A new type of virtual college experience is emerging at Vance-Granville Community College, with the “Vanguard Online Learning through Technology,” or VOLT, initiative. Marking a new chapter in the college’s history of offering distance education, VOLT is now accepting its first students, who will start their courses when VGCC’s fall semester begins on Aug. 17. According to VGCC Director of Distance Education Evelyn Harris, VOLT courses are for adult learners who need an online-only educational experience. “VOLT will significantly enhance …
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Largest Watermelon Contest to be held at State Farmers Market July 30
RALEIGH – The State Farmers Market is looking for local watermelon growers to submit entries to its Largest Watermelon Contest. The exhibition will be part of the market’s annual Watermelon Day on July 30 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. “This year’s high temperatures and low precipitation have helped North Carolina’s watermelon crop,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “Many growers are expecting a better year than 2014, so there will be a lot to celebrate at Watermelon Day.” The grower …
Tuesday Open Line
The nation’s love affair with automobiles is generations old. Our devotion can be traced down through the decades by looking at advertising, as cars progressed from romantic if noisy new playthings to a near necessity in our vast country. The first known national ad promoting a car appeared at the end of July 1898 in the Scientific American magazine. It was for the now forgotten Winton Motor Carriage with the headline “dispense with a horse.” Americans did just that, and …
Congresswoman Renee Ellemers: Protecting Women and the Unborn
Video of the Week This Tuesday, I spoke on the House floor to voice great sadness and concern following the recent release of two videos exposing the illicit activities of Planned Parenthood. In one of the videos, a Planned Parenthood executive relates, casually and with gruesome detail, the mutilation of an unborn child for the harvest and sale of its organs. These videos send chills down my spine and make my stomach churn. As a nurse and a mom, I …
White House Weekly Address: Wall Street Reform Is Working
In this week’s address, the President spoke to the progress we have made in making our financial system stronger, safer, and more fair in the years since financial crisis. Five years ago this week, our country enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — rules that have substantially reduced recklessness and abuse in our financial system that predated the crisis. As a result of Wall Street reform, our banks are less reliant on unstable funding and less …
Monday Open Line
The origins of the humble hamburger are unclear, but a precursor traces back as far as the fifth century in Imperial Rome. There are several claimants for the distinction of serving the first recognizable, made in the USA hamburger. One of them was Oscar Weber Bilby of Oklahoma. He is supposed to have served the first burgers on this month in 1891. Some forms of ground or chopped beef had previously been served on or between slices of bread. But …
Butterfield to Travel with President Obama and U.S. Delegation to Africa
WASHINGTON, DC — Thursday, Congressman G. K. Butterfield (NC-01) joined President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One on a historic six-day trip with other U.S. lawmakers to Nairobi, Kenya and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. While there, the U.S. delegation will attend the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit and seek to accelerate economic growth, strengthen democratic institutions, and improve security on the African continent. Butterfield said, “I’m honored to join President Obama on this historic trip and in representing the United States as …
Vance County Board of Education Committee Meeting Dates
Vance County Board of Education Committee Meeting Dates: * Policy Committee, Tuesday, July 28, 2015, 5:30 pm * Personnel Committee, Tuesday, August 4, 2015, 8:30 am Note: All meetings are held in the Superintendent’s Conference Room.
Friday / Weekend Open Lines
Friday, July 24th. Today is National Drive-Thru Day, following closely on National Junk Food Day. But rather than pass judgment, this occasion recognizes the popularity of restaurants that serve customers wanting to keep on the move. The first such service is believed to have been at Red’s Giant Hamburg on Route 66 in Springfield, Missouri, in 1947. The following year, the concept was expanded by the In N Out Burger restaurants in California. At the time, drive-in restaurants were very …
North Carolina Weekend
For the week of July 23 on North Carolina Weekend, tempt your taste buds at The Tavern at Jack’s Neck in Belhaven. Go behind the scenes at Opera Wilmington in Wilmington. Discover Ashe County Cheese in West Jefferson. Tour Tapoco Lodge in Robbinsville. And check out the scene at the Nightbell Restaurant & Lounge in Asheville. (Please note: listings are subject to change.) North Carolina Weekend is underwritten by Visit North Carolina. In addition, UNC-TV has made recent editions of …
Thursday Open Line
With the nation’s average warmest day of the year coming up tomorrow, many of us welcome ducking into a cool office, business, or home. For this relief, we can thank Willis Carrier, who in the depths of winter in 1906 received a patent for what he called an “apparatus for treating air.” His idea has changed the way many Americans live and where they might comfortably do so. He launched his own company 100 years ago this month, and the …
Vance County Schools Names Dr. Anthony Jackson As New Superintendent
The Vance County Board of Education Tuesday night voted unanimously to appoint Dr. Anthony “Tony” Jackson as the new superintendent of Vance County Schools. He will begin his duties as superintendent on August 1. Dr. Jackson’s career in public education spans 27 years in several districts in both North Carolina and Virginia. He began his teaching career in Wake County. He has served as a principal at all three levels in rural, suburban and urban districts. He also has been …
Vance-Granville Community Band Looking for Area Musicians, Announces first Fall Rehearsal
Would you like to get your musical instrument out of the closet, and play it again? Have you longed for your high school days, when you loved to play in an ensemble and wished you could do so again? The Vance-Granville Community Band, under the direction of VGCC music instructor Ivory Brock, is looking for people who would like to do just that. Since it was first formed in 2008, the all-volunteer community band has included VGCC students, local high …
Middle School students have unique STEM experiences at VGCC Science Camp
If you are an area middle school student who spent part of this summer breaking up rocks, bending glass, catching insects, dissecting squids and crayfish, making a compost bucket for worms or building a house for bats, then you must have been at Vance-Granville Community College’s fifth annual Science Camp. A total of 33 students, including rising sixth, seventh and eighth graders from Vance, Granville, Franklin and Warren counties, completed the day camp, which was held June 15-19 at the …
Vance County Schools – Donations from Staples
The management and employees of the Staples Fulfillment Center on Poplar Creek Road in Vance County have donated approximately $12,000 worth of school supplies to Vance County Schools. Representatives of the school system and Staples are shown in the accompanying photo with the four pallets of items donated after they were delivered to the Vance County Schools’ Purchasing and Distribution Center. Shown in the photo are, from left, E.T. Newby, lead warehouseman for the school system; Kerri Williams, inventory control …
VGCC trustees learn work on Building 10 to start in September
The final designs for the Building 10 renovation project at Vance-Granville Community College’s Main Campus have gotten a thumbs-up from the State Construction Office, and the project is on track for work to start in late September. “We’ve got work to do, but we are ready to go ahead and bid that job out,” said Trustee Donald Seifert, Sr., chair of the Building Committee, in a report to the VGCC Board of Trustees at the board’s bi-monthly meeting on the …
VGCC Food Truck Entrepreneurship program comes back for seconds
Vance-Granville Community College will offer its Mobile Food Truck Entrepreneurship Workshop Series for the second time. This series of courses for entrepreneurs who want to compete in the growing food truck industry is unique in the North Carolina Community College System. A partnership of VGCC’s Small Business Center and Personal Enrichment department, the program will again be held at the college’s Franklin County Campus, located on N.C. 56, just west of Louisburg. Queen Harris, owner/operator of the Chick-n-Que mobile food …
Wednesday Open Line
The home front during World War II had to cope with some irritating impositions, notably gas rationing and a lack of new cars and tires. But what for many was a real crisis was coffee rationing. Decreed in 1942 because of hoarding and supply concerns, it proved very unpopular. Late this month in 1943, President Roosevelt ended the program because imports had rebounded. Coffee may have been an early import by the Jamestown colony in the 17th century. Coffee consumption …
City of Henderson City Council Special Called Meeting July 23rd, 2015
Mayor O’Geary has requested a Special Called Meeting of the Henderson City Council for Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to approve the appointment of a new City Manager. This meeting will be held in Council Chambers at City Hall, 134 Rose Avenue, Henderson, NC. The public is welcome to attend.
Vance County Board of Education Called Meeting on Tuesday, July 21, 2015
The Vance County Board of Education will hold a specially called meeting on Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 5:30 p.m. at the Administrative Services Center Board Room, 1724 Graham Avenue, Henderson, N.C. The first item on the agenda will be a closed session for confidential personnel matters pursuant to G. S. 143-318.11(a)(6) and G.S. 115C-319. The second and final item on the agenda will be the open session vote and election of the new superintendent. Staff, parents, community members and …