Simeon Holloway introduces members of the B-1 Navy Band during a ceremony honoring the group at the Franklin Street Post Office.  Photo by Kirk Ross

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

They stood on the steps of the Franklin Street Post Office and received a key to the Town of Chapel Hill. Later, they filed into the building that served as their barracks some 65 years ago and had praises heaped upon them by a grateful community.

The reception given the B-1 Navy Band — know affectionately in town as the Navy Preflight Band — was vastly different than their first march through the streets of Chapel Hill, when they were met with jeers, insults and, reportedly, handfuls of flying mud as well.

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By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

It isn’t all that old. Except in a few places, it’s not so high flying. And if you ask local artists, it isn’t all that grand. But on Tuesday, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to keep the town flag as it is.

The fact that the town has a flag is not all that well known. Unlike Chapel Hill, which redesigned its flag several years ago and uses it extensively, the most visible evidence of Carrboro’s flag is at Town Hall, where it rests curled and obscured behind the Board of Aldermen at their meetings.

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On Friday and Saturday, September 7 and 8, the ArtsCenter will present The Coastal Cohorts (Don Dixon, Bland Simpson and Jim Wann) performing songs from their popular coastal show “King Mackeral and The Blues are Running” and from their sequel CD “Wild Ponies, More Songs from the Carolina Coast.”

The trio recently completed a successful four-show stand for the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, June 28th-30th, at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City.

The shows start at 8:30 p.m.  Tickets are $16 General Admission and $14 for ArtsCenter Friends. For more information, call 929-2787.

— From Staff Reports

First in a series of downtown residential/commercial projects

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Final agreement on the last set of conditions on the proposed Alberta project was delayed Tuesday night after a lengthy discussion by the Carrboro Board of Aldermen.

After closing a public hearing at Town Hall on the four-story 46,340-square-foot project, board members focused on how it and other mixed-use developments would affect downtown.
Two major areas of negotiation have been how many affordable housing units to require at The Alberta and where to draw the line between public and private property.

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After opening branches in Chapel Hill and Raleigh, bank plans for more

Ben Lucas, branch manager, left, and Larry Loeser, president, stand inside the new Harrington Bank location. Photo by Kirk Ross 

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

It sounds like the opening of an old joke, but even though Ben Lucas laughs when he tells it, he’s not kidding.

“A lady walked in the other day and said she was looking for a can of red paint,” Lucas manager of Harrington Bank’s new branch on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard said. “We told her we were a bank now, and she said ‘that’s nice but where’s your paint.’”

Lucas and his staff expect to get a good bit of that since the bank opened its doors August 27 in the fully renovated former home of Piedmont Decorators.

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Mariana Fiorentino

Carrboro real estate broker Mariana Fiorentino recently received the EcoBroker Certified designation after completing a training program regarding the energy and environmental issues affecting real estate.

Fiorentino, owner of Terra Nova Global Properties, completed the EcoBroker program in July.

The program provides participants with information regarding energy-efficient and healthy features of homes and buildings through a curriculum of energy and environmental training.

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Learn what’s on the horizon
Speakers from Orange County, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough will talk about upcoming development projects and other items on the county’s horizon at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce’s first Orange County Development Breakfast, Monday, September 10 from 8:00 to 10: 00 a.m. at UNC’s Friday Center. Cost to attend is $25 for chamber members and $35 for non-members. Register online at www.carolinachamber.org/members/register.html or call 967-7075.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Having allowed the deadline for putting a tax referendum on the November ballot to pass, the Board of County Commissioners must now determine whether to put a land transfer tax, a sales tax increase or both on the ballot next May.

The state Board of Elections required counties to decide by September 6 if they were going to put a tax referendum on the ballot for November’s elections. The Board of County Commissioners took no action regarding the tax option at a work session last week.

In this year’s state budget, the Legislature gave counties the option of a 0.4 percent land transfer tax or a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help compensate for money taken away from counties in a deal to turn responsibility for paying for Medicaid over to the state.

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Market House dedication

The dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Orange County Public Market House will be held September 13 at 10 a.m.

The Public Market House will be the future home of the Hillsborough Farmers’ Market. The ceremony will be held at the construction site of the market house at 144 E. Margaret Lane in Hillsborough, behind the Sheriff’s Office.

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Southern Folklife Collection to host two events and announces release of a new CD
Orville Hicks, a traditional storyteller from Watauga County, will entertain on Friday, Sept. 7 from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room in Wilson Library. Hicks will tell Jack Tales that have been handed down in his community and stories about his experiences growing up in the southern Appalachian mountains. The event is co-sponsored by the curriculums in American Studies and Folklore and is free and open to the public.

Cultural critic Greil Marcus will speak on the American ballad tradition in the 21st century, accompanied by traditional country band The Handsome Family from 6 to 9 p.m. on Sept. 14 in the Pleasants Assembly Room in Wilson Library. Marcus is the author of books including Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll and Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes. The Handsome Family is a husband-and-wife duo that blends traditional bluegrass and country murder ballads into modern scenery. A reception will precede the event at 5 p.m. Both the reception and event are free and open to the public.

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Deborah Pearson-Moyers holds Pinto Bean (L) with Nancy Proia, and Flynn (R) with Mary Todd Peters, while guiding the women through warm-up stretches as part of her Women’s Intuitive Riding Group. Photo Courtesy of Valarie Schwartz

By Valarie Schwartz

…while attending a ceremony at Emerson Waldorf School, Deborah Pearson-Moyers sat down and brightly asked, “Who are you?”

My response gained an invitation to see what she does at her Blue Skies of Mapleview horse farm off Dodson’s Crossroads. Driving home after observing a lesson Tuesday, a question for the ages tumbled around in my head: What is it about women and horses?

Perhaps the answer lies in the name of the sessions Pearson-Moyers leads — Women’s Intuitive Riding. Women and horses following their intuition fare pretty well; working together, they can move mountains — and negative energy.

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By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

As if you needed further proof, witness firsthand this Saturday.

But of course you already knew. You knew that an absolutely essential ingredient in the very finest dishes from all our favorite chefs is that locally grown goodness – such as is found nowhere in greater abundance than at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. Come, then, for the food, this Saturday morning, September 8, to the sixth-annual Chefs Who Shop the Carrboro Farmers’ Market event. Six chefs who regularly stock their kitchens with all the market has to offer will be on hand creating Southern fare-inspired dishes using ingredients presently available from market vendors.

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Free lawn-care workshops
OWASA and the Orange County cooperative extension service will hold a series of sustainable lawn-care workshops. The workshops are free, but regislatration is limited. The dates of the workshops are Tuesday, Sept. 11 from 10-11:30 a.m. and from 7-8:30 p.m. and Wednesday Sept. 12 from 2-3:30 p.m.

The workshops will be in the Community Room at OWASA, 400 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro.

For more information, call Orange County Cooperative Extension Service at 245-2050 or OWASA at 967-9251.

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Closeup of Bidens flower head showing central tiny disc flowers surrounded by ray flowers hosting a crab spider with captured prey. Photo by Ken Moore

By Ken Moore

One plant
To me, Labor Day means the flowering of Bidens aristosa and Bidens polylepis. Don’t worry about which is which. Their golden-yellow, daisy-like flowers are so similar that I leave it to the younger botanists to devote long hours to sorting them. It’s enough for me to know that the former occurs in the coastal plain and the later occurs in the mountains and both commonly overlap in our piedmont.

The Latin name, Bidens, means two teeth; it’s descriptive of two tooth-like projections on top of the flattened seed of some species. You will recognize and cuss the seed of the very common Spanish Needles, Bidens bipinnata, with three and four long needle-like teeth that grab your clothes by the hundreds during fall walks. Spanish Needles don’t have showy flowers like the first two species mentioned above. The showy-flowered Bidens go by numerous common names: Bur Marigold, Tickseed, Ditch Daisy, Ozark Tickseed Sunflower, and the list goes on. You take your pick. Go ahead, make up your own name and you’re more likely to remember it.

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By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

The last time the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School district named a new school, the district’s naming committee heard from hundreds of parents and community members.

School officials don’t, however, expect nearly as much input and controversy while naming the new elementary school.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education is set tonight (Thursday) to launch the process for the naming of the school, which will open in August 2008 and will be located at the corner of Eubanks and Dromoland roads in Carrboro.

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