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Thursday, November 8, 2018
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News from a neighbor! Thursday, November 8, 2018
• Belmont • Cramerton • Lowell • McAdenville • Mount Holly • Stanley
GEMS shows off new Quick Response Vehicle By Alan Hodge alan.bannernews@gmail.com
It's big, it's green-eye popping green- and it's now ready for duty at the new Mt. Holly Fire Dept. Lucia-Riverbend station. What is it? A brand new Gaston Emergency Medical Services (GEMS) Quick Response Vehicle (QRV) that will bring faster and more efficient service to area citizens in case of a medical emergency. The new vehicle replaces a much smaller one that's nine years old. The base vehicle itself cost $184,538 and has about $150,000 worth of state of the art emergency medical equipment inside. Features include room for two adult and one child patients. It has a powerload stretcher, equipment to monitor patient condition, life packs, and special safety seats and belts that will allow GEMS staff to tend to patients and at the same time be safely seated. Then there's the color. The QRV is painted a dayglo shade of green that makes sure no one can miss it when it's going down the road. Gaston County commission chair Chad Brown dubbed the hue “Lucia Lime”. Even though the QRV is based at Lucia-Riverbend, it will also serve a wider area that can include Mt. Holly, Belmont, and Stanley. The QRV will be busy. “We average about 400 calls a year just in the Lucia area,” said Gaston County EMS Director Mark Lamphiear. “Growth in this area means the number of calls will go up every year.” Lamphiear said he hoped to have QRVs in all four corners of the county. See GEMS page 2
GEMS staff members with the new Quick Response Vehicle (QRV) at Mt. Holly Fire Dept. Lucia-Riverbend station. Photo by Alan Hodge
Statue dedication coming up in Cramerton
Beth Kendrick has shared love of dancing for 40 years By Alan Hodge
By Alan Hodge
The finished Cramerton Veterans Memorial statue in artist Matt Glenn’s Provo, Utah, studio ready for shipment to Cramerton. Photo by Matt Glenn
alan.bannernews@gmail.com
alan.bannernews@gmail.com
This coming Saturday, November 10, will be one on the most significant in the history of the Town of Cramerton. That day will see the long awaited Veterans Memorial statue unveiled in the town center at 10am. The memorial has been a long work in progress. The statue was sculpted by Matt Glenn of Big Statues in Provo, Utah. According to Glenn, it took six months to create the work of art. Glenn has been creating bronze monuments for over 15 years. He has done monuments both large and small for communities all over the country as well as municipalities and private organizations. Landscape architect Gary Fankhauser of Viz Designs in Charlotte also helped to design the project. The statue arrived in Cramerton and was installed on the knoll in the plaza area across from City Hall just days before the ceremony. The bronze statue depicts a World War II soldier dressed in Cramerton Army Cloth and his daughter, representing family sacrifice and sense of pride. Both figures are saluting the American flag that flies nearby. See STATUE page 4
Beth Kendrick of Belmont proves that dancing has a lot more to do with life than just moving your feet and legs. Kendrick recently celebrated her fourth decade of teaching dancing to youths, and nearly all of those years have been at the Belmont Parks and Rec. Dept. “Beth is a unique person and really knows how to interact with kids,” said Parks and Rec. director Zip Stowe. “She's been working a long time with students ranging in age from childhood all the way up to college.” A native of Danville, Virginia, Kendrick, whose students have been known to call her “Betherina”, has been teaching dancing at Belmont Parks and Rec. for 38 years, but her love of dancing goes all the way back to her own childhood. Her first lessons began when she was just six years old in Danville. She continued taking ballet, tap, and jazz lessons there at the Anne Boyer School of Dance for 16 years. Kendrick expanded her horizons by studying art history in Italy and Spain. She attended Stafford College for three years. In 1975, she graduated from Averett College with a degree in humanities.
Beth Kendrick has plenty to be proud of by teaching her students dancing and life lessons for four decades. Belmont Parks and Rec. photo
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