new adventure, that my cauldron is full of tiny slips of paper. But if that isn’t the case, perhaps one of my own children will one day unearth my unfinished work and set about putting another drop in the bucket — or another slip in the cauldron, as it may be. OH Cassie Bustamante is editor of O.Henry magazine.

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simple life

My Own Soulful Green Books Food for the journey ahead

By Jim Dodson

I’m often asked by readers where I find my ideas to write about each month.

ILLUSTRATION BY GERRY O'NEILL

“It’s simple,” I reply. “Life.” Hence the title of this column. It helps, however, that I also have what I call my “Green Books.” Not the historic Green Book that served as a guide to safe places for accommodations and food for traveling African Americans in the mid-1900s South. Mine are something very personal: four leather journals, several with cracked bindings from age, that I began half a century ago. In their pages, I’ve recorded memorable quotes, funny observations and the wisdom of others who graciously provided food for the journey ahead. Today, four such books anchor my writing desk and library shelves, crammed full of helpful words — some famous, others anonymous, comical, spiritual or plain common sense — a resource I turn to when life seems out of whack, or I simply need a shot of humor or optimism to face the moment. A new year strikes me as the perfect time to share some of my all-time favorites. “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world, as a result, will have a generation of idiots.” – Albert Einstein OK. Had to put this one out first because I’m a confirmed Luddite who writes his books with an ink pen and can only function on a computer with proper adult supervision, meaning my wife, Wendy, a techno-whiz. Recently heard a “Super” AI “expert” warn that “living authors” will eventually be a thing of the past. That’s a world I don’t wish to live in. “I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen.” – from Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne This gem hung with an illustration of Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore on my childhood bedroom wall. Stop and think for a The Art & Soul of Greensboro

moment about the amazing people you didn’t know until they unexpectedly, perhaps miraculously, stepped into your life — and a new adventure began. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life?” – From “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver This timeless poetic question hung on a banner over my daughter Maggie’s beautiful autumn wedding three years ago at her childhood summer camp in Maine. It’s one we all must invariably answer, even late in life. Especially late in life. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – from Walden: or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau, poet, naturalist, Transcendental rock star. I discovered — and memorized — this stanza in Miss Emily Dickenson’s English Lit class in 1970 (by the way, her real name). So moved by it, I vowed to someday retreat to the northern woods. Looking back, I think it partially explains why I built my house on a forested hilltop in Maine. That gold-and-green woodland enchanted my children and their papa, a would-be transcendentalist who has learned more from the solitude of the forest than in any city on Earth. “There will be a time when you think everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” – Louis L’Amour, Western novelist Useful advice for those of us anxious about the fate of American democracy. “Solvitur ambulando.” Translation: It is solved by walking. – St. Augustine Amazing what a good walk around the block or hike through the woods can do to calm the mind, work out a solution or simply remind one how life’s ever-changing landscape can clear away the cobwebs. “Stop looking at yourself and begin looking into yourself. Life is an inside job.” O.Henry 15

simple life Someone once said this to me, but I can’t remember who. I sometimes remind myself of this when I’m shaving in the morning and see myself in the mirror, often followed by a second observation: I thought getting older would take more time.

Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer This note from this wise little book pretty much summarizes my personal ambition for 2026 — to go slower, to pay closer attention, to sit still as often as possible.

“If something is lost, quit searching for it. It will find its way back to you.” Sage advice passed along from a longtime golf pal’s mama. I’ve found it works splendidly with misplaced car keys, eyeglasses, wallets, (most) golf balls and missing Christmas candy. Not so much with politics or old romances.

“Modern American society is marked by a high degree of mobility, a decline in voluntary civic activities, and an emphasis on rights (i.e. what others owe me). The result is rootlessness and detachment from family and friends. Higher crime rates, chiefly among youth, show a strong statistical correlation with lack of self-control. And moral disputes are often marked by dogmatism, the inability or unwillingness to see the moral force behind another point of view. In response, the possibilities for improvement include (1) reinvigorating our civic associations, (2) developing and inculcating self-control, and (3) demanding higher levels of mutual respect and tolerance in the way we speak to and treat one another.” – from Civility & Community by Brian Schrag May you all have a safe and much more civil New Year. I leave you with one of my favorite wisdoms from my books:

“The meal is the essential act of life. It is the habitual ceremony, the long record of marriage, the school for behavior, the prelude to love. Among all peoples and in all times, every significant event in life — be it wedding, triumph, or birth — is marked by a meal or the sharing of food and drink. The meal is the emblem of civilization.” – James and Kay Salter, from Life Is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days A well-loved book in our household, one every food lover should own, a gloriously entertaining volume chock full of quirky, fun and extraordinary gems about the origins and traditions of food, drink and fellowship at the table. “In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention. And, in an age of constant motion, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.” – from The Art of Stillness:

“Do not be afraid, for I am with you. From wherever you come, I will lead you home.” – Isaiah 43:5 OH Jim Dodson is founding editor of O.Henry magazine. His 17th book, The Road That Made America: A Modern Pilgrim Travels the Great Wagon Road, is available wherever books are sold.

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16 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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Sazerac

"A spirited forum of Gate City food, drink, history, art, events, rumors and eccentrics worthy of our famous namesake"

Sage Gardener Each year my wife, Anne, and I combine New Year’s resolutions with the annual barrage of seed catalogs to make our garden plans for the season. This January, we’re resolved to finally grow romanesco, a cultivar of cauliflower that is brilliantly chartreuse and looks like the intergalactic sister of cauliflower and broccoli on LSD. Next on our list is mâche, aka cornsalad or lamb’s lettuce, which crowds the produce section of Spain and France, but is relatively unknown here. Very mild with a slightly nutty note, it was regarded as a weed for years in Europe, so we figure it ought to thrive like all the other weeds that crowd our vegetable beds. Something we have not seen in Spain, despite recent trips to visit our newly sprouted granddaughter, is the black Spanish radish. Reputed to have “an earthy, spicy, bitter and pungent flavor,” and, yes, black on the outside, why wouldn’t we plant them? And we’ve always wanted to try the candy-cane striped Chioggia beets, so this is the year, we’ve decided we’re going to. After all, beets thrive in our soil. Salsify, radicchio and cucamelons are on our list, the latter described by epicgardening.com's “27 Unusual and Rare Vegetables to Grow This Season” as “adorable grape-sized fruits that look like baby watermelons and taste like tart cucumbers.” Aaaaaw. Who doesn’t like a cute vegetable? In the way of past successes with out-of-the-ordinary veggies, Anne and I recommend planting goober peas — can you say boiled peanuts? Sea Island field peas were both a culinary and gardening success and, like peanuts, they’re great at crowding out weeds as a ground cover. Another import from Spain is the Canary melon. Oval and yellow, it has a creamy texture, with a sweet, slightly musky taste. We’ve also had great success with purple green beans, which garnered comments from our neighbors, such as “Well, I never.” In the “Don’t Plant” category, we would list heritage okra, the seeds of which we got from Old Salem, but which had the texture of a canine chew toy. Not even our dog would eat it.

18 O.Henry

Malabar spinach goes gangbusters, is hearty and resists pests, but maybe that’s because of its taste, which reminded me of various inedible plants I tried as a kid. Jerusalem artichokes are fun, but be careful. Yes, you can eat them like potatoes, but they are definitely a moveable feast; and, if you let them, they’ll take over your entire garden. I should add to our long list of flops — celeriac, which we tried again and again, but never got beyond seedlings. Parsnips, kohlrabi and rutabagas have all fizzled for us, but maybe that’s the weather, our soil or the Sage Gardener’s lack of sagacity. We’ve always wanted to grow rhubarb, but decided not to after a yankee in our community garden repeatedly tried with limited success. On my personal gardener’s bucket list? Dragon fruit. Also corn smut, which only visited my corn once, but I didn’t get around to cooking it before it grew so smutty it looked X-rated. I’ve also dreamed of growing the vaunted corpse flower. And while we’re on the subject of mutability, how about a century plant, which is monocarpic, meaning it only flowers at the very end of its long life, which is more like 10–30 years rather than 100. Granted, at 78, what are the odds of my seeing it bloom? But nothing ventured, nothing grown. — David Claude Bailey The Art & Soul of Greensboro

CAROL W. MARTIN COLLECTION AT THE HISTORY MUSEUM

sazerac

Just One Thing “So, I got out there that first day and took a bunch of pictures and was going like, ‘Whoa, there it is. I can see it.’” David Brown, a photographer native to Greensboro, talks about his experience with switching from film photography to digital photography, which produced this landscape photograph he titled The Red Barn. “I packed up all my 4x5 cameras, my film cameras and my Nikon digital and headed out,” he said. Brown, an avid fan of scenic landscapes, thought it’d be a great idea to start shooting them, which gave him the idea to haul his gear to the northernmost portion of the U.S. “I went up to Minnesota, then across the Northern Plains and then down to the Rockies and down The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Window on the Past Born and raised in Greensboro, Olympic speed skating champion Joey Cheek is seen here celebrating his 2006 Winter Olympic gold medal win at a luncheon held that March at the Greensboro Coliseum. Cheek, who had trained for this moment since he was a child and had won three bronze medals prior, skated his way into history and, this year, marks the 20th anniversary of his victory.

to the Southwest, Arizona and all the rest of it.” Now, if you ask Brown where in the eastern slope of the Rockies he was when he captured this scene, he wouldn’t be able to tell you. But, what he could tell you is that switching to digital cameras changed the way he viewed photography forever. Getting to experience the Northern High Plains was just the icing on top. This photo and more of Brown’s work will be premiered at the Revolution Mill’s Central Gallery, Jan. 2–March 27, with a reception from 5–7 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 17. “That’s the whole genesis of the Central Gallery thing, I was cranking these things out. It was saving my sanity at a time of social turmoil and gave me something to focus on, no pun intended.” — Joi Floyd O.Henry 19

sazerac

Unsolicited Advice While you create your New Year’s resolutions and start to consider which habits should stay and which should go, don’t forget to add hot tea instead of coffee to the list. Overrated and overconsumed, coffee is out and a fresh cuppa is in. This year, we’re rewinding the times and replacing coffee breath with health benefits, such as lower blood pressure and easier digestion. There’s nothing like waking up early in the morning, slowly sipping your steaming Earl Grey before crying kids, unpacked lunch boxes and the school bus that you’ve almost missed four times this year jolt you awake. But this new habit? You’ve got it in the bag — and here are just a few of its benefits. Oolong (Wūlóng) Tea: Aside from the fact that the name is fun to say — and not to be confused with Wu-Tang — this tea flaunts strong antioxidant properties. You’re sure to beat any cold that comes fighting your way, hence the Wu-Tang confusion.

Green Tea: Whether you prefer it brewed hot or ice cold, green tea is a great swap for that, er, steep matcha. With lower calories and caffeine concentration, it’ll leave those matcha mavens green with envy. Herbal Tea: If you’re tired of having that heavy, bloated feeling every time you eat breakfast, this may be the tea for you as it aids digestion. It also comes in more flavor varieties than December’s candy canes, including peppermint. But, sorry, not including Skittles. Masala Chai Tea: With a black tea base, masala chai tea improves heart health while serving up warmer, spicier vibes than a gingerbread latte. You know what they say — a cup of masala chai tea a day, keeps the coffee breath away!

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20 O.Henry

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sazerac

A Perfect Obituary Several years ago, following the tragic death of Thomas Merton, I experienced what seemed to me to be a perfect obituary. I was reading Armindo Trevisan’s poem, Elegy for Thomas Merton, and one line brought me to a great pause: “He found you at supper, the bread already broken and your bones aflame with wine.” Merton was a monk and mystic, well known through his books, other writings and stories from his life at a Trappist monastery, Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in Kentucky. Trevisan, a Brazilian theologian and poet, must have read deeply Merton’s writings. It is Trevisan’s profound affirmation of Merton’s eucharistic life that continues to grip me. I wonder if Merton experienced an epiphanic moment in

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

bread and wine in All Saints Chapel at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church’s Stillpoint service has nourished that eucharistic hunger. I do not want to be anyplace else.

his life like I did as a 16-year-old attending a Maundy Thursday service at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. I suspect that is when my yearning for eucharist in my spiritual journey took root. For several years now, weekly Wednesday evenings receiving the consecrated elements of

Those 15 words, beginning with “He found you at supper,” that brought me to a gasp propelled me to my dear friend, Sally Gant, who often used her talent as a calligrapher to take words that set my heart soaring and craft them into an even greater thing of beauty. I have a file full of them! One day when I join Merton and Trevisan in that great cloud of witnesses who watch us run our race, we will share the joy that Sally’s artwork brought us. — David C. Partington

O.Henry 21

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22 O.Henry

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tea leaf astrologer

Resolve to Start the New Year Right with a New Needlepoint Project!

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) Having been in “go” mode since birth, you may not understand the degree to which your natural drive and goal-crushing prowess triggers those around you. This isn’t to say you should play small (you’re incapable) or slow down (hoofers gonna hoof it). Rather, when the shade-throwers cast their slights and snubs, try not to adopt their perceived failures as your own. This month, with Saturn in Pisces amplifying your softer side, embrace it.

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Aries (March 21 – April 19) Consider a new deodorant.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Your cuticles require some attention.

Gemini (May 21 – June 20) Try subbing sugar for dates.

Cancer (June 21 – July 22) Baby steps, darling.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Make time for a morning stretch.

Virgo (August 23 – September 22) Keep the receipt.

Libra (September 23 – October 22) Two words: wardrobe overhaul.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) Ever heard of a dry brush?

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21) Dance like nobody’s gawking. OH

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since the Game of Thrones’ Starbucks cup mishap of 2019. While she’s not exactly a medium, she’s far from average. She lives in the N.C. foothills with her Sphynx cat, Lyla. The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 23

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24 O.Henry

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life’s funny

Not-So-Mad Scientist Get ready for a dose of Doktor Kaboom!

By Maria Johnson

The energy level in the room rises as an ef-

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN MORRIS

fusive man sporting a spiky, bleached-blond hairdo, bug-eyed welder’s goggles and a bright-orange lab coat tromps around stage, whipping up the crowd.

“YAH???” he hollers to the assembly. “YAH!!!” the audience roars back. It’s the kind of joyful call-and-response you might expect to hear at a tent revival, but the leader is not a pastor; he’s Doktor Kaboom, the kooky-looking scientist character created by Charlotte native and UNCG alum David Epley. This month, Epley — who haunted the area around Tate Street as a student in the ’80s — will bring Kaboom to Greensboro’s Carolina Theatre. Alexandra Arpajian, who is relatively new as the theater’s executive director, booked Epley’s act because she thought it would fit Greensboro’s family-friendly vibe. The show also matches her plan for the historic venue. “Part of the mission of being a nonprofit is to develop the next generation, not just as theater goers, but as empathetic children who are ready to go into society,” says Arpajian, who also happens to be the mom of a 4-year-old daughter. Her goal jibes with Epley’s knack for wrapping important life lessons in a veneer of playfulness. He instructs audiences to yell “Kaboom!” back at him whenever he bellows the word. The result is a chain reaction of silliness. “KABOOM!” “KABOOM!” “It’s a verbal explosion of the character’s passion,” says Epley, a thoughtful and articulate guy who explains his alter ego in a telephone interview as he drives between gigs in Colorado. “It’s really fun because, half the time, someone in the audience yells, ‘Kaboom!’ before I do.” At 59, Epley is glad to return to the state where he was born, never mind that his Wikipedia page says he was born in Germany. That error is a testament to the believability of his character, who speaks with a German accent and assures the audience that he hails from the Rhineland. In fact, Epley, whose heritage is mostly English The Art & Soul of Greensboro

and Scottish, was born into a middle-class family in Charlotte. His mom was the personnel manager of a large printing company. His dad was a photographer. Meanwhile, Epley was in the basement, fiddling with chemistry sets, taking apart mechanical devices and putting them back together. In high school, he was one of the “smart kids.” Teachers flagged him as a prospect for the then-new North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham. Epley spent his junior and senior years at the school for advanced students. There, he took rigorous classes from Ph.D.level teachers. “It was a wonderful, magical gift from the state of North Carolina to the students who went there,” Epley says, noting that many of the school’s alumni have gone on to prestigious careers in the arts and sciences. Bored by one class, he and some classmates made up funny personas and attended class as their characters. Afterward, they roamed campus, still in character. Some teachers did not appreciate the comic relief. Others loved it. “A lot of people just wanted to support whatever artistic expression these weird little kids were coming up with,” he says. “That’s where I found out that I really loved performing.” After graduating and logging a stint in the Army Reserve, he headed to UNCG to study chemistry with the idea of transferring to Duke University or N.C. State for biomedical engineering. A funny thing happened on the way to the lab. Epley took some acting classes in UNCG’s renowned drama department. “I knew nothing about acting I just knew that I was enjoying it,” says Epley, whose after-class memories include eating at New York Pizza, hanging out at a bar called The Last Act and working at Crocodile’s Cafe, all along Tate Street. He switched majors and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. Then and now, he scoffs at the idea that people who are good scientists can’t be good artists and vice versa. That belief, he says, has made programs devoted to STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — fall short of their potential over the last 20 years because the best scientists are also creative thinkers. “STEM is a lovely thing to focus on, but we’ll end up with a nation of lab technicians,” O.Henry 25

life’s funny

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26 O.Henry

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he says. “If we support creativity, then we become a nation of innovators.” It took Epley a while to figure out how to blend art and science into a career. For nearly 20 years, he and a troupe of comic actors known as Theater in the Ground traveled the country performing at Renaissance festivals. “Imagine the Marx Brothers doing Beowulf,” he says. He grew more serious about comedy when he became a father in his late 30s. He needed more income, a show he could manage by himself and a shtick that would fill performance halls. That’s when he invented Kaboom, the embodiment of his first love, science, combined with his second love, stagecraft. To prepare, Epley listened to hours of native German speakers on compact discs. He honed his character on the streets of Oswego, N.Y., during the Sterling Renaissance Festival. After one performance, an older lady stayed to talk with Epley, who remained in character. “After about 40 minutes, she goes, ‘I’m talking to you because my father was German, and he passed away when I was in my 30s, and I hadn’t heard his voice again until today.’” The thought of that encounter still gives Epley goosebumps today. But the interaction that really hit home happened a few years into Kaboom’s road show. He brought a kid on stage and began his usual patter. “You’re a smart kid, yah?!” He asked. The kid replied no, that he wasn’t smart. Epley dropped to his knees and looked directly at the boy. “I said, ‘You are smart. That’s why I picked you. I can see it in your eyes.’” he recalls. Then Epley turned to the crowd: “Listen, if anyone ever asks you if you’re smart or creative or clever, don’t say no. Look them right in the eye and say, “YAH!” I worked with that boy until he was saying that and meant it . . . That’s when I learned I could do more than science and humor. I could teach empowerment. If I hadn’t found that, I probably The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Close with Craig

life’s funny wouldn’t still be doing this. That’s the aspect that brings me the most joy.” Of course, there's a strong dose of education in Epley’s show. Kaboom talks about the importance of the scientific method, of testing hypotheses, of getting repeatable results. He uses everyday chemicals and oversized props to make things fizz, whiz, foam and pop. He uses a slingshot and a banana to great effect. A demonstration with dry ice yields a “controlled explosion.” Inspired by the challenges that students faced during COVID, Epley’s latest show, which is titled Under Pressure, demonstrates how pressure can be channeled — both physically and emotionally — to make positive things happen in science and life. Commissioned by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where Epley took the stage as Kaboom last year, the production is being pitched to streaming apps as a family-centered comedy special. His shows are aimed at students in grades three through eight, but his comedy has drawn kudos as entertainment for all ages. Comedian Dave Chappelle, who was once a neighbor of Epley’s young family in Yellow Springs, Ohio, took his children to Kaboom shows, and he supplied a glowing blurb before Epley’s first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. “We watched our neighbor transform into this incredible character,” writes Chappelle. “He was funny! And fun for the whole family.” Epley believes his current show represents his best work, which comes at the right moment in U.S. history. “I think science is being disregarded,” he says. “Television and talking heads have created doubt in people’s minds about expertise, which I think is absolutely damaging the country . . . So I really think what I do is timely and important. We’re all in this boat together, so let’s paddle in the same direction.” Yah? Yah. OH Maria Johnson is a contributing editor of O.Henry. Email her at ohenrymaria@gmail. The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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O.Henry 27

omnivorous reader

Sense of Urgency The stories that need telling

By Stephen E. Smith

It happens to every writer. The moment

comes, sometimes sooner than later, when it’s clear that he or she won’t live long enough to write every story that needs telling. The unwritten stories can be offered as spoken anecdotes, which, of course, vaporize the moment they’re uttered, so getting the stories down in print becomes a source of energy and inspiration. Pat Riviere-Seel’s collection, Because I Did Not Drown, derives its urgency from her desire to have the stories remembered — and to be remembered herself. “How long will the work of art last? Who will remember the artist . . . ?” she writes in her essay, “Unknown Artist.” Reviere-Seel is the author of four poetry books, most notably the well-received The Serial Killer’s Daughter, which was published in 2009 by Charlotte-based Main Street Rag Press. Because I Did Not Drown explores both the exceptional and mundane — “kitchen talk,” the need for perseverance, the joy of pets (in this case cats), a stray fig plant growing by the back stoop, gun control, the loss of old friends, food lovingly prepared, an enthusiasm for jogging, “disenfranchised grief,” extraterrestrials, etc. Each prose chapter is written in straightforward journalistic prose and intended to convey helpful insights into

28 O.Henry

contemporary life. She begins her collection by recounting her personal experience with the COVID shutdown. She ends the book by detailing the ill effects of the pandemic’s aftermath, topics few writers have tackled (Sean Dempsey’s A Sad Collection of Short Stories, Cheap Parables, Amusing Anecdotes, & Covid-Inspired Bad Poetry is an amusing exception). This reluctance to write about the COVID experience can be attributed to what readers and writers might perceive as proximity aversion: the shock of COVID is still too much with us, and we’ve yet to sort out its spiritual and political implications. Reviere-Seel takes up the subject head-on: “But as the pandemic stretched into a second year, I became more frustrated, angry, and cranky. I missed my poetry group. I missed my friends. . . . We stayed home. We wore masks. We stayed six feet apart. We were grateful to be alive. . . . What had begun as a public health issue became a political issue. The usual anti-vaccine talk mingled with the talk of ‘the government can’t tell me what to do.’” Her concluding essay, “After the Pandemic,” suggests that kindness is the only possible remedy for a virus that continues to mutate: “Be kind. Most of us did not want to infect our family, our friends, our neighbors, or the checkout clerk at the grocery store who showed up for work every day. Genuine kindness is a balm, a gift, a grace.” In her chapter “Talking About It,” she is straightforward about her struggles with breast cancer. “I didn’t talk about my experience with breast cancer,” she writes, but the death of an aunt who ignored a lump in her breast inspired her to share her The Art & Soul of Greensboro

omnivorous reader experience. “Early detection and medical advances in treatment have meant that breast cancer is no longer the death sentence so many feared fifty years ago.” Her interaction with the medical community will be of particular interest. When she was denied an immediate needle biopsy, she reacted appropriately. “Nice was not working so I threw a fit, a nice-woman-goes-feral southern ‘hissy fit.’ A redhead-gone-rogue tantrum . . . I was paying for a service, medical care, and I wanted — no, demanded — a say in when and how that service was delivered.” Her story is a paradigm for all women and men who find themselves caught up in our often lethargic and convoluted medical system. The course of her disease followed a predictable path, but she made the necessary decisions to preserve her life. The description of her battle with breast cancer is timely, honest, reassuring and possibly lifesaving. Following each of the prose passages, a poem explicates or explores the theme of the preceding chapter. The poems are well written and could stand on their own as a chapbook. “After the Diagnosis,” for example, follows the chapter on breast cancer: There are nights — more than you ever thought you could endure — when sleep will not come your thoughts — no, not thoughts — the deep well of unknowing appears endless. You try summoning visions of sunrise, a shoreline, bare feet running across packed sand. But morning fog covers this foreign landscape. Everything you knew for sure yesterday washed away with the tide, predictable too the magical thinking, maybe. Abandon the dock, row your way into the nightmare, further out is the only way back.

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The use of verse to add emotional impact to the short personal essays may strike some readers as unnecessary. At the very least, the transition from journalistic prose to poetry is complex, requiring a complete shift in sensibility and focus. Nevertheless, she forces readers to grapple with many of our most vexing problems. OH Stephen E. Smith is a retired professor and the author of seven books of poetry and prose. His latest book, The Year We Danced: A Memoir, is the recipient of a 2025 Feathered Quill Book Award.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

the shoe market

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O.Henry 29

home grown

Sugar Baby Jonesing for a fun-sized fix

By Cynthia Adams

A fantastical shot of ice cream, jaw-

breakers and pastries make me drool like one of Ivan Pavlov’s dogs.

This sugar-charged chassis of mine has an internal engine that purrs at the sight of gooey sweets — then splutters and stops. Demanding a refill. A saner person, someone free from sugar addiction, may ask how it took root. Some claim they are salty people. Or savory people. Actually, I like those food groups too. As it happens, we were born this way. A taste for sugar is hard-wired into human anatomy. “The brain is dependent on sugar as its main fuel,” says Vera Novak, associate professor of medicine. “It cannot be without it.” Scientists have found half of all sugar energy in the body is used by — get this — the brain. In my case, too, there was a sugar pusher. Enter my father, Warren, the alpha of sugar addiction. A dedicated sweets guy, our dad was known to make evening forays into Charlotte to Krispy Kreme, 50 miles roundtrip, returning with two dozen raspberry- filled pastries. Was he really responsible? Obviously, he had a very large brain, one practically demanding he stoke it with sugar. Consider this: Krispy Kreme makes 5 million doughnuts daily. Statistically, that’s a lot of sugar-munching/brain-feeding, so Warren was hardly alone. He never met Winston-Salem founder Vernon Rudolph, but, if he had, dad would have definitely shaken his hand and invited him home for supper. (After licking the icing from his own.) Warren would also have shaken the hand of Forrest Mars, creator of M&M's candies. Fun-sized fact: Initially, the hard-shelled candies were sold exclusively to the U.S. Army during WWII. Dad loved those multicolored, sugar-shell-covered bits of

30 O.Henry

chocolate, and so did I. When I was a child, he would sometimes take me on work trips, iconic brown packets of M&M’s marching across the molded dashboard. “If I start nodding off or acting sleepy, shake me and keep talking to me,” he ordered, knowing the sugar high would keep me chatty. The neighborhood “juke joint” was where my sugar fixation became, well, fixed by the age of 5. The store possessed two marvels: a juke box and a multitude of candies. My quarters were stretched between playing favorite tunes and buying sweets. Munching on a Butterfinger or a Baby Ruth, I’d dance, joyously spinning like a Sufi. I didn’t snack on Snickers (originally Marathon, renamed for the Mars family’s favorite horse), but rectified that mistake later. The Snickers rebrand elevated it to the top-selling candy globally. During my childhood, adults weren’t that worried about sugar. Mornings called for sugary cereals like Alpha-Bits. I arranged the crystalline letters with my spoon to spell SWEET, one of my favorite words, sneaking in extra spoonfuls of sugar and just enough milk to keep five letters afloat. The only milk I actually liked was the sugar-jazzed chocolate variety. Grape juice, more syrup than juice, kept my child-sized lips perpetually encircled with a blurry smear of purple. After school, I craved ice cream or cookies. Ironically, children in my household weren’t allowed sweet tea until age 12, but were permitted Tang (thank you, NASA!), Orange Crush or Nehi grape. Grocery shopping now as a grown woman, I don’t stick to the store perimeter, as nutritionists advise. Even if I start out in the produce or fresh fruit sections, my cart pulls itself straight to the aisle of Forbidden Fruits. Namely, fruit-flavored gummies and candies. Goodies practically throw themselves into the shopping cart, my resolve melting faster than a Dairy Queen Blizzard on a sunny July day. In go jolly-looking jars of marshmallow fluff, sweet jams and bags of chocolates. The Art & Soul of Greensboro

home grown When in need of a fast fix, I binge on Nutella (spooned straight from the jar) or, recently, handcrafted Kilwins’ fudge (a gift to my husband) — or once, an entire bag of Dr. Atkins sugar-free candies. Resolve is a strange animal. My hand reaches for crunchy peanut butter — natural, of course — when I’m feeling resolute. When it fades, anything can happen. After resisting the priciest chocolates still in their gilded gift box, I turn instead to a beguiling tin of Marks & Spencer’s Christmas cookies (called, quaintly, “biscuits”). Next, I hit hard candies, my emergency sweets stash, crunching away like a badger. The night before my physical, despite being fearful of bad lab results, I polished off most of a “sharable”-sized bag of plain old chocolate M&M’s after a “healthy” dinner. Then I wolfed down more M&S biscuits. (My glucose results were not great.) My dopamine-hooked brain once put my sugar fixation to good use — when weaning myself from smoking. Swapping one oral fixation for another, I kept a large bag of M&M’s in my desk drawer, finally leaving cigarettes behind. But, sadly, not sugar. Some years ago, Delancey Street Moving and Trucking (whose innovative work programs support those overcoming addiction) moved us from our Westerwood home to Latham Park. My husband was called away, so I hustled alongside the movers. At day’s end, we all flopped down on the driveway, sweaty and famished. Ripping into a bag of Snickers, I offered them around. The guys shook their heads, each lighting up a cigarette. One gave a piercing look. “I used to use,” he said, explaining how heroin derailed his life as a pharmacist. “What’s your addiction?” With a jolt, I realized he’d spotted it. “Sugar,” I confessed. Taking a deep drag, he nodded knowingly. OH Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

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32 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

birdwatch

Cold Customers

Return of the dark-eyed juncos

By Susan Campbell

“The snowbirds are back!” No,

not the thin-blooded retirees: They won’t be back until spring. These are the little black-andwhite sparrowlike birds that appear under feeders when the mercury dips here in central North Carolina. They can be found in flocks, several dozen strong in some places. And, in spite of what you might think, they are far from dependent on bird seed in winter.

Dark-eyed juncos are a diverse and widely distributed species. Six populations are recognized across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Slight but noticeable variations in appearance constitute the difference in these populations. Some have white wing bars while others sport a reddish back and the birds in the high elevations of the Rockies are recognized by extensive pinkish feathering on their flanks. Our eastern birds are known as “slatecolored juncos” for their dark brown to gray feathering. They are accustomed to cold temperatures whether in summer or winter. As with most migrant songbirds, their migratory behavior is based on food availability, not weather. Flocks will fly southward, stopping where they find abundant grasses and forbs. They will continue on once the food plants have been stripped of seed. Dark-eyed juncos can be found throughout North America at

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

different times of the year. During the breeding season, juncos are seen at high elevation across the boreal forests nesting in thick evergreens. Our familiar slate-colored variety breeds as close as the high elevations of the Appalachians. You can find them easily around Blowing Rock and Boone year-round. These nonmigrants actually have shorter wingspans as a result of their sedentary existence. Watch for male juncos advertising their territories up high in fir or spruce trees. They will utter sharp chirps and may string together a series of rapid call notes that sound like the noise emitted by a “phaser” of Star Trek fame. In winter, flocks congregate in open and brushy habitats. Juncos are distinguished from other sparrows by their clean markings: dark heads with small, pale, conical bills, pale bellies and white outer tail feathers. Females have a browner wash and less of a demarcation between belly and breast than males. They hop around and feed on small seeds close to ground level. Some individuals can be quite tame once they become familiar with a specific place and particular people. Juncos do communicate frequently, using sharp trills to keep the flock together. They will not hesitate to dive for deep cover when alarmed. So, the next time you come upon a flock along the roadside or notice juncos under your feeder, take a close look. These little birds will be with us only a few months, until day length begins to increase and they head back to the boreal forests from whence they came. OH Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com.sightings and photos. Her email is susan@ncaves.com. O.Henry 33

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wandering billy

This Girl Is On Fire

Kennedy Caughell brings heat to Hell’s Kitchen By Billy Ingram

“The road is there. It will always be there. You just have to decide when to take it.” – Chris Humphrey

It’s becoming increasingly commonplace

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARC J FRABKLIN

for leading actors in the Tanger Center’s Broadway Series productions to have significant local community connections. In November 2024, UNCG graduate Manning Franks infused heart and soul into The Wiz’s Tin Man and, earlier last year, Elon University alum Fergie Philippe proved roaringly romantic in Beauty and the Beast’s mane role.

One of Broadway’s brightest luminaries, Kennedy Caughell, 35, former Oklahoma farm gal who’s become another incendiary lit locally, alights into town next month in New York’s hottest property, Hell’s Kitchen. In its very first season, Hip-hop hitmaker Alicia Keys’ semi-biographical coming-of-age musical garnered an astonishing 13 Tony Award nominations and was a boffo boxoffice smash from day one. Caughell’s portrayal of Jersey, emotionally embattled matriarch of the Keys-inspired character Ali’s family, is reaping rave reviews. In Chicago: “A powerful portrayal by Kennedy Caughell;” in Cleveland: “Caughell impresses again and again in big, emotionally impactful moments and with powerhouse vocal efforts;” in Pittsburgh: “The woman can belt! She crushes every musical number, especially ‘Pawn It All.’” You get the idea. Her cruise across The Great White Way began, oddly enough, on Broadway. “My mom brought both me and my sister to New York,” Caughell recalls about her elementary school epiphany. “Annie was playing on Broadway at the time. Mom says I turned to her at intermission and said, ‘I could do that!’” Coincidence that her first professional acting job at 8-and-a-half years old was hamming it up in Annie? Starting in a supporting role, she soon took the lead. (This would kick off a recurring pattern.) When consideration for college came, Caughell selected Elon University. “It was on the list of top 10 musical theater programs in the country,” she explains. “My mom and I visited to audition and I just fell in love with the place. It was so beautiful.” Situated between Greensboro and Burlington, Elon is known for exemplary acting, dancing and vocal training. “I feel like I really got The Art & Soul of Greensboro

a good ‘triple-threat’ training there. They encourage originality because that’s really what gets you hired as leads in the business, what makes you unique.” Class of ’12 grad Caughell says, “I had a job before I even left college.” Discovered by Jillian Samini, she was cast as the jilted pregnant girlfriend Heather, one of the three female leads in the international Broadway tour of Billie Joe Armstrong’s and Michael Mayer’s American Idiot, which expands on the storyline delineated in the Green Day album of the same name. “I remember graduating, then, the next day, I was on a plane [to the United Kingdom] headed to the first day of rehearsal.” Her solo was a zippy, angst-free arrangement of “Dearly Beloved.” American Idiot’s Ireland/UK tour culminated after four months at London’s HMV Hammersmith Apollo, leading into the show’s second stateside run, which ended in the summer of 2013. No rest for the wicked, you say? The next year, Caughell was swept into the twisted world of Wicked, broomsticking across the nation for two years as a member of the ensemble while understudying that wickedest of witches, Elphaba. “I would love to return to Wicked and play a full stint as Elphaba one day,” Caughell says. In 2016, she made her Broadway debut in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 alongside two other Broadway neophytes, Denée Benton and Josh Groban, understudying two supporting characters that she eventually stepped into. Following the folding of that show, she pirouetted into Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in February 2018 as King’s childhood friend, Betty, while at the same time understudying three roles, including the titular star. During rehearsals, Caughell became acquainted with King. “An example of yes, you can meet your heroes and they exceed your expectations,” she says of the Grammy Hall-of-Famer who wrote or co-wrote 118 hit songs. “She walks in and lights up a room and everyone just feels peaceful and joyful around her.” In 2019, she hit the road with Beautiful, occasionally called on to channel Carole King under the spotlight. Her fave number? “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” natch. All About Eve aside, it’s exceedingly rare for understudies to emerge from the wings and assume the leading role for the run of a major show. “When they asked me to take over on the road, O.Henry 35

wandering billy how could I say no?” Crooning Carole King’s compositions is an absolute joy for her. “Her style is very set and driven like a glockenspiel. It all sits in a really warm part of my voice.” Don’t you just love the way performers speak? Broadway’s bright lights beckoned again in 2022 for Paradise Square, a star-crossed production that, despite an impressive 10 Tony nominations, resulted in a truncated time on the boards beset by backstage back-stabbery and a recorded but unreleased original cast soundtrack. Which brings us to the present, where, in the role of Hell’s Kitchen’s Jersey, Caughell portrays an overly-protective single mother raising a street-level prodigy navigating life in a turbulent mid-1990s New York City. “She loves her daughter fiercely — she works two jobs so that she can give her a better life.” Caughell says of her character, who is overwhelmed by conflicts and consequences related to “what happens when love goes out of alignment and leans toward controlling. And what it means to be a mother and learn to let Ali grow up.” From tech rehearsals through opening nights and beyond, writer/producer Alicia Keys was very much present in mounting both the Broadway and touring companies. “She had a big hand in casting each and every one of us,” Caughell points out. “It’s very evident how much heart and connection she feels to this show and it’s so wonderful to have somebody like her at the helm, just leading with grace and peace.” Keys is known to

Show Your Love

surreptitiously slip into seats along the tour route, even offering notes afterward, “but that’s a good thing, right? She’s really good at steering us in the right direction.” Again succumbing to that siren call of the open road, Caughell says, “I’m missing a lot of family events with my niece and nephew right now. There’s a lot we sacrifice that people don’t realize.” Remaining centered and in peak form is a priority. “You’re kind of in an isolated bubble where everyone has to find their own pathway.” Of former Elon classmate and rising Broadway star Fergie Philippe, wheels up under similar circumstances, she says, “We text on a regular basis — he’s a wonderful human being.” While Caughell loves exploring new cities, there’s the delight that comes from reengaging with familiar faces in faraway places. Edging closer to the Triad, she says, “I’m looking forward to seeing all of my professors and visiting the campus at Elon. It’s been years since I’ve had time to come back and visit, so I’m excited.” Granted, it’s a hard knock life nightly for her tempest-tossed character in Hell’s Kitchen, but, for Kennedy Caughell herself, the sun’ll come out tomorrow . . . in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Greenville, Durham and, on February 24, in Greensboro prior to opening night at Tanger, where no doubt she’ll shine like the top of the Chrysler Building. OH Billy Ingram selflessly eschewed life as a theatrical superstar in order for that spotlight to shine on others. That’s his improbable narrative anyway.

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36 O.Henry

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January 2026

The Other Side of the Mirror “Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze . . . And certainly the glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.” — Lewis Caroll, Through the Looking Glass There’s always a reason I’d rather stay home, as I brush my hair, gaze into my reflection, sit before the dresser where I combed my curls as a girl, forever getting ready for the life that hadn’t arrived yet. Mirrors remained unfazed, as I exchanged one image for another, changed my hairstyles and hats, traced fingers along a scar, abandoned myself for imperfections. I have come close to escaping into another world, always about to leave or about to live, my eyes child-like, clear as glass, considering what time it must be . . . to keep from disappearing into my own unbreakable stare. — Linda Annas Ferguson Linda Annas Ferguson has authored five collections of poetry. Her most recent book is the novel What the Mirrors Knew.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 39

A journey into Jamestown By Danielle Rotella Guerrieri Photographs by Laura Gingerich

n a crisp, chilly day with a deep indigo-blue sky overhead, I maneuver my car through a couple of smooth turns into historic downtown Jamestown. Oak and cedar behemoths line my path before being replaced by skinny, black rod-iron light posts, all protecting the quaint village center, comprised of nine one-or two-level buildings. Historic Jamestown, a mere 12 miles from downtown Greensboro, is one of the oldest established communities in the Triad, a hidden gem tucked between Greensboro and High Point, offering enough locally owned eateries and boutiques to make it worth blocking out a whole day on your 2026 calendar. Since the COVID pandemic ended, Jamestown has been focusing on revitalization in the form of newly emerging shops and eateries — an impressive transformation I’ve witnessed in the short four years since I lived there. Excited to explore, I meet my friend, Janna, for a full day of shopping and exploring. But first, we fuel up on caffeine at Kindred Coffee. Engulfed by the smoky, rich, chocolatey aroma as we walk in the door, we’re greeted by owner Greg Pittman’s friendly face behind the counter. Pittman and his mom, Marsha, opened Kindred in late 2022 after their online coffee subscription and Cause Roast coffee truck business took off. “We wanted to create a space where people felt loved and cared for when they’re here,” says Pittman. Jamestown didn’t have a coffee shop at the time, so it was an easy transition to shift

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

their coffee operation to the space at River Station Twist. After sipping my cuppa espresso, I’m rarin’ to go. At Second Chance Closet, a boutique-like thrift store that opened in the former Wells Fargo building in 2024, all proceeds go toward Chance Walters Ministry, operated by owners Kacie and her husband, Chance Walters. “The reason we succeed,” says Kacie, “is word of mouth and being part of such a tight-knit community.” Filled to the brim with clothing for all ages, it doesn’t look like a former bank until you veer to the right and notice the formal wear section housed in an old vault. Janna finds a long, alabaster sweater coat for $12.99, and I snag a funky, avocado-green, animal-print sweater for $6.99 — deals we definitely can’t pass up. Guilford + Main, a large clothing and home goods shop that opened in 2021, is owned by Lisa Perdue and run by her daughter, Alexis Turner. Silver Gallery, its sister store, has been a shopping staple at Friendly Center in Greensboro for 25 years. But, notes Turner, “We have more space here than Silver Gallery, so we can carry more things.” A pair of earrings, gold spikes glimmering on a cream-colored loop, draws my attention, while Janna picks out a few $5 silver dangles from their sprawling bracelet bar. Strolling back down Main Street, it’s hard to miss Jamestown artist John Firesheets’ enormous sea-blue mermaid-and-squid mural painted on the side of The Soap Lady. Flanked by inviting black front porch rockers, Soap Lady’s creaky screen door O.Henry 41

announces our arrival to owner Susan Stringer, who’s greeting us with a genuine ear-to-ear grin. In business in Jamestown for 27 years, Stringer expanded to her larger storefront in 2012, where she’s been selling her handmade artisanal soaps and lotions ever since, and has added pottery, soy candles, cards, and many other locally crafted goods to her inventory. Stringer makes all the soaps, body wash, shower gel, sugar scrub, lip balm, body powder and bath bombs using an olive oil base and other natural ingredients. “We have a lot of people going through issues like cancer and radiation, and they can’t use fragrances,” says Stringer, “and using a real soap makes a huge difference.” Our bellies soon start growling, so we stop for lunch at Southern Roots, one of several eateries on Main Street. Full Moon Oyster Bar, Simply Thai and Black Powder Smokehouse are just as enticing, but walking into Southern Roots is similar to breezing through your favorite aunt’s sunlit beach house — you feel right at home. But, please, keep your shoes on! Owner Lisa Hawley uses her family’s Southern recipes, supporting local farmers and sustainable agriculture. As Hawley puts it, “Our food is prepared with love.” Our charming waitress, Sydney, takes our orders. Janna can’t resist her favorite gluten-free meal: flat iron steak with a bourbon glaze, cheese grits and Crowder beans, while I select a cup of chicken-and-dumpling soup and a chicken salad sandwich half on buttery, toasted sourdough.

42 O.Henry

Satiated, we walk a few doors down for a sweet treat, as the mix of sweet and savory scents emanating from Cakes by B’s Blue House Bakery tickles our cold noses and lures us inside. There, we find owner Bridget Murphy whipping up her rosemary goat cheese quiche. Murphy has been satisfying the town’s sweet tooth in her adorable blue house for the last 10 years, preparing everything from caramel-and-pecan-pie bars to savory gluten-free cheddar biscuits. “Our quiches and chocolate chip cookies are incredibly popular,” says Murphy. “We also have a fun one called ‘What the Heck.’“ What the heck, you’re wondering. “It’s devil’s food cake,” she says, “with cookiesand-cream filling and vanilla buttercream on top.” When she first opened, she aimed to have a bakery that doubled as a community haven, and she delivers with baking and decorating classes, meet-the-candidate events during election season, food truck festivals and a trunkor-treat every Halloween. We snag a batch of Murphy’s famous chocolate chip cookies before our next shop. Feeling like we entered a high-end art gallery, we step into Bottone Home, a design and decor store with “home vibes on point” owned by Kody Bottone. After we ooh and aah at the exquisite leather chairs, funky modern vases, smooth-edged end tables and enormous wood sculptures, Bottone tells us the shop opened just last year and the company also manages interior design projects. My eyes are immediately captivated by Greensboro artist Erin Beck’s paintings, featuring broad brushstrokes of deep burgundies, vivid emerald greens and auburns, beautifully capturing florals, nature

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

and still lifes. Her paintings make a vibrant splash against Bottone Home’s modern, neutral furnishings. As 5 o’clock looms, we head up the street to meet our husbands for drinks and dinner. Crafted cocktails call our names as we enter Barrell & Co., where we’re struck by low lighting and smooth jazz and the calming, clean, soothing aroma of tobacco mixed with vanilla. Opened last year, owners Ket Jones, Matt Lokercome and Paul Lothakoun designed the space for enjoying elegant cocktails while phones take a back seat and conversation takes hold. Old fashioneds and smoked fashioneds are ordered, although, not being a huge bourbon fan myself (yet!), I sample a few varieties, courtesy of Jones, and I discover I just might like Eagle Rare. Black Powder Smokehouse is our dinner pick — a highenergy barbecue restaurant so good they opened a second location in Asheboro. The smoked turkey breast, jalapeno sausage, and pork spare ribs beckon, but we opt for the ever popular, beef brisket, barbecue pork and chicken. Opened in 2019 by pitmaster

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Keith “Big Brisket” Henning, in a converted 1920s gas station, the establishment features beautifully preserved old gas pumps and massive garage doors that open for outdoor seating on warm days. Four sauces line each table, from house signature sweet sauce to “The Heat,” a hint of fire for spicy enthusiasts. Between us, we share crunchy, cool coleslaw — an excellent heat cleanser — goldento-perfection tater-tot casserole and an elevated take on mac-andcheese, smoked gouda kicking it up a notch. As a yawn stretches across my face, we make plans to return another time for drinks at Potent Potables followed by live music at The Deck. Bags and belly full, I start my short drive home, the historic Jamestown street lamps flickering and fading in the rearview. OH Danielle Rotella Guerrieri is a freelance writer living in Summerfield. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling and being outdoors.

O.Henry 43

Jamestown History Laid out as a community in 1792 by prominent Quaker George Mendenall, the official town of Jamestown was chartered in 1816 and named for George’s father, James. At Mendenhall Homestead, the home of George Mendenhall’s son, Richard, built in 1800, I’m accompanied by two tour guides, Will Ragsdale and Jay McQuillan, members of the Historic Jamestown Society. McQuillan serves as president, and Ragsdale is the grandson of William and Mary Elizabeth Ragsdale, who previously owned the property and later donated it to the Historic Jamestown Society, which they helped start. Walking through a sunken summer kitchen in the original part of the house, I imagine Richard taking off his widebrimmed hat to duck into the cramped room. He expanded the home before marrying Mary Pegg in 1812, adding a parlor and sitting rooms downstairs, as well as bedrooms upstairs, which, in addition to the couple’s seven children, sometimes housed their many out-of-town visitors. “Quakers welcomed any travelers in; it was part of their makeup and religion,” explains Ragsdale, “Quakers were also focused on education and human rights, believing that women were just as capable and able to learn and do everything men could do.” A black-and-white photo from the 1840s shows the first faculty of Guilford College, half of them women. The school was founded by Quakers, including members of the Mendenhall family. Stored in the property’s Bank Barn, the Stanley Murrow false-bottom wagon serves as a reminder of how Quakers helped transport enslaved Black people to freedom in the early to mid-1800s. May we all take a note from the Quakers and support those in need through compassionate service and think of everyone in our community as a “friend.”

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

O.Henry 45

Tina Firesheets and Ling Sue Withers weave women’s stories into supper By Cassie Bustamante Photographs by Bert VanderVeen & Nancy Sidelinger

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

hen Tina Firesheets first watched the documentary, Bite of Bénin, an idea took root. “I don’t let go of an idea,” says Firesheets, who describes herself as a “writer, daydreamer and creative thinker.” She immediately texted longtime friend Ling Sue Withers. Thus began the conversation that would eventually turn into disCOURSE dining, culinary experiences for women, by women, where culturally diverse dishes are served with a side of sensory storytelling. “I reached out to Ling Sue because we both love food and we both love culture,” says Firesheets. Plus, she adds, “If you want to get anything done, you want her to be involved.” “I sat down and watched [the documentary] in one night,” says Withers. “And I cried.” The film centers around North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association (NCRLA) 2023 Chef of the Year Adé Carrena. Carrena, a Durham-based chef whose NeoAfrican chops won her the top spot on Food Network’s Chopped last summer, currently serves as culinary director of Triangle Central Kitchen, a nonprofit dedicated to turning food waste into culinary training and community meals. She was adopted at the age of 10 from Bénin, West Africa, because her birth parents desperately wanted a better life for her. Instead, says Withers, Carrena and her younger sister were adopted into a “horrible” household in America.

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Carrena’s story of adoption — and eventually healing — especially moved Withers, a Taiwanese American “Air Force brat” who grew up in the tiny town of Maiden. Like Carrena, she, too, had also experienced “a lot of childhood trauma.” Firesheets, who grew up in Western North Carolina, was adopted from Korea; her adopted mother was Japanese and her father white. She, too, felt a connection with Carrena. At the time, she had been working as associate creative director for Pace Communications and had been introduced to Carrena through a project Pace was doing with NCRLA. “We just kind of bonded that day because we’re both adoptees and we both kind of had traumatic adoptee experiences,” says Firesheets. Both Firesheets and Withers felt a strong desire to spread Carrena’s message. “It’s really about healing and how she healed through food and how food helped her reconnect to her country and her family,” says Firesheets. At the root of it all, though, was the shared passion the disCOURSE founders have for food — and not just food, but unique culinary experiences meant to be savored. Once, as a birthday gift to Withers, Firesheets took on planning an Atlanta excursion, although Withers is by vocation a professional planner. Withers is a festival organizer who has worked with the North Carolina Folk Fest since its inception and has also amped up her resume with Greensboro’s Solstice Festival and the Piedmont Blues Preservation Society. “Taking a trip? I will make you a spreadsheet,” she says. “Pregnant? I will make you a spreadsheet.” But, this time, Firesheets took on the daunting task of creat-

ing a spreadsheet for the spreadsheet queen herself, filling it with must-visit restaurants, including notes about where they needed to eat while the food was fresh and where they could load up their coolers to haul it home. “I knew then,” says Withers, “lifelong — life-long — friends.” On another trip, the two visited the mountain town of Sylva, where Firsheets introduced her pal to her favorite restaurant, Dalaya Thai Cuisine, owned by James Beard Award-nominated Chef Kanlaya “Gun” Supachana. In the dead of winter, the place was hopping, no indoor seating available. Undeterred, the two claimed an outdoor seat. Who cares that they could see their breath? Next thing they knew, other diners followed suit and soon the patio was as packed as the dining room. Worth the bitter chill? Definitely. “Her food is so stinking good,” says Firesheets. At home in her Greensboro kitchen, Withers, too, is an excellent cook. Firesheets admits that she’ll “drop anything” to attend one of her pal’s famous dinner parties. “If I had plans elsewhere, I would just cancel.” Fueled by their shared love of food and ignited by Carrena’s story, the two women jumped into action. Firesheets had formerly been involved with Ethnosh, an organization that hosted ticketed events highlighting local and mostly immigrant-owned restaurants until COVID shuttered its operations in 2020. Less than four years later, disCOURSE began plotting its very first event featuring Chef Adé Carrena at Machete, which owner Tal Blevins generously allowed them to use, in January 2024. Venue and chef locked in, the two women began reaching out to potential guests, hand curating a group of women who

exhibited, according to Firesheets, “diversity in culture, professions, experiences.” On top of that, says Withers, their theme mirrored Carrena’s own story: healing. And they wanted “to bring together women to have a serious connection.” So, they skipped the alcohol — opting instead to serve mocktails — played the documentary and gave Carrena the floor in between dishing out her Neo-African bites. “We had an idea of what we would like to accomplish,” says Firesheets, “but she leveled up the storytelling.” It was Carrena’s idea to incorporate an African handwashing ceremony before food was served. “Most people had never experienced that,” says Firesheets. Ashley Madden, who was in attendance at that very first event, believes ritual is important to women in general. “Just to have that experience and to start with that cleansing, everyone is starting with a fresh slate,” she says. “I thought that was really beautiful.” Madden also notes that she came away having made new friends — a mother and daughter who were seated at her table — and she was introduced to a chef she wasn’t familiar with prior. “Ade [Carrena] has gone on to do Food Network and I feel like I am just in her corner,” she says. “I am just cheering her on.” During that first disCOURSE dining event, Withers, who prefers to be in the background observing, watched as women made connections and held thoughtful conversations around various subjects. “It’s exactly what we had wanted.” But that begged the question both women wondered aloud. “How are we going to top that?” Just a few months later, in May 2024, they hosted their second event, a kimchi tasting at Potent Potables in Jamestown. The chef was Eunice Chang, owner of The Spicy Hermit, a Durham-based company that creates traditional and seasonal kimchi using fresh, locally farmed produce. (Kimchi is a traditional and often quite spicy Korean form of pickled vegetables.) To make the meal more substantial, Withers pan-fried sausages from Moonbelly Meat Co., a woman-owned business based in Durham. And this time, the women introduced alcoholic beverages. “We did a kimchi michelada [beer paired with lime, salt and hot sauces] because The Spicy Hermit also has a kimchi bloody Mary mix,” says Withers, adding that it “was really awesome.” A couple other cocktails and mocktails were on the menu, too. The Spicy Hermit event also introduced occasional workshop add-ons. After a February 2025 event featuring an array of dumplings by Durham-based Sister Liu’s Kitchen, Chef Cuiying Liu, who came to America from China in 2013, taught attendees to handmake their own. Madden opted for the add-on and admits that hers weren’t quite as good as Chef Liu’s. “Although mine were great because I made them,” she says, “but, gosh, it just made you appreciate what goes into that!” To build on the sense of community disCOURSE was creating, Firesheets and Withers began adding conversation cards to tables. For example, at their May 2025 event featuring Durham

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based Chef Silvana Rangel-Duque, the Colombian owner of Latin-infused, plant-based Soul Cocina, one card read: When Silvana moved to Colorado in 2009, she began cooking because she really missed Colombian cuisine. What dish do you miss from home (perhaps from your childhood)? Are you able to recreate it? Of course, as any entrepreneur can tell you, growing something from nothing is often a case of two steps forward and one step back. And disCOURSE has not been without its setbacks. At their 2024 summer event featuring Greensboro’s Shafna Shamsuddin, owner of cardamom-infused frozen dessert company Elaka Treats, they ran into some technical difficulties. “We could barely get it scooped in time to serve it,” says Withers. “It was starting to melt already.” In the end, Withers said they had a blast but learned something: “We’re skipping summer!” Then there was the 2025 closing event, which had been planned to a T for October 19. The chef was none other than Winston-Salem’s Jordan Rainbolt, owner of Native Root, who uses indigenous ingredients of the Southeast. Rainbolt, whose own native roots are Cherokee and Choctaw, had been the 2024 finale chef, hosted at Moonbird Sanctuary. Firesheets and Withers describe that event as “magical.” But, for whatever reason, this time

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around, the tickets just weren’t selling as anticipated. They were going to have to cancel. Was it a tough decision? “We made it actually in about 5 minutes!” quips Withers. “I didn’t see it as a failure or disappointment,” adds Firesheets. While most things have worked out for disCOURSE dining, Firesheets says that they don’t stress when it doesn’t. “It’ll be what it is. Even when things didn’t fall into place with this last one, you know.” Now, they’ve got their eyes focused on the future — the immediate future, that is, as they take it “season by season.” They’re currently on the hunt for a coastal Carolina chef. “We just need to find her,” says Firesheets. So, why bring in women from outside Greensboro when there are many talented female chefs right under our nose? “We wanted to bring chefs from outside the area so that women here could hear their stories,” says Firesheets. After all, it’s the cultural stories that are at the heart of disCOURSE. Plus, she notes, their events have to offer something attendees can’t otherwise access by going to a locally owned restaurant or food truck. As she puts it, they need “some reason to come to our event and pay more.” But, she teases, though they are tight-lipped as of now on who it is, they’ve decided to include a Greensboro-based chef The Art & Soul of Greensboro

in the 2026 season of disCOURSE. They can, however, spill who their 2026 opener will be — none other than Chef Kanlaya “Gun” Supachana, made possible, Firesheets says, by a private donor who wishes to remain anonymous, but is a fan of the disCOURSE mission. (That event is scheduled for the afternoon of Sunday, February 22, at Machete.) While those ticket sales help Firesheets and Withers pay their chefs and venue hosts fairly, they admit to needing support to be able to keep going and to bring in even more chefs. “Ling Sue and I actually make very little,” says Firesheets. “There was one where we walked away with 33 bucks each,” adds Withers. Enough to grab an order to go from the featured chef? Yep, “and that’s pretty much what we do, exactly what we do!” Thankfully, their goal is not monetary. “It started from a place of inspiration, passion, and when it ceases to be that, then we won’t do it,” says Firsheets. First-time disCOURSErs Lindsay Morgan and pal Emily Morris ventured to last spring’s Soul Cocina event held in the backyard of Double Oaks on a sweltering day. While they spent time catching up after not seeing one another for a while, a solo attendee sat with them and asked if she could join the conversation. That wouldn’t happen at your standard Starbucks, says Morgan. Morris agrees. “A lot of community was built here and that’s amazing.” Marci Peace, who has attended a few disCOURSE events, says, “It’s so important right now to have space to have conversations. With everything, with people pitted so much against each other, it’s important.” From the beginning, Firesheets and Withers have served course after course of connection, conversation, community and cultural cuisine with a goal of sharing women’s stories. Theirs, it seems, is still being told, bite by bite. OH For more information, follow disCOURSE dining on instagram: @discoursedining

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In the Gate City, curling is very cool By Ross Howell Jr. • Photographs by Bert VanderVeen

id you know you can hone your viewing skills for the 2026 Winter Olympics right in downtown Greensboro? Most Tuesday evenings from November through January, you can bundle up and head out to LeBauer Park’s seasonal skating rink, where teams with monikers like Curl Jam, Of Ice and Men, Rolling Stones and Sultans of Sweep compete in the Greensboro Curling League. I’m guessing that your experience with curling is like mine — you’ve watched it on TV every four years. Maybe this will help. Think of playing cornhole on an ice rink, where you slide the bags instead of throwing them, mix in checkers or chess, where your opponent’s pieces can block your move, factor in the chance that you might slip and bust your butt, and you’ve pretty much got curling. Well, sort of. Alternating individual players slide (“throw”) heavy, handled

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

objects (“stones” or, familiarly, “rocks”) across the ice (“sheet” or “rink”) toward a ringed target (“house”), winning points for the stones that remain closest to the center (“button”). Teammates assist the throwing player by scrubbing (“sweeping”) the ice in front of the stone with brushes to influence its path and speed toward the house. Got it? To refine my vague understanding of the game, I drive over to Old Town Tavern on Spring Garden Street to meet the team that the tavern sponsors — Gate City Curling. When I walk out on the patio, I’m greeted by Chris “Skipper” Ratliff, the team captain, who works in the financial aid and scholarships office at UNCG. Turns out, Gate City Curling is one of the original teams in the Greensboro Curling League. O.Henry 53

Around the time of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, Chuck Burch, manager of the Greensboro Ice House, an indoor skating facility on Landmark Center Boulevard that features two National Hockey League-size ice rinks, put out a call on Facebook for people who might be interested in seeing a demonstration about curling. Ratliff saw it and convinced his friend, coworker in financial aid and now teammate, Spencer “Wildcard” Smith, to join him at that first session. “We go, they do a brief demonstration and ask, ‘Who’s interested?’” Ratliff says. “Spencer’s and my arms shot straight up,” he continues. “We started the team from that.” Initially, there were just six teams that played a couple of matches during the season. Teammate Raina “Queen” Barnett, who works in the registrar’s office at UNCG, recalls the humble beginnings of the league. “The stones were actually stainless-steel salad bowls filled with concrete,” she says. One bowl was inverted over the other and joined at the seam with layers of painter’s tape. “The handle was PVC pipe,” she adds. “It was all very backyard. We’d get brushes for sweeping the ice from Home Depot.” “Yeah, you could break the handles putting too much force on them,” quips team member Angel “Viking” Fuentes, a general contractor who’s a native of Mexico City. “And we still use Sharpies to draw the circle targets on the ice,” Barnett adds. Backyard? I’ll say. An Olympics-grade curling stone made of the rare, quartz-free granite found in only two quarries in the world — in Scotland and Wales — will carry a 5-figure price tag. But, despite its salad bowl origins, the sport has caught on. For the 2025-2026 season, the Greensboro Curling League boasts 16 teams of four to five players each. The season lasts for weeks and culminates with a two-day tournament, where the championship team is awarded the Mitchell/Walden Memorial Cup, named in honor of the late Katelyn Mitchell and Rob Walden, who were original members of the league. The winning

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team’s name is inscribed on the cup and the members hold it for a year, much like the Stanley Cup in professional hockey. And the stones these days are greatly improved, thanks to a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro. “Ours are recreational league stones like they have in Canada,” Ratliff says. And these stones aren’t cheap, either. They’re priced at around $500 apiece. While they enjoy the new trappings, both Ratliff and Smith emphasize that their matches are not like what you see on TV. For example, Gate City Curling has never competed inside a covered facility, not even the Greensboro Ice House. In fact, the team relishes the special challenges that curling outdoors presents. “Charlotte has a curling league, but they’re all indoor like you see in the Olympics,” Ratliff says. “That’s just not how we do it,” he continues. “We battle the elements. It’s a lot more exciting.” “The ice changes constantly, throughout the night,” Ratliff adds. “It really comes down to which team can adapt first.” Teammate Kevin “Hammer” Shoffner, who’s the marketing manager for Habitat for Humanity, chimes in. “It might be 60 degrees one week,” he says. “Then, all of a sudden, we’re back to freezing.” “One thing we’ve learned is that you can’t curl in the rain,” Ratliff adds. That’s because there’s no grain on the ice to slow the stone. “And you cannot curl in the snow,” says Barnett. Its accumulation impedes the glide of the stone. “A heavy snow we had years ago was terrible for curling,” Shoffner says. “The stone wouldn’t go five feet,” Ratliff remembers. As locals know, snow in the Piedmont often turns to slush: “It was like throwing on cat food!” Smith laughs. “That’s what’s unbelievable,” says Fuentes. “Even in the worst conditions,” he continues, “you just get out there and think, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m doing this!’ The weather doesn’t matter.” Another attraction for Gate City Curling members is the sense of community they feel participating in the league. “It takes a unique person to go outside at 9:30 at night in 30-degree temperatures and stand on ice,” says Ratliff. “You play other sports, people can be hyper competitive,” Shoffner comments. “But this is organic. It’s not super pressure, we’re out there having fun.” Fuentes offers a different take on this quirky community. “What I get the most fun out of is telling people that I play curling,” he laughs. “And people go, ‘What? Curling? No, really, that can’t be real.’” “There’s definitely shock value,” says Barnett. “People say, ‘What? Curling? In Greensboro?’” While the teammates enjoy the notoriety and the relatively laidback competition, they’re still in it to win it. The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Shoffner is known for his powerful throw and is usually designated to throw the all-important last stone, called the “hammer,” which can displace all the stones in the house. Smith is the team’s rock, paper, scissors champion, the game by which the team determines the order in which individual members throw their stones and what color stones the team plays with. Barnett has perfected the crucial first throw, reliably placing a stone to set up the team for a potential point. Fuentes is the team’s finesse guy, known for finding his way to the button. Ratliff handles the team’s promotion while consistently ranking among the top three sweepers in the league. “We’re a pretty well-oiled machine because we’ve been doing this for seven years,” Ratliff explains. “If we get that win on a Tuesday night, I got a little spring in my step on Wednesday,” says Fuentes. “I may be the most competitive on the team,” Ratliff says. Since he’s captain, you’d expect that. “I don’t know anybody who goes onto the ice and doesn’t want to win,” Barnett claims. “We still have that drive, but it’s not so competitive that it sucks all the fun out.” “Friendly rivalry,” Smith concludes. In competition, there are nuances that are missed by the uninitiated. Most of us would note the loudly barked directions and sometimes frantic sweeping, but we would probably miss the hand signals teammates use. “There’s a lot of noise out on the ice at any given time,” Shoffner says. Not only is the outside lighting dim, the Sharpie-drawn house is barely discernible from the thrower’s position. So hand signals can be critically important. “Sometimes, you throw it and you think you’ve got it in the house, and you’re like, ‘Yeah, I’m on the button!’” says Smith. “And your teammates are like, ‘Dude, you’re 5 feet away, what are you talking about?’” “You cannot do it by yourself,” Barnett emphasizes. “Even if your eyesight is perfect, you cannot see.” “If you’re the one throwing and your teammate is sweeping,” she continues, “it’s like an optical illusion.” “Your teammates are really your eyes and ears,” Barnett concludes. So what’s the future look like for Gate City Curling? Already, Monday nights on the rink have been set for novices to try their skills and maybe develop new teams for the Tuesdaynight league. “What I’d like the community to know is the Greensboro Curling League is a thing,” Ratliff says. “It’s been run by some really cool, independent and dedicated people who came together, created it and have run it successfully for seven years.” “For me, seeing curling growing and having ice hockey come back to Greensboro is exciting,” Shoffner says. “It’s not exactly a movement, but there’s a rise in winter sports.” “It’d be great if the Gargoyles had us out for a little curling exposition on the ice at half time,” says Smith. “News 2 did a live feed of the tournament one year; maybe The Art & Soul of Greensboro

they’d do it again,” Ratliff muses. “We already do one,” Smith says. “It’s just a tripod and a camera, right?” “Yeah,” Ratliff answers. “I slipped on the ice and broke my tripod.” Smith grins. “I’d forgotten you fell,” he says. “Thanks for reminding us.” “Breaking a tripod instead of a collar bone, that’s better,” Fuentes says with a laugh. Curling in downtown Greensboro may not be the Olympics. But it’s plenty entertaining. And if you show up on a wintry Monday night to give it a try, or on a Tuesday just to hang out by the rink and watch, you’ll warm the hearts of some very dedicated people. OH For more information, visit www.piedmontwinterfest.com or follow @GateCityCurling on Instagram. Ross Howell Jr. is a contributing writer.

The Venerable Sport You’ve Probably Never Heard Of Curling is a winter team sport that has been around for centuries. When a pond was drained in Scotland near the city of Stirling, workers discovered two curling stones, one inscribed “1511” and the other “1551.” The first written mention of a game of stones played on ice was found in the records of an abbey in west central Scotland and was dated “February 1541.” Evidence of the sport making its way into Europe is seen in works dated “1565” by the Flemish painter, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Scots immigrants introduced the game to Canada, where the Royal Montreal Curling Club was founded in 1807. The first curling club in the U.S. was established in 1830. Although there was a curling competition in the 1924 Winter Olympics and a demonstration tournament in the 1932 games, the sport wasn’t officially added to competition until the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

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A Loewenstein lives on in Irving Park By Billy Ingram • Photographs by Amy Freeman

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hen newlyweds Daniel and Kathy Craft set out in search of their dream home, one both idealized yet narrowly defined, it may have seemed like that impossible dream enshrined in song. What they had in mind was a place that offered a warm hearth and an enriching environment where they could raise a family, but the type of home they desired wasn’t being built anymore, and the remaining ones were being eradicated at an alarming rate. They were longing for a Loewenstein. In those rare instances when Triad realtors happen across a listing for a “Loewenstein,” the name is spoken in revered tones. There were other mid-century architects crafting magnificent homes locally and across the Southeast, celebrated artists held in just as high regard — Charles C. Hartmann and Harry Barton being obvious options — but for sweeping super-structures limited solely by one’s imagination and, only occasionally, the laws of gravity, Edward Loewenstein was, and remains, in a class unto himself. The unfolding of the 1950s ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity buoyed by an abundance of unrealized real estate, an atmosphere where there could be no greater testimony to a family’s success than the home they had designed and constructed for themselves. And no address came packaged with more prestige

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

for platforming those affluent architectural assertions than a cautiously expanding Irving Park neighborhood street encircling the Greensboro Country Club, established in 1909. A disciple of the Modernist movement typified by Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra and other avant-garde West Coast architects, Edward Loewenstein graduated from Chicago’s Deerfield Shields High School and MIT with a B.A. in architecture in 1935. He established his Greensboro architectural firm in 1946 after having served during WWII and marrying Francis Stern, stepdaughter to denim impresario Julius Cone. He was determined to break away from the Arts and Crafts, Mission Colonial and Tudor Revivals going up north of downtown. After completing a dozen or so conventional dwellings, as luck would have it, he was approached in 1950 by a young couple, Wilbur and Martha Carter, who had three children and a hankering for a homestead that would instill an air of distinction on their heavily wooded, 1.28-acre lot facing Country Club Drive and extending back to Cornwallis. Given a choice between two wildly divergent designs, one a Georgian Revival fitting snugly into the neighborhood’s stately but somewhat staid motif, the Carters chose the more radical schematic Loewenstein presented them with. “I think there were other houses in Greensboro that had Modernist tendencies, but it seemed

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he was the only one at the time that was [dedicated to] it,” says Patrick Lee Lucas, author of the definitive book on Greensboro’s Modernist maestro: Modernism at Home: Edward Loewenstein’s MidCentury Architectural Innovation in the Civil Rights Era. Following the precepts of international modern style, the Carters’ house was defined by a flat roof, an open floor plan, curtain windows and minimal ornamentation. Architects of the time were guided by the “rule” that “form follows function,” which prompted designers to consider what a building should achieve for the user before what it should look like. Blueprints called for a horizontal, L-shaped structure fronted with a low-

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The Art & Soul of Greensboro

pitched roof atop a screened (eventually glass) solarium, which featured bluestone flooring that stretched into the central living room. Obscuring an already sunken, single-leaf front door, an 8-foot-high brick wall extended from the front yard into the home for a short way to distinguish the bedroom corridor from communal space. Toward the rear, hidden storage and built-in bookshelves abounded, and at the base of the windows inside the den a brick planter was enclosed. Back-to-back fireplaces were embedded in a load bearing wall facing both the living room and den. The spacious kitchen was floored in 9-by-9-inch, brown-and-marbleThe Art & Soul of Greensboro

patterned, vinyl-asbestos tiles made by Armstrong. Employing industrial-use tiles and natural stone floors indoors were uncommon home accoutrement. The children’s rooms were connected via a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Rather than clearcutting, as was the custom, all of the imposing oaks on the property remained in place. “Loewenstein seemed particularly adept at using underutilized lots in Irving Park,” Lucas points out. “These were the tree lots that no one wanted or they were sold off from a bigger parcel as the neighborhood further subdivided.” Gravitating toward rugged grounds with unusual features, says Lucas, “Part of his goal, both from a O.Henry 59

Modernist sense but also from a sensitivity to the environment, was to build around the trees.” “Of all the houses that he designed, it’s the most unusual in that it has two living rooms next to one another,” Lucas notes. “One was essentially an outdoor room, so it meant that there were times of the year it couldn’t be used because it was just so cold and hard to heat in the ’50s.” The resulting perception was an innate spaciousness that gave the sense of being outside while inside the home, its wide-open interiors defined not so much by walls as where people chose to congregate. The Carter abode was such a radical departure from the norm it was practically an affront. “Some of the neighbors were like, what? And others were like, this is cool,” Lucas states. “So there was a little tug of war in that sense.” In correspondence concerning what he referred to as his “Dream Home,” Loewenstein lamented that he “received violent comments in both directions from neighbors and friends.” The Carters themselves were pleased as “they wanted it to be not something traditional,” Lucas reiterates. Vindication arrived after the house won an American Institute of Architects North Carolina Design Award in 1951, was fea-

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tured in Architectural Record in 1952, and then bestowed a 1955 Merit Award from Southern Architect magazine. Resistance to Loewenstein’s futuristic fancies melted as a subsequent Modernist home was taking shape on Princess Anne Street in nearby Kirkwood, where homeowners petitioned the Greensboro Zoning Commission to allow for a departure from the contemporary Cape Cod conformity sanctioned by its neighborhood planners. From the beginning, Loewenstein was the first in North Carolina to hire Black architects. “Some had employed African American draftsmen before World War II, but he was the first to do it in a major way,” Lucas points out. Many, like Clinton Gravely and W. Edward Jenkins, went on to great acclaim in Greensboro with their own firms. “It was a form of protest or nonconformity in terms of the way that he operated, employing these guys who wouldn’t have an architecture firm to work for because there wasn’t one that would hire them.” The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Lucas posits that marrying into the influential Cone family allowed Loewenstein to buck the system “and probably not suffer the consequences of other societal forces relative to how the rest of us had to operate.” Hailing from Chicago, where race relations were far less volatile, Lucas muses, “Maybe he was doing what he was doing and just let the chips fall where they may.” Or, perhaps, being the only prominent Jewish architect in North Carolina, it was a logical extension of his own status as an underdog. With Loewenstein’s reputation and workload steadily growing across the Southeast he took on a partner, Robert A. Atkinson Jr. In 1950s in Irving Park alone, the firm of Loewenstein-Atkinson was responsible for ground-breaking Modernist designs such as the sumptuous Ceasar and Martha Cone house on Cornwallis (demolished for a cul-de-sac in 1994), the Sidney and Kay Stern residence at 1804 Nottingham, UNCG’s 1959 Commencement Home at 612 Rockford, the John and Evelyn Hyman home at 608 Kimberly Drive and the game-changing Robert and Bettie Chandgie hybrid two blocks away at 401 Kimberly. Embracing Modernism allowed for a lessened emphasis on interior decoration. “What we’re going to do is just celebrate O.Henry 61

nature without having to actually reproduce it inside,” Lucas maintains about the minimalist philosophy, creating frameworks adaptable to any aesthetic. One can’t help but wonder what it was like back in the 1950s, before suburban street lamps dulled Irving Park’s nighttime skies, the warmth inside these homes contrasting with nature’s soaring flora bathed in moonlight refracted through panoramic glass apertures. In 2004, with three kids in tow, the Crafts became only the second owners of Loewenstein’s self-described “Dream House” he had crafted for the Carters, but not without considerable effort. “We’d been looking for years,” Kathy recalls. The journey home began when they were newlyweds, but didn’t end until seven years later. “We were 28 years old and we just couldn’t turn around and buy a Loewenstein at that time.” Still, they researched, attended open houses and watched frustratingly as, one after another, Modernist monoliths fell out of favor and were leveled in favor of developing the land they occupied. Fate stepped in after the Crafts met Lee Carter at what had been his childhood home. Kathy knew after just a few feet into the front door that this was the one. None the less, Carter wasn’t exactly a motivated seller. Witnessing what had happened to other comparable properties, he only, months later, made the decision to allow the family home to change hands, but with one stipulation

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— that it not be desecrated or demolished. “It was sort of destiny, it was the right timing and it was the right house,” Kathy says. In the suitably spacious backyard, the Crafts discovered the Carters had installed a small horse stable and utility building. Structural alterations undertaken by the Carters decades earlier, overseen by Loewenstein, included decreasing the width of the wall alongside the front door while increasing the length of the roof covering the solarium. In the 1980s, brickwork inside and out was painted white. A pantry door off of the kitchen still retains the Carter family’s important names and contact information scrawled across it, reminders of a time when only five numbers were required to dial neighbors. Foundational tweaks the Crafts have instituted are minimal. All of the window panes have been replaced and the vinyl-asbesThe Art & Soul of Greensboro

tos kitchen flooring was removed in favor of a terrazzo-like porcelain tile. After seven decades, a smattering of those old growth trees have been uprooted by necessity, flooding the home with natural light. “I never turn on a lamp until the sun goes down,” Kathy says. In the early 2000s, Kathy owned the Eastern Standard Gallery located in downtown’s Southend community, where she showcased, among many other exemplary artists, her brother-in-law The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Michael Coté’s furniture. In fact, he constructed their intricately inlaid wood dinner table. “He was not trained, never schooled. He just picked up woodworking and made that table,” says Kathy. Redeploying the matching high back chairs for accents, the Crafts instead assembled table-side a half dozen transparent, Baroqueinfluenced Philippe Starck Ghost Chairs with curved armrests. As actress Katherine Hepburn famously attested, “Men are unhappy sitting at a dining room table if their chairs don’t have arms.” Behind that table, imbuing an Asian influence, is an a fourpanel vintage Baker Furniture screen that Douglas Freeman painted for Daniel’s birthday in 2010. A happy match with what the Carters had acquired in 1964 and left behind that adorns the den, a Japanese byōbu from MoMA depicting Heian-period courtiers leading a formal procession. “That is actually paper adhered to the wall, then framed,” Kathy explains. The solarium is punctuated by a painting awash in muted tones, “an abstract of the marsh by Walter Greer,” says Kathy, “a well-known artist from Hilton Head Island. Dad loved his work.” Nearby are two Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs and an ottoman, reflexively reflecting an overall retro sensibility to the decor, embellishments emblematic of a sense of playful permanence and space-age proportionality this home embodies. O.Henry 63

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The Crafts’ three children have graduated college and scattered to careers in various locales, but this in no way feels like an empty nest. If anything, a welcoming environment for a potential influx of grandkids. The mid-century Modernist movement was, for many, an optimistic harbinger for the wondrous World of Tomorrow promised us by the 1939 World’s Fair, Disneyland and Reddy Kilowatt (“Live better electrically!”). Finished in 1954, Loewenstein’s own home on Granville Road features a driveway long and wide enough to land a flying car comfortably, should it come to that. In his waning days, Frank Lloyd Wright was quoted as saying, “The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.” Loewenstein was more laconic: “Dedicated architects die unhappy. They never get to unleash creative juices because of pressure to please clients.” He gets right to the heart of what gives the Carter House its cultural significance, so cutting-edge for the period — nobody knew enough about the direction the upstart architect was headed to get in his way.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

In the end, Loewenstein’s instinct for “bringing the outside inside” backfired in terms of longevity. Eventually, some would argue inevitably, the spacious landscaping these houses were integrated into far exceeded the commercial value of the structures. “It used to be,” Lucas says, “if you were one of these Modernist houses designed by this weird guy, Loewenstein, no big deal. We’ll just tear it down and build something bigger there.” Now the name conveys a level of esteem in the way Rolex, Ferrari and Tiffany have become synonymous with style and stature. “Most of the calls I still get are from realtors trying to prop up their property with a Loewenstein connection. So it’s kind of moved on in that regard.” As realtor Katie Redhead related to me a few years ago about the current marketplace mindset regarding Loewensteins, “We started seeing homes that were in Westerwood, a house on East Lake Drive — let me tell you, those houses went off the charts, people went nuts. Right now we’ve got such a high demand, if one did come on the market, I think it would be well received. And I probably wouldn’t have said that 10 years ago.” As for the Crafts, they won’t be selling any time soon. OH O.Henry 65

Starting at Cleburne Street, three blocks east of the Carter House, let’s look at the nine nearby families and their distinctly distingué domiciles strung like pearls down Country Club Drive circa 1950. More than half constructed during the previous decade, all but one were inhabited at that time by the original owners who commissioned them. (Except for the demolished Cone and Graham houses, each of these remain pristine today, albeit with major or minor additions.) On the corner of Country Club and Cleburne facing the golf course was what used to be the front, but eventually became the rear, of Herman Cone’s baronial estate (above); the Schencks’ plantation-style mansion, bearing a conspicuous resemblance to Gone With The Wind’s Tara, was next door at 812 Country Club; the elegant Elizabethan flair of the Hendrix (later Jeffress) family’s Tudor Revival cottage writ large completed this block.

806 County Club Drive 912 County Club Drive

PHOTOGRAPH © CAROL W. MARTIN/GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION

Crossing Nottingham at 900 Country Club, this sumptuously indulgent Tudor castlet belonged to the Higgins; the Taylors resided in another Neoclassical Revival steeped in Southern symmetry at 904; the Borens’ classic Colonial at 912 (above), lavished in Boren Brick, sits positioned at an angle on the corner. Wrapping around Lafayette at 1001 Country Club, the Clarks lived in a stunning Old English Manor with highly pronounced pitched gables; the Graham house at 1008 was an outwardly modest one-story situated on a lot where two manses later replaced it in the 2000s; built in 1947, the Brantleys’ brick, four-bedroom with Tudor-istic touches at 1009 Country Club was the most modern in sight, despite dwelling well within the confines of 1940s stoicism. When Loewenstein began work in 1950 on the Carter property, just across the street from the Brantleys, the property provided the outer edge of an uninhabited wooded area, which extended all the way down to Irving Park Elementary on Sunset Drive.

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PHOTOGRAPHS © GREENSBORO HISTORY MUSEUM COLLECTION

Take a Walk Down Memory Lane Along 1950s Country Club Drive

1001 County Club Drive

The The Art Art & & Soul Soul of of Greensboro Greensboro

A L M A N A C

January By Ashley Walshe

anuary is an ancient remembering; a rush of cold; the crunch, crunch, quiet of naked woods. This new day, sunlight caressing the frigid earth, inspiration knocks with the clarity of woodpecker drumming against towering pine. Bundled in layers, you lace up your boots, leash up the dog, make for the leaf-littered trail in the open, unobtrusive forest. Crisp air fills your lungs with a sense of wildness, each breath sharpening your instincts, expanding your horizon, deepening your kinship with the natural world. As dead leaves rustle beneath feet and paws, the wisdom of animal awakens within you. This isn’t just a walk in the wild. It’s a homecoming. Despite the bleakness of this winter landscape, the sting of the cold, you feel a surge of bold and blissful aliveness. At once, emptiness becomes threshold of infinite possibility. At once, the unseen sings out. Opossum tracks spell midnight wanderings. A circling hawk graces a vibrant blue sky. Dog presses warm snout to damp earth and listens. You listen, too, noting the rhythm of your breath, the cadence of your footsteps, the distant crack of hoof upon fallen branch. Beyond a young beech tree, its pale leaves suspended like a murmuration of ghosts, half a dozen white-tailed deer stand invisible against the sepia backdrop. But here’s the thing: A veil has been lifted; your vision, clarified. You can sense the wild stirrings of these hollow woods. Your breath in the cold is living proof.

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Keeping it Real(istic) The New Year has a way of making us believe that anything is possible — and why not? But we do love to set lofty (read delusional) goals for ourselves, don’t we? Who thought this was a good idea? The ancient Babylonians were perhaps the first. Some 4,000 years ago, during their 12-day Akitu festival, “promises to the gods” were made to earn their favor or repay debts. The ancient Romans adopted this ritual to honor Janus (god of beginnings, transitions and time), while early Christians reflected on past transgressions and resolved to “be better” at the start of the bright, new year. “New Year’s resolutions” entered modern vernacular by the 19th century, becoming a largely secular practice. This year, should you make a promise to yourself, earn your own good favor by breaking large goals into smaller steps. And, whatever your commitment, do it from a place of genuine desire — not just because you think you should.

Anyone who thinks gardening begins in the spring and ends in the fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream. — Josephine Nuese

New Year, New Earth Suppose we resolved to live in greater harmony with the Earth this new year. Small changes can make a big impact. Below are a few suggestions to deepen your relationship with the natural world and, perhaps, reduce your carbon footprint. Feel free to make your own vow, of course. This is strictly between you and Mama E. • Wake up to watch the sunrise • Support your local farmers market • BYO reusable shopping bags • Choose native plants and pollinators for the garden • Ditch bottled water (and singleuse plastics) • Visit your local nature preserves • Spend more time barefoot on the earth • Pause to watch more sunsets OH

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OH PROfiles The People & Businesses That Make the Triad a More Vibrant Place to Live and Work!

Re-Bath Greensboro Kintura TinkerSmiths Trading Co. Greensboro Power Studios Greensboro Plastic Surgery Pennybyrn RoelsMethod Pain Relief Center

SPONSORED SECTION JANUARY 2026 P h o t o g r a p h s b y B e r t Va n d e r Ve e n & Betsy Blake

JAY KOEHLER

OWNER | PRESIDENT

SCOTT KOEHLER

OWNER | VICE PRESIDENT Celebrating 30 years of transforming bathrooms in the Greensboro area, Re-Bath Greensboro works alongside homeowners to ensure each remodel is straightforward, hassle-free and beautiful. Wanting to offer homeowners a simple turnkey solution, Tim Koehler launched Re-Bath Greensboro in 1996. Renovating an outdated bathroom not only increases a home’s value but also enhances its functionality while providing a more contemporary look with energy-efficient materials. From stunning full bathroom remodels to minor tub and shower updates, Re-Bath Greensboro offers a free in-home design consultation, followed by removal, preparation and professional installation by highly skilled craftsmen. Today, Re-Bath Greensboro is operated by his two sons, owner/president Jay Koehler, who has been in the business for 26 years, and owner/ vice president Scott Koehler, who has been in the business for 30 years. With the help of 30 employees they “consider to be family as well,” the two men continue their father’s commitment to providing superior service and competitive pricing when it comes to bathroom remodeling. Making the renovation process as simple as possible for homeowners, Jay adds, “We have a beautiful showroom where homeowners can see all the products on display for designing their bathroom.” The Koehlers consider their business and family their greatest accomplishments and think of Re-Bath Greensboro employees as family, too. When Scott isn’t improving bathrooms, he plays the drums, works on cars and hangs out with his three adult children, Taylor, and twins Gavin and Alex. Away from work, Jay can probably be found outdoors snowboarding, wake surfing, hiking or spending time with his kids, Jackson, Carson Elizabeth and Anderson.

2701 Branchwood Drive, Greensboro, NC 336-282-2424 | www.rebath.com

TIM WEBSTER CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER HANK LOVVORN CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER ALAN TUTTEROW CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER The top three leaders of Kintura — North Carolina’s largest not-for-profit senior living organization — rely on their shared passion for supporting older adults. It takes a special person to dedicate their life to serving this community. Among Kintura’s more than 2,100 team members, these three have 95 combined years of aging-services experience. Tim Webster, CEO; Hank Lovvorn, COO; and Alan Tutterow, CFO. Kintura is best known for its continuing care — or “life plan” — retirement communities, such as River Landing at Sandy Ridge and Well-Spring in greater Greensboro, The Village at Brookwood in Burlington, Glenaire in Cary and Scotia Village in Laurinburg. Plus, there’s Kintura’s work in homeand community-based services, affordable housing, and its management of Friends Homes. “My parents instilled in me a genuine interest in serving others,” Lovvorn says. “There are many ways to do that, but senior living became a passion for me and was the right fit personally and professionally.”

Tutterow agrees. “I’ve been involved with senior living since age 10. I went with my grandfather to the Baptist Home in Winston-Salem. He was executive director and nursing home administrator. I bussed tables and supported resident activities.” That’s where, he says, his lifelong passion for serving took root. Webster, too, has relished his 31 years in the business of care and looks forward to the continual growth and evolution in the field. “I share our team’s enthusiasm about new and innovative ways to serve the ever-growing population of seniors — a skyrocketing figure! We’re committed to staying ahead of the curve.”

5603 New Garden Village Drive, Greensboro, NC 336-886-6553 | www.kintura.org

JOEY MARLOWE & JANA VAUGHAN

OWNERS

Spreading kindness and joy is a dream many people have, but Jana Vaughan is making her dream come true with the opening of TinkerSmiths Trading Co., which she shares with co-owner Joey Marlowe. The two also own Boxwood Antique Market, which they opened in 2021 after becoming “instant friends” while working at an antique mall where they saw the area’s need for a place to buy vintage furnishings in an upscale setting. Boxwood blends Marlowe’s interior design and retail merchandising expertise to create a shopping experience that offers high-end antiques with designer flair. As Marlowe puts it, he has “a hobby and love for antiques that I turned into a career.” TinkerSmiths, the largest antiques mall in the Triad, was born in 2025, when the duo felt the area needed a shopping venue designed for all shoppers. Featuring more than 300 antiques, collectibles and décor vendors, the space offers something special for everyone, no matter the budget. TinkerSmiths’ visitors enjoy the many shopping offerings mixed with exceptional customer service plus delivery and pickup services. “We love to travel and speak to groups about downsizing their homes and how consignment would work for them,” Vaughan says. “Our store presentations of consignor and vendor goods mimic department store displays.” The response to TinkerSmiths has been so overwhelming that they’re opening an additional 10,000 square feet of space for consignors and vendors. Vaughan and Marlowe both enjoy spending time with their daughters and grandchildren, but they add, “even when we’re not at work,” they can be found shopping, and decorating.

1628 South Main Street, High Point, NC 336-883-9656

MIA ALSUP OWNER Greensboro Power Studios is a boutique fitness studio that offers hot yoga, strength training, community programs and many more opportunities beyond motion. This transformative space invites members to move boldly and belong deeply. As owner Mia Alsup puts it, “We are committed to being your third place. Beyond home and work, we’ve created a space where you can come to feel strong and supported, empowered and connected.”

Alsup and her husband, Jack, moved to the area 10 years ago, right before their oldest daughter was born, to be closer to family. Greensboro, they’ve found, is a small town with a big heart where connection and creativity thrive. Movement has been a part of Alsup’s story since childhood. A dedicated dancer growing up, she later pursued a career in communications, marketing and entrepreneurship before shifting gears to yoga, which brought her back to her roots. Inspired to lead a studio focused on movement and community, Alsup purchased Dancing Dogs Yoga Greensboro in early 2023 and rebranded it as Greensboro Power Yoga. She expanded her vision with the opening of Greensboro Power Strength in 2024 and ultimately brought both concepts under one roof as Greensboro Power Studios in late 2025. Her growing team of 30 certified instructors offer a menu of 50+ classes that include yoga, strength and sculpt classes, as well as corporate and private classes, destination retreats and teacher trainings. Alsup’s vision is for each person who enters the studio to feel seen, supported and connected. Greensboro Power Studios, she says, “brings together every chapter of my story and allows me to guide others toward their own strength and transformation.” When she isn’t running her studio, Alsup enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, traveling, going to the theater or listening to live music, dancing, and skiing. And, of course, being a student at her own studio. Yoga & Strength Training

301-C State Street, Greensboro, NC 336-223-4957 www.greensboropowerstudios.com

COLLIER PACE MD Enhancing each patient’s natural beauty is the mission of Greensboro Plastic Surgery and its founder, board-certified plastic surgeon, Dr. Collier Pace. Because each face and body is unique, Greensboro Plastic Surgery tailors individual treatment plans while building meaningful patient relationships. “We are very transparent about expectations, and our primary objective is to deliver an experience that offers value and makes people feel better about themselves,” he says. Greensboro Plastic Surgery plans to be in the community for a long time and strives to help patients look and feel their best at every stage of life. “Building trusting relationships is much more valuable than making a sale,” he adds. Originally from Central Florida, Dr. Pace and his wife, urologist Dr. MaryEllen Pace, moved to Greensboro in 2020 because they wanted a place where they could both raise a family and practice medicine. “The town is small enough to have familiarity, but big enough to have plenty to do,” he says. “We’ve loved raising our two children here.” In March 2024, Greensboro Plastic Surgery saw its first patient, with just Dr. Pace and two team members in the office. Now, the team has doubled to six members, and the practice continues

to grow and add services, focusing on aesthetic surgery for the face and body, along with nonsurgical procedures and cosmetic treatments, including injectables and skin treatments. When he’s not helping clients look and feel their best, Dr. Pace stays busy with his children, son Merritt and daughter Channing, whose activities range from sports to the arts. If he finds himself with a little free time, you just might spot him at the gym.

802 Green Valley Rd, Suite 212, Greensboro, NC 336-600-5258 greensboroplasticsurgery.com

MARIBEL PEREZ

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Pennybyrn’s Melvin and Ruth Witcher Adult Day Center opened in 2025 to provide a safe and engaging environment where older adults can form social connections and continue to learn, enhancing their overall quality of life. Part of the Pennybyrn Retirement Community in High Point, the Adult Day Center, currently enrolling, is run by program director Maribel Perez, who creates a personalized service plan for each participant. “I specialize in developing creative, goal-oriented programs and enrichment opportunities that support each participant’s strengths and passions,” says Perez. Built into the plans are arts and crafts activities, games, music and dancing, live entertainment, physical exercise and spiritual renewal, all aimed at sharpening the minds and strengthening the bodies of the program’s participants. “My focus is on designing activities that allow individuals to express themselves, maintain purpose and continue pursuing what they enjoy — even if in a modified way,” she says. Perez’s career began in high school, when she earned her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certification. She then worked as a CNA throughout college and fell in love with the role, thanks to the relationships she made and the impact she had on older adults. She has remained committed to helping older adults ever since. Perez says, “Watching participants laugh, share stories and support one another reminds me every day that this program is so much more than a place to spend time — it’s a place where hearts are full and friendships grow.” For fun, Perez enjoys reading, exploring new coffee shops and restaurants, and traveling to new countries with her husband, Carlos. One day, she says, they’ll visit all seven wonders of the world.

109 Pennybyrn Road High Point, NC 336-821-4000 pennybyrnliving.org

EMILY & MICHAEL ROELS

CO-OWNERS

When Michael and Emily Roels met in 2013, they were both teaching at a massage therapy school, where they discovered a shared passion for helping people understand and overcome pain through a healthy wellness journey. After supporting clients for many years at Essential Balanced Bodywork, their enthusiasm led them to open RoelsMethod™ Pain Relief Center in 2025. The Center offers a variety of options for health, wellness and pain relief, including reflexology, sound healing and massage therapy, as well as RoelsMethod™ NeuroSomatic Reset. The Reset, a neuroscience-informed approach using gentle bodywork to address the actual cause of pain rather than its symptoms, was designed by Michael, a Winston-Salem native. “Pain has a message that is trying to help us change our life for the better,” he says. Support groups, a support circle, A Course in Miracles group and classes in Qigong, chair yoga and stretching are also offered at the Center, fostering a sense of community while adding emotional restoration. Along with being a co-owner of the Center, Emily, who began her career in Greensboro, has more than 20 years of massage therapy experience and is a certified sound healer, holistic health coach and forest therapy guide. Her goal is to heal and strengthen the lives of her clients. After a head-on collision left co-owner Michael with spinal injuries and excruciating pain that weren’t cured by traditional methods, he devoted his life to understanding the inherent connection between the brain, the body and chronic pain. “Our purpose for existing is to help people understand pain is in the brain,” he says,“ and where they feel it is not the problem.” When they aren’t helping clients, Emily and Michael can be found hiking the trails, playing with their pup, or spending time with family.

RoelsMethod Pain Relief Center 200 Brookstown Avenue, Winston Salem, NC 27101 www.roelsmethodpainreliefcenter.com

January 2026 Before attending any event, it’s best to check times, costs, status and location. Although we conscientiously use the most accurate and up-to-date information, the world is subject to change and errors occur!

JANUARY EVENTS January 01–31 PIEDMONT WINTERFEST. Times and days vary. Glide, twirl or stumble your way across the ice rink with friends and family. Tickets: $15. LeBauer Park, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: piedmontwinterfest.com. WINTER SHOW. GreenHill Center for NC Art’s annual show features a vast array of North Carolina artists’ works. Free. Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greenhillnc.org/winter-show-2025. AFRICAN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE EXHIBIT. The High Point Museum will host We Built This: Profiles of Black Architects and Builders in North Carolina, an exhibition from Preservation North Carolina. Free. High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org. January 01–04 WINTER WONDERLIGHTS. 5:30–10 p.m. Bask in the last few days of Greensboro Science Center’s holiday light display. Tickets: $15+; under 3, free. Greensboro Science Center, 4301 Lawndale Drive, Greensboro. Info: greensboroscience.org/ winterwonderlights. January 02 FIRST FRIDAY. 6–9 p.m. Head downtown for a night of live music and happenings stretching all the way from LeBauer Park and the Greensboro Cultural Center to the South End. Free. Downtown Greensboro. Info: downtowngreensboro.org/first-friday. January 03 ZOSO. 8 p.m. Celebrate Led Zeppelin’s 30th anniversary with a live tribute from ZOSO along with a meet-and-greet after. Tickets: $25+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events. January 08, 15, 22, 29 STAND-UP 101. Thursdays, 6 p.m. See if you have what it takes to be a stand-up comedian in this five-part workshop series launching on Jan. 8. Registration: $254+. The Idiot

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Piedmont Winterfest January 01–31 Box, 503 N. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: idiotboxers.com/classes. January 08 GRAND KYIV BALLET. 7 p.m. Giselle is a classical ballet that tells the story of a peasant girl who falls in love with a nobleman disguised as a commoner. Tickets: $54+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events. January 09 BANDEMIC. 7:30–10:30 p.m. Beloved local band Bandemic kicks off the new year with a live performance. Free. Joymongers Brewery, 576 N. Eugene St., Greensboro. Info: joymongers.com/upcoming-events. January 10-31 MAKING [ART] HISTORY: ACTS, ACTIONS AND REENACTMENTS. This exhibit explores how various individual, collective and artist-channeled methods of making art have been interwoven with multiple cultural

and national histories. Free. Weatherspoon Art Museum, 500 Tate St., Greensboro. Info: weatherspoonart.org/calendar. January 10–11 MONSTER JAM. Times vary. Experience the thrill of big trucks performing exhilarating feats right in front of your eyes and ears. Tickets: $28+. First Horizon Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: gsocomplex.com/events. January 10, 17, 24, 31 BLACKSMITH DEMONSTRATION. 10 a.m–4 p.m. Watch the sparks and red-hot iron turn into farm implements as trades of the past come to life in a costumed blacksmith’s able hands. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org. January 10 CRAFTING ILLUSIONS. 10 a.m.–noon. In a sensory-friendly environment, learn to The Art & Soul of Greensboro

january calendar make an agamograph, an accordion foldingpaper craft that creates an optical illusion of two different pictures. Free. Little Red Schoolhouse at the High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org. LESLIE ODOM JR. 8 p.m. Known for originating the role of Aaron Burr in Hamilton, the Tony- and Grammy-winning multihyphenated artist takes the stage. Tickets: $75+. Tew Recital Hall, 100 McIver St., Greensboro. Info: vpa.uncg.edu/ucls. DEAR SISTER. 7:30 – 10:30 p.m. Here to bring pure rock’n’roll nostalgia, Dear Sister is back to take control of the night with a Saturday show. Free. Joymongers Brewery, 576 N Eugene St., Greensboro. Info: joymongers.com/upcoming-events. January 14 FRESH + FOODIE SERIES. 6–7 p.m. Mix, match and create your perfect on-the-go blend of tasty, nutritious goodies. Learn smart shopping tips, budget-friendly meal ideas and how to make every dollar — and bite — count. Free. Deep Roots Market, 600 N Eugene St., Greensboro. Info: downtowngreensboro.org/events. SWAN LAKE. 7 p.m. Performed by international ballet stars and presented by Classical Arts Entertainment, the most in-demand ballet sashays across stage. Tickets: 35+. Carolina Theatre, 310 S. Greene St., Greensboro. Info: carolinatheatre.com/events. January 15–18 NEW PLAY PROJECT WINNER. 7–9:30 p.m. Power, Money, Sex . . . Oh Yeah, and Love by Sally Kinka is a dark comedy described as “almost musical,” with characters who are as relatable as they are disturbed.

FRESH + FOODIE SERIES January 14, 2026 The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Free, donations welcome. Stephen D. Hyers Theatre at the Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov/departments/ creative-greensboro. January 15 BARRY MANILOW. 7 p.m. Grammy, Tony and Emmy Award-winning musical icon Barry Manilow will make his final Greensboro concert appearance. Tickets: $40+. First Horizon Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: gsocomplex.com/events. January 17 A HEARTY MEAL HOW-TO. Noon–4 p.m. Costumed interpreters make a winter meal of soup with baked bread and homemade butter in the 1801 Hoggatt House. Free; demonstration only. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org. HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER. 7:30 p.m. M.C. Taylor returns to his adopted North Carolina home compliments of the Greensboro Symphony. Hear his music reimagined in a sweeping, symphonic light featuring stirring arrangements by Jay Clifford. Tickets: $33+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events. MATTHEW WHITAKER QUINTET. 7:30 p.m. Blind since birth, this American jazz keyboardist has performed at the Apollo Theater, where, at the age of 10, he opened for Stevie Wonder. Tickets: $30.69+. High Point Theatre, 20 E. Commerce Ave., High Point. Info: highpointtheatre.com/events. January 19 MLK MEMORIAL BREAKFAST. 7 a.m. The Human Rights Commission hosts its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Event, with North Carolina Central University Chancellor Karrie G. Dixon as the keynote speaker. Tickets: $45, sales end Jan. 12. Koury Convention Center, 3121 W. Gate City Blvd. Info: greensboro-nc.gov/ government/city-news/city-calendar. January 21 QUAKER ABOLITIONISTS. 10 a.m. Linda Willard, author of Quaker Abolitionist Breaking the Chains of Oppression, discusses her research on the biographies of over 60 Quaker men and women who were active in the abolitionist movement, the Underground Railroad and the women’s suffrage movement. Free. Historical Park at High Point Museum, 1859 E. Lexington Ave., High Point. Info: highpointmuseum.org.

Open Mic Night January 22, 2026 January 22 OPEN MIC NIGHT. 6–7:30 p.m. This open mic is an invitation to writers of all genres and all levels to share work and build community. Free. Chandler’s Coffee, 341 S. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: scuppernongbooks.com/ events. COLLECTOR’S CIRCLE BROOM WORKSHOP. 10:45 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Join GreenHill’s Collector’s Circle for a handson broom-making workshop with instructor Rebecca Juliette Duex followed by a visit to Visual Index Gallery and lunch in downtown Winston-Salem.Tickets: $15. Sawtooth School for Visual Art, 251 N. Spruce St., Winston-Salem. Info: greenhillnc.org/events. January 24 BERGSTONE BRASS IN CONCERT. 7:30 p.m. UNCSA’s student brass-and-percussion ensemble presents an evening of bold sounds and brilliant musicianship under the direction of Mark A. Norman. Tickets: 20+. Watson Hall, 1533 S. Main St., WinstonSalem. Info: uncsa.edu. TOM HAMILTON. 8 p.m. The Philadelphiabased singer-songwriter and guitarist brings his envelope-pushing creativity to the stage, delving into different lyrical themes and musical detours. Tickets: $22.60+. Flat Iron, 221 Summit Ave., Greensboro. Info: flatirongso.com. January 27–31 SHUCKED. Times vary. Corny as it may be, you’ll be all ears — and eyes — for the Tony Award-winning musical comedy The Wall Street Journal calls “flat out hilarious!” Tickets: $41+. Steven Tanger Center, 300 N. Elm St., Greensboro. Info: tangercenter.com/events.

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january calendar January 29–31

THURSDAYS

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. Times vary. The Greatest Show on Earth is back with a high-energy, music-driven experience featuring bold circus performances, unforgettable characters and a nonstop party vibe. Tickets: $23+. Piedmont Hall, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: gsocomplex.com/events. January 31

JAZZ AT THE O.HENRY. 6–9 p.m. Sip vintage craft cocktails and snack on tapas while the O.Henry Trio performs with a different jazz vocalist each week. Free. O.Henry Hotel Social Lobby, 624 Green Valley Road, Greensboro. Info: ohenryhotel.com/o-henry-jazz. THURSDAYS & SATURDAYS

SHORT TALES FOR CHILDREN. 2–3:30 p.m. This annual collaboration with UNC-Greensboro assembles future theater educators and young actors to rehearse and perform short plays. Free. Van Dyke Performance Space at the Greensboro Cultural Center, 200 N. Davie St., Greensboro. Info: greensboro-nc.gov/ departments/creative-greensboro. CUSTOM BIKE SHOW. 10 a.m. Full Throttle Magazine revs up the area with an indoor motorcycle event full of vendors, live music, tattoos, fashion shows and pinstriping. Tickets: $32.80+. First Horizon Coliseum, 1921 W. Gate City Blvd., Greensboro. Info: gsocomplex.com/events.

Tom Hamilton January 24, 2026 WEEKLY HAPPENINGS WEDNESDAYS LIVE MUSIC & PAINTING. 6–9 p.m. Evan Olson and Jessica Mashburn of AM rOdeO play covers and original music while artist-inresidence Chip Holton paints. Free. Lucky 32. 1421 Westover Terrace, Greensboro. Info: lucky32.com.

KARAOKE & COCKTAILS. 8 p.m. until midnight, Thursdays; 9 p.m. until midnight, Saturdays. Courtney Chandler hosts a night of sipping and singing. Free. 19 & Timber Bar at Grandover Resort & Spa, 1000 Club Road, Greensboro. Info: grandoverresort.com. FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS LIVE MUSIC. 7–10 p.m. Enjoy drinks in the 1808 Lobby Bar while soaking up live music provided by local artists. Free. Grandover Resort & Spa, 1000 Club Road, Greensboro. Info: grandoverresort.com. OH To submit an item for consideration, please email ohenrymagcalendar@gmail.com by the first of the month prior to the month of the event.

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Living Information For Today

(L.I.F.T.) L.I.F.T. is a social support program that helps surviving spouses adjust to the loss of their partner. It gives participants the opportunity to socialize with others who share similar feelings and experiences. This program is both entertaining and educational, with speakers on a wide variety of topics. For more information on the L.I.F.T. program, please contact Hanes Lineberry Funeral Services at 336-272-5157.

336-210-5918

www.fivestarpainting.com/greensboro

Customizable Estate Services • Personal Organizing Assistant • Entire Estate Transition

12,000 square feet, over 30 vendors

336.455.3525 Estate Services

workingdecorllc@gmail.com Instagram: @WorkingDecorLLC facebook.com/WorkingDecorLLC

@twinbrothersantiques 336-856-2171

2804 Patterson Street, Greensboro NC 27407 Open 7 days a week. Monday - Saturday 10 - 6 and Sunday 1 - 5

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

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A R E A IND EPEN D EN T

SCHOOLS Our area has a wonderful selection of independent schools with a variety of educational models. Look at what these schools have to offer and see what’s right for your child.

We’re One of a Kind, Just like You.

Welcome to an educational journey like no other, where small is not just a number, but a deliberate choice. Serving students 8-weeks th

through 8

grade, B’nai Shalom Day School is

the only ewish inde endent school in the riad. Deeply rooted in its mission to inspire curiosity, critical-thinking, confidence, and a connection to Jewish values, B’nai Shalom’s student-centered education provides learners with the opportunity to take risks, think outside of the box, and deepen their understanding of the world around them.

Learn More & Apply Today! www.bnai-shalom.org | 336-855-5091

Come for Preschool, Stay for Graduation. Caldwell Academy is a classical Christian school serving students from Preschool through 12th Grade. We use time-tested classical methods rooted in a Christian worldview to cultivate life-long learners. In a community where students are known and loved, children don’t just Discover the Goodness.

caldwellacademy.org

learn—they thrive. Caldwell challenges students to grow in intellect, character, and faith, preparing them not only for college, but for lives of purpose and impact.

2900 Horse Pen Creek Road, Greensboro, NC 27410

336.665.1161

COME SEE WHAT’S POSSIBLE AT GDS!

COME VISIT US! Explore our 80-acre campus and discover how our program creates engaged learners, encourages students to reach their full potential, and prepares students for success in college and beyond.

Age 2–Grade 12

greensboroday.org/visit • 336.288.8590

No child is one-size-fits-all. Their education shouldn’t be either. At Greensboro Montessori School, your child is our starting point. We intentionally support every dimension of their growth — intellectual, social, emotional, and physical — so they gain the skills and self-confidence to thrive as the person they’re meant to become. How do we do this? Our teachers know each student by name, by story, and by strength. They carefully design lessons, classrooms, and community life to meet each child’s individual needs. Visit gms.org to learn more, and see it in action at one of our upcoming Open Houses.

EST 1974

TODDLER OPEN HOUSE for families whose children will be at least 18 months old in August.

Saturday, January 24, 9 a.m.

scan to register

1ST–3RD GRADE OPEN HOUSE for families whose children will be in 1st, 2nd or 3rd grade in August.

Sunday, March 22, 1 p.m.

scan to register

Be Seen. Be Valued. Belong. New Garden Friends School is the Triad’s only Preschool-12th grade school built upon the long-held standards of exceptional Friends schools. At NGFS, students are guided to appreciate the interdependence of community life and consider how their attitudes, words, and actions affect others. The practice of peaceful resolution of conflict, service toward others, and respect and inclusion are fundamental pieces of who we are. Students thrive in a community that knows and values them, while engaging in learning that sparks curiosity and confidence

Lower School Guilford Campus 1128 New Garden Road Greensboro, NC 27410

We invite you to visit our community, talk to our teachers, and listen to our students. Come see what a difference NGFS can make for your child.

Middle and Upper School Bob Page Campus 2015 Pleasant Ridge Road Greensboro, NC 27410

Phone: 336-299-0964 www.ngfs.org admissions@ngfs.org

LEARNING THAT FINALLY MAKES SENSE. 2026-2027 SCHOOL YEAR APPLICATION IS NOW OPEN!! At Noble Academy, we believe every child deserves the opportunity to shine. Our personalized approach unlocks their unique potential, sparks success, and fosters a lifelong sense of pride. Founded in 1987, Noble Academy is a haven for gifted students with learning diﬀerences like dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and attention diﬃculties. Our comprehensive program empowers students in grades 2-12 to reach their full potential in a supportive and encouraging environment. Our students are bright, talented, and athletic, but they often struggle in traditional classrooms. At Noble, we

understand their unique needs and provide the personalized attention they deserve. Our highly trained faculty works closely with each student to develop a tailored learning plan that addresses their speciﬁc learning challenges. Our Noble Academy Way® — ﬁve steps that are interwoven throughout the program — is a proven approach that has helped countless students succeed. Want to hear their stories? Follow the Blue & Gold Chat on blue-gold-chat.simplecast.com. To learn more about how we can support your child, scan the QR Code.

3310 Horse Pen Creek Roa | 336.282.7044 | nobleknights.org

JOIN US FOR AN OPEN HOUSE! REGISTER AT THE QR CODE ABOVE. LOWER SCHOOL - JAN. 21, 9:30-11:30 AM • UPPER SCHOOL - JAN. 27, 9:30-11:30 AM

90 O.Henry

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

A CHILD WHO KNOWS THEY ARE FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE BECOMES A LEADER WHO TRANSFORMS THE WORLD FOR GOD’S GLORY! The Enrichment Center at Wesleyan Christian Academy celebrates each child’s God-given uniqueness. Designed for 3rd-12th graders with learning differences like dyslexia, ADHD, and processing disorders, the program offers small classes of 6-10 students with certified special education teachers. Students receive personalized instruction while enjoying athletics, fine arts, and opportunities available in our larger academy - all taught from a Biblical worldview. To schedule an admissions tour, please call us at 336.884.3333 or visit www.wcatrojans.org.

WESLEYAN CHRISTIAN ACADEMY wcatrojans.org

336.884.3333

Be curious. Explore. Experiment.

What can be At Westchester, we have the freedom and flexibility to craft an exceptional education for our students. Using our expertise as educators, we design the learning experience to give students the best possible preparation for the future. Visit us to learn more.

WestchesterCDS.org 2045 N. Old Greensboro Road | High Point, NC 27265 | 336.822.4005 | westchestercds.org

GreenScene StepUp Greensboro Impact Luncheon Mullin Life Center

Martin Saffer, Adriane Scott-Singleton, Nancy Godwin, Tommy Watkins

Tuesday, September 30, 2025 Anthony Bass, Billy Nutt

Sheri Evans, Hoke Huss, Nancy Godwin, Martha Turner, Nancy Abrams, Julie Wade, Bet Vanderwerff, Louanne Clarke, Margie Jenkins, Mebane Ham

Lillie Boyd, John & Erika Goins, Paul Rodriguez, Anthony Bass, Kim Sowell

Susan Beard, Eric Chilton

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Adam Williams, Zack Matheny, Colin King, Veronica Morrison-Lewis, Shawn Eisenbach

Michael McKinney, Ross Harris, Julie Olin

Regina Howard, Jaye Webb

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GreenScene CFGG Legacy Spotlight O.Henry Hotel

Wednesday, November 5, 2025 Afi Johnson-Parris

Photographs by Him & Her Photography Honoring David Sprinkle and Linda & Tom Sloan

Vikram & Shelly Penumalli, Taylor Ghost, Janelle Papay, Soumya Iyer, Marcia Soutto-Mayer, Cathy Knowles, Raffi Simel

Mike Diamond

94 O.Henry

Victoria Milstein, Tara Sandercock, Ron Milstein

Walker Sanders, Felicia Coleman, Cathy Knowles, Cheryl Stewart, Melissa Seiler, Kelsey McSwain, Emily Thompson, Brian Graham

Tom & Linda Sloan, David & Pam Sprinkle

Ralph and Jane Cauthen

Mary Plybon and Gail Huggins

Jack Yancey & Ashley Madden

Margaret Benjamin

Julie & Lindsay Olin

Karen Thompson, Mona Edwards, Mildred Poole, Uma Avva

Haynes & Ginger Griffin

Cathy Knowles

Christine Brown & Gail LeBauer

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

GreenScene

Revolution Mill Friendsgiving The Colonnade

Thursday, November 20, 2025 Brandin Lord, Matt King, Lindsay Worsham, Irvin Maldonado

Photographs by Joey Seawell

Dana Pack, Shannon Verity, Wendy Boling, Angie Harper, Christy Collins

Natalie Mendoza, Vay Holloway, Vianey Rodriguez

Barb Verstat, Tabitha Frisbee, Alejandro Rodriquez, Margo Herring

Elena Allred, Wanda Attmore, Jennifer Revels Baxter

Sidney Ghelerter, Angela Fetrat, Jana Forester Ruest, Hope Rogers, Frank GIlbert, Michelle Griffin, Tina Buet

Katie Derwin, David McLean, Janet McIntosh, Melody Dobbins

The Art & Soul of Greensboro

Christy Phillips, Cassie Bustamante, Cynthia Adams, Lisa Allen, Kelly McPhail, Lauren Priestley Kyzer

Susan Sinnott, Leslie Thomas, Gina Alem, Melinda Dickey, Anton Hampton

Leslie Thomas, Chuck Uhlir

Halle Bullard, Morgan Christopher

Jim Raines, Andrew Wring, Yesenia Chavez, Leah Reid, Lauren Kyzer, Stephen Ervin, Wendy Parks, Christine Mayer, David Priestley

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o.henry ending

A Last Last Name Heading into 50 with a nifty new surname

At the beginning of our fifth date, I

finally knew how to pronounce Tom’s last name. After walking into 1618 Midtown’s entrance on a scorching July evening, the hostess asked if we had a reservation, and he kindly replied, “Yes, it’s under Guerrieri.” Needless to say, I spent a chunk of that dinner silently pronouncing his name in my head. For the first chapter of my life, I had a unique name that I loved — Danielle Rotella. Easy to pronounce, no middle name. Government forms have three blank spaces for your full name, and I discovered, from frustrated government employees, that I couldn’t leave the “middle name” box blank, because, as one agitated DMV employee told me when I got my first driver’s license in 1991, “It looks like it was left blank by mistake.” I quickly learned to always write “NMN” for “no middle name” in that space. At 26, I took on a third name when I married my first husband. Scooting Rotella to the middle name spot was a relief, knowing I wouldn’t have to write the three-letter acronym anymore, although I quickly realized that some folks thought I hyphenated my name, and one of my relatives wrote Danielle Rotella-Adams for more than 15 years on my birthday cards. When I became a mom in my 30s, I wanted my two boys to have middle names, mainly so they didn’t have to deal with the whole “NMN” hindrance. Call it a family legacy or call it lazy for not wanting to scroll through that huge baby-name book a million more times, but both of my sons have Rotella as their middle name. Sleep-deprived and exhausted, I filled out my firstborn son’s birth certificate at Women’s Hospital two days after he entered the world on a sweltering late August day in 2007. I carefully

96 O.Henry

made sure the stern administrator sitting next to me could clearly read my handwriting so there would be no question that he had three names. I love that we share this name, even though, now, as teenagers, my sons may cringe at having an unusual family name. They’d probably rather have something more common there — Peter, Joseph, Andrew or, frankly, anything that isn’t Rotella. My 40s took me on a wild ride. With two young boys at home, I went through a divorce, became a single mom, helped care for my own mom after her dementia diagnosis, lived through a pandemic and shifted my career. Don’t get me wrong, there were bright spots, too. It’s also when I met Tom, watched my little sister get married and become a mom, celebrated one brother’s engagement and another’s path to college — a true whirlwind. Now, at age 50, I’m writing a new chapter at the halfway point of my life — and with a new name. You guessed it, Tom and I are now newlyweds, and I get to switch around my name boxes yet again. Despite the hassle of filling out oodles of online name change requests, there’s a newfound excitement I feel each time I hit “submit.” Yes, a lot has happened since that fifth date with Tom eight years ago, when I first imagined him being the one I could spend the rest of my days with. Just last week, we walked into GIA’s entrance and were greeted by the smiling host, who asked if we had a reservation. “Guerrieri,” I said confidently. His eyebrows raised in confusion as he quickly peeked back at his reservation list, then back at my face, my pronunciation clearly not jiving with the name he read. “It’s pronounced, ‘Gary-air’ and rhymes with ‘derriere,’” I added. The name is nothing like its spelling, but it has distinction and sophistication – exactly how I hope to mark my next 50 years. OH The Art & Soul of Greensboro

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

By Danielle Rotella Guerrieri