The town of Carrboro will celebrate Independence Day with a parade, music and festivities at the Town Commons.

The festivities will begin at 9:30 a.m. at Weaver Street Market with bluegrass musicians Tim Stambaugh & Friends. Registration for the Patriotic Costume Contest is open from 10 to 10:30, and winners will be announced before the parade down Weaver Street to the Town Hall.

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Live Music

• 10:30 a.m. — Village Band
• 11:30 a.m. — Cane Creek Cloggers
• 12 - 2 p.m. — Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos
• 2:15 - 3 p.m. — The Obies Gospel Music

Parade at Weaver Street Market 

• 9:30 a.m. — Tim Stambaugh & Friends, Parade designing and decorating booths opens Registration opens for the Patriotic Costume Contest
• 10:30 a.m. — Registration closes
• 10:45 a.m. —  Contest winners announced
• 11:00 a.m. — Parade to the town hall

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Director Tom Quaintance (left) and company members hoist Matt Baldiga, who plays Fagin, on their shoulders during rehearsal. Photo Courtesy of Summer Youth Conservatory

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

During the summer months, the halls of UNC’s Center for Dramatic Arts are usually pretty quiet. This summer, though, the center is bustling with the activities of more than 40 local young actors and actresses.

With the combined efforts of the ArtsCenter’s Summer Youth Performing Arts Conservatory and PlayMakers Repertory Company, a young cast will present “Oliver!,” a musical theater adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist, in July.

“It’s nice to have the building buzzing,” said Kathy Hunter Williams, a founding member of the conservatory and a company member at PlayMakers. “It’s been so deathly quiet in the summer.”

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15-year-old was student at Smith Middle School

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Quincy Bowens is being hailed as a hero for his last act — trying to get his two-year-old cousin safely inside as more than a dozen bullets raked the front of the apartment complex in Durham where his aunt lives.

Bowens, a 15-year-old Smith Middle School student, was struck by a bullet Monday evening around 7 p.m. on the front porch of the apartment. He was taken to Duke Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Smith Middle School principal Valerie Reinhardt said that even though Bowens was new to the school — he transferred there last October — he was known as a fun-loving youngster with a cordial disposition.

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Coleman announces, others to follow

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The first Tuesday in November might seem like a few months and a few dozen degrees Fahrenheit away, but election season is right around the corner. Or it was until Monday, when Carrboro Board of Alderman member Dan Coleman broke the ice and became the first to step up and officially announce his candidacy for elected office.

Speaking before roughly 20 supporters who had gathered in the shade at the Carrboro Town Commons, Coleman said he would concentrate on planning for Carolina North, improving housing affordability and would work to bring a free-standing public library to the downtown. He also said he would make sure that as the town grows, neighborhood concerns are heard.

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By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

In a lengthy Tuesday night meeting at Town Hall that will be its last until August, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen hailed the approval of a major piece of downtowns redevelopment, reworked the town rules on affordable housing, OK’d a swim club for the Winmore subdivision, set new rules for day care centers and delayed action on a 96-unit development near Twin Creeks park.

After hearing concerns from downtown neighbors and businesses on the impact of parking, the board opted to move ahead on approval for the first phase of the redevelopment of 300 East Main Street, giving the go-ahead for a five-story office, retail and restaurant complex at 208 West Main Street between Cat’s Cradle and the train tracks.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday voted 4-1 to increase county property taxes by 4.7 cents and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro special district tax by 1.5 cents as part of the $173.6 million fiscal year 2007-08 budget.

The increases bring the county property tax to 95 cents per $100 valuation and the special district tax to 20.35 cents. For a $200,000 home, county property tax will increase $94, to $1,900.

Commissioner Mike Nelson voted against the budget. In budget work sessions, Nelson said he did not support raising the special district tax because it creates inequity between the county’s two school districts.

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New building (adjacent to the train tracks) and how it will look with the current configuration of the 300 East Main Street property. Source: Main Street Partners

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

The first of five major projects in downtown Carrboro won approval from the town’s Board of Aldermen Tuesday night, but only after a lengthy debate about how the project will affect parking for other businesses in the area.

Dubbed “Phase A,” the new project is a five-story, 48,000-square-foot building and pedestrian plaza on the site now occupied by Archer Graphics.

The development is the first phase of Main Street Partners overall plan to redevelop most of the southern side of East Main Street from the railroad tracks to the building now occupied by Performance Bicycle Shop.

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Carrboro Massage Therapy opens
Ruth Newnam has announced the Grand Opening of Carrboro Massage Therapy on Ashe Street in Carrboro.

Newnam is joined by licensed massage and bodywork therapists Sarah Pryor, Allyn Sharp Putnam and Naomi Heitz; Leela Breedlove of BlissWorks Life Coaching Services; and Margaret Rhee, LCSW.

Newnam recently purchased the commercial property to house her massage therapy practice and to create a group practice for like-minded massage and wellness professionals.

There will be an open house with food, music and art Sunday, July 1 from 5-7 p.m.

Carrboro Massage Therapy is located at 102 Ashe Street. For more information call 593-1630.

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Queen Anne’s Lace, a “wild carrot.” Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

They began flowering weeks ago and they are still making a show along roadsides and wherever folks allow them to move about freely on their lawns and in their gardens.

I learned to recognize the green winter leafy rosettes of Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annuus) some years ago and I deliberately give them freedom wherever they appear in my wild landscape. My reward is masses of tiny white daisy flowers on multi-branching stems, three to five feet tall, cheering up my yard and garden areas for weeks and weeks. And this year, for whatever reason, they seem to be flowering in profusion everywhere, inspite of the continuing drought.

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By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

Hoping to replicate the success of similarly designed facilities in Asheville and West Jefferson, a group of local grocers and economic development leaders are researching the possibility of setting up a shared-use food-processing center to serve small farms and food businesses in Alamance, Chatham, Durham and Orange counties. The purpose of the facility would be to foster the production and marketing of locally grown value-added foods. As conceived, the center would provide processing equipment and storage space for individuals and small businesses to produce a variety of food items. It would also provide technical support and marketing and business-planning assistance.

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University planners say this is a first pass at the initial phase of development at Carolina North. Source: UNC Chapel Hill

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Planners for Carolina North concluded their series of community meetings last week with the third presentation of the school’s efforts to craft a design for Carolina North.

Jack Evans, the project’s executive director, said that the first 15 years of buildout at the site will add roughly 2.5 million square feet of university programs, partnerships, housing and retail, commercial service and civic space.

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UNC News Services

Students at UNC recently honored three faculty members, one staff member and six teaching assistants for excellence in undergraduate teaching and service to students.

The 2007 Student Undergraduate Teaching and Staff Awards honored faculty members Marcie Fisher-Borne, an adjunct faculty member in social work; Hannah Gill, Ph.D., a lecturer in international studies; and Mark McCombs, a lecturer in mathematics.

The winning staff member was Amon Easterling Anderson, internship director for the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative.

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Ronald Wesley Hyatt. Photo Courtesy of UNC News Services

UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL — Officially, Ronald Wesley Hyatt was a professor, coach and faculty marshal at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for nearly 40 years, and a winner of the state’s highest honor, the Order of the Long-Leaf Pine from the governor, in 2004.

Unofficially, Hyatt, who died late Wednesday (June 13) after a long battle with cancer, was one of the most sincerely enthusiastic and warm – and ever-present – boosters of positive progress by individuals within the Carolina community and by the university as a whole.

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Editor’s Note: He had no polling numbers to guide his thoughts, nor any indication that the cause for which he put pen to paper would see another year, let alone two and a third centuries. In late June, there was open rebellion in the land. The British fleet and a sizeable land force were due at New York any minute. A long war lay ahead and there was no turning back. That was made clear by a best-selling pamphlet titled Common Sense, which hit the streets the previous January.

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