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Miscellany

Obituary – Frank Graham Umstead

Frank Graham Umstead, 91, of Chapel Hill, died April 28, 2007 after a long decline in health. He was born on June 9, 1915 in Greensboro to the late Sallie Reade and John Wesley Umstead, Jr., a fourteen-term N.C. legislator representing Orange County. He was the eldest of the Umstead’s four children and namesake of the late Frank Porter Graham, a close family friend. He was recently preceded in death by his beloved wife of 62 years, Margaret “Peggy” Burris Umstead; and by his parents; his brother, John Wesley Umstead, III; and his sister, Sarah E. Umstead.

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Miscellany

Rites of Spring

Suzanne Kennedy (left) and Sara Beaman perform a sword dance while Amy-Jae Rignola Crawford looks on during “The Rite of Spring,” a performance at Forest Theater by the Devoted Bellydance Collective. The collective held two shows to benefit the Orange County Rape Crisis Center and the to aid the Arbor Day Foundation’s efforts to replace trees lost in Hurricane Katrina. Photo by Kirk Ross

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Miscellany

Exile on Jones Street

By Kirk Ross

Maybe we should all go pro.

When it comes to sports, this is that time of year I most dislike. This is when those thin walls that separate college and professional athletics come down and we start seeing dollar figures instead of majors and year in school in the descriptive clauses of individuals who’ve played loyally for our chosen schools.

I don’t begrudge anyone a bit for going pro and totally understand where they’re coming from. I was anxious to get into the professional world myself and left after my junior year for a six-figure salary. Of course, a lot of those figures came after the decimal point.

Given the circumstances, it seems perfectly sane for many of these young men to go pro. Less balanced is the fact that the rest of us haven’t. Under the circumstances, holding on to the ideal that all collegiate sports are an amateur enterprise, while certainly high-minded is both bizarre and expensive behavior.

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Miscellany

Land (and jobs) for tomorrow

By Abdul Rasheed

It’s encouraging to see the positive attention generated by a proposal in the General Assembly that could lead to the most important environmental initiative in the history of our state. Those of us involved with the project call it “Land for Tomorrow.” Others refer to it as the land-use plan in House Bill 990 and Senate Bill 1522, both introduced a few weeks ago with broad support from Democrats and Republicans alike.

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Miscellany

For the Record

Retrograde in health care

A new study from the university’s Sheps Center confirms that North Carolina is falling further behind when it comes to health care.

The percentage of uninsured North Carolinians grew to 1,314,238 people, a rise from 15.3 percent of the population in 2000 to 17.2 percent in 2005.

The center produced maps of the state by legislative district to let each of our state senators and representatives know where their district stands when it comes to percent of uninsured.

The maps remind us in plain detail that around the tip of the state to the west and in vast swaths of the coastal plain, poverty still has a tight hold on many. In Tyrell County, more than 27 percent of the residents are uninsured. It’s one of dozens of counties where between 20 and 25 percent of the residents have no insurance.

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Miscellany

Town appoints new representatives

At its meeting Tuesday night, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen recommended that the county approve the appointment of Margo Lester as Carrboro’s representative to the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

The board also approved the appointments of Carly Apple, Mary Rabinowitz and Ryan Elting to the town’s Environmental Advisory Board.

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Miscellany

Police want help with string of burglaries

The Chapel Hill Police Department is investigating a string of residential burglaries in the West Cameron Avenue area. Incidents include:

  • Someone entered the residence at 210 Ransom St. through the front door on April 20 at 6:32 a.m., but left without taking anything when the resident called out.
  • Between 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on April 20, someone entered the residence at 212 Vance St. through a basement door and stole a Sony Playstation, camera, alcoholic beverages and a small suitcase.
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Miscellany

Lights installed

New solar-powered signal lights were installed last week at Ephesus Elementary School on Ephesus Church Road and at Estes Hills Elementary and Phillips Middle schools on Estes Drive. The town also plans to install lights at Culbreth Middle School.

The improvements are funded with $21,000 of sidewalk and street improvement bonds approved by voters in 2003.

The solar-powered flashing lights help to enhance the awareness of drivers when traveling near schools and are activated during the morning and afternoon hours on school days.

Categories
Weather

Carrboro Day weather

The Carrboro Day weather watch is on. Looks windy, but that’ll depend on the timing as a front moves through the area.
Here’s the forecast:
For you weather geeks, here’s the rundown so far via this morning’s NWS discussion:

TONIGHT INTO EARLY SUN…MID LEVEL TROUGH AND ASSOCIATED SURFACE FRONT WILL DROP ACROSS REGION BETWEEN 06-14Z SUN. THESE FEATURES IN COMBINATION WITH MOISTURE IN PLACE SHOULD PROVIDE DECENT CHANCE FOR SHOWERS. AM A BIT CONCERN THAT DEEPENING W-NW FLOW IN THE 850-500MB LAYER MAY DAMPER SHOWER DEVELOPMENT. WITH MOS GUIDANCE RANGING FROM HIGH CHANCE TO LOW CATEGORICAL…WILL GO WITH A COMPROMISE AND MAINTAIN LIKELY POPS TONIGHT.

SUNDAY…EXPECT RAPID ENDING IN PRECIP FROM N-S IN THE MORNING AS LOW/MID LEVEL TROUGH SWEEPS THROUGH THE REGION AND STRONG HIGH PRESSURE BUILDS IN BEHIND SYSTEM. EXPECT RATHER BRISK CONDITIONS SUN AFTERNOON WITH STRONG HIGH TO OUR NORTH AND LOW DEVELOPING OFFSHORE.
WINDS SHOULD STEADY NE AROUND 15KTS WITH GUSTS 25-30KTS.

Here’s the experimental graphical forecast page (not for forecasting purposes).

Categories
Miscellany

Town Charter

There’s an extra in this week’s edition of The Carrboro Citizen

We published the Charter of the Town of Carrboro. Well, most of it. We wanted to celebrate our first Carrboro Day as a newspaper in a special way. So, we got down to basics.

The two-and-a-half pages in the paper detail the changes, modifications and additions to the town Charter since the last extensive re-write in 1987. You’ll find how the town organization and elections, it’s authority to regulate business, levy taxes, fees and a lot of specifics.

What we left out of the paper — the full text of section 2.1 — is pretty interesting as well. It’s the physical description of the town with language like:

running thence southwestward along the center line of Smith Level Road 750 feet to the center line of Morgan Creek, then along the eastern right-of-way of Smith Level Road 2,550 feet to the northern right-of-way line of Culbreth Road; running thence along the northern right-of-way line of Culbreth Road South 76° 24’ East a distance of 357.24 feet, thence to the center line of the Culbreth Road right-of-way South 13° 36’ West a distance of 30 feet, thence South 48° West 189.88 feet along the eastern property line of . . .

It’s on the Web version.

Link: Charter of the Town of Carrboro

Categories
Miscellany

“It’s only paint”

A fictional account of the chartering of venable

By Catherine DeVine

The published histories of Carrboro’s establishment as a town apart from Chapel Hill place all of the action at the West End train station and the prosperous textile mill adjacent to it. We know that Julian Shakespeare Carr bought the mill from Thomas Lloyd, who died the same year the town was incorporated as Venable in 1911. The fact of Thomas Lloyd’s illiteracy appears in all accounts. I invented his helper. —Catherine DeVine

They were all dressed up that day, even the clerks. The University had dispatched a young man with a camera, and a rumor started early that he was trotting up to the West End with President Venable himself. Whether or not the President wanted his picture made at the train station, there was a freshly painted sign out there waiting for him to smile beside: “Venable, North Carolina.” The young man with the camera would make the most of that.