This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

On Friday night, guests will mill around in business-casual dress for Communities in Schools’ Celebrate the Children: A Taste of Caldwell County.

They’ll load their plates with barbecue, pizza, Mexican food, appetizers, desserts and just about any other type of food you could imagine.

Later, music (from the Harper School and the acoustic trio Strictly Clean & Decent) will drift through the room. Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

Rhodhiss will increase its price for water and sewer service in 2013-14, if the town council approves the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

The bill for 4,000 gallons of water would rise from $23.51 to $28.

A 4,000-gallon sewer bill would rise from $23.51 to $34. Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

On Monday night, the Caldwell County Schools will ask the Caldwell County Board of Commissioners to borrow $14.5 million to build a new middle school for the Hibriten district.

School officials say the school system can make the annual debt payments without an increase in the system’s budget or a tax increase, largely because they’ve anticipated this need for so long.

There are two customary sources that K-12 schools use for construction and other capital projects, Superintendent Steve Stone said: a percentage of sales tax revenue they receive from the county and the state, and a percentage of lottery revenue that’s allocated to school districts based on the number of students they serve. Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

In elementary and middle school, Zach Blevins was one of those kids who pose a conundrum for educators: He was too smart.

That is, he was too smart for the traditional model of classroom education, which involves a lot of sitting down at desks. He figured things out quickly, leaving him with a lot of time to sit and wonder just when in real life he would ever apply the algebra he was learning. Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

Graduations usually follow a formula.

There’s a president/principal/chancellor introduction, a procession of speakers that reads like who’s-who-in-local-education, the valedictorian and, of course, the keynote guest.

Caldwell Career Center Middle College breaks out of that mold. Continue reading →

This opinion piece was published in The Appalachian.

Something pretty amazing happened in Kidd Brewer Stadium Saturday.

I don’t need to tell the whole story – don’t need to wax poetic about fans spilling out of stadium seating onto the field after knocking off an undefeated, number-one team. At home. In the cold. Continue reading →

This article was published in The Appalachian.

After 92 years on King Street, the Boone Drug lunch counter will close in December, making room for the Feeding All Regardless of Means (F.A.R.M.) Café.

The café is part of One World Everybody Eats, a national organization designed to relieve hunger at the local level. Under the nonprofit’s business model, diners can pay for their meal via donations or volunteer time at the restaurant, or they can choose not to pay for their meal. Continue reading →

This article was published in The Appalachian.

In the last four decades, enormous strides have been made toward racial equality. University enrollment among minorities is up. Sometimes, bigotry as a whole is thought to be on its way out.

Does that mean race no longer matters? Are we past that issue? Can we – as a society, as a university – call ourselves post-racial? Continue reading →