Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

Soon to be a major motion picture

Posted on May 26, 2011May 26, 2011 by Staff

Catherine DeVine

Summer of ’97: I’d recently moved into Carrboro with too much stuff. In purge mode one morning, I rolled Mom’s old Hoover to my office down the street, smack into the middle of the Fourth of July parade.

This little movie called Carrboro is in production year round. The director at that time, Mike Nelson, deserves an Academy Award. Mayor Mike created the Carrboro Arts Committee toward the end of ’97 as a fully sanctioned advisory board with a license to make things happen. At one of our very first meetings, Mike floated the notion of a town-wide music festival. We said why not, and pulled it off six months later.

And we had so much fun doing it the first time, against all odds, that the Carrboro Music Festival was here to stay.

Not long afterward, at the apex of the Nelson era (’95-’05), Mayor Mike spearheaded the purchase of the former Carrboro Baptist Church with an eye toward resurrecting it. The Carrboro Century Center Dedication Committee produced a marathon grand opening – seven straight days of daytime and nighttime events ranging from dance to celebrity bingo in Century Hall.

Gosh, that was a blast. There were no rules to break back then, so we had a field day.

The Dedication Committee was informally charged with keeping the dream alive in the Century Center’s early stages of operation. In any case, we were too enamored with the Century Center’s possibilities (and each other) to disband anytime soon. First, we produced a dandy Monday night offering called Food for Thought. This eight-week test drive preceded a naturally evolving schedule of community gatherings in Century Hall starting with the Vision 2020 charrette. The following spring, Carrboro was the first stop on a nationwide tour of Out & Elected in the USA. That photo exhibit knocked our socks off. We were too dazzled by its importance to collapse under its weight.

So much has happened in the last decade, it’s like the film projector went haywire. 2ndFriday Artwalk, Carrboro Film Festival, West End Poets Weekend … the Arts Committee is unstoppable! And they’re taking applications. So are most of the other advisory boards (Planning, Appearance, Transportation, Adjustment and the list goes on) that meet on a regular basis to weigh in on town-related matters.

To check out board vacancies, visit townofcarrboro.org. My only gripe about the application process is this: You have to resign from one advisory board before applying to get on a different one – no double-dipping allowed. One can, however, sign up for any number of Recreation & Parks volunteer gigs – Carrboro Day, Independence Day, Carrboro Music Festival, the fun stuff you don’t have to swear on a bible. I personally recommend some of each. Advisory board membership gives me access to Town Hall; event organizing gives me pleasure.

The Carrboro Centennial Celebration was my swan song, folks. The next wave of trailblazers will get plenty of guidance from town staff and seasoned volunteers, aka, The Usual Suspects. We know the drill and we love telling stories. Anybody watching this movie could take my place.

Catherine DeVine is a member of the Carrboro Board of Adjustment, Centennial Committee and Carrboro Music Festival Committee and was the 2008 Volunteer of the Year.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme