June Pinestraw 2025

“Thanks to Osteostrong, I have gained back better balance, stronger bones and more strength. My osteoperosis has all but disappeared! I couldn’t be happier.”

I’m Maureen and I am OSTEOSTRONG!

June 2025

FEATURES

71 Erosion Control

Poem by Joseph Bathanti

72 Puzzle Me This

Drüddles By John Gessner

Look Closely By Laura Gingerich

Sudokos By Mart Dickerson

Mismatch By John Gessner

No Small Task By Mart Dickerson

Number Chain By Alyssa Kennedy

Associations By Marilyn Barrett

Final Word By Marilyn Barrett

What’s Wrong By Harry Blair

Sandhills Quiz By Audrey Moriarty

The State of Play By PineStraw Staff 86 André the Giant By Bill Fields A giant of a man in a small town 90 A Tradition of Culture By Ray Owen

The many lives of Campbell House

June Almanac By Ashley Walshe

Cover IllustratIon by H anna H roser

DEPARTMENTS

15 Simple Life By Jim Dodson

Omnivorous Reader By Anne Blythe

Hometown By Bill Fields

a Cocktail By Tony Cross

on Food By Rose Shewey

of the State By Liza Roberts

The Naturalist By Todd Pusser

By Lee

PINEHURST • $435,000 1055 LONGLEAF DRIVE NW

Charming 3 BR / 2.5 BA home situated on a generous lot in Village Acres. Floorplan is bright and open with a secluded and spacious primary suite, great three-season enclosed porch and back deck overlooking the private back yard.

PINEHURST •$459,000 70 SAWMILL ROAD E.

Wonderful 4 BR / 2.5 BA new construction in Village Acres! Home is incredibly light and open on the main level while bedrooms and laundry room are hosted on the upper level.

PINEHURST • $480,000 3 GLEN EAGLES LANE

Beautiful two-story 4 BR / 3 BA home in great Pinehurst location. Nestled in a quiet cul-de-sac, this home has a nice layout with an abundance of space. Location is convenient to schools, shopping and dining and the First Health hospital and medical complex nearby!

SEVEN LAKES NORTH • $360,000 104 CALMWATER LANE

Nice 3 BR / 2 BA home located in a quiet location in a cove on Lake Echo! Main level is bright with open with lots of natural light and beautiful water views. Lower level has two additional bedrooms and full bath.

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $460,000 107 DRUM HILL COURT

Pleasing 3 BR / 2 BA home situated on a double lot in quiet cul-de-sac with primary suite on main level, 2 bedrooms, a bonus room, flex space and full bath on the upper level. Home is in a great location and in immaculate condition!

SEVEN LAKES NORTH • $412,000 144 CARDINAL LANE

Quiet 3 BR / 2 BA WATERFRONT home on Big Juniper Lake offering privacy and tranquility for the discriminating buyer. Home has been almost totally renovated and is priced for a quick sale! Don’t miss this opportunity to own a beautiful home on the water!

FOXFIRE • $478,500 4 BERMUDA CIRCLE

Attractive 4 BR / 3 BA GOLF FRONT home along par 3, 8th hole of Foxfire’s Red Fox course. Built in 2019, the layout is spacious with a nice upper-level living space that could be an in-law suite or a great guest retreat, the possibilities are endless!

SEVEN LAKES NORTH • $480,000 172 OVERLOOK DRIVE

Attractive 3 BR / 2 BA WATERFRONT retreat on Lake Echo in 7LN! The interior is pleasantly inviting with a wood burning fireplace in the living room creating a cozy atmosphere and a nice kitchen with breakfast nook. Outside, relax by the water at your own private dock!

PINEHURST • $385,000 250 SUGAR GUM LANE, #156

Nice 3 BR / 2 BA ground level condo with splitbedroom floorplan, spacious primary suite and great covered deck. This would be perfect for an investment opportunity, a golf getaway or your next home!

IN MOORE COUNTY REAL ESTATE FOR OVER 20 YEARS!

PINEHURST• $1,550,000 30 ROYAL DUBLIN DOWNS

Exquisite 4 BR / 5.5 BA WATERFONT and GOLF FRONT home in Prestigious National/ Pinehurst No.9. Pristine three-story custom home with a blend of high-end finishes throughout and breathtaking water and lush golf views!

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $679,000 95 GLEN COVE LANE

Charming 4 BR / 3.5 BA brick home in the familyfriendly neighborhood of 7LW! Gleaming hardwood floors throughout the main living area, well-appointed kitchen with granite countertops and sunny breakfast nook and a secluded primary suite on the main level.

PINEHURST • $795,000 27 MCMICHAEL DRIVE

Gorgeous 4 BR / 3.5 BA GOLF FRONT home in desirable Pinewild CC. Situated on the 18th fairway of the Magnolia course, this stately home offers beautiful views and lots of natural light. Recent updates include new carpet, fresh paint, granite countertops in kitchen and a nice selection of appliances!

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $1,685,000 118 DENNIS CIRCLE

Experience the pinnacle of LAKEFRONT living in this immaculate 4 BR / 3.5 BA home in 7LW. Floorplan is open with lots of light and beautiful water views from almost every room. Renovations include a spa-like bathroom and gourmet kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances to name a few.

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $1,045,000

105 TUCKER COURT

Unique 3 BR / 3 BA rustic WATERFRONT retreat with expansive lake views, added privacy, and timeless character. This cozy home has a nice layout with beautiful spiral staircase and offers peaceful living across three thoughtfully designed levels.

PINEHURST • $775,000 84 DEERWOOD LANE

Stunning 4 BR / 3.5 BA GOLF FRONT home overlooking the 2nd fairway of Pinehurst No. 6 course. The beautiful two-story foyer features an elegant chandelier is filled with lots of natural light. Main living area has hardwood floors and soaring ceilings. This home has fine finishes and touches throughout on two levels!

SEVEN LAKES WEST • $850,000

117 BANBRIDGE DRIVE

Newly constructed 4 BR / 3.5 BA GOLF FRONT home with sweeping views of the 13th hole of the Beacon Ridge course. Designed with a split, open floorplan, the living room is spacious with floor to ceiling masonry fireplace, the kitchen is a chef’s dream, and the main primary suite is generously sized with spa-like bathroom.

MCLENDON HILLS • $1,150,000 115 ELLENS POINT

Stunning 3 BR / 3.5 BA home situated on nearly two acres with breathtaking views of a tranquil canal. Inside there are high-end finishes throughout, including hardwood floors in the main living areas, primary suite on the main level and two additional beds and baths on lower level.

SOUTHERN PINES • $1,087,000 1655 FT. BRAGG ROAD S.

Beautifully maintained 6 BR / 4 BA home nestled on a private 2.5-acre lot. Home has lots of space with Oak flooring throughout and plush carpet in the upstairs bedrooms. Outside there is a large backyard, picturesque landscaping, a covered porch and a patio perfect for entertaining or just relaxing.

MAGAZINE

volume 21, no. 6

David Woronoff, Publisher david@thepilot.com

Andie Stuart Rose, Creative Director andiesouthernpines@gmail.com

Jim Moriarty, Editor jjmpinestraw@gmail.com

Keith Borshak, Senior Designer

Alyssa Kennedy, Digital Art Director alyssamagazines@gmail.com

Emilee Phillips, Digital Content emilee@pinestrawmag.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Jim Dodson, Stephen E. Smith

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

John Gessner, Laura L. Gingerich, Diane McKay, Tim Sayer

CONTRIBUTORS

Jenna Biter, Anne Blythe, Tom Bryant, Susan Campbell, Bill Case, Tony Cross, Brianna Rolfe Cunningham, Mart Dickerson, Bill Fields, Tom Maxwell, Mary Novitsky, Lee Pace, Todd Pusser, Joyce Reehling, Deborah Salomon, Scott Sheffield, Rose Shewey, Angie Tally, Kimberly Daniels Taws, Daniel Wallace, Ashley Walshe, Claudia Watson, Amberly Glitz Weber

ADVERTISING SALES

Samantha Cunningham, Advertising Director 910.693.2505

Kathy Desmond, 910.693.2515

Terry Hartsell, 910.693.2513

Erika Leap, 910.693.2514

Christy Phillips, 910.693.2498

Ginny Trigg, 910.693.2481

ADVERTISING GRAPHIC DESIGN

Mechelle Butler, Scott Yancy PS

Henry Hogan, Finance Director 910.693.2497

Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

Tonnie Nester, Distribution Specialist

SUBSCRIPTIONS 910.693.2488

OWNERS

Jack Andrews, Frank Daniels III, David Woronoff

In memoriam Frank Daniels Jr.

145 W. Pennsylvania Avenue, Southern Pines, NC 28387 www.pinestrawmag.com

The Gift of Nature

And the power of the Earth to heal

by JIm DoDson

One morning this past February, I stepped out to assess how my garden had fared from one of the coldest, soggiest winters in memory.

It wasn’t a pretty sight.

New Year dawned, what dump truck ran over me.

The Asian-themed shade garden I’d spent a decade creating in our backyard under towering oaks appeared to be devastated, buried beneath drifts of sodden leaves and dozens of downed tree limbs. The only visible signs of life were weeds and grass creeping over the garden beds like an insurgent army.

I’m no rookie in landscape gardening. I’ve built — and restored — three major gardens in my life, including an ambitious native garden in a forest on a coastal hilltop in Maine, where we lived for two decades.

Hard weather, as they say up in Maine, makes good timber — a theory, I’ve discovered, that’s applicable to human beings as well as gardens.

I remembered this eternal truth as I took stock of my battered garden, wondering if it would ever look as glorious as it did last summer.

After a morning of clearing debris and raking out beds that showed little to no signs of life, I ruefully joked to Wendy, my wife, that our “ruined” garden was the final insult from a winter we were both eager to forget.

It started on All Saints’ Day back in November, with the death of Wendy’s mom, a lovely Irish lady who spent her career teaching children how to love art. In the end, dementia robbed “Miss Jan” of her sparkling wit and even the ability to recognize those she loved. At least she spent her final days on our terrace, warming her face in the late autumn sunshine. The last thing she said to me was, “Look, isn’t the sun beautiful today?” She never spoke again.

For the first time ever, three of our four children, admittedly all grown-ups, failed to make it home for the holidays, which made for a too-quiet house at Thanksgiving and lots of empty stockings. Fortunately, our youngest, Liam, showed up two days before Christmas, briefly brightening the mood before I went under the knife for a full left-knee replacement that left me wondering, as the

I skipped the narcotic painkillers in favor of Tylenol, however, because I was under the intense pressure of a tight deadline to correct and return within a fortnight my editor’s marks on the most important book of my life. As a proud Luddite, I was forced to use a complex digital editing system that left me feeling like a child trying to operate a jumbo jet. Fortunately, in the nick of time, my digitally savvy bride stepped in to get the job done. Printed manuscripts, I learned, evidently went out of fashion with handwriting.

To make things more fun, as I wrestled with a hoisted leg and new technology, a work crew arrived to renovate our Donna Reedera primary bathroom, knocking down walls and pulling up floors — making such a godawful racket, it seemed they were taking out half the house.

Most disturbing of all, amid this clamor and craziness, I lost my longtime gardening pal, Boo Radley, our beloved 14-year-old cat, who suffered a sudden series of seizures that grew more horrifying as the days went along. We finally put him peacefully to sleep on his favorite blanket.

Every family, of course, goes through periods of intense stress and challenge when the chaos of life seems to pile up like snow against the door. That’s just part of making the human journey. To place our winter of discontent in proper context, as my late Scottish father-in-law liked to say, ours were “pretty high-class problems in a world that is full of sorrow and woe.”

It took an unexpected birthday card from a dear old friend to lift my cloud of gloom and remind me of what’s really important in the grand scheme of things.

Ashley Walshe’s clever card amounted to a gentle poke from the universe, depicting an old, gray rabbit nibbling something in the garden. She knows I have a thing for woodland rabbits.

“Another year,” read the card. “Another gray hare — Happy Birthday!”

You may know Ashley from the soulful monthly Almanac she writes for the magazine, and from her many years adding earthy wisdom and wit to our editorial team. Among other things, she is

a gifted poet and a true daughter of the Earth.

Not surprisingly, it was her accompanying hand-written message that reminded me of the lessons in gratitude and joy we’ve shared over the many years of friendship:

“In all seriousness,” she wrote, “thank you for showing me the joy of growing backwards . . . The secret, perhaps, to this wild, wonderful life on Earth.”

The idea of growing backwards is simply our way of describing a life in tune with nature, timeless values (some would call “oldfashioned”) that promote kindness and compassion to all living creatures and a deep reverence for the Earth.

In a year that has already seen apocalyptic wildfires out West, a record number of killer tornados in the heartland and a hurricane that will be remembered for generations, it isn’t much of a stretch to realize Mother Earth is sending us a serious message about our behavior.

Last November, Ashley and husband Alan nearly lost everything they own — including their lives — when their first home on a pretty hillside just outside Asheville was almost washed away by Hurricane Helene.

“At the height of the storm,” she remembers, “we were huddled in our house with our dog, Dirga, watching frightening torrents of water roar down the mountainside, washing away many of the houses around us. I remember asking Mother Mary to please keep us safe.”

Moments later, the couple heard a loud crash of trees that fell directly in the path of the rampaging waters, diverting the Biblical flood away from their home.

It was, she says, “a miracle. Nature saved our house.”

After escaping for a time to stay with friends outside the danger zone, the couple returned to find their home still intact but surrounded by a world of mud and debris.

“Helene brought me back to a higher level of consciousness, a desire to let go of things that don’t really matter in the course of daily life,” she says. “It also brought out an amazing amount of kindness and support among complete strangers who helped each other through the crisis. I think it changed many lives.”

The good news, she says, is that her bare yard is now a blank canvas awaiting the creation of a “wonderful new garden.”

Days after she told me this, she sent me a photograph of the lone plant that miraculously survived the Great Flood — a single, gorgeous tulip that popped up with the coming of spring. “Nature always gives us a gift,” she wrote.

That same afternoon, I noticed my own garden miraculously springing to life.

By now, it should really be something. PS

Jim Dodson is the founding editor of O.Henry. His 17th book, The Road That Made America: A Modern Pilgrim Travels the Great Wagon Road, is available for pre-order on Amazon.

45 CHESTERTOWN DRIVE - FOREST CREEK

Prestigious gated community. Top of the line throughout, wine cellar and much more.

$2,950,000 - GOLF FRONT

127 SAKONNET TRAIL – PINEHURST NO 6

Stunning one level home with private gardens. Pinehurst CC membership available for transfer.

$750,000

32 OXTON CIRCLE – PINEWILD

Exceptional Pinewild location with 180 degree golf views of the 11th, 12th and 13th holes of the Holly Course.

$1,195,000 – SOLD

535 DONALD ROSS DRIVE - PINEHURST

Custom brick home, large open sun filled rooms, hardwood floors, deck, pond, private.

$995,000

84 POMEROY DRIVE - PINEWILD

Desirable Pinewild, overlooks Gary Player designed 5th green, all brick, quality custom.

$885,000

1335 MIDLAND ROAD – KNOLLWOOD HEIGHTS

Large lot with private pool, and extensive garden. Numerous renovations and upgrades.

$1,595,000

30 MEDLIN ROAD - OLD TOWN

New Construction in OLD TOWN Pinehurst. High end, open floor plan, game room, first floor Master Suite. Walk to Pinehurst Elementary School, ball fields and playground. Fenced yard.

$1,395,000

30 SHORT ROAD – OLD TOWN

Stately home with southern charm. Expansive Carolina Room.

$1,150,000- PENDING

14 DUNGARVAN LANE – NATIONAL

Immediate Golf Membership. Perfectly situated on the 8th fairway, overlooking both the 7th and 8th fairways with panoramic views.

$899,000

180 IDLEWILD ROAD – PINEHURST

Tucked away on quiet Idlewild Road. Lovingly maintained with lots of upgrades.

$535,000 - NEW ON MARKET

PinePitch

TGIF

Neighbor, a jam band known for its eclectic performances, soulful ballads and improvisations, takes the First Bank Stage at the Sunrise, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines, for the June 6 edition of First Friday, from 5 - 9 p.m. The band is composed of Richard James singing and on keyboard, Lyle Brewer on guitar, Dan Kelly on bass and Dean Johnston on drums. And y’all know the drill — Cujo stays home. For additional information visit www. sunrisetheater.com.

Garden Party

Bring the entire family to the Garden Carnival from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 7, at the Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst. There will be relay games, live music, face painting, food trucks, a scavenger hunt and plant potting. The event is free for garden members and $12 for non-members. For additional information visit www.sandhills. edu/gardenevents.

Drums of Liberty

Step back in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of James Boyd’s Revolutionary War novel Drums in conjunction with the 250th anniversary of the United States Army and the 250th anniversary of the start of the Revolutionary War. Yeah, we know, the Declaration of Independence was 1776 but Paul Revere mounted his horse in ’75. The weekend program, sponsored by a grant from America 250 NC, is June 14-15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Activities include an encampment of the 2nd and 6th North Carolina regiments with cooking and musket demonstrations; an exhibit of the original N.C. Wyeth paintings for Drums; tours of the Boyd House; 18th century music along with a fife and drum corps; and local vendors and crafts for the kids. For additional information go to www.weymouthcenter.org.

Set Your Alarm

And wake up to Sleeping Beauty performed by the Paris Ballet in high def on Saturday, June 21, at 2 p.m., at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. The timeless Tchaikovsky classic was reimagined by Rudolph Nureyev when he came to Paris in 1961 on tour with the Kirov Ballet. Thirty years later he proposed new choreography for what he considered “the ballet of ballets.” For information and tickets go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

The Art & Soul of the Sandhills

Piano Men

The tribute band Face 2 Face performs the timeless songs of Elton John and Billy Joel beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. This is an outdoor event, come rain or come shine. For information and tickets go to www.ticketmesandhills.com.

Get Your Reading On

The summer FREADom kickoff, sponsored by the Southern Pines Public Library to celebrate reading and the start of summer, begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 14, on the green space beside the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Dance to the music of Will Johnson, pick up a prize and register for Summer FREADom. For additional information go to www. sppl.net

Juneteenth

Join the fifth annual Juneteenth celebration beginning Thursday, June 19, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., at Cardinal Park, 657 S. Walnut St., Pinebluff, and continuing June 20, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the West Southern Pines Center of Cultural Arts, 1250 W. New York Ave., Southern Pines. The two-day event celebrates freedom, unity and the richness of African American heritage. There will be food, vendors, music and more including live performances by Eclectic Soul, TY-YINDE West African Drummers and celebrated storytellers Willa Brigham, Obakunlé Akinlana and Mitch Capel. For more information call (910) 813-6901.

Prine Time

Tommy Prine, the son of legendary musician and songwriter John Prine, will be in the house on Friday, June 27, from 7 – 10 p.m. at the Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Prine carries on his father’s legacy of social commentary, satire and sweet songs with evocative music of his own. Tickets are $25 for general admission and $79 for the VIP package. For more information go to www.sunrisetheater.com.

Seeing Double

It’s opening night on Friday, June 6, for a couple of Sandhills art exhibits. The judged exhibit and sale “Art to Appreciate” will open from 5 -7 p.m. at the Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. For information go to www.artistleague.org.

In Southern Pines, the Arts Council of Moore County presents “Blurred Boundaries” from 6 – 8 p.m. at the Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave. The show will hang through June 27. For more info call (910) 6922787. Both exhibits are free and open to the public.

MORTGAGES IN ALL 50 STATES

Non-Risky Business

When it came to his mother’s Steuben Glass Egg or his father’s Porsche 928, Joel Goodson was a risk taker; that was 1983. Times have changed, especially in Cosmetic Dentistry.

There is no reason to take a risk when it comes to your smile. Twenty first century dentistry with AI offers the opportunity to experience the “after” prior to treatment being initiated. It’s as simple as digital photos, digital impressions, clear patient communication and excellent digital design. At Allison and Associates, we can design your smile as a digital mock-up or with 3D printed trial smile technology. Each patient is unique so each smile is unique.

Just be a non-risk taker and make the choice to improve your smile and confidence! “Sometimesyouhavetosaywhatthe#$@!!” JoelGoodson

Call for a “smile makeover evaluation”

(May 21 - June 20)

Perhaps you know that butterflies have taste receptors on their feet. But did you know they drink mud? Communicate through flight patterns and pheromones? As the social butterfly of the zodiac, you’ve learned to flit your way out of foot-in-mouth moments with charm and grace. That skill will come in handy this month. And on June 11, the full moon in Sagittarius just might rock your world with an unexpected romance. Do try to avoid mud, flightiness and unnatural fragrances. Read that last line again.

Tea leaf “fortunes” for the rest of you:

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Ignore the critics.

Leo (July 23 – August 22)

Operation Digital Detox. Capeesh?

Virgo (August 23 – September 22)

Pack an extra set of clothes.

Libra (September 23 – October 22)

It’s just not that serious.

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21)

No need to force things.

Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21)

Remember to pause before you speak.

Capricorn (December 22 – January 19)

Your song is somebody’s medicine.

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)

Gift yourself a quiet moment.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20)

Tune into a different channel.

Aries (March 21 – April 19)

Don’t let your ego call the shots.

Taurus (April 20 – May 20)

Write this down: baking soda and vinegar. PS

Zora Stellanova has been divining with tea leaves since 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.

Every morning that you wake up in a pest-free home is a good morning. And the easiest way to ensure that stress-free feeling?

Tune into life’s most important moments. Whether it’s catching every word of your favorite song,not missing a single punchline, or simply hearing loved ones a little clearer, give yourself the gift of better hearing. Because good things come to those who listen.

At Emerald Painting, we’re more than just painters — we’re building a legacy of integrity and compassion. Guided by our faith, we foster lasting relationships based on trust and respect. We’re committed to growth, always striving to exceed expectations and give back to the communities we serve. Every project is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact — together, we’re painting a brighter future, one brushstroke at a time.

Transparent • Punctual • Relationship Focused Locally Owned and Operated • Licensed and Insured Environmentally Responsible (910) 759-3900 www.emeraldpaintinginc.com

AT LISI MARKET

Photograph by Matthew Gibson

A Day at the Beach

When everything goes wrong

By A nne Blythe

If you’re one of those people who like to walk on the beach and dream up scenarios for what might be happening in some of those homes looking out over the ocean, Kristie Woodson Harvey has a whale of a tale for you.

In Beach House Rules, the Beaufort-based author takes readers inside a massive two-story oceanfront home enveloped by “the salt air and rhythmic shush of the waves” in fictional Juniper Shores, North Carolina. Harvey’s 11th book, which she describes as “an ode to female friendship,” also has mystery, a touching exploration into what makes a family and, of course, a love story or two — many of the elements for a breezy, easy beach read.

Inside Alice Bailey’s massive beach house is the “mommune,” an intriguing co-living situation that — because of a variety of individual crises — brings a cast of women and their children together. Charlotte Sitterly and her teenage daughter, Iris, are the newest “mommune” residents, having found themselves in need of shelter, hugs and support after being locked out of their five-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath shorefront home by the FBI.

Bill, husband of Charlotte and dad of Iris, is in the local jail, accused of a white collar crime that thrusts their family into the glaring spotlight of an anonymous gossipy Instagram account that revels in “sharing bad behavior and delicious drama in North Carolina’s most exclusive coastal ZIP code.”

Charlotte, Bill and Iris came to Juniper Shores during the height of the pandemic, refugees from a locked-down New York City. While snuggling on the wide-open beach during what was supposed to be a temporary visit, soaking up the orange glow of a Mayflower moon and watching their daughter make friends with a neighbor girl, Bill suggested they build a house there, miles and worlds away from their hectic and confined city life.

Charlotte leaned into her husband and quickly said yes.

Fast forward to Charlotte’s meltdown in the lobby of Suncoast Bank, three days after coming home to a swarm of police cars and FBI agents combing through her dream house. With the family’s financial assets seized, Charlotte needed a job. Her work history was in finance, so she thought she would try the local bank, but convincing a bank or investment firm to take on the spouse of a man accused of stealing large sums of money from his clients was a tough sell.

Alice, known around town as the woman with three dead husbands in 12 years, offered Charlotte a supportive ear and refuge at her former bed-and-breakfast where women and their children facing hardships comprise the “mommune.” With only enough cash to afford two more weeks at a modest hotel, Charlotte agreed. Her mind raced as she walked into the Bailey house. What if Alice was a creepy killer who’d offed her husbands? Was she a lunatic or a saint? And always in the back of her mind, what if Bill had, indeed, committed the financial crimes he was accused of? Charlotte tamped down those questions as Alice took her through the unlocked door into a haven with a chef’s kitchen, an open-plan dining room, a living room that stretched across the entire house and an array of comfortable bedrooms.

Through the alternate narratives of Charlotte, Iris and Alice, Harvey weaves in the many side stories. We learn about Julie Dartmouth, Alice’s niece and a dogged reporter who was the

June at Weymouth Center

Saturday & Sunday, June 14 - 15 10:00am - 4:00pm

· Reenactor encampment · Family-friendly · · Live demonstrations · Hands-on activities · And more!

Also, this month at Weymouth Center:

June 7: Sandhills Pridefest

June 16 - 20: Kids Camp Storycraft

June 24 - 27: Kids Explorer of the World Camp

June 28: Vision 4 Moore presents Billy Joel/Elton John

Face 2 Face Tribute Show with local band Pocket Change

June 17: James Boyd Book Club

Scan the QR code for tickets and additional information!

555 East Connecticut Avenue, Southern Pines, NC

first woman to take up residence, along with her children, in the Bailey house. Before Charlotte and Iris arrived she “seemed to absolutely revel in writing about Bill’s arrest.” But “beach house rules” changed that.

Grace, Julie’s best friend and an Instagram influencer who has gained a large following sharing her recipes on “Growing with Grace,” was the second mom to join the so-called “lost ladies club.” She moved in after her husband split to Tokyo, leaving her with a mortgage to pay and children to raise, one of whom is a star high school quarterback and heartthrob, an added bonus for Iris, a 14-year-old navigating the highs and lows of teenage years.

Elliott Palmer, Alice’s former boyfriend who wants to reignite their love story, has the potential to upend this makeshift family. He’s not deterred by Alice’s wake of dead husbands or other claims that she’s cursed. “You’re not going to kill me,” he tells her over a bottle of Champagne and a remote table for two overlooking the water.

Harvey weaves all these storylines together, thread by thread, mystery by mystery, to an end that reveals whether or not Alice — who, not coincidentally, had taken a financial hit from the whitecollar crime Bill is accused of — had ulterior motives when she invited Charlotte and her daughter to stay with her.

While there are dark clouds that hang over the many mysteries within this mystery, the romance and light fun make it more about community and the friendships that can unexpectedly occur when it seems like everything is falling apart.

According to the Beach House Rules, setbacks can be blessings in disguise.

PS

Anne Blythe has been a reporter in North Carolina for more than three decades covering city halls, higher education, the courts, crime, hurricanes, ice storms, droughts, floods, college sports, health care and many wonderful characters who make this state such an interesting place.

Where Community and Active Living Meet

Introducing Penick Village’s Newest Expansion, designed to elevate your way of living.

Comfortable Living Spaces: Step into comfort with our beautifully designed Independent Living residences, each thoughtfully crafted to provide you with a home that’s as comfortable as it is stylish.

Village Pavilion: In our state-of-the-art wellness building, you can engage in various activities, including Pickleball, personal training, and an overall focus on your health and wellness.

Comprehensive Healthcare: The Terrace, our health services building, enhanced and renovated, providing exceptional personalized care tailored to your needs.

Welcoming Community: Enter through our updated Welcome House, a space designed to safely welcome you, and your guests, into our community.

Penick Village invites you to join our community, where we’re not just redefining retirement living, we’re elevating it to new heights.

Learn more about our community , where you have the freedom to focus on your wellness and relationships while living life to its fullest . Contact us today. Call (910) 692-0300 , email info@penickvillage1964.org , or scan the QR code to learn more.

June Books

FICTION

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to journey into space. Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, she begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: top gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer who can fix any engine and fly any plane. As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. Then, in December 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant. Fast-paced and emotional, Atmosphere tells a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of

by Tatiana de Rosnay Pauline, a young chambermaid who works at the legendary Mapes Hotel in Reno, Nevada, is asked to step in for a colleague and clean Suite 614. Although she was told the rooms were empty, a dazed, sleepy woman appears before her. It’s Mrs. Miller, aka Marilyn Monroe, whose stay in Reno coincides with the breakdown of her marriage to Arthur Miller and the filming

The Misfits. Set in the American West in 1960 where the mustang horses run wild, an unexpected friendship unfolds between the most famous movie star in the world and a young cleaning woman whose life will be changed forever through the course of a few weeks.

NONFICTION

Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship, by Dana A. Williams

A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Morrison’s literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison’s remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with such important authors as Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms. From the manuscripts she molded, to the authors she nurtured, to the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published.

It’s Only Drowning: A True Story of Learning to Surf and the Search for Common Ground, by David Litt

David, the Yale-educated former Obama speechwriter with a fear of sharks, and his brother-in-law Matt, a tattooed, truckdriving Joe Rogan superfan with a shed full of surfboards, had never been close. But as America’s crises piled up and David spiraled into existential dread, he noticed that his brother-inlaw was thriving. He began to suspect Matt’s favorite hobby had something to do with it. David started taking surf lessons. For months, he wiped out on waves the height of daffodils. Yet, after realizing that surfing could change him both in and out of the water, he set an audacious goal: riding a big wave in Hawaii. Together, they set out on a journey that spanned coasts, and even continents, before taking them to Oahu’s famously dangerous North Shore. It’s Only Drowning is a laugh-out-loud ode to embarking on adventures at any age.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Where the Deer Slip Through, by Katey Howes

Flower Girls: A Story of Sisters, by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman

Daisy, Lily and Poppy are the flower sisters, each with their own corner of the garden to nurture and grow. Fancy Nancy illustrator Robin Preiss Glaser includes detail and wonder that will delight nature lovers and budding garden horticulturalists everywhere. (Ages 2-7.)

Part seek-and-find adventure and part ode to nature, this stunning tale is the perfect read-together for young nature lovers and their grownups. (Ages 2-7.)

Good Boy, by Andy Hirsch

Never Take Your Rhino on a Plane, by K.E. Lewis

This little gem is sure to gather as many giggles on the first read as the fifth and should you need to transport your hippo on summer vacation, you’ll already have a list of do’s and don’ts! (Ages 3-7.)

Animal-loving graphic novel readers looking for something after burning through Dogman and PAWS will delight in this new series featuring Charlie and his rescue dog, Ralph, as they tackle the challenge of agility training. With adventure, real life problems, and some gross-out humor, this one’s a summer reading hit. (Ages 8-12.) PS

Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.

HOURS

Breakfast Monday - Friday: 8:00am - 10:30am Saturday: 8:00am - 11:30am

Lunch Monday - Friday: 10:30am - 2:30pm Saturday: 11:30am - 2:30pm

Brunch - Sunday - 9:00am - 1:00pm

A

DINE-IN FAMILY MEALS

FRI-SUN 7:30-10:30AM

AWild Ride

It’s not for everyone

By Bill Fields

I was around someone recently whose significant other had gone to Disney World, leaving him behind, hundreds of miles away from Mickey Mouse and all the theme park’s other trappings, a distance that brought comfort. My friend loves his partner, but Disney World is not his thing.

It is also not my thing. And if that indifference makes me a crank or a killjoy, I am at peace with the label. I have some contacts on social media, contemporaries of mine, for whom trips to Disney seem to be a focus in their lives, a priority on their calendars. I’m glad they enjoy the experience but don’t understand the fascination.

When I was dealing with a detached retina several years ago, the surgeon who made the repair and monitored my recovery — I count my blessings that thanks to his expertise I got my vision back — offered a warning among his post-op advice.

“Stay off rollercoasters,” he said. The doctor’s admonition was so unnecessary he might just as well have urged me to avoid stepping in a rattlesnake den. I had no plans to do either.

Perhaps if I were a parent, if I had experienced a little one having a magical moment between turnstiles, I would feel differently about such amusements at my advanced age. But I also had been a teenager in North Carolina during the 1970s who didn’t feel there was a void in my life because I never traveled to Carowinds, in Charlotte, despite multiple youth group opportunities to do so. Although I loved going to the annual Moore County Fair, I was far from a regular attendee at the North Carolina State Fair, going just once with a large family from my neighborhood.

My last visit to a theme park occurred in 2008, when a friend and I went to Universal Orlando. On a boat ride during which “pirates” attack, there was an expectation of getting lightly splashed during one of their “explosions.” Instead, a geyser erupted from the lake not far from our seats on the starboard side, and we received a drenching from head to toe that sent us to the exit and toward a change of clothes.

I was not far from my 50th birthday at the time of that unexpected soaking. If I had been 12, I might have relished it. When I was that age, in the summer of 1971, my parents and I made a

highly anticipated trip — I was looking forward to it, that is — to Six Flags Over Georgia, outside Atlanta.

Going to Six Flags was part of the biggest journey of my young life. We went all the way to Tallahassee, Florida, to visit my sister, Dianne, and her husband, Bob, who had been living in the Sunshine State’s capital city for a couple of years. Opened in 1967, Six Flags Over Georgia was the brainchild of Dallas businessman Angus Wynne Jr., whose Six Flags Over Texas was built in 1961.

Leading up to our unprecedented vacation, I had sent away for a Six Flags Over Georgia brochure and was familiar with its attractions by the time we pulled out of our driveway in Southern Pines for the long drive south. The park’s “Dahlonega Mine Train,” a rollercoaster, and “Log Jamboree,” a water flume, were both highly touted in its promotional material. Six Flags was described as having a “clean, cheerful and friendly atmosphere.”

I entered Six Flags most excited to get in a log-shaped raft and travel the 1,200-foot channel of the “Log Jamboree.” Its nosediving, spray-flying conclusion didn’t disappoint, and the modest rides offered each fall in Carthage never thrilled in quite the same way after riding that water flume.

My parents were good sports that afternoon, even though Six Flags surely wasn’t their idea of a great time. When we were getting ready to leave, they even indulged me by traipsing hundreds of yards across the park to a souvenir kiosk. I had been whining about wanting a helium balloon.

Tired, happy, hungry, and holding a big blue balloon on a string, when we got out of the car at the suburban Holiday Inn where we were spending the night, my father looked at the $2 purchase in my hand. “Be careful with that thing,” he said. “Don’t pop it.”

Along with some other guests, we stepped into an elevator. A man got out on a floor below ours. As he did, I carelessly let the string attached to my coveted memento go slack, allowing it to be sandwiched by the closing doors.

I was smart enough not to ask if I could have dessert that night. PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

I Quit Girls

story A nd P hotogr APh By tony Cross

When I look back a decade ago to the beginning of 2015, there were two notable events that happened in my life: a major break-up, and a newfound love of rum. As it turned out, the former was also the motivation for a drink I created using the latter, aptly titled, “I Quit Girls.” I wanted to make a tiki-style drink all my own, something I hadn’t heard of or tasted.

Thinking back, that probably wasn’t too hard — the myriad social media barfluencers had yet to kidnap my algorithms. There’s only one ingredient that stands out from the rest in my concoction: 1/4 ounce of smoky Laphroaig 10-year Scotch. It was my eureka moment. A little smoke mixed with lots of sweet, delicious tiki flavors turned out to be a killer scene. At the time, I was just learning about classic rum drinks, so I was excited to add Donn’s Mix #1 into the, well, mix. Named for the man who created it, Donn Beach, this syrup is used for many tiki drinks, including the classic zombie.

As for the name of my drink, I happened to be listening — on repeat — to a Japandroids song of the same title the week I created it. Go figure. PS

Tony Cross owns and operates Reverie Cocktails, a cocktail delivery service that delivers kegged cocktails for businesses to pour on tap — but once a bartender, always a bartender.

Specifications

1 ounce Goslings Black Seal Rum

1/2 ounce Smith & Cross Jamaican Rum

1/4 ounce Laphroaig 10-year Scotch Whisky

3/4 ounce Donn’s Mix #1 *

1/2 ounce fresh pineapple juice

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup

5 drops Bittermens Elemakule Tiki bitters

Execution

Combine all ingredients into a cocktail shaker and add a very small amount of crushed or pebbled ice. Shake hard, allowing the ice to almost completely dissolve in the vessel. Pour everything into a tiki mug or large old-fashioned glass. Fill the remainder of glass with ice. Garnish with a small bunch of mint.

*Donn’s Mix #1: Take 3 cinnamon sticks and blend with one cup of simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water). Let sit until syrup cools. Strain syrup. Mix one part of cinnamon syrup with 2 parts fresh grapefruit juice (not storebought). Place in a sealed container and refrigerate. Keeps for two weeks.

Skagenröra, Anyone?

A shrimp salad for midsummer

Our kitchen has always been the hottest room in the house — a 1920s bungalow in the heart of Aberdeen. Even after we had a brand new HVAC system installed about a year ago, the kitchen remains stuffy, with little air flow. While the air conditioning, usually set to a pleasant 72 degrees, has you reaching for a throw blanket in the front room, you’ll be wiping sweat off your brow just a few feet down the hall in the kitchen, with or without the oven on. It’s a mystery that apparently cannot be solved, but it’s a good reason to keep our cooking and baking to a minimum this summer season.

Fortunately for us, my German upbringing has taught me how to turn bread and a few simple ingredients into a satisfying meal. Sure, sandwiches — the American way of life — are quite filling, but it’s not the same experience as having a slice of stout pumpernickel or rye bread layered with exquisite homemade spreads, decoratively presented on a plate right in front of you, begging the question: Do I need to use a knife and fork with this?

While Germans have a firm grasp on Brotzeit, which literally translates to “bread time,” with liverwurst, pickles, crackling lard and other rustic ingredients, Scandinavians have a more exotic variety. Skagenröra, one of the most popular dishes in Sweden, is a simple seafood salad made of shrimp, crème fraîche, mayonnaise and dill. Most people use tiny shrimp, but we like to cut up larger shrimp, which doesn’t hurt the flavor in the least.

Skagenröra shrimp salad neighbors well with smoked salmon as well as other spreads, egg salad being one of them. For either one — shrimp or egg salad — you can lighten up by substituting a portion of the mayonnaise with yogurt, or ditch the mayo and use a combination of yogurt and plain hummus.

However you plan on spending “midsommar” — the longest day and shortest night of the year — keep the kitchen cool and try Skagenröra for a simple but worthy solstice snack.

Skagenröra Shrimp Salad

(Makes 4 open-faced sandwiches)

1/4 cup mayonnaise (or a yogurt and mayo combination)

1/3 cup crème fraîche

1 small shallot, finely minced

4 tablespoons chives, finely chopped

3 tablespoons dill, finely chopped

Lemon zest of 1/2 lemon

1/2 teaspoon prepared mustard

Lemon juice, freshly squeezed, to taste

12 ounces small shrimp (or larger shrimp, sliced)

Salt, pepper, to taste

4 slices of pumpernickel or rye bread

2 handfuls butter lettuce

Mixed sprouts (e.g., broccoli, radish, cress)

2-3 tablespoons capers (optional)

Add mayonnaise, crème fraîche, shallot, chives, dill, lemon zest, mustard and lemon juice to a bowl and mix well. Gently fold in shrimp and add salt and pepper to your liking. Refrigerate the shrimp salad for at least two hours before serving. To serve, layer lettuce on a slice of bread, top with a generous helping of Skagenröra and other toppings, such as sprouts and capers. PS

German native Rose Shewey is a food stylist and food photographer. To see more of her work visit her website at suessholz.com.

Without Stopping

Juan Logan keeps creating

By liz A roBerts

Ona sprawling industrial site on the banks of the Catawba River, beyond a cabinet maker, a boat rental and a rum distillery, past hundreds and hundreds of pallets of overstocked, shrink-wrapped, big-box merchandise, lies a repository of an entirely different sort.

Here, in an open, 5,000-square-foot space, stand sculptures and paintings, drawings, prints and multimedia creations that address, mostly through abstraction, many of the issues of our time: race and memory, history and geography, stereotype and expectation, imagination and potential. This is the studio of the artist Juan Logan, the place where he creates and stores the work from a career spanning more than 50 years. He is one of our state’s most accomplished contemporary artists, and one of its most prolific.

In May, a major exhibition of his work, “Without Stopping: Juan Logan,” opened at the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama, where it will run until Feb. 14, 2026. Featuring 48 works from Logan’s decade-long Elegies series, including many never before seen in public, the exhibit will feature a massive new piece commissioned by the museum to commemorate the residents of Africatown, an area of Mobile founded by the descendants of enslaved people brought in 1860 to Mobile Bay aboard

a wooden ship called the Clotilda. At 6 1/2-feet tall and 16-feet wide, Logan’s commissioned piece, Elegy CLXXXVI, Without Stopping, is by far the largest of this seminal series.

“I think of it as a series on memory, but not just mine,” he says. “Collective memories.”

Though the word “elegy” often refers to a poem for the dead, “it can also mean a serious reflection,” Logan says. With abstract shapes and symbols, Logan reflects on the fragmented, imperfect and haunting nature of memory, including cultural memories shared in various and ever-changing ways. He mentions the Japanese notion of wabi-sabi, which finds beauty in imperfection and impermanence. “There are no perfect memories. And I don’t have any trouble portraying them that way.” Forgotten memories, too: “The absence of memory, how it depletes us . . . how it kills us. It leaves us very alive, but missing so much. We are so sure we hold on to things, even happy memories, but they fade away as well.”

A repeated image throughout his work over decades, beginning in the late 1970s and regularly appearing in his Elegies series, is the silhouette of a black head. The subtle shape shows up in painting, drawing, collage and sculpture (including Beacon outside Charlotte’s Harvey Gantt Center) as a symbol of memory, loneliness, identity and of the Black experience.

Lately, the head shape on its side may represent a boat, Logan says, a boat transporting memories, knowledge, thoughts, hopes and ideas: “Sometimes it’s completely filled, sometimes it’s empty. Such is the nature of humanity. We hold on to things, we lose things.” But always, he says, the head represents humanity: “All

Elegy 186, Without Stopping, 2024

of our imaginings, and everything we ever were or will be takes place there first. It is who we are.” The featureless cameo offers a blank-slate Rorschachian challenge to the viewer: What do you fill in here?

Other symbols that make regular appearances in Logan’s colorful, abstract work include starry skies, clouds, maps and boats. Like a poet, Logan uses these allegorical images in individual works and as leitmotifs to represent many things: the collective unconscious; the workings of the world and the role of the individual in creating it; reserves of knowledge; the power of imagination and perception. Most important, Logan says, is not what he says these things mean, or what his own point of view might be, but what they provoke or challenge in the viewer.

Logan has been challenging viewers over the decades of a celebrated career that has seen his work shown across the country and around the world in solo and group shows. He has pieces in the permanent collections of some of the nation’s foremost museums, including the Whitney Museum

Storyteller

Wearing the uniform of black T-shirt and jeans that he has

Elegy 108, 2021

1900 Silver Server

host in his Belmont studio, eager to unpack the meaning and message of his work, which surrounds him in a vibrant, living archive. He does it through story.

There’s the story of a treacherous treadmill used to try to break the spirit of enslaved people in Jamaica in 1837 that inspired The Sugar House, a 16-foot canvas of paint, glitter, lottery tickets and thousands of glued-on puzzle pieces.

There’s the story about the high school shop teacher who encouraged him to make his first work of art, an eagle carved of white birch. This is a man Logan is so determined to credit with launching his life’s trajectory that he spells his name: “Harold McLean, That’s M, C, capital L, E, A, N.” McLean told Logan that what he made didn’t have to be like anyone else’s. “It can just be yours,” the teacher said. The words unleashed something in Logan: “It changed everything.”

There’s the tragic story of his father dying of a heart attack after a doctor didn’t believe his chest pains were real. It’s an example, Logan says, of racial bias, and one of his many inspirations for work that address injustice, oppression and alienation.

And then there are the many stories of home. The shape of a canted roofline in one of his works has him describing his own 114-year-old house, which was built by his great-grandfather and grandfather. It’s a 10-minute drive from his studio in a neighborhood Logan illustrates with a quickly jotted map: “Here’s my house right here. Here’s my mom’s house over here. Here’s my aunt’s house, here. There’s another aunt here. Here’s my sister’s house, here. Here’s my uncle’s house down here. And then my grandfather’s road, that’s named after him . . .” The foundation of another house his great-grandfather built out of handmade bricks and lived in after slavery still stands in the woods nearby. “These things serve to anchor you in a

particular way,” Logan says. “I think more than perhaps other places, the South does that for so many people.”

Asking Better Questions

“For many years now,” Logan says, “I’ve tried to simply ask better questions. I think that’s the only thing that allows us to deepen our investigations about what we’re doing, regardless of discipline. If we can ask better questions, we’ll learn more, be able to do more.”

Doing more is clearly not a problem for Logan. At any given time, he’s got a dozen new projects in various stages underway. After the Mobile show opens, his work will be featured in an exhibit in Chattanooga in July and one on American and German abstractionists in Berlin in October.

“We want so much out of this,” he says. “And we are here for such a brief period of time. So we try to do as much as we can for as long as we can, with the hope that someone will take the time to preserve it and pass it on and share it with others.” PS

This is an excerpt from Art of the State: Celebrating the Art of North Carolina,

Elegy 162, The Arrival, 2023

Terms and Conditions: $300 off any order of $1198 or more,$200 off any order of $998-$1198 or $100 off any order of $698-$998, on any complete custom closet, garage,or home office unit. Not valid with any other offer. Freeinstallation with any complete unit order of $600 or more. With incoming order, at time of purchase only. SPECIAL FINANCING For 12 months! Expires in 90 days. Offer not valid in all regions.

Tier 3 Winners

The Sandhills Photography Club was started in 1983 to provide a means of improving members’ photographic skills and technical knowledge, for the exchange of information, and, by club activity, to develop membership potential and public interest in the art of photography. For meetings and information visit www.sandhillsphotoclub.org.

Tier 3, 1st Place: Cosmic Warfare by Gisela Danielson

Tier 3, 2nd Place:

Carnevale in Quito by John German

Tier 3, 3rd Place: Rabbit Hole by Jim Davis

Tier 2 Winners

Tier 2, 2nd Place: Tulip by Cal Rice

Tier 2, 3rd Place: Zany Zinnias by Susan Bailey

Tier 2, 1st Place: Working Lunch by Cathy Locklear

Abstract

Tier 1 Winners

Tier 1, 3rd Place: Water Colors by Tom Scheve

Tier 1, 1st Place: Painted Hills by Donna Sassano

Tier 1, 2nd Place: Accretion Disc by Joshua Simpson

By lu huntley

Hoops School

Reading the court, learning to teach

It’s 1 977. I’m interviewing for my first public high school teaching position in rural Johnston County, N.C. The interview goes well; the principal says he’d like to hire me to teach sophomore English. Then he asks if I would coach the girls’ varsity basketball team in addition to teaching English, and I say, “Yes sir; I can do that.”

I played point guard in high school, had a decent left hook, and my extraordinarily athletic younger sister was studying health and physical education at UNC-Chapel Hill. I figured she’d help. Forget Title IX. Everybody knows hiring just anyone to manage the boys’ basketball team would cause an uproar. But for me to tell the principal I could handle teaching six English classes and coach girls’ basketball settles a hiring issue. I’d “fix” a problem.

I get the job.

Any person who enters education as a profession at age 21 cannot be fully equipped in the classroom — or on the court — regardless of your degree. Like anything else, there’s a learning curve.

On the court, I am a failure; in the classroom I pick up early that students like to read drama and create scripts from short stories, novels and poetry and then act them out. Outside the classroom I read books on basketball and memorize diagrams of drills and plays. None of this improves the team’s performance. We flounder. The first basketball season we are last in our 2A conference. The second season, same. But at some point in that second year, I begin to recognize offensive and defensive patterns and plays. I learn to read the court. Practicing set plays is like acting out a drama. But it doesn’t feel the same in the gym as it does in the classroom.

Something was happening with my teaching, too. By developing fluency in reading the basketball court, I begin observing recurring moves in students’ writing. What happens on the court transfers to the classroom, not so much the other way around. Much like those first two basketball seasons, I have difficulty reading students’ papers and knowing how best to respond. Their writing looks like everything going on at once. I mark papers and assign grades but second guess myself. I do not know what I am looking at any more than I know what is happening on the court. Spotting simple mistakes in language is easy because these stand out. But it’s just seeing deficits. When I begin recognizing a student’s ambitious use of words — or the attempt — it changes everything.

When the team and I load the bus for an away game, I know it’s going to be late when we get back to the school parking lot; and I will be exhausted. I get used to the bubblegum smell, sticky bus seats and floors and go along for the ride. I grade papers on the bus in late afternoon light. I get used to sweaty locker rooms and concession stand smells of sugar, popcorn, corndogs, and mustard. The atmosphere of high school girls’ basketball competition becomes a collage of glaring gymnasium lights, buzzers, shrill whistles, bleachers, wood floors, school colors, mascots, pompoms, megaphones, and cheers reverberating off concrete walls. After two seasons, I let the principal know I’d prefer extracurricular activities closer to my fields of study. Coaching girls’ basketball “blind” as I did was rough. I survive and develop the eye needed to assess students’ writing, going beyond marking errors on student papers, giving pop tests, or posing as the one with all the knowledge. Gradually I become an English teacher and writing coach. Hoops helped me get there. I still have the whistle. PS

LuEllen Huntley, associate professor emerita from the UNCW Department of English, lives in Pinehurst. She is originally from Wadesboro, Anson County, N.C.

Cookie Monstrosity

Do crumbs make the man?

By deBor A h sA lomon

Now, in the sunset of my baking career, I realize that cookies, like clothes, define who we are. That definition is made possible by the plethora of commercial cookies in every shape, flavor and permutation, the poster child being Oreos. Yet questions remain: “How do you like your chocolate chip cookies? Crisp or mushy? Mini, regular or jumbo chips? Bittersweet or a sugar high? Homemade, bakery or commercial?”

For a baseline I offer this personal experience:

country manor in the highlands. Either that, or frequenters of the Seattle coffee scene, who know that “Starbuck” is a character lifted from Moby-Dick.

A person’s age may be determined by asking whether he/she remembers Social Teas, so plain and non-sweet I call them punishment cookies. However, they might rightly tempt dunksters with a texture that holds up to cocoa.

My mother adored sweets but never baked, unless you count brownies for the bridge luncheon and slice-and-bake icebox cookies in December, for people who “drop by.” Milano describes her prototype — two tongue-shaped wafers glued together with chocolate. So when push came to shove, she would spread a thin layer of simple chocolate frosting between two vanilla wafers. Back in the days of real vanilla, they were good. Now, the same ploy tastes like Styrofoam.

Milanos themselves have shriveled to nothing, but I love ’em anyway.

Back to matching cookie to personality.

Oreos: Do you twist and lick, or dunk whole? Each camp is battle-ready. Are you a classicist, who rails at Oreo yogurt, Oreo Cakesters?

Fig Newtons retain an almost biblical earthiness; their aficionados recall a time when Birkenstock meant more than a sandal, when only the co-op carried organic veggies. Strawberry Newtons miss the point, although dates might tempt the figgy crowd.

Lorna Doones? A favorite with proper Brits, who prefer a shortbread biscuit with their afternoon tea. Named after the central character in an 1869 British novel, LDs were introduced to the Colonies in 1912. Unpopularity/unfamiliarity now relegates them to an unreachable top shelf.

Garibaldi, the proper name for flat raisin cookies long gone from the monster roster, suited pranksters who insisted the raisins were squished bugs.

Biscotti, despite an Italian aura, belong to intelligentsia wearing plaid and cashmere for weekends at the cottage — a 14-room

The emotionally stunted CEO whose mother denied him cookies because he wouldn’t finish his green beans now, to the ants’ delight, compensates by keeping a box of Nutter Butters in his desk drawer. After all, peanut butter is protein.

Graham crackers, for generations baby’s first treat (since they dissolve in drool), recaptured campfire folks’ attention as s’mores. Recognize s’mores-lovers by their burnt fingers, chocolate-stained T-shirts and faces. At least this mess is worth it.

Is lemon the new chocolate? Observe the interest in Oreo Lemon Thins and Sunkist Thin Shortbread with Lemon Crème Filling. They are cheerful cookies for the smiley-faced set. But watch out, you citrus-seekers. Not all that lemon zing comes from real lemons.

I was terribly upset when Biscoff jumped from passenger flights to supermarket shelves. Aloft, they cause crumbs and greasy fingers. The very mention dredges up memories of long delays, bumpy rides. They make me miss the cute little meal dispensed by flight attendants who weren’t Social Security eligible. When baggage flew free in the underbelly instead of a jammedup overhead compartment.

A pox on Biscoff!

Picture a svelte 50-something Manhattan career gal, wearing a little black dress and real pearls, slicing a real chocolate wafer icebox cake made with real whipped cream. Alas, Nabisco has discontinued the cookie that made a million reputations. So far, urbanites have found no replacement. Don’t give up. If Voortmans can field an oxymoronic Zero Sugar Fudge Brownie Chocolate Chip cookie, anything’s possible. PS

Deborah Salomon is a contributing writer for PineStraw and The Pilot. She may be reached at debsalomon@nc.rr.com.

The Black Crows

The same music but different lyrics

By susA n CA mPBell

Everyone knows what a crow is, right?

Well, no. Not exactly. It is not quite like the term “seagull,” which is generic for a handful of different species found near the coast. When it comes to crows, you can expect two species in central North Carolina in the summertime: the American crow and the fish crow.

Telling them apart visually is just about impossible. However, when they open their beaks, it is a different matter. The fish crow will produce a nasal “caw caw,” whereas the American will utter a single, clear “caw.” That familiar sound may be repeated in succession, but it will always be one syllable. Young of the year may sound somewhat nasal at first, but they will not utter the two notes of their close cousin, the fish crow.

Both crows have jet black, glossy plumage. They have strong feet and long legs, which make for good mobility. They walk as well as hop when exploring on the ground. They have relatively large, powerful bills that are effective for grabbing and holding large prey items. Crow’s wings are relatively long and rounded, which allows for bursts of rapid flight as well as efficient soaring. The difference between the two species is very subtle: Fish crows are just a bit smaller. Unless you have them side by side, they are virtually indistinguishable.

Fish crows are migratory in our part of North Carolina. By the end of the summer flocks of up to 200 birds will be staging ahead of the first big cold front of the fall. Most of the population will be moving eastward come October. For reasons we do not understand, some fish crows will overwinter in our area. Other small groups are being found on Christmas Bird Counts each December across the region. Not surprisingly, the number

of fish crows along our coast swells significantly by mid-winter. Visiting flocks do not stay long and are our earliest returning breeding birds, arriving by early February for the spring and summer. Almost as soon as they reappear, they begin nest building. Their bulky stick-built platforms are hard to spot, usually in the tops of large pines. Furthermore, crows tend to be loosely colonial, so two or three pairs may nest close together in early spring.

Although fish crows are often found near water, they wander widely. They are very opportunistic, feeding by picking at roadkill, taking advantage of dead fish washed ashore, sampling late season berries, digging up snapping turtle eggs, or robbing bird feeders all with ease. But they are also predatory. Even though they are large birds, they can be quite stealthy. It is not uncommon for these birds to hunt large insects in open fields, or frogs and crayfish at the water’s edge. Unfortunately, fish crows are very adept nest robbers and take a good number of eggs and nestlings during the summer.

These birds, as well as their American cousins, can become problematic. They are very smart and readily learn where to find an easy meal. At bird feeders, they will quietly wait until the coast is clear, especially if savory mealworms or suet can be had, and polish off every scrap in no time. Southern farmers, years ago, found an effective deterrent: hanging one of these birds in effigy to keep flocks from decimating their crops. Recently I acquired a stuffed crow from my local bird store in hopes this method would work around my feeding station. I have also been concerned about both species of crow preying on nearby nests. Amazingly, it does work, though I do move it regularly to keep the attention of passing would-be marauders. And it’s quite the conversation starter as well! PS

Susan Campbell would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. Her email is susan@ncaves.com.

The Bass of Summers Past

Largemouths, farm ponds and my old man

There’s a shallow pond in Eagle Springs where memories run deep. On most summer weekends of my youth, Dad and I would venture out on its clear waters to try and catch a few fish.

Surrounded by a canopy of tall pines and dogwoods, the pond is a picture-perfect postcard of serenity. I still recall the low hum of the electric trolling motor on our old aluminum jon boat as we plied the still waters with Zebco 33 reels in hand. Here and there, turtles would poke their heads above the flat surface. Bluebirds sang from nearby perches. If we were lucky, we might spot a green heron skulking along the shoreline, or a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead.

The cooler would be packed full of Pepsis, Lance crackers and a Little Debbie or two — just enough unhealthy goodness to get us through the afternoon. Dad would attach a Beetle Spin to his

line with hopes of catching some of the saucer-sized bluegills that frequented the pond’s deeper waters. My lure of choice was an old standby: a black plastic worm with a weedless hook threaded inside.

While I loved catching bluegills on my lightweight 8-lb. test line, I was after the much bigger largemouth bass that had been stocked in the pond years before. Dad’s high school classmate, whose house overlooked the pond, had caught numerous lunkers there over the years, including one that tipped the scales at nearly 10 pounds. I had youthful aspirations of catching not only a larger bass, but one that would rival the world record 22-pound, 4-ounce fish caught down in Georgia in 1932 by a poor farmer named George Perry — a record that stands to this day.

Largemouth bass are uniquely American, indigenous only to the North American continent, though they have been introduced into waters around the world, from Japan to Australia and Cuba to Brazil. According to the recently published book A Guide to North Carolina’s Freshwater Fishes, largemouth bass are native to every river drainage in the state, except for the New River. Over the years, they have been stocked into nearly every

golf course pond, farm pond and manmade lake across the state.

In 1802, French naturalist and politician Comte de Lacépéde bestowed the scientific name Micropterus salmoides upon the largemouth bass, mistakenly believing that the fish was a type of trout or salmon. Ichthyologists today recognize that the largemouth bass is actually a type of sunfish, closely related to bluegills. Despite the misnomer, the Latin name of the largemouth remains.

In the years following its formal description, largemouth bass were considered inferior fish by hoity-toity “sportsmen” of the era, most of whom preferred casting lines toward more upper-class finned quarry like trout. The winds started to change when James Henshall wrote The Book of Black Bass in 1881, an immensely popular tome that espoused, for the first time, that the largemouth bass was a worthy gamefish. Soon thereafter, President Theodore Roosevelt was championing fishing for largemouths.

Today, largemouth bass are instantly recognizable by most of the general public. Fishing for them adds billions of dollars to the economy each year, more so than other gamefish. To gauge just how popular the fish has become, simply walk into any Walmart from California to Florida and count the aisles that are stocked to the brim with rods, reels and countless lures dedicated to large-

mouth bass fishing. It seems that nearly every week, a largemouth fishing tournament is broadcast on some sporting channel. There are Bass Proshops in virtually every large city up and down the East Coast. Country music songs are even written about them.

I never did catch my record bass. The largest one I ever pulled from that Eagle Springs farm pond weighed no more than 4 pounds, though, depending on the social situation, I might exaggerate a little.

As I have aged, largemouth bass represent so much more than just a trophy. I have come to realize that they were a gateway fish to a lifetime of curiosity about the natural world. And, like so many who have spent time casting a line with their fathers, I have also come to realize those moments are finite and I will never get them back. Every cast, every tug of the line, every sunset I spent with my old man on that pond was precious.

A bass, however, wasn’t the biggest thing I hooked at that Eagle Springs pond. Dad and I laugh about it still, though it wasn’t all that funny at the time. I was 12 years old, give or take, and as always Dad and I would make our fishing trips into a friendly competition, judged by who caught the most fish, as well as the largest.

Dad releasing a largemouth bass

On this particular Saturday morning, we had just pushed off from shore in our old jon boat. I had a special Rebel Minnow topwater lure, recently purchased from a local bait and tackle shop, tied to my line. The lure, as the name suggests, mimics a tiny baitfish, and possessed a pair of barbed treble hooks at either end, near the head and tail. Dad was steering the boat toward a distant cove. In my eagerness to catch the first fish, I stared out onto the open water and immediately slung my rod far back over my shoulder. I belatedly heard Dad shout “No!” as I quickly followed through with my cast.

For a brief instant, there was a hard pull on the line, and then it suddenly snapped. Puzzled, I turned back toward Dad. To my horror, I saw the Rebel Minnow dangling down between my father’s eyes and resting on the bridge of his nose, a pair of hooks deeply embedded in his forehead. A droplet of blood trickled down over his brow and onto his shirt.

Panicked, I muttered a few choice words and apologized profusely over and over. Dad simply pointed the boat back toward shore. We got out of the water and walked up toward his old Ford pickup parked nearby. Despite me not having a driver’s license and barely being tall enough to reach the gas pedal, Dad handed me the keys and told me to drive over to his friend’s house on the opposite side of the pond.

At the time my father still smoked cigarettes — Marlboro Reds — and he calmly reached into the glove compartment, pulled one out, and lit it. Dad said no words at all. He simply took a few long drags off the cigarette as the fishing lure continued to dangle from his head, occasionally bouncing up and down with each pothole in the dirt road.

In what seemed like an eternity, but in actuality was just a few minutes, I pulled up to his friend’s house. Dad got out and rang the doorbell. I will never forget how all the color drained from his friend’s face when he saw that fishing lure stuck in Dad’s head. He quickly loaded Dad into his car and rushed him straight to the hospital. After a local anesthetic, a couple of stitches and a tetanus shot, Dad was as good as new. No scars at all. Well, at least physically.

Before leaving for the emergency room, Dad insisted I stay at the pond and continue fishing until they got back. I asked him what I should do while he was gone.

“Practice, son,” Dad responded. “Practice.” PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser grew up in Eagle Springs. He works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

Bedtime Stories

When the day turns into night

By lee PACe

The Pine Crest Inn

opened in 1913 in the village of Pinehurst and nearly half a century later was purchased by Bob and Betty Barrett, of Erie, Pennsylvania. Barrett was a newspaperman who had visited Pinehurst regularly over the years — “At the beginning for two days, then for a week, then for two weeks,” he said.

They bought the inn for $125,000, and it has been in the Barrett family since, with the second generation taking over following Barrett’s death in 2005. By coincidence a home called the Chatham Cottage (built in the 1930s) was available directly across Dogwood Drive, and Barrett bought the house for his family to live in as they operated the inn, saying he didn’t want his two sons to grow up in a hotel.

For years, Barrett would use an extra bedroom in the house for Pine Crest overflow. Then, by the mid-1980s the family moved out, and it became an adjunct lodging option for the inn and was renamed the Barrett Cottage. There are groups who have been occupying the house the same week for more than three decades. The house has 16 beds with eight bedrooms and five baths.

Mike Close and a group of 16 to 28 golfers from Columbus, Ohio, have been visiting the Sandhills each October since 1996, making the Pine Crest and the Barrett Cottage their home base.

“It’s kind of like you’re going home; they treat you like a million dollars,” Close says. “This trip is all about friendships. We sit on the porch, smoke cigars, have a drink and tell stories. Some guys have known each other for 50 years or more. We love the Pine Crest. It’s quaint, it’s comfortable, and they have a great bar.”

There are just under 2,500 hotel rooms in the Sandhills area, ranging from the original lodging establishment that opened in 1895 to more recent facilities with brand names like Marriott and Hilton. All perform exactly as ordered — offering a comfortable bed and all the accouterments for golfers hopping from one worldrenowned course to the next.

No one would label the Barrett Cottage as “luxurious.” It fits with the overall Pine Crest motif of ease and comfort you’d find in a visit to your grandmother’s. But increasingly in modern times, hoteliers and entrepreneurs have followed the concept of an adjunct, stand-alone lodging facility.

Travelers to the Pinehurst area today can drink a Scotch whisky in the home office Donald Ross occupied in the 1940's, or play pool beneath the stained glass of a century-old church sanctuary. They can rock on the same screened-in porch where Mike Strantz quaffed a cold one after a day chiseling Tobacco Road out of the sand pits north of Pinehurst. And they can walk outside their five-bedroom house located 4 miles north of the village and play golf on a lighted par-3 hole with a fire roaring and the sound system at full blast.

“Golf groups would rather be all together under one roof versus being split up,” says Nikki Conforti, a golf package specialist at Talamore Golf Resort who frequently books guests at Talamore and its sister course, Mid South Club, into the Palmer Cottage fronting Midland Road between the two courses. “They can all hang out together at night after golf. It builds camaraderie and is a lot of fun. Our cottage is perfect for eight golfers, with a game room with a pool table, dining table and fire pit. If those walls could talk, I’m sure there would be some good stories.”

Talamore and Mid South were part of the 1990s golf boom when the Sandhills expanded its offerings. The Palmer Cottage is the result of additions, renovations and upgrades over nearly

two decades to an existing house that Bob Levy, the resort’s owner and developer, bought in 2018. The cottage is marked on Midland Road with Talamore’s signature llama flag.

Another interesting lodging option is the Old Church at Pinehurst. Dan Keane, a regular visitor to Pinehurst from his home in New York City, was intrigued when he learned in 2020 that the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, located just behind the Carolina Hotel and serving the village of Pinehurst for more than a century, was for sale. Dan and wife Jenna bought the 5,300-square-foot church and renovated it into a destination with five sleeping spaces (four bedrooms and a loft) and a “great room” in the original sanctuary area, perfect for lounging, playing pool and meal functions.

“My wife and I have big families, so we’re all about having places for big groups to enjoy each other’s company. We saw the church was for sale and thought it was a good opportunity, not as much as a business decision, but it would be really cool to own and share with people,” Keane says. “It’s different from anything else. Watching a movie, having a game on, a bartender behind the bar — it makes for a cool experience. All churches are places for gathering. It speaks to why people visit the Sandhills — relaxing, enjoying, sitting by a fire pit, having a glass of wine. It’s everything you’d expect and more.”

Pinehurst Resort has seemingly infinite lodging options within four main facilities, the Carolina Hotel, Holly Inn, Manor Inn and Magnolia Inn. But it also has two outside-the-box offerings and in May opened the doors to yet another.

The Presidential Suite opened on the first floor of the Carolina Hotel in 2007 and offers 1,800 square feet of “wow factor” that would impress the CEO accustomed to the most opulent room in a midtown New York City hotel. In 2017 the resort purchased Dornoch Cottage, built by famed golf architect Donald Ross in 1925, and occupied by Ross and his wife until his death in 1948. Situated near the third green of Pinehurst No. 2,

GYNECOLOGY SPECIALISTS

Certified

Infertility

Intrauterine

Continence

Menopause

National

Gynecological

Hormone

GOLFTOWN JOURNAL

with four spacious bedrooms, a modern kitchen and Ross’s office still intact, Dornoch Cottage is made available to select guests and used as the site of parties and receptions.

In the 1990s the resort hired Tom Fazio to design a course to celebrate its 100th birthday in 1995, and the result was Pinehurst No. 8. Needing more beds for golfers in the post-COVID golf explosion, the resort has built a cottage village on a parcel of land between the eighth, ninth and 10th holes. Five cottages opened in May, and four more will follow in the fall, adding 52 new rooms in all.

Another premium spot in the Sandhills is the Stewart Cabin, tucked into the woods facing the pond on the par-3 14th hole at Tobacco Road in Sanford. The cabin is where Strantz stayed when on property designing the one-of-a-kind course that opened in 1998. The rustic two-bedroom cabin has been fully renovated with a full kitchen, outdoor grill and a fenced-in porch with rocking chairs.

Birdie Houses, billed as “luxury retreats powered by a global golf group chat,” is a product of the social media and Instagram phenomenon of the 2020s. The idea is to create a one-of-a-kind lodging facility in a famous golf destination and market it to golfers who wield their 7-iron by day and their phones by night, chatting and texting and posting about their experiences in golf. Birdie Houses has built a home on N.C. 73 north of Pinehurst that is the ultimate entertainment retreat with a 100-yard-plus golf hole, putting/chipping green, eight-person hot hub, gas fire pit, ping-pong table, NBA Jam, 85-inch TV and indoor simulator lounge.

The Pinehurst Birdie House is booked solid for all for 2025, proof once again you’d better queue up quickly for golf in the Sandhills. PS

Lee Pace has written about the Pinehurst experience for more than three decades from his home in Chapel Hill. Write him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him @ LeePaceTweet.

Vidal, PA-C

AT PINEHURST NO. 8

Open daily to the public

Grab-and-Go Breakfast: 6 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.

Lunch: 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Dinner: 5:30 – 9 p.m.

The Ferry from Ocracoke to Swan Quarter

Laughing gulls hover: a story below, their shadows slide and crux across the deck of the Silver Lake — painted white by convicts from the Hyde County camp — bound over the slick-cam Pamlico,  past a dredge-spoil island where cormorants in black frock coats congregate, exiled, penitent, eyeing the ferry with Calvinist reproach.

— Joseph Bathanti

Joseph Bathanti is a member of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. His novella, Too Glorious to Even Long for on Certain Days, will be released this summer by Regal House Press. His next volume of poetry, Steady Daylight , will be published in 2026 by the Louisiana State University Press.

PUZ ZLE

ME THIS! ME THIS!

Ernõ Rubik, the inventor of the eponymous cube, once said, “If you are curious, you will find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.” Since there are no readers more curious or more determined than PineStraw’s, this month we’re offering up a cornucopia of puzzles. Solve them while you wait for a plane at RDU or under a Shibumi on a barrier island beach. Take your time. And enjoy.

Drüdles

By John Gessner

Here are some riddles expressed in visual form. Can you come up with the simple phrase these visual images are portraying?

Answers on page 140

Look Closely

By L aura GinGerich

Can you identify these local landmarks from their close-ups?

Answers on page 140

Sudokos

y M art Dickerson

Very Easy Easy

Fill in the grid so every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1-9.

Answers on page 140

Medium

Hard

Mismatch

Find the 10 boxes in the left and right photos that are different.

Answers on page 140

9. “Surely you ___!”

13. Mysterious: Var.

14. Go by, as time

17. “What’ve you been ___?”

18. Caffè ___

19. “___ playing allowed!”

20. Aim

21. Long, long time

22. Addis Ababa’s land: Abbr.

23. Prattles

25. Amscrayed

26. Freshen

29. Zero

30. In a coarse manner

32. Go on ___ on

34. Nerd

37. Cleans up, in a way

38. Pleasant chat

41. Family dog, for short

43. Victorian, for one

44. Rear seat cover

45. Pitch

46. After expenses

47. Gone

48. Biblical birthright seller

49. “The Three Faces of ___”

51. “What’s gotten ___ you?”

52. Early wheels

53. Cossack chief

56. Gigantic

No Small Task

By M art Dickerson

58. Gathering after hitting the slopes

61. Enthusiastically

62. Colossal

63. “Idylls of the King” character

66. Lawyer, for short

67. Overabundance

68. Granny description

70. Babysitter’s handful

73. Flees

74. Dining table decorations

75. “Wheels”

76. In-flight info, for short

77. Reader’s _____

78. More rational

80. Catch a glimpse of

83. Affairs

84. Altar aide

86. ___ and cheese

88. Elevator alternative

90. Undertake, with “out”

91. Mine workers

95. African antelope

96. 100 Ethiopian cents

97. BBs, e.g.

98. Masked man with a stick

101. AM/FM device

102. Sensation, slangily

103. Adjust

104. “Not on ___!” (“No way!”)

105. Bit

106. Baker’s dozen?

107. Drugs, briefly

Down

1. Place to sip alfresco

2. Bugbear

3. Song and dance, e.g.

4. “The Catcher in the ___”

5. Guard Duty protection

6. ___ Bowl

7. Apprehend

8. Marienbad, for one

9. Hodgepodge

10. Blunted blade

11. Celebrity

12. A load

15. Clever

16. Brio

18. The “L” of XXL

22. Moray, e.g.

24. Immense

26. Balaam’s mount

27. Astringent in red wine

28. Accord

31. Bank reports

33. Church official

35. Clever escape

36. Asian sheep

39. Against

40. Same old, same old

42. Like B.B. King’s music

44. Parenting challenges

45. Watertight

50. Gigantic

52. Purchaser’s waste allowance

53. Bargain

54. Remove hair

55. Emotional wounds

57. Approves

59. Scar tissue

60. Blue dyes

64. Greenest around the gills

65. Honoree’s spot

68. “That’s ___ . . .”

69. People in custody

71. Versatile

72. Past tenses

78. “Help!”

79. Back in

81. Innermost layer of tree bark

82. Starchy tuber

85. French vineyard

87. Gargantuan

89. Getting on

91. Champagne alternative

92. Bypass

93. Early pulpit

94. “___ a chance”

96. Honey

99. Absorbed, as a cost

100. Big galoot

101. Battering device

Answers on page 140

Number Chain

By a Lyssa k enneDy

Fill the grids with available numbers to create a single consecutive string from 1–56 with each number connected to the next along the horizontal, vertical or diagonal. Answers on page 140

Associations

By M ariLyn Barrett

Associations #1

To solve each of these Associations, find four groups of four words that have something in common. Categories will always be more specific than “Nouns” or “Five Letter Words.” For example, HERO, PBJ, CLUB and BLT might form the category sandwiches.

Associations #2

Associations #3

Answers on page 140

Final Word

By M ariLyn Barrett

In each puzzle, guess the only possible Word given the clue provided. No answer uses the same letter twice and no answer is plural.

Green: Letter is in the correct spot in the word

Yellow: Letter is in the word, but in the incorrect spot

Grey: Letter is not in the word in any spot

#1 #7

#2 #8

#3 #9

#4 #10

#5 #11

#6 #12

What's Wrong?

By h arry BL air

What’s wrong with this picture? Artist Harry Blair went to town on this illustration, inspired by Highlights magazine. Can you find the 30 things that are wrong?

Sandhills True & False Quiz

By auDrey Moriarty

1. The Sandhills were originally beaches.

2. Pinehurst welcomed consumptives (those suffering from tuberculosis) as they believed the condition was not contagious.

3. Annie Oakley died in 1924 in Pinehurst, where she had worked at the Gun Club for many years. 4.

Elva Statler, 20-year-old hotel heiress, was found dead under suspicious circumstances in the garage of her home in Pinehurst.

17. Southern Pines, like Pinehurst, was closed during the summer months.

The Boyd House at the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities is not the original structure built on that location

19. The Episcopal Church, the first church in Southern Pines, was open every day for worship and contemplation.

20. John T. Patrick founded Pinebluff.

5.

In the early years, travelers in Moore County were advised to carry an axe to cut away fallen trees.

6. Southern Pines was originally called Vineland and John Patrick built the first hotel.

James Walker Tufts stayed at the Belvedere Hotel in Southern Pines when he first came to the Sandhills.

8.

Pinecrest, the “school of tomorrow,” opened early without gym, auditorium, cafeteria, or cultural arts in a desperate move to comply with the Civil Rights mandate. 9.

Page Library in Aberdeen, soon to become an archive for the town, was built in the 1920s.

10. Pinehurst and Aberdeen have about the same population, with Southern Pines being larger than either of them.

11. Walter Hines Page was appointed Ambassador to the United Kingdom by President Warren Harding.

The Clam Box was one of the first restaurants to open on the new U.S. 1 bypass.

Taylortown was named after Demus Taylor, who was a sought-after caddie at Pinehurst in the early days of golf.

Frederick Law Olmsted made several short trips to Pinehurst to confer with James Walker Tufts on the “greening of Pinehurst.”

When the Pinebluff Inn became the Pinebluff Sanitarium, one of its more difficult patients was Hollywood bad-boy, Robert Mitchum.

James Boyd once described golf as “merely the most expensive and depressing form of pedestrianism . . ."

21. Geneva McRae became the first mayor of Taylortown in 1987.

22. Robbins, North Carolina, was once named Mechanics Hill, then Elise, then Hemp.

Bethesda Church was the first church in southern Moore County.

24. In 1990, the Pinewoods Darter and the Sandhills Chub, two rare species of tiny fish, helped prevent the Sandhills from becoming the site of a hazardous waste incinerator.

25. The House in the Horseshoe was the site of a small skirmish during the Civil War.

26. Tyson & Jones Buggy Co was founded in 1890 and was Moore County’s largest manufacturer for over 50 years.

27. Resin from longleaf pines was used to make flavored syrups and alcohol.

28.

Cameron was once a busy rail shipping depot but became best known for blueberries.

29. The Jackson Springs Hotel was once a fashionable summer resort with a lake used for swimming and boating.

30. The population of Vass, N.C. recently surpassed 5,000.

In the early 1900s, Pinehurst had its own muscadine (scuppernong) grape pressing plant in Vina Vista. The wine was produced in Ohio at the Sweet Valley Wine Company in Sandusky and returned as Pinehurst Vineyard Wines.

Peggy Kirk Bell was a golfer, a noted basketball player and a pilot.

Pinehurst had its own brand of cigarettes, introduced at a luncheon at the Pinehurst Country Club in 1940, named Puffer Boy. Answers on page 140

The State of Play

By PineStraw staff

Can you fine these North Carolina sports icons in our word search puzzle?

MichaelJordan

StephCurry

BobMcAdoo

ChooChooJustice

JuliusPeppers

RomanGabriel

SonnyJurgenson

DeanSmith

RaymondFloyd

FloydPatterson

BonecrusherSmith

RichardPetty

JuniorJohnson

MiaHamm

PeggyKirkBell

CatfishHunter

EarlThePearl

CharlieSifford

EnosCountrySlaughter

MikeKrzyzewski

A giant of a man in a small town

By BiLL fieLDs

n a mild December morning at Dixie Burger in Ellerbe, North Carolina, several customers of a certain age at a corner table are remembering someone who once sat among them, shooting the breeze and drinking coffee.

“Was grand marshal at the racetrack and lifted a girl on each arm like it was nothing.”

“Used to be booths in here, but he wouldn’t fit.”

“Ate 12 chickens in one day.”

When he wasn’t wrestling, making a movie or otherwise being André the Giant, the man sometimes called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” lived in Ellerbe for more than a dozen years. He enjoyed his time in the Richmond County town of about 1,000 people and loved to kill part of a day at the shortorder restaurant, whose tall hamburger sign is the most visible landmark on Main Street.

“André could sit there and talk to people,” says Jackie McAuley, who was a close friend. She, along with her first husband, Frenchy Bernard, a former pro wrestling referee, managed André’s home and cattle ranch on Highway 73. “They treated him just like anybody else they would have seen in town. It wasn’t, ‘Oh, can I have your autograph?’ He was just an average person when he was home in Ellerbe.”

Notwithstanding the mannerly small-town treatment André René Roussimoff received, he was as close to being an average person as Ellerbe is to the Eiffel Tower. André the Giant — who died Jan. 27, 1993, at age 46 — was one of the most recognizable individuals of the 20th century. He was a genuine giant who emerged from the obscurity of his family’s farm in rural France,

of Ellerbe

carrying armoires on his back up three flights as a Paris furniture mover, to become an iconic professional wrestler who drew large crowds around the globe and gained even wider fame playing Fezzik, the rhyme-loving giant in the 1987 romantic-adventure-comedy film The Princess Bride. Standing 7 feet 4 inches — although there were skeptics who contended the wrestling hype machine bumped up his height so that he could be billed as the world’s tallest man — and weighing 520 pounds when he passed away of congestive heart failure, Roussimoff had acromegaly, a disorder that causes the pituitary gland to produce too much growth hormone in adulthood, resulting in unusual bone growth, including in the hands, feet and face.

His acromegaly was never treated, André refusing medical help when his condition was diagnosed, first during a visit to Japan in the early 1970s and again about a decade later at Duke University Hospital. Doctors there saved his life after fluid built up around his heart and wanted to operate on the pituitary gland to correct his acromegaly, but André, whose paternal grandfather also was outsized, wouldn’t agree to the procedure. “He said, ‘That’s how God made me,’ and he wasn’t going to change,” McAuley says.

To be around André once was to never forget his unique size. His neck was 2 feet in circumference. It was nearly a foot around his wrist. A silver dollar could pass through one of his rings. In an exhibit devoted to André the Giant at The Rankin Museum of American Heritage in Ellerbe, a pair of his size 26 wrestling boots are on display. “Occasionally I could buy him T-shirts,” says McAuley, “if I could find 5 XL.” The Giant’s clothes were mostly custom tailored in Montreal or Japan to accommodate his 71-inch chest. Nellie Parsons, who ran Pate’s Cleaners in Ellerbe for 30 years, created custom hangers to accommodate the extraordinary width of his dress shirts.

In 1983-84, Burke Schnedl was a pilot for a charter service at what then was called Rockingham-Hamlet Airport and flew André to wrestling matches in cities throughout the Carolinas

and Virginia — Greenville, Fayetteville, Richmond — in a twinengine Cessna 402.

“We had to take out a seat in the back so he could get in,” Schnedl recalls. “The doorway is not that big, and he would have to turn kind of sideways. It had a bench seat on the side. André sat there and used a seat-belt extender to cover a space where two people normally would sit. He was just a lot of guy. When you shook his hand, it was like putting a single finger in a normalsized person’s hand.”

By the time André was 12 years old, he already stood 6-foot-2 and weighed about 230 pounds, too large for the bus that transported schoolchildren in his village of Molien, 40 miles outside Paris. The playwright Samuel Beckett, who lived nearby in a cottage that Boris Roussimoff, André’s father, helped him construct, filled the void by driving André in his truck.

Before long André, the middle of Boris and wife Mariann’s five children, had outgrown not only vehicles but the sleepy landscape he saw as an impasse stopping his ambition to be famous. Boris Roussimoff didn’t understand, and at 14 André quit school, left home and set out on his own.

“His father told him he would be back soon working on the farm, and André had something to prove,” says Chris Owens, a repository of André the Giant knowledge who authors a Fan Club page on Facebook and has been intrigued by Roussimoff since he was a boy in the Midwest and saw him wrestle televised matches. “He didn’t want to stay in rural France. To me, he was always a guy going after his dream who became a classic success story.”

As a teenager in Paris, André’s preferred game was rugby, although he also got immense pleasure from pranking friends by rearranging their parked small cars while they were dining or drinking. He got 7 or 8 inches taller and gained nearly a hundred pounds before he turned 21, impressing professional wrestlers who noticed him training in a gym. They introduced him to their game, taught him some moves, and by the mid-1960s André René Roussimoff was getting paid to perform as Jean Ferre, Géant Ferré, The Butcher Roussimoff and Monster Eiffel Tower — and he was loving all of it.

“Many men were afraid to go in the ring with him, especially after he reached his 20s, because he was so large and strong,” André’s first manager, Frank Valois, told Sports Illustrated in 1981. “For all his height and weight, he could run and jump and do moves that made seasoned wrestlers fearful. Not so much fearful that he would hurt them with malice, but that he might hurt them with exuberance. He was incroyable.”

Promoters sent him to Great Britain, Germany, Australia, Africa and eventually Japan, a country where he first wrestled as Monster Roussimoff and would have some of his most avid fans the whole of his career. He began to be billed as André the Giant in 1973 by Vince McMahon Sr., founder of the World Wide Wrestling Federation, who discouraged André from being very active in the ring — even though his body at that point still allowed it — and to play up the fact that he was an immovable mountain of a man. “He was taught to wrestle as a giant,” says Owens. “He had a limited set of moves, and his matches generally were kept fairly short.”

Under McMahon, André made a large six-figure annual income and became the most famous professional wrestler in the world who traveled the majority of each year for two decades, his luggage belying his size. “He carried an unbelievably small bag for his wrestling gear,” says McAuley. “I don’t know how he packed

as much as he did in that small bag. But if he was packing up at a motel and something didn’t fit, he would leave it behind. There were things left all over, I’m sure. I hope the maids discovered what they had.”

André was a creature of habit on the road because there was enough ducking and crunching just getting around that he didn’t like improvising unnecessarily. “If you gave me the name of the town he was in,” says McAuley, “I could tell you what hotel he stayed at, what restaurant he ate at and what bar he went to, and pretty much be right every time. There was security that came with the habit. He knew his size and where he could fit and couldn’t fit. If he had been going to a certain motel for 10 years and everyone else started going to a fancier place, he’d go to his usual one.”

Wherever André the Giant went, he amazed people with how much he could eat or drink if he was in the mood.

There are stories of his ordering every entrée on a menu, as McAuley witnessed one summer day in Montreal in the mid1980s as she and Frenchy dined with André and several others. “We were at a small Italian place,” McAuley recalls. “André was in a good mood. He told the waiter he would like one of everything. The waiter said, ‘Seriously?’ Frenchy said, ‘Seriously.’”

Pro wrestler Don Heaton told the Los Angeles Times after the Giant’s death. “Everything came in twos,” he said. “Two lobsters, two chickens, two steaks . . . ”

There were nights of 100 beers, 75 shots, or seven bottles of wine lest any course of a special meal feel lonely.

“I can report with confidence that his capacity for alcohol is extraordinary,” Terry Todd wrote in his classic in-depth 1981 Sports Illustrated profile of Roussimoff. “During the week or so I was with him, his average daily consumption was a case or so of beer; a total of two bottles of wine, generally French, with his meals; six or eight shots of brandy, usually Courvoisier or Napoléon, though sometimes Calvados; half a dozen standard mixed drinks, such as bloody Marys or screwdrivers; and the odd glass of Pernod.”

Actor Cary Elwes recounted the making of The Princess Bride in his book As You Wish. He recalled going out barhopping with André in New York City after the movie’s premiere. The Giant’s beverage of choice that evening, as it sometimes was when they were filming in England, was what André called “the American,” a combination of many hard spirits.

“The beverage came, as expected, in a forty-ounce pitcher, the contents of which disappeared in a single gulp,” Elwes wrote. “And then came another. And they kept coming while I gingerly sipped my beer. We talked about work and movies, about his farm in North Carolina where he raised horses, his relatives back in France, and of course, about life. André was a man unlike any other — truly one of a kind.”

This unique character ended up living in Richmond County after coming with French-Canadian Adolfo Bresciano, who was billed as Dino Bravo in the ring, to visit Bravo’s stepdaughter in the late-1970s. She and her husband owned farm property in Ellerbe. André bought a nearby home, a three-story structure. The Bernards moved from Florida in the summer of 1980.

“We lived there and took care of things,” McAuley says. “If

Andre needed something, Frenchy or I would get it. He just had the house for several years, with some cows and horses. Then the property down the road came up for sale, so we bought the ranch. Then he worked on getting the wooded property in the middle. André was in a bar in England once talking to a pilot who had Texas longhorns back home. So Andre decided we should have Texas longhorns, too.”

Some believed that Andre’s residence must have been built for his colossal frame, but it wasn’t. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” says McAuley. “The stairs were narrow. It was three floors. He didn’t care to have a house that was adapted to him because his life was in the real world. You’re not going to raise the light or the ceiling fan, because they’re not going to run into it. It becomes second nature. We really only did two things: We raised the shower faucet, so the water would hit him on the top of the head instead of the middle of the back, and we ordered him a large chair.”

André would often sit in his chair with McAuley’s miniature dachshunds tucked by each tree trunk of a leg. He loved riding an all-terrain vehicle around his property. In the summers, André favored gym shorts, sometimes with a T-shirt, sometimes not. He was an expert cribbage player, owing to his good math mind and so many hours playing before wrestling matches. He didn’t venture far from his property when he was home, but loved his iced coffee at Dixie Burger, weekend meals at Little Bo Club in Rockingham, cookouts at neighbors’ homes, and checking in the hardware or feed stores.

McAuley says she never heard her friend talk about any regrets, that he never second-guessed anything in his life. “I have had good fortune,” André told Todd in 1981, “and I am

grateful for my life. If I were to die tomorrow, I know I have eaten more good food, drunk more beer and fine wine, had more friends and seen more of the world than most men ever will.”

In addition to the scary episode of fluid buildup around his heart in 1983, he began to have other health problems during his years in Ellerbe. André had neck and back issues and surgeries, and he sustained a broken ankle in a 1981 match, wrestling on it for days until the pain became too much. To accommodate his size, the largest cast ever prepared at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital was utilized.

An opportunity to be in The Princess Bride came along at a good time, since wrestling was becoming increasingly difficult because of André’s deteriorating body. “He could feel his wrestling career closing down,” McAuley says. “He had been so agile when he was younger. It was tough to watch him wrestle near the end of his life because of how hard it was for him to get around.”

André had acted before — including portraying “Bigfoot” in a two-part episode of The Six Million Dollar Man — but he loved being part of the months-long production of The Princess Bride as Fezzik. “Doing Princess Bride gave him the most happiness,” says McAuley. “He’d call home and talk about all the silly tricks he was pulling, especially the week or so that Billy Crystal was there.” Around the set, as in his adopted hometown in North Carolina, André impressed with his disposition despite his acute pain.

“You could tell he was in tremendous pain, but would never complain about it,” actress Robin Wright remembered in As You Wish. “You could see it in his face when he would try to stand up from a seated position. But he was just the most gentle giant. So incredibly sweet.”

André never tired of watching The Princess Bride, but some of his friends did. “He drove the wrestlers crazy,” McAuley says. “Over in Japan, on a bus from the hotel to the matches, the boys would wait quietly until eventually he’d pull out the tape and say, ‘Let’s watch my movie again.’ They’d say, ‘Please boss. Not again.’ But they’d watch.”

The same year that The Princess Bride came out, André the Giant was headliner at WrestleMania III, where he was bodyslammed and defeated by nemesis Hulk Hogan in front of a record crowd of 93,173 at the Pontiac Silverdome. He wrestled the last of his 1,996 matches (a record of 1,427-388-181) on Dec. 4, 1992 in Tokyo, his physical condition worsening. “His walking was compromised,” Owens says. “His posture had changed. He constantly needed something to hold on to or somebody to help him keep his balance.”

André’s last Christmas in Ellerbe was much different than the joyous first one a dozen years earlier. “He was just not himself,” McAuley says. “His color didn’t look good. I remember standing next to him and patting his stomach, which (had gotten larger). It didn’t dawn on me then that the first time that happened was ’83.”

In January 1993 André flew to France to be with his dying father. He stayed over after his dad’s death to be with his mother

for her birthday on Jan. 24. On the 27th, André enjoyed a full day with boyhood friends from Molien. A driver was scheduled to pick him up at the Paris hotel where he was staying at 8 o’clock the next morning.

André didn’t pay attention to clocks, seldom wore a watch, and rarely was late. But he was not there to meet his driver, and he didn’t answer the phone in his room.

“The chain was on the door but they could see André in bed,” McAuley says. “The sheet was perfectly neat around him. He must have died as soon as he laid down, because André was one, when he woke up in the morning, the linen would be all shuffled around and when I would go to make his bed, I’d basically have to start over because the sheets would be in all different directions.”

The Roussimoffs were told André’s body was too big to be handled by any local crematoriums. A custom casket was constructed, and McAuley flew to France with her sister to accompany the body back to the United States so that André’s desire to be cremated, set forth in his will, could be carried out. Before returning, she visited Molien to meet André’s mother — “She was shorter than me and just adorable” — and siblings.

McAuley brought photo albums, pictures of “girls André knew” and his daughter, Robin Christensen Roussimoff, born in 1979, with whom he had little contact — a handful of visits and regular holiday phone calls. McAuley flew to the Seattle area once hoping to make André’s wish of a visit by his daughter to his North Carolina home a reality, but Robin, a young girl intimidated by the thought of a long trip to an unfamiliar place, declined.

André was returned to the land he had come to know so well on Feb. 24, 1993. Big-time wrestlers and small-town residents alike attended the ranch service, and after folks had spoken their remarks and paid their respects, Frenchy Bernard got on a horse with a saddlebag containing Andre’s ashes.

In death as in life André Roussimoff was larger than most. His remains weighed 17 pounds after cremation, nearly three times more than a usual adult male. They were spread in silence so different from the mayhem of the arenas and gyms where he had worked, finding their place, just like the man had. PS

A Tradition of Culture

The many lives of Campbell House

By r ay o wen • PhotoGra Phs By John Gessner

Surviving through myriad incarnations, Southern Pines’ Campbell House is one of the region’s most significant landmarks, owing its existence to the Boyd family. Once part of their Weymouth estate, for more than 100 years it has been a center of culture, informing, influencing and enhancing civic life.

It is an outstanding example of a Country Place-era estate created over time by a remarkable series of individuals who began settling in the region around the turn of the 20th century. The fledgling Sandhills resorts were rising from the dusty remains of a former turpentine and lumber industry outpost. The backdrop for this transformation was the greater social movement of the day, a reaction to the cultural upheavals brought about by industrialization and urbanization. The Sandhills fit perfectly within the

country life paradigm, appealing to America’s growing fascination with vernacular culture and native folk.

The lives of Campbell House comprise four significant periods: first the home of James Maclin Brodnax, then expanded into the original James Boyd House with additions from local Colonial houses; next moved and enlarged at its present location by Jackson Boyd; later the home of General Motors heir Maj. William Durant Campbell; and now a municipal property, home to Southern Pines Recreation & Parks Department and the Arts Council of Moore County.

The house’s first period opens with James Boyd’s 1904 purchase of a sizable portion of land on the eastern ridge above downtown Southern Pines. Within months, the matter of building a residence was altered by the death of his kinsman, James Brodnax, who had built a two-story Colonial Revival-style home

for himself on the property. James Boyd, grandfather of writer James Boyd and his brother Jackson, enlarged the Brodnax House into an imposing mansion, incorporating building elements dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Brodnax-Boyd House was located 100 feet in front of present-day Weymouth Center.

In 1921, the Brodnax-Boyd House was separated into two blocks and both moved by mule teams across Connecticut Avenue, where they became the core of two new residences. One part was refitted as a residence for Jackson Boyd (Jack) and his family, and it remained their home, following major rebuilding in 1936 after a fire. Another part of the Brodnax-Boyd House is now the dwelling standing at 435 E. New Hampshire Ave.

Jack and his brother, writer James Boyd, founded the Moore County Hounds in the winter of 1914. They saw this aristocratic sport in democratic terms and felt that it should belong to the town. Proper dress or not, anyone who wished to hunt was invited to come along, so huntsmen in formal attire rode with farmers on horses more accustomed to plowing than jumping fences.

As a captain in the Marines, Jack was in charge of canine training at Camp Lejeune. Being from blueblood hunt country, he was a trainer, breeder, master of 70 foxhounds. Jack taught his war dogs to march in cadence, heel on regular intervals, and perform

ordered drills. More training prepared them for track and attack missions and watch duty. His division’s canine records included letters of commendation, citations and a discharge certificate. In many instances, a formal photograph of the dog was included upon promotion of the dog to sergeant.

Jack’s eldest son, John Boyd, was killed in action at Guadalcanal, and the local VFW post is named for him. Those who knew Jack Boyd say that his son’s death was a severe blow and he left Southern Pines shortly after the war.

In 1946, Major W.D. Campbell purchased the Jackson Boyd House and he made extensive changes, facing the unpretentious frame structure with ballast-brick from Charleston, South Carolina. The same brick was used in the formal landscaping and walled garden at the rear of the house. In 1966 the Campbell family gave their property to the town, asking that it be used for the cultural and social enrichment of the community.

Evidence of history can be found throughout the building, with a striking contrast between the formal entrance and the informality of the large pine-clad room on the east wing. This room, known today as the Brown Gallery, encompasses the most visible remains of Brodnax-Boyd House with its circa 1820s mantel and beaded hand-planed paneling.

In Jackson Boyd’s time the main staircase rose at the back of

Original Boyd Mansion

Jackson Boyd

Jackson Boyd and family on the porch

The Brown Gallery in the Campbell House today

the foyer, but the Campbells reconfigured it to rise at the front, opening up the back wall with glass doors. The foyer and former dining room, now the White Gallery, remain unchanged from the late 1940s with marble-chip terrazzo flooring, marble staircase and decorative wrought-iron railing. A medallion graces the entry hall floor. Inscribed in Greek, it depicts an African antelope bagged by Maj. Campbell for the Museum of Natural History in New York.

The Campbells and their daughter, Margot, were active in many civic and community affairs. Mrs. Campbell was one of the founders of the Southern Pines Garden Club. Maj. Campbell’s interests included the Red Cross, Boy Scouts and model trains and he built the Train House to house his collection. An Eagle Scout in his boyhood, Campbell became a leader in the national and international movement, an activity that eventually called the family away from their home in the pines. Born in Flint, Michigan, Maj. Campbell was the grandson of William Crapo Durant, the co-founder of General Motors and Chevrolet, and the founder of Frigidaire. Campbell graduated from Princeton University in 1929 and initially pursued a career in banking. During World War II, he was a battery commander and retired from Fort Bragg in 1946 as a major. He became involved in Scouting as an adult at the suggestion of its British founder, Robert Baden-Powell. His travels convinced him that Scouting could do much for young people and he took a special interest in furthering the organization in developing countries with programs tailored to local needs. That philosophy and his personal commitment saw a doubling of the Scouts’ membership in the 1970s and 1980s, chiefly in the Third

World. A philanthropist, Maj. Campbell was also on the executive committee of the Mystic Seaport Museum and a director of the National Audubon Society.

When the Campbells gifted the property to the town, a board of directors was appointed, bylaws were established, an on-site director was hired, and a vigorous program developed to put the property to use. The Southern Pines Information Center was installed in the main house, and the Stoneybrook Racing Association moved into its west wing office.

The Boy Scouts were among the early organizations at Campbell House, along with offices for the Humane Society of Moore County and Moore County Historical Association. In the late 1960s, a small golf museum was set up in the former dining room, and this collection was later turned over to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

In 1972, Southern Pines established a year-round recreation and parks department centered on the property. This program is now the biggest user of the site with its offices on the second floor of the main house. The first floor is the headquarters of the Arts Council of Moore County, where they maintain two galleries that display the work of different artists every month and a sales gallery that showcases the work of regional artists.

Thousands of visitors have enjoyed Campbell House, hundreds of volunteers have given time and energy to the fulfillment of its purpose, and a small, dedicated group has taken personal responsibility for its success.

Moss gathers on the ancient lawn as azaleas bloom late against

fading bricks. Across the lot, live oaks keep the view — if they could speak, what stories would they tell, wide spreading boughs, nothing missed in their branches. Some say the house is haunted and at twilight the apparition of a woman drifts across the stairs, a lingering reminder of lives that have come before. PS

Ray Owen is a local historian, who works for the Arts Council of Moore County.

At the request of the Arts Council, the Southern Pines Town Council has approved plans for a 1,750-squarefoot gallery addition, creating more space for exhibits, events and including accessible bathrooms and an elevator to the second floor and basement. Liberatos Architects, a classical architecture firm, will design the addition to match the historic structure. Chris Dunn, the Arts Council’s executive director, hopes to raise a million dollars by the end of 2025 to support the project. “That way we can break ground in 2026,” he says.

Margo Campbell birthday party in what is now the White Gallery

The White Gallery today

ALMANAC June

By a shLey wa L she

Father Sky

June is a love poem, unrestrained.

Impossibly red poppies gaze upon achingly blue skies. Dragonflies bend for one another, clutching and curling like contortionists in flight. Swallowtails sup nectar, deep and sweet, enraptured by milkweed, sunbeams and endless summer days.

Can’t you see? All of life loses itself in itself. The rhyme is internal; the rhythm, organic; the imagery, holy refrain.

Each stanza surprises. Some, purple as passionflowers. Some, fussy as French hydrangeas. A precious few are sharp and true.

Bend your ear toward all that pulses. Get lost in the cadence of field crickets, the tranquil lilt of whippoorwill, the ballad of goldfinch and thistle. Find the harmony.

Complete the circuit. Behold poppies as poppies behold sky. Behold the dreamlike wonder.

Become a sunbeam. Become honey. Become, as wings, transparent.

Bow to the majesty of Queen Anne. Fashion a crown of singing daisies. Embellish your throne with honeysuckle and squash blossoms.

Are you dizzy yet?

Take a pause.

Rest in the dappled shade of sourwood. Let the hum of bees cradle you through afternoon. Come evening, swoon to the pink-and-yellow tune of rosy maple moth.

A good poem needs a good host. Can you be as milkweed to monarch? Sapsucker to birch?

Climbing oak to starry-eyed child?

Sup the sweetness of the moon-drenched night. Lose yourself in the wild beauty. Be, as green berry on vine, altered by the ardent kiss of summer.

According to Navajo legend, Mother Earth and Father Sky were created as divine counterparts, their union essential to all life. Mother Earth gives us life. Father Sky offers the light of the sun, thirst-quenching rains and the endless mystery of the heavens.

In the spirit of Father’s Day (Sunday, June 15), consider looking skyward this month for a handful of celestial happenings.

The Full Pink Moon on June 11 is the last full moon of spring. No, it won’t be candy-colored. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Native American tribes (Algonquian, Ojibwe, Dakota and Lakota) named this month’s moon to mark the harvest of June-bearing strawberries.

On June 16 (the day after Father’s Day), you can spot the pairing of Mars and Regulus with the naked eye. Look for the fiery red planet gleaming alongside Alpha Leonis, the brightest star in the constellation Leo.

The Summer Solstice occurs on June 21. On this day — the longest day of the year — give thanks for the warmth and light of the sun and the wild abundance bursting from the Earth. And when night finally falls, you just might glimpse an early participant of the June Boötids meteor shower, which takes place June 22 through July 2 and peaks on June 27.

At midnight, in the month of June, I stand beneath the mystic moon. — Edgar Allan Poe

The Buzz, Etc.

Did you know there are 16 species of milkweed native to North Carolina?

Sixteen! June is National Pollinator Month. Celebrate all that buzzes, hums and flutters by adding some native flowering plants to your little corner of the great, wide world.

BURNEY HARDWARE

Burney Hardware has proudly served Moore County for more than 100 years, founded by Gus Burney in 1921. Operating under the slogan, “If it’s hardware, we have it!”, the store quickly began thriving in downtown Aberdeen. Upon retiring in the late 1950s, Mr. Burney sold the business to his employees, and in 1982, local farmer S.R. Ransdell purchased the store, marking the beginning of a new family legacy.

The Ransdell family immersed themselves in the business, with S.R.’s wife, son and daughter-in-law all playing key roles. In 1989, the store expanded into a 13,500-square-foot facility just outside of town to better serve the growing customer base. Over the years, S.R.’s grandson, Sam Ransdell, joined the leadership team, helping guide further growth, resulting in multiple renovations to the Aberdeen store and the opening of a second location in Seven Lakes in 2018.

Today, Burney True Value Hardware is known for its exceptional customer service and highly knowledgeable staff. The store offers a wide range of products and services including equipment rentals and repair, power tools, lumber, metal fabrication, propane tank refills, grill sales and repairs, 3D printing and fully stocked garden centers at both locations.

In 2024, Burney Hardware was inducted into the Best of the Pines Hall of Fame, a recognition earned by being voted the area’s Best Hardware Store for ten consecutive years!

LOCAL LEGACY BUSINESSES

SANDHILLS WOMAN’S EXCHANGE –

103 years serving Moore County –

Photo by Laura Gingerich

“I imagine living 17 miles from the tiniest town, caring for 2 cows, 4-8 children and all the yearly budget depending on whether the tobacco and cotton crops were good or poor and suddenly finding by spending a few hours a week hooking rugs out of thread bare garments or knitting cotton gloves for the more fortunate who hunted to hounds, that you could have from $5 to $200 a month to spend on luxuries. It would be hard for us to really conceive the joy it brings... And a feeling of satisfaction to those in touch with this enterprise.”

– Darthea Cowgill, circa 1928.

The Sandhills Woman’s Exchange (SWE) was founded in 1922 in response to the hardship and isolation faced by women in the rural Sandhills region of North Carolina. Inspired by the Federation of Woman’s Exchanges — a national movement begun in the 1830s to help women earn income — Katherine Tuckerman, Molly Lovering and Darthea Cowgill recognized a way to support local women by offering an outlet to sell handmade goods and home-cooked foods.

Starting humbly on the porch of the Way House on Pee Dee Road, the SWE quickly gained support. With the help of Gertrude Tufts, the organization found its permanent home in a historic log cabin, originally built in 1823 by James Ray and later relocated to its current location in Pinehurst by James W. Tufts in 1896.

For more than a century, the SWE has been a beacon of empowerment, community and preservation. Volunteers and supporters have worked tirelessly to maintain its mission of “helping others help themselves.” Today, the SWE continues to operate as a nonprofit shop, a café serving lunch, and gathering place, supporting artisans and preserving the legacy of women’s resilience and resourcefulness in the Sandhills. It remains a living tribute to the power of compassion, creativity and community.

THE COUNTRY BOOKSHOP

– 72 years serving Moore County –

The world has changed over the last 72 years, but the magic that transpires in The Country Bookshop — the laughter, conversation, curiosity and the tangible connection between people and ideas — has remained constant. It’s that generative magic that has kept people walking through its doors since 1953, and the staff remains sincerely grateful every day for the opportunity to greet each visitor.

At The Country Bookshop, there is a belief that reading bridges divides, connects individuals to the divine, enhances the quality of cooking and allows readers to travel the world through stories. The Country Bookshop has books that offer portals to other times, provide perspective on how leaders have faced challenges, equip children and adults with tools to manage anxiety, explain ecosystems and teach practical skills like whittling or painting.

The team at The Country Bookshop believes that exploring its shelves invites readers to imagine better,

dream bigger and connect more deeply with the world around them.

The shop thanks its customers for choosing to shop locally — this choice enables The Country Bookshop to bring authors to town, place books into children’s hands and serve as a resource for nearly 100 registered book clubs.

The Country Bookshop has been owned by The Pilot newspaper (which also owns PineStraw Magazine) for the past 15 years. Over the decades, many hands have guided the bookshop, and this continued leadership has made it possible for the store to thrive for nearly threequarters of a century.

The most important hands that hold The Country Bookshop are your hands. Each time someone picks up a book, shakes an author’s hand or opens the door handle to walk in and buy a book, your hands and their actions deliver The Country Bookshop into the future. Your support allows the team at the store to continue the tradition of service, getting books into the hands of our community.

SANDHILLS CHILDREN’S CENTER

– 55 years serving Moore County –

Started in 1970 Sandhills Children’s Center began with a single student — Shari Davis — and a bold mission: to support children with developmental challenges in Moore County. By 1985, enrollment had grown to 60 children, and the organization expanded into its Central Drive location in 1989, adopting its current name shortly after. In 1990, the center embraced an inclusive model, integrating children with and without special needs in a unified, supportive environment.

Today, Sandhills Children’s Center is one of fewer than 20 developmental day centers in North Carolina, employing around 60 staff members. Their team includes preschool lead

teachers licensed by the state and therapists providing on-site speech, physical and occupational therapy tailored to each child’s needs.

As a 5-Star Child Care facility and nine time Best of the Pines award recipient, the center continues to distinguish itself with its holistic, inclusive approach to early childhood education. This year marks its 55th anniversary of service, and in November, they’ll celebrate with the 29th annual Festival of Trees at The Carolina Hotel. With deep roots and a forward-looking vision, Sandhills Children’s Center remains a cornerstone of early education in the community.

THE O’NEAL SCHOOL

– 54 years serving Moore County –

The O’Neal School began in 1971 with just 35 students in grades 4 - 6. It was founded by a dedicated group of parents led by the late Ted Taws and was supported by land donated by Mary Elaine Meyer O’Neal. Today, it is a thriving PreK3 - Grade 12 college preparatory institution situated on a scenic 40-acre campus.

Guided by its mission to foster academic excellence, strength of character and physical well-being, O’Neal leaves a lasting impact on its students well beyond graduation — all O’Neal graduates are accepted to colleges and universities across the country and abroad. The school proudly participates in the NC Opportunity Scholarship program, allowing more eligible students access to a private school education.

HUGHES SUPPLY

Hughes Supply has been a trusted name in plumbing supply and expertise in Moore County for over five decades. Established in Pinehurst in 1971, the business has grown steadily, serving homeowners and professionals with residential, commercial, and light industrial plumbing solutions. From irrigation systems to water treatment, and an expansive kitchen and bath showroom, Hughes Supply is where knowledge and experience meet unmatched service. The team takes pride in being able to help anyone who walks through their doors, from inexperienced

homeowners to seasoned plumbing professionals and anyone in between.

At the helm is Chris Lowder, a Pinehurst native and Appalachian State graduate with a background in accounting. After a stint in finance left him unfulfilled, Chris returned home, joining the business where his father had long served as manager. When his dad retired six years ago, Chris stepped into the role, bringing both heart and vision. Under his leadership, the team has become a family—committed to growth, excellence, and community.

Named Moore County Home Builders Association’s 2023 Associate of the Year, Hughes Supply continues to grow and thrive. For Chris, it’s more than a business — it’s a legacy in motion. He is excited about the prospect of his son joining the Hughes team in the future, marking the beginning of the third generation in the business.

Chris Lowder manager, with Santa Claus

POPE’S ELECTRIC SERVICE,

Pope’s Electric Service, Inc. is a proud third-generation, family-owned business founded in 1972 by Billy R. and Margaret Pope. Today, brothers Randy, Robby and Reggie — born and raised in Moore County — carry on the legacy with over 100 years of combined experience. From childhood, the Pope brothers gained hands-on training in the field, learning the trade directly from their father.

What sets Pope’s Electric apart is their deep roots in the community, unwavering commitment to quality and the personal pride they take in their work. Pope’s specializes in residential, industrial and commercial wiring, generator installation and electrical service work.

A founding member of the Moore County Chamber of Commerce, the company now employs 16 people – seven of whom are from the Pope family. All three owners hold unlimited electrical licenses and continue to grow professionally in this ever-evolving field.

was voted “Best Electrician” in

of the

winner for 2020, 2021 & 2022 and are proud members of the

Their shop in Aberdeen reflects their personality — tight-knit and proud — with family mementos and even a few deer mounts from their favorite pastime: hunting.

From humble beginnings in a home garage to a thriving company with an office, shop, and fleet of trucks, the Pope family is proud to have built a local legacy business over the last 53 years. Rooted in tradition and driven by expertise, Pope’s Electric Service stands as a trusted name in Moore County. With decades of experience and a deep commitment to quality and community, the Pope family continues to lead with pride, keeping the legacy — and the lights — burning bright.

Pope’s

Best

Pines

NFIB.

Billy & Margaret Pope

ARTS COUNCIL OF MOORE COUNTY

Founded in 1973, the Arts Council of Moore County (ACMC) is a nonprofit, charitable organization whose mission is to inspire and strengthen our community through the arts. ACMC is an official partner of the NC Arts Council and our county’s designated agency for regional arts. Activities include programs for 15,000+ students, exhibits for 550+ local and national artists, concerts by world-class musicians, support for area artists, and scholarships for talented children. Other programs include art tours to destinations of cultural interest, Autumnfest in partnership with the Town of Southern Pines, support for area arts organizations with grants, and an online arts directory. Nearly all of their programs are free and open to the public – and reflective of their rich diversity, facilitating access to the arts for everyone. The Arts Council’s galleries and offices are at Campbell House, located in a picturesque 14-acre park at 482 East Connecticut Avenue in Southern Pines. For more than 100 years, Campbell House has been a beacon of culture, enhancing and influencing civic life. Once a part of the Weymouth estate, Campbell House is among our region’s most significant landmarks.

CAROLINA EYE ASSOCIATES

– 48 years serving Moore County –

Carolina Eye Associates (CEA) was established in 1977 by Robert Gale Martin, M.D. and George Tate Jr., M.D. Dr. Martin was a North Carolina native, UNC educated and a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces. He envisioned a new way to provide ophthalmologic care to the community by bringing modern ophthalmic surgical techniques, most notably small-incision cataract surgery, the finest technology and stateof-the-art equipment to his practice. CEA expanded to their current, 54,000-square-foot facility on Midland Road in 1982 in order to offer outpatient surgery for their patients, a foresight that Dr. Martin had well before most of the medical community. It was the first Ambulatory Surgery Center to be certified by Medicare in the Southeast.

An Enduring Legacy

Dr. Martin passed away in 2008, but even after 48 years, CEA remains an organization of highly skilled eye care professionals working together to provide excellence in eye care across the state. CEA has grown to 17 surgeons, 29 doctors, over 300 employees and now operates 13 centers across North Carolina and one in South Carolina, each equipped with the latest technological advancements, allowing them to provide a broad

range of effective surgical and aesthetic services. At CEA, the goal has always been to deliver quality, compassionate patient care, provided by a top-notch, specialized and experienced staff. Medical and surgical services including LASIK and the diagnosis, management, and treatment of cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic eye and corneal disease, as well as cosmetic services such as BOTOX®, dermaplaning, injections and fillers, while providing highly specialized and customized care for each patient.

Founder of CEA, Dr. Martin (front and center, seated), to his right, Dr. Anna Fakadej still with CEA today, to her right, Dr. Daniel Messner, still with CEA today and far left, Dr. John Miller, still with CEA today

Dr. Martin used state-of-the-art equipment to bring modern eye care to Moore County in the late 70’s.

ROBERT’S GOLF SHOP

– 45 years serving Moore County –

Back in 1980, Bob Burwell was helping a friend — named Robert — get a new golf shop off the ground. A golf salesman and cabinet maker at the time, Bob eventually bought into the business, then ultimately bought out the other partners. By then, the name Robert’s Golf Shop had stuck. Since Bob’s full name is Robert too, it felt like fate.

Over the decades, Robert’s Golf Shop has weathered the changing tides of the sport with humor, grit, and a deep love of the game. COVID brought unexpected momentum, as golf’s outdoor appeal made it one of the few pastimes that remained accessible. With courses still open, they made a successful plea to the state to keep the shop open as well. The surge of interest brought a wave of younger players into the game, a shift Bob and his team have embraced with excitement.

When big box stores came into the area, Bob pivoted brilliantly, leaning into used clubs and personalized fittings while continuing his renowned club repair work — some of the best in the county.

Outside of the shop, Bob is a passionate champion of junior golf. He was instrumental in launching First Tee of the Sandhills. As a certified coach, he mentored hundreds of young players through the program and continues to support in any way he can. Bob was born and raised just down the street from Pinehurst #2. He and his longtime team have created more than a shop— they’ve built a community. With golf YouTubers and influencers now stopping by, Robert’s Golf Shop isn’t just surviving. It’s teeing off into a new chapter.

CAMINA DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION –

44 years serving Moore County –

For over four decades, Camina Design & Construction has been a pillar of design-build excellence in Moore County. Founded by José Camina in 1981, the business remains family run. It now thrives under the leadership of his daughter, Lily Camina-Vick.

Born and raised in Pinehurst, Lily began visiting job sites as a child and officially joined the business at age 14. After earning her economics degree from NC State, she returned home, taught herself AutoCAD and quickly rose to lead designer on the team. Lily may have inherited her father’s eye for design, but she’s spent years honing her own sense of aesthetic.

Now president of Camina Design, Lily leads a close-knit, five-person team delivering fully in-house, high-touch residential and small office designs across the Sandhills. Every project is conceived, designed and brought to life entirely within their office — ensuring a seamless vision from first sketch to final walk-through. There is no use of stock plans or reliance on outside design consultants.

Some of Camina Design’s newest projects include an organic-modern estate in horse country, a modern take on a prairie-style home and a traditional colonial home in Forest Creek.

The Camina family’s legacy is defined by a commitment to quality, sustainability, and a deep connection to the local community. Camina Design continues to shape the architectural landscape of Moore County, one project at a time.

José Camina in the 1980s

1980

2019

1995

BREWERS PAINTING

Established in 1985, Brewers Painting & Home Improvement is a family-owned business serving Moore County and the surrounding areas. Owner Shelton Brewer, a Southern Pines native and Union Pines High School graduate, was introduced to the trade by his grandfather at the age of 10. Following in the footsteps of four generations of skilled craftsmen, Shelton brings decades of hands-on experience to every project. His expertise spans a wide range of painting techniques, including cabinet refinishing, staining, faux and textured finishes — skills developed through both residential painting and a background in automotive painting. This diverse experience ensures a high-quality, detail-oriented approach to every job.

One of the things that sets Brewers Painting apart is a deep commitment to customer satisfaction. Shelton and his brothers personally complete every project — no subcontractors — ensuring consistent workmanship and strong relationships with clients. That dedication has earned them the honor of “Best Interior/Exterior Painting” in the Best of the Pines awards for four consecutive years.

Beyond painting, he enjoys horticulture particularly growing plants and grafting fruit trees. He also cherishes spending time with his family — his wife Herlinda, five kids and two grandchildren. He has spent time working in St. Augustine, Florida, but his heart has always been in Moore County — his lifelong home.

For Shelton, his greatest accomplishment is not only building a trusted local business but also loving and supporting his family every step of the way.

Grandpa Charlie Freeman, who began teaching Shelton Brewer to paint when he was just 10 years old.

1986 Grand Opening

THE ABERDEEN CAROLINA AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY

The Aberdeen Carolina and Western Railway Company is the largest privately held regional railroad in North Carolina. Owned by Robert Menzies and operated by his children, CEO Anthony Menzies and President Jennifer White, the company runs over 150 miles of track from Charlotte to Gulf, with a southern branch through Pinehurst to Aberdeen.

Founded in 1987 when Robert Menzies purchased and rebranded the line, ACWR has grown from a single locomotive and few customers into a major regional carrier. It serves key industries including agriculture, chemicals, lumber, plastics and aggregates. Major

customers include Perdue Farms, Mountaire Farms, Charlotte Pipe, Plastic Express and others.

ACWR’s roots trace back to the late 1800s, when its predecessor, the Aberdeen and West End Railroad, served the timber industry and carried passengers to Pinehurst Resort. Passenger service ended after World War II.

Robert Menzies invested heavily in modernizing the line, replacing the 1912-era track and rebuilding infrastructure. After 16 years to break even, ACWR reached profitability and in 2022 acquired full ownership of the 104-mile Piedmont Subdivision.

Beyond freight, the company has launched an entertainment division designed to revive the golden age of rail travel. They now offer themed rail excursions like “The Carolina Christmas Train” and “A Journey in Time,” a social dining ride through the Sandhills. They also operate a static locomotive bar in Pinehurst and rent vintage passenger cars for private events.

ACWR has grown 2,100% in 38 years and has helped spur economic development across central North Carolina, contributing to the creation of more than 150,000 jobs. With robust freight service and innovative passenger offerings, ACWR plays a vital role in the region’s transportation and tourism sectors.

THE KING’S CUSTOM FRAMING

– 34 years serving Moore County –

Founded by Jeff King in 1991, The King’s Custom Framing began as part of Pinehurst Hardware & Supply Co. Jeff honored the shop’s legacy by retaining master framer Leonard Tufts until his retirement in the late 1990s. Since then, the shop has served Pinehurst and the Sandhills as the go-to destination for high-quality custom framing and printing.

James Stalnaker, a U.S. Marine Corps retiree, purchased The King’s Custom Framing in June 2022. While stationed in Okinawa, Japan, James learned the art of hand-crafted framing from a local artisan. Since 2002, he has framed everything from diplomas and fine art to military medals and shadow boxes.

James brings both tradition and innovation to the business, continuing the shop’s reputation for craftsmanship and personalized service. Alongside a skilled design team, he offers expert guidance and uses only the finest materials to create custom frames that fit any vision or budget.

Whether preserving a treasured family photo or a priceless painting, The King’s Custom Framing is ready to help you showcase what matters most.

STAR RIDGE AQUATICS

32 years serving Moore County –

Joe Granato founded Star Ridge Aquatics, LLC in 1993, after graduating from the Sandhills Community College horticulture program. He and his wife Rebekah run the business together, which specializes in building custom water features from koi ponds to pondless waterfalls. They can transform any space into a truly peaceful retreat.

Star Ridge Aquatics builds and services custom water features, grows and sells aquatic plants and offers a large supply of premium select koi and goldfish. They are the only full-service aquatic plant nursery, pond supply center and water feature installation company in North Carolina.

Star Ridge Aquatics has become a go-to destination for decorative water installations, and the Granatos invite all locals to come for a visit.

Nestled in farmland right off of Hwy 15-501 in Carthage, Star Ridge Aquatics is more than a business. It’s a destination. Guests are invited to stroll through on-site gardens, admire vibrant fish and aquatic plants and enjoy a working farm offering seasonal fruits and farm-fresh eggs.

Open year-round, Star Ridge Aquatics welcomes visitors to dream up their own backyard oasis. Through an active social media presence, the business highlights emerging trends, such as recreational ponds that offer owners a refreshing swim in a natural oasis.

Creating a family owned and operated business that blends natural design with community spirit, the Granatos feel blessed to have grown their family, their work and their lives right here in Moore County. There is no place they’d rather be!

MARTHA GENTRY

For over 25 years, Martha Gentry has been Moore County’s top-selling real estate agent. This distinction has been earned through relentless dedication, innovative strategy and a deep commitment to her community. As leader of The Gentry Team at Re/Max Prime Properties of Pinehurst, she has built a powerhouse operation that blends talent, technology, and teamwork into a seamless client experience.

Being the No. 1 selling team is a testament to the systems and professionals Martha has assembled over decades. Ranked consistently in the top ten for RE/MAX Carolinas since 2002 and in the top 1% of agents nationwide, her team delivers personalized service with a client-first focus.

Martha’s philosophy — “Everybody Wins” — extends beyond the closing table. Her team supports local events like Pinehurst’s beloved Live After 5 concert series and contributes to organizations including Toys for Tots and the Children’s Miracle Network. Whether buying or selling, clients benefit from Martha’s negotiation skills, market insight, and a team that knows Moore County like home — because it is. Martha Gentry has not just sold homes; she’s helped shape a stronger, more connected community.

GARNER LAW FIRM, PLLC

Jennifer Barnhart Garner is an attorney in Southern Pines who practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Estate Administration, Elder Law and Residential Real Estate. She grew up in Southern Pines and graduated from Pinecrest High School. She then went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude from UNC Greensboro with her BA in Political Science. Jennifer received her Juris Doctor from Wake Forest University of Law in 1994 and returned directly to Moore County where she has practiced in her home county ever since. Jennifer has dedicated her career to supporting the needs of clients navigating estate planning, dementia diagnoses, longterm care, Medicaid, death of a loved one and other complex life transition issues.

She is a member of the local and state Bar as well as the

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. Early in her career she served two terms on the Moore County Board of Education. Jennifer has served several terms on the NC Bar Association Elder Law Council.

Jennifer is extremely involved in the community having served on many boards over the last 30 years including the Moore Regional Hospital Foundation Professional Advisory Council, the Sandhills Career Education Partnership Executive Committee, Sandhills Area Chamber of Commerce, FirstTee of the Sandhills, Southern Pines Jaycees, Retired and Seniors Volunteer Program, and the Public Education Foundation of Moore County.

Jennifer resides in Southern Pines with her husband, Brad, and their three children, Caitlin, Andrew and Emma.

LOOKIN’ FOR LINDA

– 30 years serving Moore County –

In November 2020, a new chapter began for Lookin’ for Linda, a beloved women’s boutique with a loyal following for over 25 years. After many successful years at the helm, founder Linda Taylor made the heartfelt decision to retire, which included closing the doors of the store. Her departure marked the end of an era—but not the end of the store’s story.

Norma Bryant, a dedicated team member since 2014, saw an opportunity to continue Linda’s legacy. After thoughtful consideration and collaboration with Linda, Norma purchased the business and reopened the boutique, infusing it with fresh energy while maintaining its original charm.

Today, Lookin’ for Linda remains a destination for stylish, high-quality women’s apparel. Norma continues to carry many of the trusted brands that customers have long appreciated such as FDJ, Oppera, Foxcroft , Weavz and Toofan. Some of her new additions are Joseph Ripkoff, Clara Sun Woo, Pure, and Shana, plus the large jewelry selection.

At the same time, she has expanded the store’s offerings to better reflect the needs of a diverse clientele by providing a selection of stylish options for petite, misses, and plus sizes.

In addition to the updated inventory, Norma has introduced a personalized shopping experience with her exclusive, by-appointment “Ladies Night Out” events. These private shopping sessions are designed for groups of five or more and provide a two-hour window of uninterrupted, curated service.

With a renewed vision and deep respect for the boutique’s roots, Norma is leading Lookin’ for Linda into an exciting future—where every woman can find something that makes her feel confident, comfortable and celebrated. Norma invites everyone to come to the store and enjoy the experience of shopping with them. (Mention the word “Legacy” and get a 10% discount on your purchase!)

Staff: Mary Jo Crissman, Sylvia Honeycutt and Jan Winter

Noma Bryant

OPULENCE – 28 years serving Moore County –

On an iconic corner in downtown Southern Pines sits The Mews building, home to Opulence of Southern Pines and DUXIANA. Only a few remember when this plot was home to one of the Southeast’s original Standard Oil gas stations in the 1940’s. When Neal and Tanda Jarest purchased the building in 1999, it had more recently been a Nascar-themed restaurant, but they had a vision of luxury. Neal was soon to retire from his 21 years of service in United States Army Special Operation Command and Tanda was ready to elevate her fine bedding and bath shop from its original location on Broad Street (where the Country Bookshop now sits) to a more expansive space. Together they renovated the building, including enclosing the front courtyard and reimagining a floor plan that created multiple retail spaces.

The facelift was transformative for their business. Over the last two decades, the Jarests have become the official DUXIANA dealer of the Carolinas, one of the highest quality contemporary bedding manufacturers in the world, and opened two new stores in Raleigh’s Cameron Village and Ponte Vedra Beach’s posh Sawgrass Village.

Their sophisticated selection of luxury items for the home includes designer bed and bath linens, home accessories and exclusive fragrances, plus fine sleepwear and loungewear for the entire family. This has made their shop a favorite destination for residents and visitors for 28 years ... because everyone deserves a bit of Opulence in their life.

ROWLAND & YAUGER ATTORNEYS & COUNSELORS AT LAW

Both Mike Rowland and Brett Yauger are Moore County locals with strong ties to the community. After realizing they shared the same small town values and “blue collar” work ethic, they joined forces in 1999 to form their Moore County-based law practice. Decades later, this mindset has proven to be their formula for success. They believe in good ol’ fashioned customer service and taking great care of their clients.

Over the last two decades they’ve seen their business grow as they’ve faced and overcome adversity together. Through it all, they’ve learned a lot, adapted and made changes to continue to move forward. They’ve added associates along the way, growing to a full staff of three attorneys, including Alec Kosminskas, and 15 paralegals and legal assistants working across two offices in Carthage and Asheboro. Their areas of practice include personal injury, criminal defense, family law, bankruptcy, security, workers compensation and disability. Serving the hardworking community they grew up in — and are now raising their own families in — has always been important to Mike and Brett. That commitment is beginning to come full circle: Mike’s oldest daughter now runs their personal injury services and serves as office manager, while another daughter leads their criminal law division. They hope more of their children will one day carry on the legacy they’ve built.

DRS. MONROE & MONROE

– 25 years serving Moore County –

Since 2000, Dr. Kamron Monroe and Dr. Clement Monroe have been dedicated to providing compassionate, family-friendly dental care to the Moore County community. The office of Drs. Monroe & Monroe offers a comprehensive range of dental services for patients of all ages — from routine cleanings and general dentistry to advanced treatments like dental implants and cosmetic enhancements — all within a warm and welcoming environment.

Their experienced team is committed to making every visit comfortable and stress-free, ensuring personalized attention and care tailored to each patient’s unique needs. Their staff takes pride in building lasting relationships with their patients, many of whom have been with them for generations.

New patients are always welcome. They invite you to come see why families across Moore County trust Drs. Monroe & Monroe with their smiles!

FLOWLAND

– 24 years serving Moore County –

Tucked along Highway 1 in Aberdeen, Flowland CounterCulture Outlet has been a 24-year-old love letter to Moore County’s free spirits, serving the community as more than just a local business. Flowland was founded by Aberdeen native, William Dean II, in December of 2000, after a trip to the Sydney Olympics with his wife inspired him to bring a “hemporium” and counter-culture shop to Moore County. He had just left his job as a stockbroker, and was looking for something so he could spend time closer to home, with his 18-month old daughter, Zoe, and son, Willie, on the way. Since opening, it’s grown into an eclectic department store, of sorts, featuring Moore County’s #1 Hemp Dispensary, featuring CBD, CBN, and lots of other helpful cannabinoids derived from the plant. The store offers everything from wellness products and metaphysical goods to disc golf gear and bohemian fashion, alongside an assortment of unique gifts and goods you won’t find anywhere else. At one point, it

featured a skateboard “department”, but that has since grown into its own location, N2Flow Skateboards, in Southern Pines. Dean’s impact on the area extends well beyond retail. As founder & chair of the non-profit Skaters for Moore, he helped rally the community to build the Elaine T. Baillie Skatepark in Southern Pines — a dream nearly two decades in the making. Its ribbon cutting happened exactly 24 years to the day after Dean opened Flowland, tying two major milestones together in a meaningful way. Dean runs the store with the help of his 24-year-old son, born just two weeks before Flowland itself, alongside nine great employees that keep the ship sailing. Flowland is rooted in family, freedom and the pine trees he grew up beneath — and it shows. “Moore County is home,” Dean says. “It’s where I was raised, where I planted roots, and I’ve been fortunate enough to watch them grow into what our community is today.”

Owner William Dean II speaks at the ribbon cutting of Southern Pines’ new skatepark, 24 years to the day after opening Flowland. As the Founder & Director of Skaters for Moore, Dean was instrumental in making the park a reality.

Photo by Joseph Hill

JMG ORTHODONTICS

– 22 years serving Moore County –

Born in New Orleans, Dr. J. Mark Griffies was raised in various locations across the globe as the son of an Air Force JAG officer. He earned his biology degree from Notre Dame, dental school at Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, Texas and orthodontic residency in the Army at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Dr. Griffies discovered his passion for dentistry at 16 while shadowing a friend’s father. His interest deepened during his time as a general dentist in the military, where a mentor encouraged him to specialize in orthodontics. His final military post brought him to North Carolina, where he and his wife, Janice, chose to plant roots and open JMG Orthodontics in 2003.

JMG Orthodontics specializes in comprehensive care for children and adults, including treatment for craniofacial anomalies, TMJ disorders and airway issues. Services include braces, clear aligners, 3D imaging, intraoral scanning and in-house 3D printing — all delivered in a welcoming environment with private treatment rooms and

patient comforts like fresh coffee and cookies.

Dr. Griffies is board certified by the American Board of Orthodontics and is an active member of multiple professional associations. Outside of work, he enjoys fishing, waterskiing, taekwondo and sharing dad-jokes with his four grandchildren. Married for 43 years, he treasures time with his family and the relationships he’s built with his patients.

After two decades in Moore County, Dr. Griffies considers it home. He’s grateful for the community’s charm, natural beauty and the opportunity to watch his patients grow in both confidence and smiles.

COMPANION ANIMAL CLINIC FOUNDATION

The Companion Animal Clinic Foundation (CACF) is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year! Since gaining their 501(c)3 status in 2005, CACF has worked to reduce the number of unwanted litters and eliminate the euthanasia of abandoned dogs and cats in central North Carolina by enabling affordable spay and neuter surgeries at the Sandhills Spay Neuter Veterinary Clinic at 5071 US Hwy 1 in Vass.

The journey has not been without challenges in recent years: a national shortage of veterinarians and vet technicians; a global pandemic; and soaring inflation, which doubled the cost of surgical supplies and medications. However, through diligent financial management, tireless fundraising, grant writing, and the unwavering support of their Board and donors,

they’ve been able to overcome these obstacles.

Today, the clinic is staffed by three surgeons and an incredible team of vet techs, bilingual schedulers, and senior administrators. Their seamless orchestration ensures that as many as 30 to 50 animals are sterilized daily, making a real impact in their community.

As of April 2025, the clinic has completed over 107,000 spay and neuter surgeries. With support of partners, donors, and grantors, CACF helps keep thousands of unwanted animals out of North Carolina’s animal shelters across 13 counties and saves taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Join their mission to save lives by making a donation today at companionanimalclinic.org/donate.

arts & entertainment

Although conscientious effort is made to provide accurate and up-to-date information, all events are subject to change and errors can occur!

Please call to verify times, costs, status and location before planning or attending any events.

SUNDAY, JUNE 1

THEATER. 1:30 p.m. Enjoy a performance of Roman Holiday. Cameo Art House Theatre, 225 Hay St., Fayetteville. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

BROADWAY. 2 - 4 p.m. Gary Taylor Dance and Imagine Youth Theater present Broadway, Fosse Style. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www. ticketmesandhills.com.

WRITING GROUP. 3 p.m. Are you interested in creating fiction, nonfiction, poetry or comics? Come to the Sunday Afternoon Writing Group. Connect with other writers and artists, chat about your craft, and get feedback about your work. All levels welcome. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: lholden@sppl.net.

MONDAY, JUNE 2

QUILTS OF VALOR. 12 - 4 p.m. Quilts of Valor meets the first Monday of each month to create lap quilts made especially for veterans. If you sew, bring your machine; if you don’t sew, you can iron or cut out fabrics for new designs. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

JAZZ CONCERT. 6:30 - 8 p.m. The Sandhills Community College Jazz Band presents “A Swingin’ Summer: Count Basie Meets the Beatles!” Free admission. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst.

Broadway, Fosse Style

Gary Taylor Dance and Imagine Youth Theater Sunday, June 1, 2 - 4 p.m. • Owens Auditorium

Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

TUESDAY, JUNE 3

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 18 and older are invited to enjoy short relaxation and brain enhancement exercises, ending with a mindfulness practice. Eve Gaskell will be the instructor. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

ALCOHOL INK ART. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Adults 55 and older can enjoy this easy and beautiful alcohol ink on tile art class. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4

ACTIVE ADVENTURES. 10 - 11 a.m. Little ones ages 2 - 5 can enjoy some active adventures. Recreation Center, 160 Memorial Park Court, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

HOME SCHOOL FUN ZONE. 11:15

a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Ages 5 - 13 can connect with other home-schooled kids. Recreation Center, 160 Memorial Park Court, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

THURSDAY, JUNE 5

NATURE CONNECTION. 10 - 11 a.m. All ages can connect with nature. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

EDUCATIONAL TRAINING. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older can get educational training. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SUPPORT GROUP. 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

The Sandhills Chronic Kidney Disease Support Group meets the first Thursday of each month at Clara McLean House, Shadowlawn Room, 20 FirstVillage Drive, Pinehurst. Info: angela@sandhillsckd.com or kathy@sandhillsckd.com.

FRIDAY, JUNE 6

SENIOR TRIP. 7 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Adults

PHOTOGRAPH

55 and older are invited to go on a dolphin cruise. It is an excellent way to see the Myrtle Beach area. Afterward enjoy lunch at Captain Nance’s Seafood. Cost is $62 for residents and $87 for non-residents. Info: (910) 692-7376.

RECOVERY PRESENTATION. 10:30 a.m. Attend “Recovery is Possible,” a presentation from Stephanie Heck with the FirstHealth Community Health Peer Support Program. Learn how peer support helps individuals and communities navigate mental health and substance use challenges while discovering local resources available to all. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: mhoward@sppl.net.

LUNCH BUNCH. 11:30 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to dine on varied cuisines each month visiting different area restaurants. Carpool with friends or meet at the restaurant. Dining locations will be chosen the week before. Info: (910) 692-7376.

OPENING RECEPTION. 5 - 7 p.m. “Art to Appreciate” is a judged exhibit and sale. Artists League of the Sandhills, 129 Exchange St., Aberdeen. Info: www. artistleague.org.

ART RECEPTION. 6 - 8 p.m. The Arts Council of Moore County presents “Blurred Boundaries.” The exhibit, on display through June 27, is free and open to the public. Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787.

SATURDAY, JUNE 7

CRAFT DAYS. Children and their families can come by the library for Drop-in Craft Days to work on crafts and coloring at their own pace. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave.,

JUNE CALENDAR

Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

KID’S SATURDAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Families are invited to a monthly themed craft event to socialize and get creative. Geared toward ages 3 - 10. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642 or www. vopnc.org.

GARDEN CARNIVAL. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Bring the family for a day of relay games, live music, face painting and a chance to pot your own plant. There will also be live animals, food trucks and a scavenger hunt. Event is free for garden members and $12 for non-members. Registration required. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens, 3245 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www. sandhills.edu/gardenevents.

FESTIVAL. 12 - 4 p.m. Enjoy the “Hello Summer” festival. Sandy Ramey Keith Park, 3600 U.S.1 Business, Vass. Info: www.townofvassnc.gov.

SUNDAY, JUNE 8

THEATER. 4 p.m. Watch a special screening of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Cameo Art House Theatre, 225 Hay St., Fayetteville. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

MONDAY, JUNE 9

PHOTO CLUB. 7 p.m. “M is for . . .” is the theme for the Sandhills Photography Club monthly meeting and competition. Photographers are encouraged to be creative in their photography skills and imagination to capture items that begin with the letter “M.” Guests are welcome whether you are a seasoned photographer or new to the art. Sandhills Horticultural Gardens Visitors Center, 3245 Airport Road, Southern Pines. Info: www.sandhillsphotographyclub.org.

TUESDAY, JUNE 10

HATHA YOGA. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older can increase flexibility, balance, stability and muscle tone while learning the basic principles of alignment and breathing. You may gain strength, improve circulation and reduce chronic pain practicing gentle yoga postures and mindfulness. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CANVAS ART. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older can enjoy this step-by-step tutorial with canvas art. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

AARP TALK. 12 - 12:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to join AARP for a fraud talk. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11

TECH HOUR. 11 a.m. Join a walk-in tech hour where you can get hands-on help with tech questions. Whether you’re new to computers, want to learn more about your smartphone, or want to learn how to use your eReader, staff will guide you. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: msilva@sppl.net.

THURSDAY, JUNE 12

CORNHOLE. 12 - 1 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to work on that aim and have some fun with friends. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SATURDAY, JUNE 14

FISHING. 9 - 10:30 a.m. Kids ages 5 - 16 can learn about fishing. Reservoir Park, 300 Reservoir Park Drive, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TASTE AND SEE. 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. Join “Steeped in Love” to learn the basics of planning, preparing and hosting a tea party that is relaxing for guests and easy for the hostess. Volunteers help prepare sweet and savory foods followed by a tasting and sampling of teas. Bring your own teacup and saucer. Reservations required. No cost, donations welcome. Casual dress. Sandhills Alliance Church, 111 Trotter Drive, Pinehurst. Info and reservations: (302) 561-4902 or patsyrpeele@gmail.com.

KAYAKING. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 18 and older can learn how to kayak. Reservoir Park, 300 Reservoir Park Drive, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SUMMER FREADOM. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. It’s time for the Summer FREADom kickoff. Join the Southern Pines Public Library and musician Will Johnson for a special

morning of fun on the Sunrise green space. Register for Summer FREADom, pick up your prizes, and dance to some tunes to celebrate the start of summer. Sunrise Theater, 250 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

MONDAY, JUNE 16

SUMMER ROCKSTARS. 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. Kids ages 7 - 14 can learn about music. Whitehall, 490 Pee Dee Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

STEM. 1 - 4 p.m. Ages 7 - 12 can enjoy STEM explorations with LEGOs. Train Station, 235 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TUESDAY, JUNE 17

BRAIN FITNESS. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 18 and older are invited to enjoy short relaxation and brain enhancement exercises, ending with a mindfulness practice. Eve Gaskell will be the instructor. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W.

Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BINGO. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to play 10 games of bingo. Cost is $4 for residents and $6 for nonresidents. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TEEN BOOK CHAT AND CHILL. 5 - 6 p.m. Share your favorite books, discover new ones, and connect with other teens who love to read. Bring a favorite book to show others or just bring yourself. Enjoy a discounted coffee courtesy of Swank. For ages 13 and older. Swank Coffee Shoppe, 232 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18

PLAY TIME IN THE PARK. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Kids ages 3 - 12, bring your parents and join other friends for giant checkers, giant Jenga, bubbles, and more. Don’t miss these two hours of fun. You may even meet some new friends. Downtown Park, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

“I’ve been going to a chiropractor for as long as I can remember. It is as important to my training as is the practice of my swing.” - Tiger Woods

Serving the Sandhills since 1991

Dr. Joseph D. Wahl, Chiropractic Physician

Dr. Jack Pandolfo, Chiropractic Physician 361 N.Bennett Street •Southern Pines 910-692-5207 • www.ncchiro.com

SUMMER BEANSTACK. 4 p.m. Join an information session on Beanstack, a summer reading challenge app, and other digital resources to personalize your child’s summer reading experience. Reading logs, eBooks, audiobooks, and streaming are all right at your fingertips. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

THURSDAY, JUNE 19

CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE. 6:30 p.m. This month’s speaker will be author and historian Dr. Angela M. Zombek, with a presentation on “Prisoner of War Escapes.” Meeting starts at 7 p.m. Open to the public. Civic Club, corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Ashe Street, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 246-0452 or mafarina@aol.com.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20

TOUCH-A-TRUCK. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Children and families are invited to Toucha-Truck. Kids can hop on big trucks, excava-

tors, honk the horn on cool cars, and pretend to steer firetrucks to save the day. First responders who drive emergency vehicles will be on hand to answer questions and give tours. Bring your swimsuit and stay to swim at the Southern Pines pool. Pool Park, 730 S. Henley St., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

SATURDAY, JUNE 21

DAN RIVER TUBING. 8 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Teens ages 13 - 17 can cool down in the Dan River with a relaxing tube ride. Pack a lunch for picnicking along the way. Busses depart from the Rec Center at Memorial Park, 160 Memorial Park Court, Southern Pines. Cost is $60 for residents and $84 for non-residents. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SATURDAY, JUNE 21

PRESENTATION. 10:30 a.m. Join Jim Reynolds for a special presentation on the “The Civil War Heritage of Army Unit Insignia.” Learn how these symbols and insignia evolved from their first use during

the Civil War to the patches that are worn today. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

SUNDAY, JUNE 22

STEAM. 2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Elementary-aged children and their caregivers are invited to learn about science, technology, engineering, art, and math and to participate in STEAM projects and activities. This month there will be some hands-on gardening fun with “Plant a Pizza Garden.” Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or kbroughey@sppl.net.

MONDAY, JUNE 23

SUMMER ROCKSTARS. 8 a.m. - 1 p.m. Kids ages 7 - 14 can learn about music. Whitehall, 490 Pee Dee Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

POKEMON. 1 - 4 p.m. Ages 7 - 12 can enjoy Pokemon master engineering. Train Station, 235 N.W. Broad St., Southern

Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TUESDAY, JUNE 24

PRINTMAKING CLASS. 9 - 11 a.m.

Youth ages 7 - 17 can attend a LEGO printmaking class. Cost is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787.

WELLNESS CLASSES. 10 - 11:30 a.m.

Adults 18 and older are invited to learn about different educational topics that may improve your overall mind, body and spirit. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SCOTTISH DANCING. 3 - 5 p.m. Ages 8 and up can learn Scottish dancing. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25

PICNIC IN THE PARK. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Kids ages 3 - 12 can join Southern Pines Parks & Recreation once a month this summer for fun games, crafts, and story time. Please bring your own picnic lunch. Free event. Sandhurst Park, 134 Barcroft Court, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BOOK CHAT AND CHILL. 5:30 p.m.

Wind down with a relaxed evening of bookish conversation. Bring a book to chat about, or one to swap if you’d like, and enjoy great company, good vibes, and plenty of literary inspiration. James Creek Cider House, 172 U.S. 1, Cameron. Info: mhoward@sppl.net.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27

SENIOR SHOW AND TELL. 10:30 a.m.

Take a trip down memory lane and share a piece of your past with others at the senior show-and-tell. Share memories, celebrate stories, and make new friends. If you’d like to present an item or story, please register in advance by calling the library or visiting the website. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: mhoward@sppl.net.

SENIOR PROM. 5 - 7 p.m. Adults 55 and older can join Southern Pines Parks & Recreation as for fun, reliving memories

JUNE

and making new friends at a Night in Paris Prom. Enjoy food, trivia contests, table games, and music. Bring your dancing shoes. Registration required. Formal attire is preferred but not required. Cost is $10 for residents and $14 for non-residents. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SATURDAY, JUNE 28

GAME SWAP. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. All ages are invited to a game swap. Do you have board games, card games, or collaborative tabletop games in good condition that you just don’t play anymore? Swap them for some new favorites. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

STORYTIME. 10:15 a.m. “Saturday Storytime” is a once-a-month program for children from birth to age 5. There will be stories, songs, rhymes, and smiles as caregivers and young children interact and explore the fun of language and early literacy. There

TWO WEEKLY MARKETS

Facility Courtesy of the Town of Southern Pines

THURSDAYS

604 W. Morganton Rd (Armory Sports Complex) Southern Pines, NC 28387

9 am to 12:30 pm | YEAR ROUND

SATURDAYS

Downtown Southern Pines 156 SE Broad Street. So Pines, NC 28388 8am to Noon | March 8 thru Nov. 22, 2025

are space constraints for this indoor story time. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.sppl.net.

TRIBUTE. 6 p.m. Enjoy a tribute to Elton John and Billy Joel featuring Face 2 Face. This is an outdoor event, come rain or shine. Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities, 555 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

MONDAY, JUNE 30

POURING ART CLASS. 9 - 11 a.m. Youth ages 7 - 17 can come to an acrylic pouring art class. Cost is $10 for members and $15 for non-members. Campbell House, 482 E. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2787.

ENGINEERING CLASS. 1 - 4 p.m. Ages 7 - 12 can enjoy the wizarding world of engineering. Train Station, 235 N.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

UPCOMING EVENTS

SIGNATURE BBQ SMOKED DAILY

FRESH SIDES PREPARED IN-HOUSE DAILY

Open at 11:00am daily NEED CATERING? WE CAN HELP WITH LARGE OR SMALL EVENTS.

130 SW Broad Street Southern Pines 910-684-0330

www.embersbbq.com

FRIDAY, JULY 4

PARADE. 9:45 a.m. Honor the USA at the annual Independence Day Parade. Come early and enjoy, or participate in, the annual pet parade. Patriotic pets kick off the fun and lead the main parade. Stick around following the parade to enjoy the Sandhills Farmers Market. Tufts Memorial Park, 1 Village Green Road W., Pinehurst. Info: www.vopnc.org.

MONDAY, JULY 14

JAZZ CONCERT. 6:30 - 8 p.m. The Sandhills Community College Jazz Band presents classic and contemporary big band favorites. Owens Auditorium, 3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst. Info: www.ticketmesandhills.com.

WEEKLY EVENTS

MONDAYS

WORKSPACES. 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Given Tufts Bookshop has a pop-in co-workspace open on Mondays and Thursdays in the up -

stairs conference room. Bookshop floor and private meeting room by reservation only. Info: www.giventuftsfoundation.com.

WORKOUTS. 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to get their workout on. Open Monday through Friday. Cost for six months: $15/resident; $30/ non-resident. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CHAIR YOGA. 9 - 10 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Help offset body aches encountered with desk work. This is an accessible yoga class for bodies not able to easily get up from and down to the floor. Do standing or sitting in a chair. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SENIOR FITNESS. 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to a TruFit gym class to improve strength, mobility and flexibility. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

RESTORATIVE YOGA. 12 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Practice gentle movements that may help alleviate pain, improve circulation and general well-being. Bring your own mat. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

GAME ON. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. You and your friends are invited to play various games such as corn hole, badminton, table tennis, shuffleboard, trivia, and more. Each week enjoy a different activity to keep moving and thinking. Compete with friends and make new ones all for free. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TAI CHI. 1 - 2 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Improve your balance, mentally and physically, to reduce the rate of falls in older adults while enhancing relaxation, vitality, and posture. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55

6-1

6-2

6-28 MUSIC

Elton John & Billy Joel Tribute  The U.S.A.’s 1st & longest running tribute to Billy Joel & Elton John! Weymouth Center

and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

TUESDAYS

PLAYFUL LEARNING. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Come for a drop-in, open playtime for ages 0 - 3 years to interact with other children and have educational playtime. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: (910) 295-3642.

BABY RHYMES. 10:15 a.m. Baby Rhymes is specially designed for the youngest learners (birth- 2) and their caregivers. Repetition and comforting movements make this story time perfect for early development and brain growth. There will be a duplicate session at 10:45 a.m. An active library card is required. Dates this month are June 3, 10, 17 and 24. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

GAME DAY. 12 p.m. Enjoy bid whist and other cool games all in the company

of great friends. For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CHESS. 1:30 - 5 p.m. Join a chess group, whether you have been playing for a while or have never played. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

LINE DANCE. 4:45 p.m. Put on your dancing shoes and line dance. This is for beginners and is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

WEDNESDAYS

CHAIR AEROBICS. 10 - 11 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Put on your boogie shoes and jam. Get fit to dance, partying up a sweat to great music through the ages. You can stand and chair dance to this energizing, low-impact aerobic workout. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

BRAIN BOOST. 10 - 11 a.m. Test your memory while creating new brain connections. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

KNITTING. 10 - 11 a.m. Learn how to knit or come to enjoy knitting with other people. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

BABY STORYTIME. 10 - 11 a.m. Have fun developing the foundation for your baby’s later reading with stories, songs, and play. Open to parents and caregivers of infants from newborn to 24 months. Moore County Library, 101 W. Saunders St., Carthage. Info: (910) 947-5335.

LEARN AND PLAY. 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Attend an open play date with your toddler or preschooler where there will be developmental toys and puzzles as well as early literacy tips on display for parents and caregivers to incorporate into daily activities. Dates this month are June 4, 11, 18 and 25. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut

August 18–24, 2025

Get ready to taste your way through Moore County

Join us for a week-long culinary celebration featuring mouthwatering dishes, local flavor and a huge community impact from your favorite local restaurants.

Even better? It’s all for a great cause.

Proceeds from Moore County Restaurant Week will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of the Sandhills, supporting programs that empower our local youth.

Dine local. Give back. Eat well.

Participating restaurants and menus will be announced in The Pilot this August. www.thepilot.com

Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

SENIOR FITNESS. 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to a TruFit gym class to improve strength, mobility and flexibility. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

PIANO. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Join Flint Long to play piano or just listen. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

LINE DANCING. 12 - 1 p.m. Looking for new ways to get your daily exercise in and care for yourself? Try line dancing. For adults 55 and older. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CHAIR VOLLEYBALL. 1 - 2 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Get fit while having fun. Free to participate. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

JUNE CALENDAR

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. All materials included. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

DANCE. 2 - 2:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Instructor Maria Amaya will introduce you to dance fitness in a class designed for anyone who wants to gently and gradually increase cardio function, mobility, and balance while having fun at the same time. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

LINE DANCING. 2 p.m. The town of Vass will host line dancing for seniors every other Wednesday. Cost is $5 per session. Vass Town Hall, 140 S. Alma St., Vass. Info: www.townofvassnc.gov.

TAI CHI. 2 - 3 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Improve balance, mentally and physically, to reduce the rate of falls in older adults, while enhancing relaxation, vitality, and posture. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W.

Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

LIBRARY PROGRAM. 3:30 p.m. At The Library After School (ATLAS) is an afterschool program for kindergarten through second graders who enjoy activities, crafts, stories, and meeting new friends. Dates this month are June 4, 11, 18 and 25. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

TAI CHI. 6:30 p.m. Learn tai chi. There is no age limit and the classes are open to the public. Cost is $10 per class. Seven Lakes West Community Center, 556 Longleaf Drive, Seven Lakes. Info: (910) 400-5646.

THURSDAYS

WORKSPACES. 7 a.m. - 3 p.m. The Given Tufts Bookshop has a pop-in co-workspace open on Mondays and Thursdays in the upstairs conference room. Bookshop floor and private meeting room by reservation only. Info: www.

giventuftsfoundation.com.

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. The year-round market features “producer only” vendors within a 50-mile radius providing fresh, local and seasonal produce, fruits, pasture meats, eggs, potting plants, cut flowers and local honey. Crafts, baked goods, jams and jellies are also available. Market is located at the Armory Sports Complex, 604 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines.

GIVEN STORY TIME. 10 a.m. Bring your preschooler to enjoy stories, songs and activities. Given Memorial Library, 150 Cherokee Road, Pinehurst. Info: 910-295-3642.

BALANCE AND FLEXIBILITY. 10 - 11 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to join a class that can help reduce the risk of taking a tumble while increasing the ability to recover if you do. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

MUSIC AND MOTION. 10:15 and 10:45 a.m. Does your toddler like to move and groove? Join Music and Motion to get those wiggles out and work on gross and fine motor skills. For 2 - 5 year olds. An active library card is required. Dates this month are June 5, 12, 19 and 26. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

GENTLE YOGA. 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to unwind, recharge and find peace in your week. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CHESS AND MAHJONG. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Bring a board and a friend. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

CABIN TOURS. 1 - 4 p.m. The Moore County Historical Association’s Shaw House grounds, cabins, and gift shop are

A rts & Culture

open for tours and visits. The restored tobacco barn features the history of children’s roles in the industry. Docents are ready to host you and the cabins are open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Shaw House, 110 W. Morganton Road, Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-2051 or www.moorehistory.com.

IMPROVERS LINE DANCE. 3 - 5:30 p.m. Put on your dancing shoes and line dance. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15501, West End.

LITTLE U. 3:30 p.m. Join Little U, Southern Pines Public Library’s preschool program for children ages 3 1/2 to 5, for stories, songs, rhymes and activities that explore the world of books, language and literacy. Little U is a fun and interactive program designed to help preschoolers develop early literacy skills in preparation for kindergarten and beyond. Dates this month are June 5, 12, 19 and 26. Southern Pines Public Library, 170 W. Connecticut

Opening Reception – Friday, June 6, 5:00-7:00

The Artists League’s June show is a Judged Exhibition and Sale. Winners for best in each category, as well as best overall, will be chosen and ribbons hung by each selected painting prior to the opening reception. The League’s best art will be on display in a variety of mediums, themes, and sizes. Please stop in to view the award-winning art, talk the artists, and enjoy some wine and hors d’oeuvres. The exhibit hangs through Friday, June 27. Our Gallery is Closed in July

This is a great time to stop in and visit our 34 Artists’ Studios. There are hundreds of paintings in every, medium, size and price. During the month of July, Studios are open Monday through Friday, 10:30-2:30.

Why should you Apply?

The Artist Support Grant (ASG) supports a broad range of talented North Carolina artists in multiple arts genres. The grant funds professional & artistic development for emerging & established artists to enhance their skills & abilities to create work or to improve their capacity to bring their work to new audiences.

Eligible artists that reside in Region 12 (Anson, Montgomery, Moore, Richmond, Stanly, & Union Counties) must apply through the Arts Council of Moore County by October 10th

Is your organization or school planning an arts project in Moore County?

Do you need funds to help get it off the ground or just need operating funds?

The Arts Council of Moore County may be able to help!

Application Deadline: August 22

Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-8235 or www.sppl.net.

TRIVIA NIGHT. 7 - 9 p.m. Enjoy a beer and some trivia. Hatchet Brewing Company, 490 S.W. Broad St., Southern Pines. Info: www.hatchetbrewing.com.

FRIDAYS

AEROBIC DANCE. 9 - 10 a.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy a low-to-moderate impact class with energizing music for an overall cardio and strength workout. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

JAM SESSION. 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Do you like to play an instrument, sing or just listen to music? Come to a music jam session. This is a free program. Moore County Senior Enrichment Center, 8040 U.S. 15-501, West End.

TAP CLASS. 10 - 11:30 a.m. For adults

55 and older. All levels welcome. Cost per class: $15/resident; $30/non-resident. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SENIOR FITNESS. 11:30 a.m. Adults 55 and older are invited to a TruFit gym class to improve strength, mobility and flexibility. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

QIGONG. 1 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Classes will consist of chair and standing movements that can help soothe achy feet and tight hips while easing lower back pain and restriction in mobility. Free of charge. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

FARMERS MARKET. 1 - 6 p.m. Come to the Monroe Street Farmers Market for locally grown produce, raised meats, honey, breads, pastries and more. Quida’s Food

Truck Park, 310 Monroe St., Carthage. Info: monroestreetmarket310@gmail.com.

BRIDGE. 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. For adults 55 and older. Enjoy games of bridge with friends. All materials included. Douglass Community Center, 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. Info: (910) 692-7376.

SATURDAYS

MOORE COUNTY FARMERS MARKET. 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. The market features “producer only” vendors within a 50-mile radius providing fresh, local and seasonal produce, fruits, pasture meats, eggs, potting plants, cut flowers and local honey. Crafts, baked goods, jams and jellies are also available. The market runs through the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Downtown Southern Pines, 156 S.E. Broad St., Southern Pines.

SANDHILLS FARMERS MARKET. 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. The Sandhills Farmers Market features many of the area’s farms,

through Saturday from 8:00am to 5:00pm 476 Hwy 74 West, Rockingham, NC 28379 @honeybeebridalandboutique

CATERINGQ

Culinary Masterpieces, Tailored to Your Event’s Needs

Puzzle Answers

Drüdles

1. Two ships passing in the night

2. Fish out of water

3. A drop in the ocean

4. Fishy business

Sudokos

Associations

#1 Superheroes_______

Super, Bat, Aqua, Spider

Computer parts

Look Closely

1. Sandhills Community College Gardens, Pinehurst

2. Camelot Park, Pinehurst

3. Pinehurst Harness Track, Pinehurst

4. Sandhills Woman’s Exchange, Pinehurst

5. Community Presbyterian Church, Pinehurst

6. Coca Cola Plant, Aberdeen

7. Methodist Church, Aberdeen

8. Carthage Mural

9. Sunrise Theater, Southern Pines

10. Train Switch, Aberdeen

11. Wodlawn Cemetary, Southern Pines

Mouse, Port, Keyboard, Moniter

Stop ________

Watch, Sign, Light, Payment

Words that when first letter is removed are liquids

Sale, Sport, Scream, Swine

#2 _________ Twist

Oliver, French, Plot, Lemon

Shades of Green

Mint, Olive, Forest, Lime

_____ Ball

Snow, Beach, Pickle, Gum

Brush Types

Paint, Hair, Tooth, Makeup

#3 _________ Glass

Hour, Looking, Shot, Magnifying

Recognition for a job well done Kudos, Props, Praise, Credit

Things you see on stage

Scenery, Lighting, Curtain, Actor

Types of Cards

Cue, Greeting, Playing, Post

#4 Things you watch

Language, Step, Weight, Movie

Things that break News, Glass, Hearts, Bones

Blood ________

Orange, Relative, Hound, Test

Diminutive

Minute, Tiny, Small, Little

Whats Wrong?

1. Jack-o’-lantern in tree

2. Donut swing

3. Fish in bird’s nest

4. Shutter falling off

5. Downspout pointing up

6. Tree being axed in wrong direction

7. Pencil house columns

8. Bowling ball on lawn

9. Feet in bush

10. Trumpet playing in mailbox

11. Hopscotch missing “5”

12. &. House numbers backwards (and not a match)

14. Gate made of golf clubs, arrow and pool stick

15. Gate finial upside down

16. Eight ball on lawn and wrong color

Number Chain

17. Snowman in spring

18. Airplane upside down

19. Squirrel skiing shrub slope

20. Broccoli tree

21. “For Sale” sign upside down

22. Ghost in window

23. Shutters too short

24. Eyes peering out from eaves

25. Cat head with antlers

26. One bird flying upside down

27. Weathervane coordinates

28. Tiled lawn

29. Front door hinge backwards

30. Artist name backwards

No Small Talk

True & False Quiz

1 T: The sand remained when the Atlantic Ocean, which millions of years ago, washed up to the area, receded eastward.

2. T: It was originally believed that consumption was hereditary, but science proved it was contagious before the turn of the century.

3. F: Annie did live and work in Pinehurst but died in Ohio in 1924.

16. T 17. F

18. T: A prior home in that location was built by grandfather, James Boyd.

19. F: First built, but only open 4-5 months of the year.

20. T: Also founder of Southern Pines

21. T

22. T

23. T

24. T

7. F: JWT stayed at the Ozone Hotel

12. T: The Clam Box was closed in 1972 to make way for a Wendy’s.

13. F: Named after Taylor who was known for his skills in the turpentine industry and who purchased the land for Taylortown from those earnings.

14. F: Olmsted never visited Pinehurst. The actual work was done by Warren Maning over many years.

15. T: Mitchum, working on a movie in Asheville in 1958, was sent there by the director to dry out after being arrested for marijuana possession.

The State of Play

Final Word

25. F

26. T

27. F: Naval Stores…pitch, tar and turpentine

28. T

29. T

30. F: Population in 2023 was 1018.

31. T: The vineyard closed after prohibition was declared and Vina Vista became Jackson Hamlet.

32. F: Peggy was a noted golfer and pilot. Husband Warren was a basketball player.

33. F: The resort did have its own brand of cigarettes, but they were named Pinehurst Cigarettes.

SandhillSeen

Gallery Reception: May Flowers

Artist League of the Sandhills

May 2, 2025

Photographs by Diane McKay

Cynthia Africk

Harry Neely

Liz Apodaco

Nori Eicholtz

Leigh Lassiter

Jane Harnum

Pam Griner, Kathy Petz

Brittney Carbone

Debbie Whitley

Carol Gradwohl

Paula Spinner

Emma Wilson

SandhillSeen Journey in

Style

Women of the Pines Fashion Show and Luncheon Fair Barn

April 16, 2025

Photographs by Diane McKay

Women of the Pines President - Kathy Newcomb

Mary Hilgenberg, Nancy Mack, Paulina Nicopoulos, Helen Kirk

Patricia Lloyd, Diana Mabie

Deborah Ceccardi, Brenda Jamison

Kim Ammons, Veronica & Jason Lloyd

Eve Avery

Fashion Show Models

Carol Mulcahy, Laura Morgan, Amy Cooper, Paulina Nicopoulos, Sue Hoffmanni

Tim Hilgenberg, Colon Wood, Jason Lloyd, Chris Denny, Ray Hernandez, Scott Grote

Amelda Hawze, Judy Dickerson, Mary Novitsky

Janelle Moore, Leslie Philip, Emily Walden Harris

Lisa Hammond, Deb Pennucci, Carol Krysevig

Magazine Magic

A glossy ticket to other worlds

By Ruth Moose

I LOVE

magazines. Always have, always will.

A new magazine is like a gift box to open and unwrap its surprises, goodies, dreams. Even the feel of them: not too heavy, not too bulky. Just right to tuck in your carry-on, under your arm as you go out the door, hold upright in the good light as you read. Perfect for the beach. Who wants to add the weight of War and Peace to the towels, snacks, blankets, chairs, umbrella . . . all to heft and carry? It’s a vacation, not powerlifting.

Magazines are color, inspiration, ideas. They may not weigh much, but they open doors to other worlds.

I grew up in a house with few books: a big Bible (my grandfather was a Baptist preacher); a child’s storybook Bible; a dictionary; some cookbooks (including the red and white gingham covered Original Better Homes & Gardens); and books my wonderful aunt (who was a librarian) sent me for birthdays and Christmas. Mary Poppins, Little Women, Black Beauty and, of course, Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. I cherished them all.

What was new and different and fresh every month, though, were our magazines. Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook and more. Reader’s Digest always. When a new issue came, my father would pick it up after supper and read out loud to my mother while she stood at the ironing board. “Life in These United States.” They would laugh together at the silly, harmless foibles of our common humanity. I did the vocabulary quiz after I browsed the articles. Sometimes, we’d get a Guidepost or Progressive Farmer. Though we lived in the city of Albemarle, both my parents had grown up on large farms. Our house was in the middle of some vacant lots where we raised vegetables for our table all summer, canning and freezing some for the winter.

Summers were long and hot and boring with little to occupy our days after Bible school’s two weeks ended. My mother had a daily rule: After lunch, which we called dinner, we had to observe “quiet time.” My brothers and I went to our rooms, closed the doors and were absolutely silent. No TV. No phones (of course). No talking. We didn’t have to nap, though sometimes we did.

What we had were our magazines. My brothers got copies of Boy’s Life and Wee Wisdom, maybe Ranger Rick. I got Seventeen for a few important years and felt very sophisticated. One of our neighbor girls, Jodie, was 5 years older than me and oh, so worldly. She loaned us True Story but my mother would never let me read it. That didn’t keep me from thinking up excuses to visit across the street and snatch some browsing time in Jodie’s under-the-mattress stash.

Meanwhile, Mother took her fresh copies of Better Homes & Gardens, McCall’s and Redbook to the front porch, where it was cooler, and she could browse at a leisurely pace all the new recipes, window treatments, and biographies of the rich and famous we all thought we knew. After devouring our magazines cover to cover, we’d pass them along to friends, family, neighbors.

They were what kept us current with the world, our vocabularies refreshed, our reading skills practiced. They made us feel richer in dreams, our universe widened with words and colors even when that universe didn’t extend much farther than the block we lived on. PS

Ruth Moose taught creative writing at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill for 15 years and tacked on 10 more at Central Carolina Community College.