This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

On Tuesday, the Sawmills Farmers Market becomes the second farmers market in the county to allow payment using debit cards and food stamps. The Lenoir Downtown Farmers Market started in May.

The Sawmills market started the process last season of applying to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval to accept electronic benefit transfer cards, which the government uses to administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, market treasurer Brittany Crump said.    Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

See Horace Minton out on the golf course, and you’ll probably do a double-take.

What he’s using to whack the ball is not a traditional golf putter at all – it has a CB antenna in place of a traditional club shaft.

This is what he calls the Minton’s Flex-a-Putt Putter, which Minton designed more than 12 years ago and has been using ever since. It’s now in the first round of competition in Walmart’s “Get on the Shelf” contest, which is just what it sounds like: a multi-round competition launched in 2012 in which the public can vote for product ideas they would like to see on the shelves at the retail giant’s stores. In its first year, the contest had three winners. Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

Despite an unemployment rate hovering around 11 percent and a poverty rate at 18.4 percent, a resource that could help struggling single-parent families is underutilized in Caldwell County.

Caldwell County WIC, an organization that provides federally-funded nutrition assistance for single mothers and their children, only serves 86 percent of its assigned caseload and has seen steady declines since 2009.

“We’ve been doing all sorts of outreach to try and promote our services and what we offer to the community and just nothing seems to make an impact,” Caldwell County WIC Director Danae Olson said. “I’m not sure what else to do.” Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

More students are graduating from high school in Caldwell County than before, according to data released by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction on Thursday.

The Caldwell County Schools’ graduation rate was 89.4 percent for students entering in 2009-10 and graduating in 2012-13. That’s up from 84.6 in 2011-12, and higher than the state rate of 82.5 percent.

Each public high school in the county saw its graduation rate rise from 2011-12 to 2012-13. The rates at each school were also higher than the state rate. Continue reading →

This article was published in the Lenoir News-Topic.

There’s a sign pointing them in the right direction — white printer paper taped to the door, the edges curling a bit, the words  in large type: “Disaster assistance.”

Inside the waiting room, it’s cold. People shift and wait on hard, faux-leather chairs. They’ve brought along videos and photos of when the water flowed into their basements, businesses or low-lying apartments.

Inside the Catawba County Agriculture Resource Building in Newton, a disaster recovery center has opened to allow people hit by flooding in Catawba, Caldwell, Burke, Alexander, Iredell and Lincoln counties to apply for low-interest loans (from the U.S. Small Business Administration) and grants (from North Carolina Emergency Management). Continue reading →

It’s been a long time, but once there were more towns along the banks of Wilson Creek.

Northwestern Caldwell County is now dominated by recreation, from kayakers to campers. But at the beginning of the 20th century, the area was home to about 1,000 people, living in Mortimer and Edgemont, towns cut through by railroad tracks and battered by floods.

On Saturday, people crowded into the Wilson Creek Visitor Center for Heritage Day. Hosted by the Collettsville Historical Society each year, Heritage Day is something of a reunion for descendants of what visitor center operator Glynis James calls “the old families.” Continue reading →