I am very sorry and extremely saddened by the recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. Protesters clashed, a young lady was killed and others injured when a man, apparently intentionally, drove into a group of people. Further, two law enforcement personnel who were monitoring the protest from a helicopter both died when the helicopter crashed. Then there was the tension and violence between the group that had a permit to protest the pending removal of a Robert E. Lee statue and a group wanting to stop that protest. I extend profound sympathy to the family and friends of those who were killed.

The great challenge in moving on from this tremendous tragedy is to do so in a fashion that advances America along a path to being a far better country … a country united in love and peace. Dr. Ben Carson, referring to the uproar over President Trump’s comments on what happened in Charlottesville, is quoted in an article by Lisa Rein titled “Ben Carson Calls Criticism of Trump’s Charlottesville Response ‘Little Squabbles’ Being ‘Blown out of Proportion:’”

“When he talks about the fact that hatred and bigotry and these things are unacceptable,” Carson said of Trump, “he’s talking about everybody. … You’d think he was saying that hatred and bigotry are unacceptable except by neo-Nazis. We really have got to begin to think more logically and stop trying to stir up controversy and start concentrating on the issues that threaten us and threaten our children.”

Carson is on point. It troubles me beyond description that there seems to be very little logical thought happening in America or in the world. I realize that is a rather bold statement. Consider the facts in the Charlottesville disaster: A group gets a permit for, and organizes, a march to protest the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, Confederate general who was commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and who was later given command of all the Southern armies. The permitted group included members of some organizations that clearly promote hate, racism, anti-Semitism and other beliefs that have no place in America.

What happened in Charlottesville, and the followon, demonstrates the truth in Carson’s statement. Actions and reactions, to this point in time, say our response as a nation is failing. It is failing in great part because rational thought is a rare commodity in America and in the world.

Consider what the primary focus has been since the Charlottesville events of Aug. 12. It has been statements made by President Trump regarding that horrific situation. In his first statement, he referred to “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” There was a condemning outcry from politicians, many in the media and just about anybody who had access to a microphone or social media — or the ability to call a talk show. The major complaint was that the president did not call known hate groups by name. In a second statement two days after the first, he named the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and declared them “repugnant.” That statement was better received, but characterized as being made too late. The third statement came in a news conference during which the president returned to his contention that there was “blame” on “both sides.” His response in that news conference heightened the outcry. The demand was that he only assign blame to the groups that marched with a permit. That would have placed no responsibility on those persons who, without a permit, showed up in Charlottesville to protest the protesters.

On the matter of blame, it seems to me that President Trump spoke truth, but did so in an atmosphere where any truth contrary to the liberal agenda is simply not allowed. Consider that on that Saturday in Charlottesville, there were counterprotesters who confronted protesters in a threatening manner. Some screamed derogatory words, as did the protesters. There were violent, physical encounters between members of the two groups. When Jason Kessler, organizer of the statue protest, attempted to hold a press conference on Sunday, counterprotesters forced him from the park where that press conference was to be held. He was escorted from the park by law enforcement personnel.

The following Saturday, a small group of people gathered in Boston for a “Free Speech Rally.” Approximately 40,000 counterprotesters showed up. Because of their presence, the rally was ended early and the few attendees were transported from the area in police vans. In an article titled “After Media Calls Boston Rally Peaceful, Police Department Sends Out Tweets Telling Different Story,” Justen Charters of the Independent Journal Review wrote:

“An elderly woman had her American flag ripped from her hands. But it didn’t end there. She was dragged by a protester and got knocked to the ground. Also, members of antifa cursed out a Trump supporter wearing an Afghan War veteran hat as he talked with the media.”

Various sources reported that Boston police confirmed that people were throwing urine, bottles, rocks and other projectiles at officers. These would have been counterprotesters.

These incidents and others say to me that President Trump is correct in contending that the blame for what happened in Charlottesville extends beyond those groups he listed in his second statement. What alarms and disgusts me is that the focus is almost totally on his statements and hardly any attention is given to why Charlottesville even happened. Where are the thoughtful efforts to answer that question? I must have read 30 articles and scanned many more in gathering information for this column. I only saw a few lines that gave the question any attention. One was an article titled “What Are the Facts Behind Donald Trump’s Claims about the Charlottesville Violence?” posted at www. telegraph.co.uk:

The organizer of the rally, a local right-wing blogger and activist, has said he initially was spurred because of the city’s decision to remove the statue. But he has also said the event, dubbed “Unite the Right,” came to represent much more than that. Jason Kessler said last week before the event that it was “about an anti-white climate within the Western world and the need for white people to have advocacy like other groups do.”

Let me be crystal-clear. I abhor what happened in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. However, my call, like that of Carson, is for thoughtful evaluation of what happened and why. Only then can we move to resolve these issues and be a unified country. One does not have to look very far to find conditions that very likely feed Kessler’s claim of “an anti-white climate” and the “need for white people to have advocacy.” The list is almost limitless: Ferguson; Baltimore; the shooting of Republicans on a ballfield in Virginia; police officers gunned down in Dallas and elsewhere; Black Lives Matter stoking the fires of racial hatred and division; a mob unlawfully destroying a statue of a Confederate soldier in Durham, North Carolina. Where was/is the outrage in these instances?

America and the world need people who will speak truth and act on it. Newt Gingrich made a statement regarding the push to remove statues and memorials that some people find offensive. I think his comment describes a destructive malady that not only explains the general response of supposed leaders to the statue crisis, but their usual response any time speaking unpopular truth is required. As reported by Joe Crowe in an article titled “Gingrich: Mayors Who Remove Confederate Statues Are ‘Pandering,’” Gingrich is quoted as saying: ‘“Mayors in cities with majority-black populations who order the removal of statues that note Confederate history are ‘pandering’ in the wake of the Charlottesville, Virginia, violence.”’ This has become the political rule in America. That is, in the face of societal pressure, forget truth and what is right for people; go with what is expected to win elections.

We are failing to respond appropriately to Charlottesville. It is because people who engage in reasoned thought and have the “guts” to speak and act on the resulting truths from that process are rare. Not only are they rare, but they are also an endangered species. Carson is right: We really have got to begin to think more logically and stop trying to stir up controversy and start concentrating on the issues that threaten us and threaten our children.

A recent New Yorker article, “Identity Crisis,” caught my attention because it addresses a longtime interest: what names we give those dearest to us, our children, and how we come up with those names. It was penned by Lauren Collins, a young woman from Wilmington who has made her mark in the New York publishing world and whose career I have followed. “Identity Crisis” details her struggle to find a name she and her husband could agree on for the son coming their way.

Expectant parents know the names they bestow on their little ones can shape their lives positively or negatively, and most take that seriously. What would-be parents may not realize is that names, like fashion, can be trendy. A quick visit to the Social Security Administration website, which has tracked the most popular baby names in America for more than a century, confirms this.

Mary and John were the most popular baby names in the 1910s, but by the 2010s Emma and Jacob topped the lists. The lesson here is that if you do not want your child to be one of a large tribe of Emmas and Jacobs in the kindergarten class, a little more naming consideration might be in order. And don’t even think about an overly creative name involving a number, a hyphen, or an acute accent that will burden your bundle of joy all his or her life.

So how do people decide what to name their children?

Collins has some enlightenment on this point. She, her French husband and her daughter (Claudia) live in Paris, so she sees some naming trends not part of our culture. In Switzerland, Collins reports, an enterprising “baby-naming consultancy” will “‘create a new and independent name for your child’ for around the cost of a car.”

She also notes grandparents are now offering cars, businesses and cold hard cash in exchange for naming rights for their future grandchildren. Incredibly, some prospective parents are turning to social media to ask for naming suggestions, a proposition that makes my blood run cold to think of what might be posted, and — heaven forbid! — adopted.

The law is not much help, according to University of California law professor Carlton F.W. Larson who told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that “naming your child is an expressive action. And the idea that you get to name your child, not the state, is a fundamental right.” Larson was reacting to a Georgia legal battle in which parents gave their child the last name
“Allah,” when Georgia law says the surname must be one parent’s or the others or some combination of the two. Some states offer no legal guidance on baby-naming, and it often falls to hospital personnel or local record-keepers to talk parents out of some ill-advised name, like Adolf Hitler Jones.

According to Collins, “more than 600 Americans answer to Ikea,” and I know of an Alexus, apparently named for a car. Then there are all those K-loving Kardashians. These parents should have slept on it.

While I once met a student named Chandelier, we Southerners seem to be traditional namers. Ancestors are often our first resource for options unless their names are too much for even the most traditional among us. Think early Puritan names like Humiliation, Desire, Unity, Prudence, Purity, Chastity — you get the idea.

In my own little family, one Precious Jewel is a junior, one named for my mother, and one named for my father. Many Southern babies are given names that began as surnames resulting in boisterous first-graders answering to dignified Smiths and Clarks. Collins herself notes that her surname, Collins, is, in fact, the 647th most common name for girls in the United States, more common than her daughter, Claudia’s, name.

Not much creativity there, but such adherence to tradition can have strange consequences. One of my grandmother’s best friends was a lovely Southern lady, John, named after her father who had no sons. Southern children are often given double names — think Mary Elizabeth and Billy Joe, which can be a mouthful to explain to people from somewhere else. Finally, let’s don’t even start on the custom of Big Susan and Little Susan and Big Bob and Little Bob when the real “Little” one is actually bigger than the real “Big” one.

Faced with naming a baby, “first, do no harm” seems like good advice. In a naming dilemma, Collins referenced the advice of a thoughtful friend. “‘I would say that it’s essentially a matter of selfconfidence,’ he’d concluded, suggesting that any name we chose could go in any direction, depending on how our son embodied it. He was right. We had no idea if the particular individual we were bringing into the world would be sensitive to sticks and stones or schoolyard taunts if his name could ever hurt or help him. … Your child’s name is what you want to be, but what he is is really up to him.”

What name did Collins and her husband finally choose?

A very traditional Louis.

Publishers note: This article is reprinted with the courtesy of The Washington Post.

Community newspapers offer insight into the heart of communities like no iPhone, Android or social media platform ever could. The article below is relevant and explains why extinction is inevitable if change does not happen.

They wrote about rock music and marijuana, when those were actually daring things to write about. They used profanity sometimes, when even sometimes was rude and shocking. In the back, past the ads for head shops, porn theaters and escort services, there were classified listings that featured a strange code of longing and desire: “SWM seeks SWF for LT relationship, light S&M.”

“Alternative” weeklies flowered in the 1970s in just about every American city, large and small. They were the alternative to the straitlaced establishment press and the successors to the ragtag “underground” papers that had raged against the Vietnam War. Less angry and more professional than their forebears, they still raged against authority when a new edition dropped outside the coffeehouse or club.

Free-distribution alt weeklies — all those New Timeses and Real Papers — aren’t quite dead yet, but the fraternity is in some distress. The Boston Phoenix checked out in 2013. The San Francisco Bay Guardian went under in 2014 (revived online in 2016). The Philadelphia City Paper shut down in 2015. The Baltimore City Paper said last month that it will close, too.

The news on Tuesday was another downward leg on the patient’s chart: Facing declining revenue, the Village Voice — the hipster granddaddy of alt weeklies — said it would end its print edition and publish online only. And so, after 62 years, the Voice will no longer beckon from newsstands and street-corner boxes, tempting the sophisticated or the merely curious. Henceforth, cosmopolitanism will come only on a computer screen.

Alt weeklies pioneered what the Smartphone Generation now takes for granted. They wrote about things that the mainstream media (before it was ever called that) was indifferent to or ignored. They covered nightlife, criticized the arts, hectored the newspapers and TV stations about their reporting. They wrote about politics from a subjective and unapologetically partisan perspective, almost always a lefty one. They sometimes exposed wrongdoing and malfeasance in their midst; the alt weekly Willamette Week in Portland, Ore., won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for revelations about Gov. Neil Goldschmidt’s molestation of a 14-year-old girl 30 years earlier.

Much of that is available on a screen now, of course. But unlike their digital children — the HuffPosts, Jezebels and Slates — the alt weeklies offered one important difference: They focused on their towns, not everyone’s.

They were intensely local, riffing on a city’s politics, environment, culture and people. They offered what no national news sites now does — consideration of a common municipal space. It might be Greenwich Village, Logan Circle or Silver Lake, any of the urban neighborhoods across America where gays, feminists, punks, greens, rappers and activists crossed and consorted. The places where the music and drug scene, political movements, and the sexual revolution were quaking long before the waves radiated to places colonized by Walmart and Applebee’s.

For suburban teens growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, the alt weeklies were a passport to the vibrant and mysterious adult scene happening just a few miles down the interstate.

The alt and underground press of the early 1970s “opened my eyes to a world I knew nothing about and wasn’t part of,” said Dan Kennedy, a longtime Boston Phoenix writer who became a journalism professor. “The counterculture of music and left-wing politics — those were appealing to me. They gave me a wider perspective, albeit a left-wing one.”

Patricia Calhoun, who still edits the alt weekly Westword in Denver 40 years after she founded it, says she started the publication “with the premise that Denver was a more interesting city than the mainstream media made it seem and that it would be easier to start a paper than to get a real job.” She now reflects: “We were right about the first part, but not the second.”

At their peak, Calhoun says, alt weeklies served as a kind of community bulletin board for their young readers. Copious entertainment and restaurant listings were a staple early on. The classifieds were today’s neighborhood email lists. Need a roommate, a bass player, a girlfriend? Go to the dense black type in the back pages. “If you wanted an apartment in Chicago in the early 1980s, you had to get the Chicago Reader the minute it came out,” she said.

Over the years, alt weeklies evolved from their shaggy roots to incorporate the consumerist innovations of “city” magazines — the lists of best hamburger joints and bars and such. But their innovations were in turn co-opted by the mainstream. Newspaper writing became more discursive and narrative-driven, aping the style of the long stories that anchored each alt-weekly issue.

Often, the journalism that alt weeklies produced was top-shelf. The Voice published columns by its co-founder, Norman Mailer; jazz and media criticism by Nat Hentoff, and the muckraking work of Wayne Barrett, who chronicled the rise of a brash New York real estate developer named Donald Trump. The Phoenix’s music critic, Lloyd Schwartz, won a Pulitzer for his work in 1994. The L.A. Weekly’s Jonathan Gold won one in 2007 for restaurant criticism.

And after The Washington Post had to give back the Pulitzer it won for a fabricated story by Janet Cooke in 1981, the award went to . . . Teresa Carpenter, a writer at the Village Voice.

Given their attention to the new and overlooked, the scrappy papers could play an outsize role as tastemakers. The most famous and perhaps most important piece of rock criticism
came from one of them — Jon Landau’s 1974 column in the Boston Real Paper in which he declared, “I saw rock and [roll’s] future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” Landau’s critique became a promotional prop for Springsteen’s record company and is widely credited for boosting him to mega-stardom (a year after publishing his piece, Landau became Springsteen’s manager and a co-producer of his breakthrough album, “Born to Run”).

As the alt weeklies have faded, their journalists have seeded large parts of the media landscape. Among others, MSNBC host Chris Hayes started at the Chicago Reader; New York Times writer Mark Leibovich and the New Yorker’s Susan Orlean came from the Boston Phoenix. The alumni from Washington’s City Paper include Jack Shafer of Politico, Jake Tapper of CNN, Erik Wemple of The Post and the late David Carr of the New York Times. (Long ago, The Post stocked its new Style section with writers plucked from the weeklies, such as music critic Richard Harrington and TV critic Tom Shales, another Pulitzer winner.)

It’s too simple to say that the Internet undermined the alt weeklies, but it largely did. By the late 1990s, they had begun to lose their lucrative classified ad base to Craigslist and other free sites. Chain stores invaded cities, blowing away a cadre of local alt-weekly advertisers. Thanks to social media, the remaining momand-pop shops in town could soon self-advertise, bypassing the City Papers altogether. The revenue drain was devastating.

A more nebulous question concerning the fate of alt weeklies is the one posed by Kennedy, the journalism professor. “I can remember many heartfelt conversations when I was at the Phoenix [from 1991 to 2005] where we asked ourselves, ‘In what way are we really alternative?’ Because it wasn’t really clear any more. We knew in some ways that the Globe was to the left of us.”

Westword’s Calhoun isn’t troubled by that existential matter, however. “It’s our goal to keep corrupting the youth of America into the pleasure of reading and questioning authority,” she says. “We still think we’re winning at that.”

Marc Fisher and Hank Stuever contributed to this report.

The original article can be found at: http://wapo.st/2vRheUn.

Depending on how late you read this on Thursday, I may be under the knife of Dr. Kimberley Barrie of Fayetteville Orthopaedics. 

She’s an extremely accomplished surgeon and she’ll be performing an operation on my left hand called a ligament reconstruction and tendon interposition or LRTI. You can Google it for specifics.

The big news for me is I’ll be in a cast for two weeks and rehabbing the repaired hand and thumb for about three months, but I’m hoping it won’t slow down the work I’m doing with Up & Coming Weekly covering high school sports.

Your prayers are appreciated, and I hope to back at the keyboard knocking out stories again soon.

The record: 15-4

I was 9-2 last week for a season count of 15-4, 78.9 percent.

Cape Fear at New Hanover – Cape Fear has overcome critical injuries early in the season to score a couple of big opening wins. But Friday night they take a long road trip to face a potent New Hanover team that features a versatile offense scoring points in droves. It could be a long ride home for the Colts.

New Hanover 28, Cape Fear 14.

Douglas Byrd at Purnell Swett – A difficult start for the Eagles doesn’t look to get any better this week.

Purnell Swett 30, Douglas Byrd 14.

Seventy-First at E.E. Smith – Bad time for E.E. Smith to catch the Falcons, coming off a stinging, narrow defeat to Cape Fear last week. I don’t think Xeavier Bullock will be enough for the Golden Bulls tonight.

Seventy-First 24, E.E. Smith 18.

Gray’s Creek at Jack Britt – Jack Britt has had a tough time finishing on offense the first two weeks. I think Gray’s Creek can move the ball, and their defense wasn’t as porous as the loss to Pinecrest last week indicated.

Gray’s Creek 22, Jack Britt 20.

Richmond Senior at Pine Forest – Talk about bad timing. Pine Forest catches Richmond a week after the Raiders suffered a rare home shellacking to top-ranked Wake Forest.

Richmond Senior 30, Pine Forest 8.

South View at Lumberton – The Tigers seem to be building momentum while Lumberton is off to a tough start. Have to like South View on the road.

South View 27, Lumberton 12.

Terry Sanford at Cleveland – It’s unusual for a couple of teams not in the same county or conference to have seen each other as often lately as these two. I’m betting that Jayne Airways makes a safe landing in Cleveland this week.

Terry Sanford 22, Cleveland 14.

Hoke at Westover – The Wolverines got a huge emotional lift with their win over Lumberton last week. I think it carries over to this week.

Westover 18, Hoke County 16.

Other games

Wake Christian 31, Fayetteville Christian 12

Trinity Christian 29, Word of God 14

South View’s annual Jungle Run night cross country meet is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 2 on the school campus. The traditional course winds through the Tiger baseball, softball and football fields and ranges all the way over to the neighboring campus at Baldwin Elementary School.

“We’ll have to bring in the light towers, but for the most part, the course is the same,’’ said veteran South View cross country coach Jesse Autry, who is in his 21st year.

Autry said the Jungle Run presents two major tests for his teams. “It’s an early season test of where we are,’’ he said. “You also want to defend the home ground.’’

But Autry said he doesn’t stress winning the meet to his runners. “We talk about being the best we can be,’’ he said. “We really want to win at the end of the year.’’

One of the biggest changes this year is that traditional meet power, Pinecrest, won’t be running because one of its coaches has a family commitment this weekend.

But there will be some familiar names, like Raleigh Broughton, the defending 4-A boys’ champion and a highly-ranked team this year. It will also be a homecoming for Fish Solomon, who was a member of Autry’s 2003 state championship team at South View and is now an assistant coach with Broughton.

Another strong contender will be the boys and girls from Chapel Hill, who Autry said have consistently dominated the Jungle Run. “Even though they are 3-A, they are one of the best teams,’’ Autry said.

Another successful program entered are the boys and girls from Wilmington Hoggard.

A number of familiar programs from Cumberland County will take part, including Pine Forest, Jack Britt, E.E. Smith and Terry Sanford. Westover has not officially signed up as of the week prior to the race, but Autry said the Wolverines indicated they plan to participate.

Also taking part will be private schools Fayetteville Academy and Fayetteville Christian.

As of this writing, Autry said 50 teams have signed up with a maximum of 60 expected. He’s ordered 2,000 bibs for the runners. “That’s pretty much our limit,’’ he said.

Developmental races for junior varsity boys and girls begin at 6:15 p.m., followed at 7:40 p.m. by the invitational races for boys and girls.

The championship races for boys and girls begin at 9 p.m., and awards will be presented in the South View football stadium, Randy Ledford Field, at 10:15 p.m.

For further information, go to ncrunners.com and search for 2017 Jungle Run.

There’s something new to Cumberland County high school athletics this season.

For the first time since anyone involved with local sports can remember, most of the teams from the county will be playing in a new 4-A/3-A combination league, the Patriot Athletic Conference.

The N.C. High School Athletic Association tries to avoid putting teams into combination leagues for various reasons, but there are times when the need to preserve natural rivalries and avoid excessive travel force putting schools of different sizes together.

Patty Evers is familiar with the experience. A member of the NCHSAA Board of Directors, she’s the athletic director and girls’ basketball coach at East Bladen High School and has been in a combination league as long as she can remember.

“Some coaches think you should crown a 1-A conference champion and a 2-A conference champion, but we’ve never done that,’’ she said of her school’s 2-A/1-A combination league.

The league title goes to the regular-season winner in sports like football. But for deciding playoff berths, both the top finisher in one class and the top finisher in the other class get No. 1 berths in the postseason.

In the Patriot Athletic, Overhills, South View and Pine Forest are the only 4-A teams, while Westover, Cape Fear, E.E. Smith, Douglas Byrd, Terry Sanford and Gray’s Creek are all 3-A.

With nine teams, the Patriot will get three automatic playoff berths. Two are guaranteed to the top finisher in each class. If the second place team in the overall standings isn’t one of the top classification finishers, it gets the third automatic berth.

The remaining wild card berths will be decided by best overall records against the entire state. But that could get tricky since the MaxPreps state rankings will help to break ties and determine playoff berths.

The formula MaxPreps will use to determine rankings will apparently involve a number of things, and the classification of the schools you are playing will figure into it.

“There’s no perfect way,’’ Evers said. “If you finish fourth in your conference but you’re the first 2-A school, you get the No. 1 seed (for 2-A). I don’t think that’s fair  to everybody.’’

With most of the schools in the Patriot Conference being 3-A, the 4-A schools will likely have to contend with their visitors bringing smaller crowds to home games. Evers said that’s a headache for athletic administrators concerned about ticket sales and paying bills.

But it’s the lesser of two evils as the goal of combination leagues, as stated earlier, is to cut down on travel. “I hear more about travel than I hear anything,’’ Evers said. “Most of the talk is geographics.’’

Combination conference or not, Evers said the main concerns for athletes, fans, coaches and school officials stay the same. “You promote as much as you can,’’ she said. “Get your clubs involved and try to get more people to go to your games.’’

As for coaches, Evers said they shouldn’t change anything. “We’ve got to coach and just look past it,’’ she said.

PHOTO: Patty Evers

Toni Blackwell from Cape Fear and Carmen Tucker of Terry Sanford are two of Cumberland County’s best returning girls’ high school golfers this season.

They’ll be seeing a lot more of each other on the course now that Cape Fear and Terry Sanford have left the conferences they were in last year to join the new Patriot  Athletic Conference.

“I think we’ll match up pretty well,’’ said second-year Terry Sanford coach Jennifer White. She expects Cape Fear’s team to play a role similar to the one Lee County did in the old Cape Fear Valley 3-A Conference and provide the Bulldogs their chief competition.

Meanwhile, Cape Fear coach Todd Edge said expectations are high for his team. “We made the state championship as a team in 2013,’’ he said. “We want to get back. That’s our goal.’’

Blackwell, a sophomore, was Mid-South Conference Player of the Year last season and advanced to the regional and state 4-A tournaments.

Blackwell averaged 87.2 over the six-round Mid-South regular season last year, shooting a low score of 80 at Stryker Golf Course.

Although she’s only 4 feet 11 1/2 inches tall, Blackwell is a long driver. “I swing with a lot of power and hit them far,’’ she said. “I think I’ll be able to shoot upper 70s this year.’’

Blackwell’s been working on her mental game and wants to improve her chipping and putting this season. Edge said she needs to working on lowering her putting average.

Tucker finished second to teammate Preeya Shah in last season’s Cape Fear Valley Conference regular season play and made All-Cape Fear Valley Conference. She averaged 84.4 in five tournaments and shot 82 twice, both times at Scotch Meadows Country Club in Laurinburg.

Like Blackwell, Tucker’s strength is driving. “I can outdrive my dad and most girls I play,’’ she said. She said she’s also accurate with her irons but needs to improve her short game.

White said Tucker will take over as the team’s No. 1 golfer with the graduation of Shah, and will get a boost from her younger sister, Gabby, who joins the team this season.

“I expect them to go out and have fun,’’ coach White said. “If they’re not having fun, they’re not going to play well. I expect them to work hard and give it 100 percent.

“Hopefully we’ll come out on top again.’’

PHOTOS: (L-R) Toni Blackwell, Cape Fear & Carmen Tucker, Terry Sanford

Terry Sanford assistant football coach Bill Yeager recalled the time several years ago when a local dentist invited him to play golf one weekend.

Yeager declined. At the time he was head coach at Terry Sanford. He explained to the dentist he would be spending the weekend with his football coaching staff viewing film of last week’s game and next week’s opponent and developing a game plan for the following Friday. “He was a little taken aback that we didn’t just show up Friday night and play,’’ Yeager said.

The technology involved in reviewing video and making game plans each week has improved by leaps and bounds since Yeager’s days as an assistant under former Terry Sanford coach Mackie Hall.

In the 1970s, the game was filmed with a movie camera, then the film was bussed to a processing company in Wilson. It was returned by Sunday so the coaches could watch it, find out what they needed to know, then prepare the team for the next game.

It was around the mid-1980s that the first big change took place with the arrival of home video recording. Coaches balked at first, not sure if they could find a way to project the images from the VCR onto a large screen so they and the players could see what was happening. At Terry Sanford, they borrowed a projector from the library that blew the video up where it could easily be viewed.

Video transitioned briefly from VHS to DVDs that were burned after a game was over and then shared with opposing teams so they could prepare.

Terry Sanford’s current head coach, Bruce McClelland, spent his entire career as a Bulldog player in the late 1980s watching his games on VHS tape.

It was not until around 2010 and thereafter that video took a quantum leap with the arrival of HUDL. HUDL was a company offering online cataloging and sharing of football game video.

The technology is light-years ahead of the old film in cans and reel-to-reel projector method. Almost the second the game is over, coaches can load digital video onto a computer. HUDL allows them to break the game down play-by-play, and it’s possible to share the video via the internet with the entire coaching staff and team members.

Players can get individual plays to study on their home computers so that the coaches don’t have to bring the whole team together just to watch film.

It also makes the sharing of video with other teams much easier. In the past, Cumberland County coaches would meet at the old Shoney’s in Westwood Shopping Center on Saturday mornings, sometimes enjoy breakfast and swap videos to prepare for the next week’s game.

For the state playoffs, they’d travel to a halfway point between the other team and swap video there.

Now, it just takes a few computer clicks to send the full game report across the county or the state.

It isn’t cheap, though. “The base package is $1,000,’’ McClelland said. “We also have the endzone stuff. That’s another $1,000.’’

The endzone view, which McClelland said teams don’t trade with other schools, gives the coaches a sideline-to-sideline perspective of play in the line so they can analyze the splits between linemen, blocking assignments and other aspects of the game.

The goal of all the technology is the same as it was when they were watching black-and-white film, Yeager said. “You just want to eliminate mistakes and get better.’’

PHOTO: Bruce McClelland and Bill Yeager hold artifacts from the ways they used to view their games.

Food trucks aren’t new, but they are enjoying a lot of popularity right now, which is good for everyone. The truck owners get to share their unique offerings with the community, and local citizens get to taste a variety of new foods and flavors.

Now, Hope Mills residents don’t have to drive into Fayetteville or Spring Lake to enjoy food truck fare. The town of Hope Mills presents its Hope Meals Food Truck Rodeo Kickoff event Thursday, Sept. 7, from 5:30–8:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Complex’s back parking lot.

“The purpose of the event is to bring the community together and to promote local small community businesses,” said Melissa Adams, town manager for the town of Hope Mills. “We are hoping to make this a monthly, regular event that the town will sponsor to bring the different demographics of our community together.”

Adams added that Hope Mills is home to a large military population.

The event will feature two food trucks, one dessert truck and music. The food trucks are R Burger and The Blind Big. The dessert truck is Big T’s.

R Burger is a fantastic truck serving fresh-ground hamburgers, hotdogs, brat patties and fresh-cut fries.

The Blind Pig serves up smoked barbecue with homemade fixings.

Big T’s serves New Orleans-style snoballs and other desserts that are perfect for an evening treat.

“The monthly event is planned for September, October and November, and we will more than likely skip December, January and February,” Adams said. “We will start the event back up in the spring and it will run through the fall of 2018.”

Adams added that if the event really takes off, they will look at doing it more often.

Adams said she’s wanted to do something like this for a couple of years, and everything has finally come together. She hopes it will be a huge success for the community.

“We are super excited and want to showcase the town of Hope Mills and give something back to the community along with bringing the community together,” Adams said. “Our goal is to have a crowd of 300 or more come out and enjoy the fun.”

Participants are encouraged to bring a lawn chair. The address of the Hope Mills Town Hall is 5770 Rockfish Rd. For more information, call (910) 426-4114.

What a great way to close out the summer season: The Cumberland County Fair is 10 days of food, fun and entertainment. It starts Sept. 1 and runs through Sept. 10 at the Crown Complex.

There will be plenty of rides and a variety of music, but the fair is about more than that. This event celebrates the history and legacy of the agricultural communities in Cumberland County. It showcases the diversity of local arts and crafts and promotes a safe setting for fun, healthy family entertainment including music, motor sports and animals. It’s an inviting environment of friendly competition for all ages. The theme this year is Country Days and American Ways.

“Big Rock Amusements is one of the best carnival companies in the industry today, and we’re excited to continue to partner with them here in Cumberland County,” Cumberland County Fair Manager Hubert Bullard said. “All their rides have the latest LED light packages and are regularly added to with new equipment.”

Big Rock currently partners with Wilson, Lumberton and Sanford fairs in North Carolina. Midway games, rides, food and exhibits are a given every day from open to close, but there are also special activities and events that run throughout the fair. There will be pony rides, a baby chick display, a beer garden for the adults, helicopter rides, World War II military equipment on display, toddler driving school, home, craft and agricultural exhibits and more throughout the week.

Friday, Sept. 1 The gates open at 5 p.m., and admission is free all evening — although it does cost to ride the rides. Fun repeat events that have
multiple times almost every day of the fair include: the petting farm, which is sponsored by Lumbee River EMC; the Close Encounter of the Exotic Kind Show, which is sponsored by Cumulus Radio Group; a bike stunt show; and Bohn’s Family Entertainment, which includes a Magic Comedy Show, FARMily Feud and a Survivor Family Show. There will also be various forms of entertainment on the Up & Coming Weekly Stage every day of the fair. On Friday, attendees can also watch Fair Queen Pageants rehearsals.

Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 2-3 Gates open at 1 p.m. Admission is $7 on Saturday. Sunday is Staycation Student Day. Bring your student ID and get $4 off admission.  Enjoy the Fair Queen Pageants on Saturday in addition to all of the repeat events on both days.

Monday, Sept. 4 On Labor Day, enjoy the $10 Pay One Price Special from the time the gates open at 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. The Pay One Price Special includes free, unlimited carnival rides once you’ve paid for admission, unlike previous days of the fair.

Apply the same deal but for $15 after 5 p.m. In addition to the repeat events, the Junior Laying Hen Show will take place in Expo C.

Tuesday, Sept. 5 Admission is again Pay One Price, with $15 allowing for unlimited rides. Radio station WCCG 104.5 will be at the fair, and don’t miss the Junior Market Lamb Show in addition to the repeat events.

Wednesday, Sept. 6 Pay One Price for $15 on one of the fair’s busiest days. In addition to the repeat events, FOXY 99 will be at the Crown. Agricultural events include the Little “Ewe” Jump Start Livestock Clinic; Swine, Feeder Calf and Steer Show; and Fayetteville Area Youth Livestock Auction Sale, which is sponsored by Cumberland County Farm Bureau and Cumberland County Livestock Association.

Thursday, Sept. 7 Don’t miss the Senior Expo, which kicks off at 1 p.m. and grants free admission to those 50 and older until 5 p.m. Don Chase from WKML 95.7 radio will be the master of ceremonies. The schedule of events is: 

• 1 p.m. Hope Mills Senior Line Dancers

• 1:30 p.m. Tokay Rockers Senior Line Dancers

• 1:45 p.m. Tokay Choral Group

• 2 p.m. Ms. Ortiz’s Line Dancers

• 2:30 p.m. Eva’s Zumba

• 3 p.m. 82 nd All-American Airborne Chorus

For guests under 50, the $15 admission fee includes all rides and repeat events. At 6:30 p.m., don’t miss WUKS Throwback Thursday. The Junior Meat Goat Show is also scheduled for Sept. 7, as well as Ring Wars Carolina Wrestling.

Friday, Sept. 8 Gates open at 5 p.m. Admission costs $7. Unlimited ride wristbands are available. Military and emergency services, to include law enforcement, firefighters and EMS/rescue personnel get in free if they are in uniform or with ID.

Friends and family pay regular admission. But if you bring 3 cans of non-perishable food items or pet food, get $2 off admission . The donations will go to Small Paws, Big Heart Food Drive for people and pets. In addition to the repeat events, there will be a Junior Beer Heifer Show.

Saturday, Sept. 9 WKML sponsors Country Night, adding great music to the fair’s repeat events.

Sunday, Sept. 10 Attend church services at 10:15 a.m. at the fairgrounds. After that, it’s Faith and Family Day at the fair. Bring a church bulletin (one per person) and get $2 off admission from 1-3 p.m. Don’t miss your last chance to check out the petting farm, bike stunt show, Close Encounters of the Exotic Kind, Bohn’s Family Entertainment and Up & Coming Weekly Entertainment Stage.

The Crown Complex is located at 1960 Coliseum Dr. Find out more at cumberlandcountyfair.org.

Pre-construction demolition of Fayetteville’s minor league baseball stadium begins in a week or two, following last week’s ceremonial groundbreaking.

There are no buildings to be razed; just driveways, sidewalks and a huge parking lot to be removed. Deputy City Manager Kristoff Bauer noted the rear of the property has to be elevated because it’s in a flood plain. It’s the general area where two railroad lines form an inverted V. “The culverts beneath the tracks will not be enlarged,” he said. So contractors will have to raise the rear section of the former Sears parking lot, which locals may remember from decades ago. 

The $33 million minor league ballpark will be modeled somewhat after a larger stadium in Columbia, South Carolina. One feature borrowed from Columbia includes a 360-degree concourse that will encircle the playing field, making it possible to walk around the entire facility. Seating will vary from a grandstand to a lawn picnic area and party-style tables and chairs.

Initially, there were plans for the stadium to have two entrances. Those plans have been adjusted to keep the construction budget in line, and there will be only one entrance. The stadium capacity is set at nearly 4,800.

While the Houston Astros organization hasn’t said, tickets will likely range from $5 for general admission to $12 for the grandstand. Officials say construction should take about 18 months. The first ballgame will be in April 2019.

“The team name won’t be decided on until December,” said general manager David Lane. Names under consideration include the Fat Backs and the Jumpers.

Local officials believe the stadium and adjoining Prince Charles Hotel renovation, along with new hotel construction, will have the kind of positive downtown development impact that the opening of the Airborne and Special Operations Museum had in 2000.

“This is the true definition of what a successful public-private partnership looks like,” Baseball Committee Chairman Mitch Colvin said. He and other members of City Council have pledged that property taxes will not be raised to finance the new stadium. The Astros have contracted to have a minor league team play in Fayetteville for a minimum of 30 years. “Just look around. This is what I love about baseball,” Astros President Reid Ryan said at the ground breaking ceremony. He’s the son of major league hall of fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.

The multimillion-dollar renovation of the defunct Prince Charles Hotel is expected to begin soon, said PCH Holdings project manager Jordan Jones. “It will have 62 high-end apartments and 13,000 square feet of retail space,” Jones said. The eighth floor ballroom will be converted into a luxury penthouse that will lease for $3000 a month, he added.

Also in the year ahead is construction of a four-story hotel that Jones said will share a wall with the adjacent railroad station. It will be topped off with a four-story parking deck for hotel patrons. City officials don’t seem to be concerned about the loss of dozens of public parking spaces at the railroad station.

North Carolina Emergency Management, the governor’s office and the Department of Commerce have allocated nearly $35 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds for Hurricane Matthew recovery projects in Cumberland County. The county and city of Fayetteville will co-host a public meeting to inform residents about proposed projects being considered for the program on Sept. 7 at 7 p.m. at the Department of Social Services office building, 1225 Ramsey St.

In early October 2016, torrential rain from the hurricane caused devastating flooding in much of Fayetteville and Cumberland County. One week earlier, a record rainfall caused catastrophic, localized flooding and damages that were made worse by the hurricane.

The city and county have identified unmet needs in the areas of housing, economic development, infrastructure, resiliency, planning and capacity. An estimated $10.5 million in damages to owner-occupied homes is the biggest share of Community Development Block Grant money being made available to individuals locally. New construction funds in the amount of $13.5 million were allocated.

The disaster recovery effort will assist residents who qualify under HUD’s low-to-moderate income requirements who experienced significant damage as the direct result of Hurricane Matthew. The city and county have been informed that funds can be used only for specific disaster related purposes. The law requires that grantees submit plans detailing their proposed needs as well as eligibility criteria.

The top priority includes projects to repair owner-occupied homes, rental housing and to provide shelter for the homeless. Funds will also make it possible for local governments to establish a homeowner recovery program, small rental repair program, multifamily rental housing, small business recovery assistance, a day center and a homeless shelter. Assistant County Manager Tracy Jackson and Assistant City Manager Jay Reinstein said this collaborative effort will assist low- and moderate-income residents who experienced major to severe damage as a result of Hurricane Matthew.

It is also important to assist small businesses and farmers who are trying to get back on their feet and to rebuild community and support services facilities. The city and county submitted their initial plan to the state this month, and the formal proposal is due Sept. 15. The city of Fayetteville estimated authorized damages at $23.3 million. Cumberland County government estimated $11.4 million in damages.

The public meeting to inform citizens who may qualify for the proposed CDBG-DR projects will be held in the DSS auditorium, 1225 Ramsey St., Sept. 7 at 7 p.m.

Donald Trump’s new plan for Afghanistan calls for additional U.S. forces, greater NATO participation and regional pressure that echo the previous administration. Thousands of 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers are expected to be deployed to Afghanistan in the coming weeks, a U.S. defense official told Fox News last week. The official refused to be more specific about the timetable because the orders had not yet been signed.

Gen. Joseph Votel, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, earlier told reporters in Saudi Arabia that the deployments could take days or a few weeks. “What’s most important for us now is to get some capabilities in to have an impact on the current fighting season,” Votel said. “Nearly 16 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the American people are weary of war without victory,” Trump said. He was vague as to the specifics but seemed to concur with military advisors that another 4,000 troops may soon be on their way to the Middle East. A brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division is already in Iraq.

Robbery Leads to Murder

Fayetteville police have charged four young people, including two teenagers, in the fatal shooting of Alton Williams, 52, who was found dead Aug. 18 near his home on Eldorado Road in the Holiday Park subdivision, said Police Lt. Todd Joyce.

The suspects have all been charged with firstdegree murder, robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit robbery. The accused suspects have been identified as Solomon Broady, 21; Jermaine Florence, 18; Olander Sanders Jr., 16; and Demetrius Hammonds, 25. There have been 15 homicides in Fayetteville so far this year.

Fayetteville 911 Accredited

Fayetteville Police Communications has been approved as an Emergency Medical Dispatch Center of Excellence by the Board of Accreditation of the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch. Fayetteville Police Communications thereby earned the distinguished honor of becoming the 244th Emergency Medical Dispatch Accredited Center in the world.

The IAED is a nonprofit, standard-setting organization promoting safe and effective emergency dispatch services worldwide. An Accredited Center of Excellence is the highest distinction in 911 emergency communication services. In addition to being featured in the next issue of The Journal of Emergency Dispatch, Fayetteville Police Communications will be recognized on The International Academies of Emergency Dispatch’s website.

Spring Lake Chamber Leadership

The Board of the Spring Lake Chamber of Commerce has chosen Debra Clyde to serve as President and CEO of the chamber. She has a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and Policy and is an Army veteran.

Clyde is not a newcomer; she has been a resident of Spring Lake since 2006 and has worked with and for the chamber in various roles. “Debra’s dedication to the town has always resonated in everything she has done,” said Marva Lucas-Moore, Chairwoman of the Spring Lake Chamber.

Sunday Bus Service Approved

The city of Fayetteville has become the last major municipality in North Carolina to provide limited bus service on Sundays. City Council gave final approval to the Fayetteville Area System of Transit to begin the service.

Transit Director Randy Hume said he needs a few weeks to organize things and hopes to launch the service in November. Ten of the system’s most popular routes will offer the service. Hours vary a bit but generally will provide service between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. Also, Hume said the new transit center on Russell Street will be opened for business next month, 16 months behind schedule.

Dogwood Fall Festival Upcoming

This year’s fall Dogwood Festival will take place Oct. 19-21. Events will be held in Festival Park in downtown Fayetteville, and will include a haunted maze, hayrides, walking tours of Cross Creek Cemetery and performances by several bands. Children will have a dedicated spot they can call their own. Food and beer attractions will offer additional choices from years past. This is Fayetteville’s fourth annual fall festival.

Fayetteville Symphony Gifted by the Arts Council

The Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra is the recipient of a Community Organization REsource $150,000 grant from the Arts Council of Fayetteville/ Cumberland County for its 2017-2018 season.

The support from the Arts Council grant enables the symphony to keep ticket costs affordable and accessible for the Fayetteville community and provide music programs for school children. “Operating Support grants are designed to strengthen our community through the arts,” said Deborah Martin Mintz, executive director of the Arts Council. The Arts Council’s CORE grants are awarded to local arts agencies in Cumberland County whose programs are vital to the cultural life of the community and whose organizations have reached a size and maturity that assure their long-term viability.

Fort Bragg Red Cross Needs Help

Fort Bragg Red Cross volunteers serve our military and neighbors in need every day. The American Red Cross is in need of volunteers on post to work with military members and veterans at  Womack Army Medical Center.

Red Cross volunteer opportunities allow the military to make a powerful and positive difference and help their fellow soldiers in need. Volunteers make up 90 percent of the Red Cross workforce and provide more than 2,000 volunteer hours per month at Fort Bragg. Free training is made available to volunteers. Apply online at www.redcross.org or contact Linda R. Daney at (910) 907-6234 or  Linda.Daney2@Redcross.org.

I come from a proud family that has been involved with public service for as long as I can remember. I wan to work hard for my city. That’s why I am running for City Council.

We need to create more living wage jobs, improve our schools as well as come up with a way to be of more help to the homeless, providing more places for them to stay during the hot and cold seasons, and work more on public safety.

Also we need to come together and come up with a program to bring down the violent crimes because the rate is up so high. I know what it takes to work hard and find a solution. If we all pull together, we can make Fayetteville a better place for people to come and visit and want to move here to raise their families. And together, we can do it.

PHOTO: Maxine Dickens

Tailgates. Pep rallies. Friday night lights. The new school year is here! And that’s exciting news for student-athletes and high school sports fans alike.

Research shows that being a studentathlete is about a lot more than fun and games. It teaches important life lessons, too. In fact, high school athletes not only have higher grade-point averages and fewer school absences than non-athletes, they also develop the kind of work habits and self-discipline skills that help them become more responsible and productive community members.

Attending high school sporting events teaches important life lessons, too.

Among them, it teaches that we can live in different communities, come from different backgrounds, faiths and cultures, cheer for different teams, and still have a common bond.

That’s why attending the activities hosted by your high school this fall is so important. It’s not only an opportunity to cheer for your hometown team, it is also an opportunity to celebrate our commonality. And that’s something our country needs right now.

The bond we share is mutually supporting the teenagers in our respective communities. We applaud their persistence, tenacity, preparation and hard work, regardless of the color of the uniform they wear. We acknowledge that educationbased, high school sports are enhancing their lives, and ours, in ways that few other activities could. And we agree that regardless of what side of the field we sit on, attending a high school sporting event is an uplifting, enriching, family-friendly experience for all of us.

Many of the high schools in our state lie at the heart of the communities they serve. They not only are educating our next generation of leaders, they also are a place where we congregate, where people from every corner of town and all walks of life come together as one. And at no time is this unity more evident than during a high school athletic event.

This is the beginning of a new school year. Opportunities abound in the classroom and outside of it. Let’s make the most of them by attending as many athletic events at the high schools in our community as possible.

Turn on the lights, and let the games begin!

At first, I thought we had vandals in the neighborhood. There were red, blue and yellow stripes painted all over our yards and roadway and some graffiti sprayed across the pavement.

Then I realized they were utility line markings, a little overboard but necessary for people who repair underground phone lines or Cablevision wire.

In came the big machinery: the DitchWitch and other excavating equipment. Trucks and trailers were all parked just off the road so cars could pass down the narrow residential street.

Did I mention residential? It’s a residential neighborhood where homeowners try to keep what realtors call “curb appeal.” They mow yards religiously, plant shrubbery or trees, trim the grass to a razor-sharp edge along the curb and beautify their front yards to reflect their pride in a major investment.

But it’s a spit-in-the-wind effort to keep the onceappealing neighborhood from declining too much. We have a lot of people who rent, and more than a few have that “macht-nichts” (German for “it matters not”) attitude about keeping the property, much less their front yards, from looking like an alfalfa field.

But beware. Before you plan to create a Home & Garden type yard that stretches all the way to the street’s edge, you should know there is a right of way that alltoo-often cuts much deeper into your front yard than you may realize.

In this instance, a cable company decided it must dig holes in the right of way in my front yard and the yards of several neighbors. They were subcontractors, hardworking men who braved the 100-degree heat to install a new cable. The lone beneficiary lived further down the road. Ironically, I’m not a cable customer. Neither are my neighbors.

My greatest gripe centers around the money we’ve spent trying to stop the erosion of our drainage ditch. Water rushes off the road and cuts deep gullies, exposing red clay and sand. We bought landscape timber, pavers and topsoil, and we toiled on hot days trying to fix the problem — several times. Then, along comes a gas, Cablevision or some other utility contractor and digs up that very spot. It’s frustrating.

While this particular incident was not a Fayetteville Public Works Commission matter, PWC Communications Director Carolyn Justice-Hinson and her staff understand the frustrations residents may have about easements and rights of way. They’re working on a brochure that explains what a right of way along your property or an easement across your property is all about. It should be done soon.

Become familiar with your property. Check the plats, survey maps and even your deed. Know how far a right of way eats into your yard. And, know if you have an easement across your property. Easements can have rules and restrictions that severely limit what you can do on your property.

There’s a difference between an easement and a right of way. Property owners usually grant a utility or public service agency the right to use a portion of the property for installing utilities, either below or above ground.

On the other hand, a right of way is a strip of land owned by the highway department or other public agency. It lies right next to your property.

Once you or a former owner grants an easement across your property, your rights with what you may want to do with it become limited. You’re expected to maintain it and pay the property taxes, but someone else decides what you can put on it. No permanent structures like sheds, swimming pools, decks, gazebos or sometimes trees or fences. If you do, and the utility needs access to the ground underneath, they’ll move it — at your expense.

Easements and rights of way come in different sizes. PWC’s, for example, is about 30 to 50 feet, depending on the voltage of overhead power lines. Water mains need less, but the exact size depends on the size of  the pipe.

So, if you’re one of the many recently annexed Fayettevillians due to get sewer lines down your street, you could wake up and find a bulldozer parked on your front lawn. Relax. It may be an ugly sight, but it’s probably not on your property.

My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. DelGrande, required her class to write the annual summer vacation essay. Old habits die hard, so 57 years later, this column is for you, Mrs. DelGrande.

Every other summer, our extended family goes on vacation together for a week. We pick out some interesting place to go — just long enough to renew old ties, but not long enough to generate familial blood shed.

This year, we went to Vancouver, British Columbia, for a week. Having never been there, I expected cold rain and moose in the streets. Wrong on both counts. Vancouver is a busy city with a great harbor and dandy weather. Interestingly, as a result of a number of forest fires, the sky in Vancouver remained the color of old concrete. I was reminded of the Platters’ great song, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

After Vancouver, we wandered down the Pacific Coast Highway all the way to San Francisco. In Gresham, Oregon, someone left my wife’s wallet in the motel room. Thanks to a very honest housekeeper, we got a call from the motel. Her wallet was returned intact to its rightful owner. This is known as falling off the roof and landing on your feet.

We spent a night in the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, which served as the exterior of the Overlook Hotel in the classic horror film “The Shining.” The Timberline proudly displays a poster of Jack Nicholson. Unfortunately, there is no Room 237 at the Timberline, so Jack Torrance could not have gotten in trouble there. In Oregon, you can’t pump your own gas. A guy stands out by the pump and does it for you. Odd.

In Klamath, California, we got to see the beach. Northern California beaches do not look like Myrtle Beach. They have  big cliffs, big rocks the size of buildings standing out in the water and chilly August winds. Klamath is at the edge of the Red Wood National Forest, which is home to some of the oldest and tallest living things on the planet. Some scenes with the Ewoks from “Star Wars” were filmed there. The place looks like a movie set on a distant planet.

In Requa, we stayed at a 100-year-old bed and breakfast that my traveling companion thought gave off a spooky vibe — as if some of the ghosts had not left the joint. We survived the night unpossessed and lived to tell about it.

On the way to Mendocino, I learned a valuable lesson. If you are driving down California Highway 1 over the mountains, fill up your gas tank. I did not. There are long distances there devoid of gas stations. We drove up and down a twisting mountain road that was barely wide enough for one car. The idiot light came on to advise us that we were low on gas. This was a bit unsettling, but it was too late to turn back. I had seen that light before; we still had gas. On we drove until a new and more ominous red light came on that said LOW FUEL.

I had never seen that light before. We were on double secret probation with our gas tank. Still no civilization in sight: only a twisting mountain road. If we ran out of gas, we would have blocked the highway, as there were no shoulders. Oops.

These are the times that try men’s souls and the strength of marriages. To my wife’s everlasting credit during our mountain ride from hell, she did not mention my lack of forethought in not filling up when I had the chance. Finally, we rolled into Fort Bragg, California, riding on fumes. I put 11.7 gallons of gas into a 12-gallon tank. On a trip that revealed many wonders, the gas station at the foot of the mountains was the most beautiful thing we saw.

Once we got to San Francisco, we had dinner in a pricey French restaurant where I paid $30 for a plate of French beanie-weenies. We arrived too late to turn in the rental car, so I parked it in a public lot in the Tenderloin section of San Francisco. Do not do that. A local criminal broke out the window of the car overnight in a search for something. He didn’t take anything, but he did leave me with a bill for a broken window.

The guys at the rental car office assured me that no car had ever been broken into in the city before mine. And then they laughed, and laughed and laughed.

Millions of Americans understand that something is profoundly amiss with our nation’s elective system.

A big part of that trouble is partisan gerrymandering, which has been with us since our nation began, but never before on the scale in which it was employed in 2011. Gerrymandering is redistricting, done every 10 years after a U.S. census, and it underpins our elective process. When it goes wrong, as it did in the most partisan gerrymander ever in 2011, elections can be lopsided for a decade or more.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the lead plaintiff in one of the lawsuits that resulted in the United States Supreme Court declaring 28 of 170 North Carolina legislative districts unconstitutional.

Legislators are now hustling to meet a court-imposed Sept. 1 deadline for approving new, constitutional districts. It must be noted that the elections of 2012, 2014 and 2016 were conducted in unconstitutional districts, calling into question whether the actions of unconstitutionally elected legislators were constitutional themselves.

Since the 2011 redistricting in North Carolina, countless people have said to me that the Republicans in the General Assembly who hired outside consultants with taxpayer dollars to draw a highly partisan and ultimately unconstitutional redistricting “did not do anything the Democrats have not done.”

Yes and no. Both Democrats and Republicans have gerrymandered since Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts gave the OK more than 200 years ago, generally for political advantage for certain incumbents or to punish others. But never  in United States history has there been anything like what occurred in North Carolina and several other “purple” states in 2011.

Here is what happened. A Republican attorney in Richmond, Virginia, had the brilliant — and I mean brilliant very sincerely — idea to snag the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives by taking over purple state legislatures in 2010 to control the redistricting process for both Congress and state legislatures.

This plan, dubbed REDMAP, was executed with surgical precision by fancy map-drawing software paid for by Republicans in Washington. It was legal and succeeded beyond even the wildest expectations of its architects. Heavily gerrymandered maps were drawn in 2011. The maps not only guaranteed Republican control of the U.S. House for at least the current decade and probably beyond, they consolidated Republican control of state legislatures, including the North Carolina General Assembly.

A stunning strategic plan coupled with sophisticated software never before available hijacked the redistricting process as never before and guaranteed Republican control of the legislative process, no matter the will of the people of several states and Americans in general. It was all accomplished for about $30 million, far less than it would have taken to elect members of Congress the oldfashioned way. And for slightly over $1 million spent in North Carolina, Republicans bought a veto-proof General Assembly, which continues to this moment.

No need to take my word for any or all of this. Books have been written about REDMAP, as well as numerous articles in all sorts of publications. David Daley, who wrote a book about REDMAP subtitled, “The True Story Behind the Plan to Steal America’s Democracy,” called REDMAP “gerrymandering on steroids.” Daley is also pessimistic that REDMAP redistricting can be reversed any time soon.

So why should good, solid North Carolinians working hard for their families give a hoot about anything as arcane and unsexy as gerrymandering? Because the people who are elected to the General Assembly and to Congress make decisions that affect all of us — education funding, health care accessibility, military issues and more.

They should be reflections of all of us, neither just the right wing nor just the left wing.

The results of REDMAP continue to generate lawsuits and efforts to institute bipartisan, even nonpartisan, redistricting plans. Most but not all states task their legislatures with this, but the United States is the only developed nation that allows those who benefit from the plans to draw those plans.

REDMAP has taught our nation a big lesson, and new ways of redistricting are clearly in order. It behooves us all to pay attention to reform proposals and decide for ourselves how North Carolina should proceed in the future.

Publisher’s note: In this edition of Up & Coming Weekly, we introduce Mark Regensburger, the first president and CEO of the new Cool Springs Downtown District in downtown Fayetteville. We welcome him to this new position and look forward to supporting the CSDD and the merchants, businesses and organizations in downtown Fayetteville. Their success is everyone’s success. We want our readers to know that Up & Coming Weekly, your community newspaper, intends to be downtown Fayetteville’s No. 1 champion. As an established and trusted media source, we will carry downtown Fayetteville’s quality-of-life story to Fort Bragg and to all corners of Cumberland County. Lauren Vanderveen, a wonderful new contributing writer for our publication, will help cover these stories. Enjoy meeting Mr. Regensburger, and thank you for reading Up & Coming Weekly.

An arts and entertainment district is essential to any city that yearns for a defined personality. A city needs a space that screams: This is our soul, this is who we are! Some areas are lucky enough to have population sizes that support growth in their art districts, like in New York City or Los Angeles. Some even host prestigious events such as the Toronto International Film Festival or SXSW in Austin. But more than just money and prestige allows an arts district to thrive. First, it needs a leader.

Fayetteville now has one in Mark Regensburger. In July, he was appointed the first president and CEO of the nonprofit organization Cool Springs Downtown District Inc., an official rebranding strategy for downtown.

It all began with a suggestion to the Arts Council that Fayetteville distinguishes itself with a performing arts center. After many months of research and planning by the Arts Council and a 200-member advisory committee, the Arts Council recommended that first establishing a prominent arts and entertainment district would be a natural springboard for a performing arts center in the area.

The Arts and Entertainment District report from August of last year noted, “There is the perception that the City of Fayetteville has not kept pace with other urban areas within the state of North Carolina. Fayetteville was late in recognizing that the role of placemaking is key to creating the kind of vibrant urban life that will attract and retain the creative workforce which, in turn, will attract and retain the creative businesses that are the foundations of the modern economy.”

For Regensburger, one of his main goals is to unify the various organizations in the area for future collaborations. The Airborne Museum Foundation currently does Airborne Day and other military-re
lated events. A group from Capitol Encore Academy is working on the art park located behind the academy. The Arts Council provides 4th Friday and other events to the entire county. “I see all these organizations doing amazing things by themselves,” Regensburger said. “But the Cool Springs Downtown District is trying to bring more people together to make their efforts greater than the sum of their parts.”

According to Regensburger, CSDD will be looking into several avenues to establish downtown as an arts and entertainment district. This includes increasing public art installations and bringing better quality music performances to the area. Regensburger also hopes to widen downtown’s umbrella to envelop the thousands of new military families that move to Fayetteville each year.

“The district is more than just Hay Street. I don’t want downtown to be just a downtown thing. I want everybody to feel like they own it,” said Regensburger.

CSDD will also, according to Regensburger, investigate city ordinances and licensing requirements to improve the district’s regulatory environment. Another recommendation of the Arts and Entertainment District report was that “the wayfinding system in the central core should be adapted, perhaps using artists as designers, to clearly distinguish the District.” There are also recommendations to eventually have a new urban skateboard park and new artist housing, along with a performing arts center.

Regensburger himself has an extensive history with Fayetteville, the military and the arts. After receiving his degree in music education from Alma College, he decided to join the United States Army as a musician in 1985. He played clarinet in the Army’s band, where he was able to parlay extensive experience in event management.

“I first came to Fort Bragg in 1999. My midlife crisis was I volunteered to jump out of airplanes,” Regensburger joked. “My tour in Afghanistan was a (literal) tour in Afghanistan. We went around and played for the troops. To see what the arts can do to help people find their heart again is a huge part of what this new job is for me.”

Regensburger went on to get his master’s in business administration from the Lake Forest Graduate School in Illinois before he started working as the executive director and COO of the Saginaw Baw Symphony Orchestra in Michigan.

“It was a wonderful opportunity and really got my feet into being a nonprofit manager,” Regensburger said.

He was so efficient, in fact, that he admits to having planned himself out of his job.

“We did some strategic planning and decided that the board would take a more active role in the leadership of it and that we would hire specialty people in marketing, finance and fundraising,” Regensburger said.

“Mark’s palpable enthusiasm, knowledge of Fayetteville, business training and arts background will drive the vision of an Arts and Entertainment District for our entire, inclusive community,” said Eric Lindstrom, CSDD Inc. Board chair, in a press release.

For the past seven years, following his retirement from the Army, Regensburger has taught business administration at Fayetteville Technical Community College. He said he developed a growing urge to help the community in an even more significant way. After traveling for an average of 100 days per year and after experiencing many different cities, Regensburger and his wife chose Fayetteville as their place to call home. Now the city of Fayetteville has chosen him to lead downtown into a brighter future.

“The arts and entertainment district is supposed to be walkable, but also a combination of urban space and green space. It’s supposed to be a combination of historic and contemporary, of working and celebrating,” Regensburger said. “So, I believe in this. I wouldn’t have done this job just for a job. To me, this really feels like a calling.”

PHOTO: Mark Regensburger, first president and CEO of Cool Springs Downtown District Inc., wants to unify local organizations for future collaborations.

I just wanted to remind everyone that as soon as high school students report, and once all the dust settles, we’ll be resuming our weekly scholar athlete feature in Up and Coming Weekly.

Coaches, athletic administrators and guidance counselors are reminded of the criteria for being chosen. The athlete must be a member in good standing of a varsity team, preferably from a sport that is in season.

The athlete does not have to be a star or even a starter, but he or she must have a minimum grade point average of 3.5 on an unweighted scale.

If you have nominees, please email them to earlvaughanjr@gmail.com. Nominees may only be submitted by bona fide school personnel, not by athletes or their families.

Include a smartphone head and shoulders picture of the nominee, preferably taken in a well-lit area in front of a solid background.

In addition to the photo, please include the following information: name, class, sport, along with any clubs or other extracurricular activities the athlete is involved in.

The record: 6-2

The record to start the season last week could have been a lot worse. I’ll take 6-2 and a .750 percentage for the first games and look to keep getting better as we learn more about who has what.

Cape Fear at Seventy-First – The Falcons have been waiting a year for payback, and I think they will get it. Cape Fear is banged up and Justice Galloway-Velazquez is still mending from an offseason ankle surgery.

Prediction: Seventy-First 24, Cape Fear 16.

Douglas Byrd at South Columbus – South Columbus made the Eastern finals in its classification last season. Could be a rough night for Byrd.

Prediction: South Columbus 29, Douglas Byrd 12.

Durham Jordan at E.E. Smith – The Golden Bulls look to go 2-0 under second-year coach Deron Donald.

Prediction: E.E. Smith 27, Durham Jordan 21.

Gray’s Creek at Pinecrest – The Bears will have their hands full tonight, judging from how good Pinecrest looked in its opener last week.

Prediction: Pinecrest 31, Gray’s Creek 12.

Jack Britt at Terry Sanford – Jayne Airways, Christian to Andrew, figures to be flying high again this week for Terry Sanford.

Prediction: Terry Sanford 32, Jack Britt 6.

Pine Forest at Concord – Concord, like Pine Forest, is trying to rebuild from graduation losses. I have to give the edge to the home team, especially for a trip this long.

Prediction: Concord 22, Pine Forest 20.

South View at Hoke County – South View looked solid in its win over Jack Britt but can’t take Hoke lightly, as the Bucks played Cary tough on the road last week.

Prediction: South View 24, Hoke County 12.

Lumberton at Westover – Both teams were shut out last week, but Westover played a little better defense against a strong opponent. I’ll give the edge to the Wolverines.

Prediction: Westover 21, Lumberton 20.

Other games

North Raleigh Christian 21, Fayetteville Christian 14

Village Christian 13, Concord First Assembly 12

Wake Christian 29, Trinity Christian 16

Terry Sanford, Pine Forest and Fayetteville Academy all enjoyed good soccer seasons a year ago. The way things look on paper, they’re likely to do it again  this year.

Terry Sanford did lose so me key players to graduation, but head coach Karl Molnar thinks there is potential on this year’s Bulldog squad.

“We’ve got a little bit of time to get these guys on the same sheet of music,’’ Molnar said. “Jared Miller is coming back. He had phenomenal years as a freshman and sophomore. And we’ve got the regional goalkeeper of the year back in Thomas Rogers. So we’ve got some pieces there.’’

Molnar expects the Bulldogs will be underestimated by all of their opponents, and agrees they should be. “We’re very young,’’ he said.

Pine Forest coach Isaac Rancour expects his team to benefit from a gradual maturing process. “We’ve got a good group of seniors coming back and we’re pretty heavy with juniors this year,’’ he said. “I think we’re really well-rounded. We’re looking for everyone to step up and fulfill their responsibility.’’

The versatile Isaiah Bennett, who is also a star baseball player for the Trojans, leads the group of returners for Rancour.

“I think we’re going to have a good year if we can reach that potential,’’ Rancour said.

Fayetteville Academy coach Andrew McCarthy rarely rebuilds but frequently reloads. Although he’s got a young team, this looks like one of those reloading years.

“Drayton Smith has been with us two years,’’ McCarthy said. “He’s a tough kid, a hard-working kid. He’s going to be a captain.’’

Victor Jones is also in his second year with the Eagles. “He’s worked hard on his fitness and looks like a different player,’’ McCarthy said. “We’re expecting big things from him.’’

Freshman Hudson Zeisman has been leading the offense early for the Eagles. “He’ll get after it and always gives it 100 percent,’’ McCarthy said.

Cortez Herring has been playing for a club team in Raleigh and has made a lot of improvement. “Technically he’s fantastic,’’ McCarthy said. “If he just pushes a little more he could be a real big-time player.’’

PHOTOS: (Top to Bottom : L-R) Isiah Bennett, Drayton Smith & Hudson Zeisman

Lauren Giles has a tough act to follow in her first season as volleyball coach at Gray’s Creek. So does Jeff Bruner at Cape Fear, but it’s his own fault, because he was the architect of what happened with the Colts last season.

Giles is taking over for the highly successful Crystal Waddell, who led the Bears to an unbeaten regular season and another deep run in the state 3-A playoffs.

Giles has been playing and coaching the sport since the age of 10, but this is her first try at being head coach. “It’s a new group of girls,’’ she said.

“We have three or four that were on the team last year and had some playing time. “We’re having a look at the junior varsity girls coming and stepping up,’’ she said. “I know they can do it. We have to build that relationship with each other and get them on the same page.’’

Sisters Emily and Sydney Bresee head the list of returnees for the Bears. “They practice together and play together,’’ Giles said. “Our libero Natalie Blanchard has also been shining. She’s playing out of this work.’’

One challenge for Giles is getting to know the rest of the new Patriot Conference competition since she’s new to the area. “We played in the Jack Britt jamboree, and I got to see a little bit,’’ she said. “My JV coach, Kellie Aldridge, has been around and seen the girls play through the volleyball world in Fayetteville.’’

Giles said her goal for the season is to be solid and consistent.

That’s what Bruner’s done at Cape Fear as he continues to build the same kind of program he once enjoyed at Pine Forest. The Colts are coming off a Mid-South 4-A Conference title, going unbeaten in league play.

“We lost two important spots, but we have seven returners,’’ he said. “We’ve changed our defense to fit this new mold. We’re kind of still figuring it out, but we feel pretty confident.’’

Defense has always been a focus for Bruner, and he expects that will be critical for success this year. Cheyenne Hill is the only senior on the team, which got off to a strong start the first week of the volleyball season with wins over Jack Britt and Terry Sanford, a pair of traditional volleyball powers in the county.

“We knew we were going to be playing two or three very tough conference games right at the start,’’ Bruner said.

“We were ready.’’

PHOTOS: (Top to Bottom : L-R) Emily Bresee, Sydney Bresee, Cheyenne Hill

Jesse Autry is beginning his 21st season as cross-country coach at South View, and little has changed. His Tigers again figure to be among the top contenders for local glory in the sport.

The girls, though a little banged up to start the year, are state-ranked by NCrunners.com.

Leading the returners for the lady Tigers is Faith Roy. “You know what a gym rat is?”

Autry said. “She’s a track rat. She puts in the work. She’s easily run over 350 or 400 miles this summer. She’s very focused when she trains.’’ Autry said Roy lives by one of the mantras of the South View crosscountry program: Practice makes  permanent.

“She’s got talent and work ethic,’’ Autry said.

Unlike in years past, Autry said his boys’ team doesn’t have one super-runner, like Philip Hall who’s now on the cross-country team at NC State, along with his younger sister Janay.

Autry doesn’t expect the boys to be state-ranked like the girls, but that doesn’t mean the Tigers won’t be strong again.

“We raced Apex Friendship in a two-mile race at camp and beat them headto-head,’’ Autry said. “We were surprised.’’

The Tiger boys also showed in that race that running as a pack will again be a key for South View. “Our spread at camp between No. 1 and No. 7 was 12 seconds,’’ Autry said. “It’s what gave us success.’’ 

The top runner in camp for South View was junior Keith Johnson. “His wall’s not decorated with plaques and medals, but I feel real good about him,’’ Autry said. “I feel real good about all of them.’’

Autry said the biggest news in the crosscountry world is that the N.C. High School Athletic Association has changed some of its regional assignments, and South View now finds itself in the same regional with the strong cross-country program of Green Hope in Wake County.

“The big question is can South View or anybody get out of the Mid-East Region to go to the state meet,’’ Autry said. “My guys have got a chip on their shoulder about that.’’

Autry said his boys remind him a lot of his 2010 team, which finished runner-up in the state 4-A meet. “They were ranked 11th going into the state meet and lost by one guy,’’ he said. “This team’s mentality is a lot like that. We’ll see how it all shakes out.’’

Regardless of state competition, Autry expects to find plenty of tough foes within the county.

“Rachel Henderson does a really good job coaching Gray’s Creek, and Terry Sanford’s girls are traditionally pretty tough,’’ he said.

On the boys’ side, Autry said Jack Britt and Pine Forest are among the traditionally strong teams, but he thinks Cape Fear may be the team to watch.

“They had a heck of a group of freshmen last year,’’ he said. “A lot of people are talking about those freshmen. I’ve got one eye peeking over at them.’’

PHOTOS: (Top to Bottom) Faith Roy & Keith Johnson