BLADENBORO - The West Bladen Lady Knights defeated the Red Springs Lady Red Devils for a 4-3 victory last Tuesday in a SAC 6 Conference clash.

The Lady Red Devils held a 3-1 lead going into the final inning of Tuesday’s game and things seemed to be in their control with two straight outs to start the at-bat. West Bladen junior Kali Allen was able to get on base with a bunt to give the host a slither of hope. Senior Holland Davis slapped a grounder towards the third-base and she was able to beat out a wild throw to first; the throw went over the first-baseman’s head and Allen was able to wheel around towards home plate on the error to put the Lady Knights within one of their opponents.

Davis was able to steal second amongst the chaos and eventually made her way to third during Marlene Crabtree’s at-bat. Crabtree showed patience in the batter’s box and earned a walk to place runners on the corners. West Bladen junior Breena Hester was called upon again to deliver yet another clutch moment for the Lady Knights this season. Hester drove a solid swing towards centerfield to bring around Davis and Crabtree to seal the game in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Crabtree also pitched a complete game from the center-circle on Tuesday as she allowed three runs on three hits, while walking one and striking out three of the 29 batters faced. The Lady Knights only had three hits as a team in their victory on Tuesday but the script went much differently in their road match-up against Red Springs on Friday. West Bladen took care of business in four innings on Friday evening as they claimed a 20-2 victory in their final game of the regular-season.

The Lady Knights had 13 hits as a team and they held their opponents to just two runs with Crabtree staring in the center-circle. Allen went 3-for-4 at the plate and she was responsible for three RBIs to lead the Lady Knights in the hitting department last Friday. West Bladen finished their regular-season schedule with an overall record of 10-7 and they claimed second-place in the SAC 6 standings with a 7-3 record. They are currently ranked 19th in the 2A East Region RPI and will likely be on the road for the first round of the postseason.

The Midway Lady Raiders secure their seventh straight conference title after defeating St. Pauls twice last week to finish their conference schedule undefeated. The Lady Raiders have posted an overall record of 16-2 and are ranked first in the RPI-rankings this season. St. Pauls and Fairmount will have a chance at the postseason as well.

BLADENBORO - The Red Springs Lady Red Devils defeated the West Bladen Lady Knights for a 4-1 victory on Tuesday evening in a SAC 6 Conference match-up.

The Lady Knights struck the first blow with senior forward O’mara McDonald poking in a corner kick from junior Leidi Zuniga Labra in the second minute of the first half. The Lady Knights only led momentarily however and the visitors leveled the game six minutes later with Monserrt Villagomez-Ruiz pouncing on a diagonal cross.

West Bladen attempted to answer back on the ensuing kickoff as senior midfielder Jazmy Funez Aranda made a charging run forward with the ball but couldn’t put together the final product in the opposition’s box. Red Springs got their next best chance with sophomore forward Jurielys Quinones dancing around defenders to create space for a shot but her attempt whizzed past the goal. Alarm bells began to ring in front of the Lady Knights goal while their opponents got ever so close to claiming the lead as possession was firmly in the grips of the visitors. Villagomez-Ruiz continued to trouble her opponents on the left flank by dribbling at the West Bladen defense and delivering dangerous crosses in the box.

West Bladen junior defender Makeena Thurman was able to sprint back in time to prevent a Red Springs shot from crossing the goal line to keep the score 1-1 in the 20th minute of the first half. The recent misses didn’t affect the Lady Red Devils confidence and they kept pressing forward by getting into dangerous areas on the pitch. Quinones and Villagomez-Ruiz did a give-and-go at the edge of the penalty area before Quinones sent her shot wide of the mark. West Bladen sophomore keeper Lydia Harris stopped a shot from point-blank range a few moments later to keep things drawn but the visitors were determined to snatch another goal before the halftime whistle.

Quinones finally broke the deadlock after getting a second opportunity on a deflected shot trickling into her path with seven minutes remaining in the first half. The Lady Red Devils would get their third goal in the 35th minute as momentum began to shift into the visitors favor. West Bladen had an opportunity to score a second goal before the half but failed to steer a header into an open net. Quinones completed a hat trick during the second half by blasting in the Lady Red Devils fourth goal of the evening.

Red Springs hosted West Bladen last Friday evening for the final match of the regular-season and they handled business at home for a 5-nil victory. Quinones bagged another hat trick against the Lady Knights as she helped her team finish the year with an overall record of 12-6. Red Springs claimed a share of second-place in the SAC 6 standings with a 5-3 record and they’ll be a lock for the upcoming postseason. The Midway Lady Raiders also concluded their regular-season with a 7-nil victory over the St. Pauls Bulldogs and they finished their conference schedule at 5-3.

West Bladen finished their season with an overall record of 2-17-3 and they claimed fourth-place in the conference standings. The Lady Knights will depart with eight seniors this season–Ashley Sanchez-Resendiz, Anna Campbell, O’mara McDonald, Yareth Garcia Perez, Jazmy Funez Aranda, Jessica Verdugo-Gomez, Shamora Robinson and Angelyne Rincon. Funez Aranda led the Lady Knights in scoring with 8 goals this season and Thurmen led the defense with 97 steals.

The Clinton Darkhorses are this season’s SAC 6 Conference Champions as they completed the conference schedule undefeated at 8-0. The Darkhorses will have the highest playoff seed amongst SAC 6 teams once the regular-season concludes this week.

RED SPRINGS - The West Bladen Knights defeated the Red Springs Red Devils for a 10-0 victory in a SAC 6 clash last Friday evening.

The Knights defeated the Red Devils twice in a span of two days and they accumulated 20 runs enroute to a conference title. Tyler Lewis led the way for the Knights in the batter’s box with a 2-for-4 performance and he was responsible for three RBI’s. Hunter Hester pitched 4.2 innings to claim the win and the shutout during Friday’s matchup with the Red Devils.

Hester displayed control on top of the hill as he sat down 10 of the 19 batters faced and he only walked three. Red Springs found it difficult to find a hit against the Knights as they only had three hits across two games. West Bladen’s J.T Hepler and Cade Allen led the charge in Tuesday’s game as they both went 2-for-3 at the plate, while they both batted in two runs during the evening. The Knights had three senior arms combined on the mound for Tuesday’s win in Brady Durden, Aiden Russ and Garrett Dunham.

The Knights played the Midway Raiders this Saturday to settle a tie-break for the top playoff-seed in the SAC 6 Conference. The Raiders went into Saturday’s game on a eight game win-streak, with their last defeat coming from a 5-0 loss to West Bladen on April 10th. The Knights were able to take an early 2-1 advantage after the first inning but the Raiders were able to score four runs in their half of the third. Midway preserved their advantage through the next two innings but their opponents were able to rally in their half of the sixth inning.

West Bladen got six runs across the plate to put them ahead 8-5 with an inning remaining in the game. The Raiders attempted to mount a comeback in the final inning but failed to rally back with things being settled at 8-6. Hester led the Knights in the batter’s box during Saturday’s victory with a 3-for-4 performance at the plate and he was responsible for batting in two runs. Ashton Davis pitched four innings against the Raiders as he allowed six hits on five runs, while walking two and striking out three of the 17 batters faced. West Bladen finished the season with an overall record of 17-4 and they claimed the SAC 6 Conference title outright with a 9-2 record.

This is the Knights first conference title since 2009 and the Knights have jumped up in the RPI-rankings after defeating Midway for the projected number-one seed in the 2A East Region. The Bunn Wildcats are ranked second in the 2A East RPI-rankings with an overall record of 22-2 and they will surely be a top-seeded team once the postseason draw is complete. The Whiteville Wolfpack claimed a share of the Waccamaw Conference title after defeating South Columbus twice last week to finish atop the standings at 10-2. Whiteville will represent the Waccamaw as the top-seed for 2A schools in the conference and they’re ranked third in the RPI-rankings in the East Region.

South Columbus fell to number-eight in the RPI-rankings after suffering two straight losses to Whiteville but they also claimed a share of the conference title finishing their Waccamaw schedule with a 10-2 record. The East Bladen Eagles finished their regular-season strong with a 9-8 victory over East Duplin in a non-conference clash last Thursday. The Eagles got it done with 10 hits as a team and they got a combined effort on the mound from Jayce Hatcher, Isaiah Lee, and Easton Bostic.

East Bladen were able to secure the top-seed for 1A schools in the Waccamaw Conference after West Columbus defeated East Columbus last Thursday. The Eagles solidified themselves in third-place with a record of 7-5 and they settled into 7th in 1A East RPI-rankings with an overall record of 11-10. The East Columbus Gators dropped down to ninth in the RPI-rankings after their chase of East Bladen ended in a whimper after two straight defeats last week. The Gators finished the season with an overall record of 13-8 and they tied for fourth-place with West Columbus at 6-6.

The West Columbus Vikings concluded their season with an overall record of 8-12 and they’ll be the last Waccamaw team to be locked in for a postseason spot. The Vikings are currently ranked 20th in the 1A East RPI-rankings and will be likely to travel on the road for the first round of the postseason.

BLADENBORO – There is a small group of volunteers that help to make decisions concerning the Bladenboro Historical Society and the artifacts in the building. As we posted in part one of this story, the bottom line, is they want to keep the building open and there are precious lives that have put everything into this project so that it will be a lasting legacy to Bladenboro and the generations to come.

“We got the Golden Leaf grant to begin with,” Joyce Walters said. “It was enough to put a roof on the top. In the early years of the collections and the projects, Sam Pait was the curator, but it is not known who wrote the early grants.”

“We have been able to get some good grants through our commissioner, Charles Ray (Peterson), “Ricky Walters said.

The small group of aging citizens are not too proud to ask for help, and one of the biggest needs at this point would be someone experienced in grant writing. The second thing that would help out is to find a few businesses that would be looking to find good quality office space inside a living legacy.

We spoke a little about Ricky Walters – the president of the Bladenboro Historical Society and this story will introduce the others that are faithfully fighting to keep the doors open and the lights on.

“I’m the oldest one here and I’ve been here since 2000,” the senior member of the group at 92 years of age, Margie Bridger said. “We have done a lot here. We were all downstairs to begin with. As they renovated the building upstairs, we kept moving up. It was a long process.”

Bridger who has seen her share of projects accomplished in the 25 years she’s been on the board talked about her heart and her vision for the future. To her, she said it’s never overwhelming.

“I just look forward to coming out here every Saturday,” she said with a spark of joy in her eyes. “This is my love. I love this building and I love this town.”

As for her longevity, she said that she loves to stay active.

“I like to walk,” she said. “I try not to sit down. I have a sign on my refrigerator that says ‘sitting will kill you,’ so, I try to stay on my feet. I live in a three-story house and I climb those steps three times a day. I think that’s good exercise. Right now, I’m going through my files. I have collected so much in the last 20 years. I am trying to clean out the files to the point that if it doesn’t pertain to this building or the town, I need to get rid of it. Because I am a packrat.”

Bridger was born in Bladenboro and has lived there all of her life. Most of the things in the museum, she actually remembers.

“I was born in out in Galeed Church in ’32,” she said. “It’s about 1 mile out of Bladenboro. I married a local boy; we raised four children.”

Different people are sort of the headmasters of their respective rooms. Margie is one of the experts in the history of the town of Bladenboro and she knows the artifacts, history and memories in that room.

A newcomer to Bladenboro who has fallen in love with the area and the historical society monitors the Bladenboro School room with all things from the education system in Bladenboro. Each room monitor can give you valuable information and candid stories about the memories in their room. For a newcomer, Paula Raymond had to be a quick study.

“I’m learning every time I come and each week I try to cover every small area,” Raymond said. “I’ve been here about 10 months and I was born in Wilmington. I retired schoolteacher and I had an interest in volunteer work.”

Raymond taught at the elementary school level and also music. All the volunteers have considered working at the historical society a labor of love.

“Yesterday I was sitting at the dentist office and flipping through a magazine,” she said. “At the last board meeting they were discussing several items and it just jumped out at me that was about awnings. Normally I generally wouldn’t have noticed that but I read every single word because I’m trying to make a list that may be helpful down the road.”

As for favorite things in the museum, each person seems to have something that jogs the memory or proves very interesting.

“I like the schoolmarm,” Raymond said. “There’s a mannequin that has a real ‘old-timey’ school outfit that was worn by a real school teacher. I think that’s interesting for the kids to come in and see.”

According to Bridger, the schoolmarm outfit was donated by a lady out in the Center Road area and it has been a part of the museum for the past decade. She was a local teacher.

“My father’s family are from Brunswick County,” Raymond said. “I actually lived down in Myrtle Beach before I came here and it was a bit crowded for my taste. I am much closer to my dad’s people. My mom’s people were from Piedmont, North Carolina and I lived up there for six years.”

Bobby Ludlum is a veteran who has a passion for the military memorabilia and runs the military museum within the confines of the old high school. He actually began his portion of the museum in 1993.

“I’m the only one left that was here when we started it,” he said. “All the others have crossed Jordan. All were veterans that helped start this. We do have some people from other areas at times, but the organization was all veterans. It was a lot of hard work. We’d find out about something that somebody might possibly have, we’d go talk to them and we’ve had real good luck in coming up with responses to that.”

All branches of the military are represented in those rooms and outfitted with elaborate displays from soldiers on stretchers, nurses in uniforms of the time and even a paratrooper who had just landed to the battlefield.

There are even uniforms there actually worn by Ludlum when he was in active service to his country. As he walks through the museum now, he knows every story and most of the servicemen who were fighting.

He admits that it’s hard walking through the exhibits remembering friends that have passed. As he tells the stories of the heroes he gets tears in his eyes.

“My favorite is probably the back room,” Ludlum said. “Me and Jim Lane, retired Army, we basically built that room by ourselves. We built the petitions and we built them in the shop. When we got them out here, we couldn’t get them in the elevator. We had to carry every one up the stairs. But… they were in sections, so we put them together. I’m glad I was a little younger then.”

The next plan is to build a Desert Storm exhibit.

In the third and final part of this story we will meet more of the board members and hope that you will visit the museum soon to forget about your troubles today and take a journey into yesterday where it’s all preserved at the Bladenboro Historical Society.

ELIZABETHTOWN – COVID hit North Carolina as hard as it hit everyone else and toward the bottom of the pile were Gil and Samantha Granda which had their environmental business devastated by the turn of worldwide events.

“We held on as long as we could, because we loved it,” Gil Granda said. “We held on until we had $400 left to our name. That was all we had left. At the time we were renting a home and our rent was due in two weeks.”

Part of the miracle and how the couple overcame this devastation was culminated with a ribbon-cutting hosted by the Elizabethtown-White Lake Chamber of Commerce, April 25 at their new business and successful venture, “Sassy Sam’s Cleaning Service.” Their new building located at 1415 Greenwood Street in Elizabethtown. It is a happy ending to the painful journey they’ve traversed.

At the point of losing everything, Granda came up with an idea that he thought his wife would buy into.

“At that time, we were forced with a decision,” he said. “We could either figure out how to make a couple of hundred more dollars to make our payment or take $400 and somehow start a business with it. Before I came home to tell my wife, ‘We’re going to start a business with $400,’ I figured I’d better have a good plan.”

By the time he got home, he knew he was going to use her face as a cartoon character for their branding along with adding her name and he came up with Sassy Sam’s Cleaning Service.

“I didn’t know the first thing about cleaning,” he said. “But my wife had tons of experience with it. So I made sure I had that plan when I got home and pitched the idea that we were going to spend our last dime on stating this business.”

Sam agreed and was excited to go ahead with it immediately.

“We drove to Lowes in Whiteville with our $400,” he said. “We bought two vacuum cleaners that I still have to this day and will probably be buried with them. They don’t work anymore, but it will always remind me where we came from.”

They bought the two vacuum cleaners, a laundry basket and off-the-shelf cleaning supplies.

“That’s where the business started from,” he said. “From there it has been nonstop work, dedication and truly being blessed. Our community supported us right out of the gate. Prior to us going to work for ourselves, I actually managed the Cape Fear Vineyard & Winery and Sam was one of the waitresses there – and that’s kind of how we met. I was there about a year. When we got married, I figured it was time to start a business and provide for my family a little better.”

It was a two-person team to start as, obviously they didn’t have the money for a workforce. Those early days were brutal and they would come home after working sometimes 40-45 days in a row and just collapse. He wasn’t just supervising, but the couple both say that he was cleaning toilets right there next to her.

“I don’t know if I can name-drop, but the man who helped up tremendously was Dean Hilton and his wife Jenna,” he said. “We called them hoping that maybe they would have a house for us to clean. A way to make a dollar. They blessed us with more work than we knew what to do with for many months. That allowed us to actually to get an LLC, get uniforms and set it up as a proper company. And we have just gone from there.”

The response was priceless when Sam explains how she felt when her husband came home armed with their future.

“He’s the driver and I’m the backseat passenger and sometimes I get to ride in the front seat,” she said with a laugh. “But I support anything he does. I am confident that if he tells me we can do it and I wholeheartedly know he has our best interest at heart, I’m like… Let’s DO IT.”

She asked him if he would partner with her in the cleaning and said that although he’s not much on the cleaning aspect of the business.

“Now that we’re at this point, I think he’s much happier,” she said. “He’s not cleaning and he gets to do what he’s best at. And he’s the best partner a wife could have. Although we are polar opposites and he’s oil and I’m water – or however you say it. Sayin’ that, though we really are so much alike in our focus and our vision. In the beginning, once we realized we were best friends, we found out just how much we missed each other when we were apart.”

They met working together and he said that they don’t know anything else but working together, and this business definitely works for both of them. And their relationship works with her as the shy voice and he the booming voice, they just fit like a puzzle piece.

“It takes both of us,” he said. “If I would have started a cleaning service by myself, I would have been able to get a lot of business at first because I am comfortable with talking with the people. But I would have done such a horrible job that they would have fired me after the first time. Samantha on the other hand – all she is concerned about is keeping the customer happy and doing the absolute best job possible. So if she would have started a cleaning service by herself, her customers would have loved her – but she would have gone broke because she would have spent the whole day in one house. But when you put both of us together, we made the perfect combination where I could deal with the customers, keep the business somewhat profitable while Sam can make sure the job comes out flawless. About three or four months ago we finally got to a place where we were big enough that we are both able to be really good at what we are individually good at.”

One of the challenges to the couple was administration. They said that they knew they were missing a piece and that piece was their office manager Heather Marshburn.

“She started as a customer,” he said. “We became great friends with her and her husband. As she came in – we realized she had years and years of experience with property management, dealing with employees and human resources, computer experience and above all – she knew how to streamline and organize, helping us get to where we had to go.”

Marshburn bought into their vision and the puzzle is complete.

“My husband is a cross-country mover and I actually helped him in his business for about 10 years,” Mashburn said. “His business is called Showtime Relocations and he is actually a driver for them. They are a small, independent moving company out of Ohio.”

Mashburn said that her forte’ is in the scheduling aspect of things, making sure that things get clean when they want it cleaned. Also making sure that the girls are where they need to be there when they are supposed to be there.

“We are a residential and commercial cleaner,” she said. “Our target area is anywhere here in Elizabethtown, Lumberton, White Lake, Whiteville and all points surrounding those areas.”

Including in their cleaning is some light property maintenance, window cleaning, power washing and also either light or deep cleaning depending upon the package the customer will choose. At this point they have nine cleaners and Mashburn says that it’s enough for now, but as they expand, they will be adding more to their cleaning teams.

Mashburn holds down the fort and she is usually there each day from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m.

For more information about cleaning plans and fees, you can call 910-918-2891

Lately, I’ve been ‘In Search Of’ some ideas using puff pastry. Last week’s recipe showed how it can be used in sandwich making. Now, time for dessert! So simple and easy and fast and you may want to keep puff pastry as a refrigerator staple.

Here is your Shopping List:

1. 1 or 2 Packages of puff pastry depending on how many you want to make (refrigerated or frozen)

2. 2 Cups fresh Strawberries (chopped)

3. 1 tsp lemon juice

4. 1 tsp vanilla extract

5. 2 tbsp dark brown sugar

6. 2 tbsp granulated sugar

7. 8 oz cream cheese (room temp)

Glaze:

8. 1/2 cup powdered sugar (sifted)

9. 4 tsp milk or half-and-half

10. ½ tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Start out by making the Glaze and set aside

Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Unroll the puff pastry onto parchment paper and slice in half lengthwise. If using frozen pastry, make sure to thaw but it must still be chilled. Cut into 8 pieces.

Using a paring knife, create a ½ inch border around the edge of each piece of puff pastry making sure not to cut all the way through. Poke the center of the square a few times with a fork. This will ensure the edges rise and not the center and helps to hold the filling of the Danish.

In a mixing bowl add cream cheese, granulated sugar and vanilla. Stir to combine. In another bowl, stir together the chopped strawberries, dark brown sugar and lemon juice. Divide the cream cheese mixture between the pieces of puff pastry making sure the filling stays within the middle border.

Spread in a swirl design for texture. Spoon the strawberry mixture over top of the cream cheese. Bake for 13-18 minutes Just until the edges are golden brown (you may need more or less time depending on your oven but make sure to keep watch. You don’t want them too brown or they will be crispy rather than that softer, chewy texture that makes for the best Danish.

Drizzle glaze in zigzag design over the pastry. Serve warm or cold. Leftover can be stored in the freezer and thawed and warmed before serving.

Fun fact: Danish pastries may be named after Denmark, however it actually originated in Vienna, Austria. Back in 1850 there was a strike among Danish bakers which led the hiring of Austrian bakers.

They brought their baking technique with them and, combined with the unique use of eggs and fat that the Danish bakers used, it resulted in what we now know as Danish pastry aka Wienerbrod (in Denmark) which translates to Vienna bread.

Bladen County was once becoming famous and noteworthy because it was on the grow, on the cutting edge of technology, job recruiting innovations, economic development, not to mention huge stars onstage.

How things have changed in just a short time.

The community crisis in Bladen County has drawn newspaper, magazine and television outlets to our front door and the media is putting us all on the map.

No longer for our transparency, our leadership abilities, our small-town quaintness or our progressiveness, but for all the wrong reasons.

Folks, we are on the map for a lingering and festering feud that had been poorly covered up from the public… until last October. Bladen Online posted https://bladenonline.com/open-letter-town-of-elizabethtown-shuts-down-bladen-county-and-bbai-growth/ The Border Belt Independent followed suit in November with both online and Instagram posts https://www.instagram.com/borderbeltindependent/p/DGzNRQ9MK8A/ The Business North Carolina Magazine caught wind of the fireworks and has published twice since the beginning of the year https://businessnc.com/siler-city-a-lionized-piedmont-town-embraces-transformational-change-while-grasping-to-retain-its-charm-2/ WECT-News 6 then published and updated their story April 17 ( https://www.wect.com/2025/04/17/bladen-county-sues-town-elizabethtown-feud-over-industrial-park-project-escalates/ The Bladen Journal has also tried to keep the community updated as to the status.

For something that the town keeps saying “will go away” – there is no light seen at the end of a very dark tunnel that leaders have taken us into.

According to the Business North Carolina (BNC) magazine article, “’We’re going to come out on the end and fix this, and we’re all going to get back on each other’s Christmas cards lists,’ Rideout says.”

It seems that our town manager has been saying and promising many things lately – but not to the town or concerning the circumstances, the lawsuits and the changes that have been made that will affect the entire county.

Journalist Bill Holden III said in his article in BNC, “Rideout, a 30-year military veteran, did meet with Heustess last year. At that confab, Heustess says Rideout’s “choice words were, on multiple occasions, ‘stay the [expletive] out of it. Rideout admits that “the colonel in me came out” during their talk.”

Not a very professional way to deal with things – and then using the military as an excuse for such behavior is not… an acceptable excuse. And of course, now it is out there for all the world to see what kind of “professionals” we have at the helm.

Another damning piece of evidence is a non-statement from town officials as posted by WECT where they said, “The newest suit is tied to a March 2023 letter from Mayor Campbell to Bladen County Commissioners, asking for $100,000 in county funds to help pay for the Master Plan And Survey phase of the town’s Live, Work, Play Project. Elizabethtown’s Town Manager, Dane Rideout, declined to comment. A comment request from Mayor Sylvia Campbell wasn’t returned.”

Further, if you examine the picture posted by WECT you will see a photo of the housing plans for the residential homes to be built in the residential area of the Elizabethtown Industrial Park. You will notice that the plans have “Devane Builders” stamped on those plans. Interesting since Devane Builders has nothing to do with the building of the proposed homes.

Last week the gauntlet was thrown down to come face to face in a town hall meeting with both factions. If there is truly nothing to hide, then bring your lawyers – bring your board members and bring your documentation.

Again… Bladen County is looking for answers from BOTH sides. We need to come off the media’s radar and off the map for the wrong reasons to end this thing. You can either turn this around or you can watch it fester and decay until people won’t come here – and the ones who ARE here will go elsewhere.

ELIZABETHTOWN – Once again, Cape Fear Valley Health has brought forth another victory for Bladen County as they have partnered with and welcomed Amy Nolan, the owner of Therapy Works and the director of speech pathology to a grand reopening and new building at 619 Cypress Street in Elizabethtown.

“I’ve had the privilege of working in and serving Bladen County for 24 and a half years,” Nolan said as she addressed a large crowd of colleagues and well-wishers from the community. “It’s a privilege also to be here at Cape Fear Valley and work with all the wonderful patients; children all the way up to geriatrics. I want to thank my staff. They are the best. They have been with me for a very long time.”

Nolan has a bachelor’s of Business Degree in business from the University of North Carolina – Greensboro and also a Master of Science – Communicative Disorders from the University of Wyoming.

The Elizabethtown – White Lake Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony which officially welcomed the team to their grand reopening. The program included a thank-you from Nolan, a word from Chamber director Amy Hudson, Amber Bordeaux from Cape Fear Valley Health and a word from the Town of Elizabethtown board member Ricky Leinwand.

“This is special for me because right in that hospital six months after it was built in 1952, I was the ninth baby born there,” Leinwand said. “This is a real treat to be part of this and on behalf of the Town of Elizabethtown we’re here for you any way we can be here and we thank you for inviting us.”

“We’re lucky to have you here,” Bordeaux, patient relations and executive assistant for Cape Fear Valley – Bladen healthcare said. “We are thankful for all of what they do in the community. They work with children, but they also work in our hospital with our patients on the floor.”

The celebration at the Speech Unit had set up tables for coloring and balloons for the children, a free hot dog lunch provided by the hospital culinary staff and a white, miniature pony named “Uno” which was the most popular attraction for the children.

Born in Roanoke, Virginia, Nolan has helped a lot of patients to live normal lives and has witnessed many miracles as her staff has worked tirelessly with patients that have become family. Her father was a physician and my mother was a nurse so I knew I wanted to be in the health field.

“I just hadn’t quite figured out that path until a little bit later,” she said. “I was leaning initial toward physical therapy, and speech therapy isn’t quite as popular. When I started taking some of the core classes I just got fascinated with the brain and how we were able to rebuild that when someone loses their speech.”

A path less traveled, but she has embraced the adventure with passion and a gift for caring for her patients.

“We’ve lived in North Carolina for 28 years,” Nolan said. “The graduate trail to Wyoming actually started in south Lake Tahoe at Heavenly and my husband (Patrick) and I wanted to stay out west for graduate school. He’s a family counselor and I am obviously a speech pathologist. We settled on Laramie and we loved it.”

The Nolans are the “middle health” power couple and have been using their gifts and talents for over two decades to benefit the people of North Carolina.

“We came back in ’98 and have been in North Carolina ever since,” she said. “We service children from pediatrics all the way up to geriatric patients. It’s articulation, so it’s how you say your speech sounds. Also, language and for the older people it’s cognition. If they’ve had a stroke or a traumatic brain injury. Then we also do swallowing. I like to say it’s everything from the shoulders up. We are also able to do some specialized things – augmentative communications, swallowing therapy, we do the Modified Barium Swallow Studies (MBSS) and we service the inpatients for their acute care.”

MBSS is a fluoroscopic (real-time X-ray) procedure used to evaluate a person’s swallowing function, specifically focusing on the oropharyngeal and cervical esophageal stages. It helps identify any abnormalities in the swallowing mechanism and assess the risk of aspiration (food or liquid entering the lungs).

“In our journey over the past 24 and a half years we’ve been all over the hospital,” she said. “We started in what is now administration, then we went across the hall, we went downstairs, we’ve been everywhere. We’ve now been in this office for quite some time and then two years ago when we had the hurricane it got flooded. We moved everything out into a box and we moved to three different offices again (in the hospital). Then the box flooded.”

Anticipation of a permanent move was then dampened and delayed again. The team was resembling the old TV show “MASH” – as they were becoming a mobile army SPEECH hospital.

“We have just been able to move back in after two years,” she said. “They renovated it so very nicely. My staff has been absolutely amazing. They pick up and move and our families follow us and we are so thankful because that is hard. Kids sometimes don’t adjust to new situations. Sometimes they have to go into a doctor’s office instead of a fun speech environment. It’s been a transition, but I’m thankful to be back home.”

Her legend is growing in North Carolina as is her legacy.

“Oh, it’s such a gift to be able to be with these families and to touch these children’s lives,” she said. “I love watching them progress. It’s such an honor when I see a child who’s been discharged from my program and then they are in kindergarten and they don’t remember who I am because early intervention changed them. It’s definitely a special thing.”

BLADEN COUNTY – Whether you were in Bladenboro, Dublin, Elizabethtown or White Lake this past Saturday – there was much to do.

White Lake

It all began with a Triathlon Saturday morning at approximately 6:45 a.m. when the Professional triathloners mounted their bikes and headed down US Highway 701. It was billed as the White Lake Pro-Am Half-Marathon and runners from all over the nation gathered to bike, swim and run in the warm and humid North Carolina rurality. The WOL (With out Limits), SETUP, Featherweight and City Bicycle Compay sponsored and held the White Lake Pro/AM Half-Triathlon.

According WITHOUT LIMITS staff, “Today especially the run course will be particularly a point of focus because it’s very hot outside. We make sure our aid-stations are filled and ready.”

The bike loop went all the way up to 210 and 41 and was 28 miles. Each biker did two loops.

The winner over all of the overall Professionals was Luke Jones from Virginia Beach, Virginia, who had a total chip time of 3:45:26. He was in the money, making $1250 for the top spot.

“This is my second year as a pro,” Jones said. “I did this race last year too. It’s a great place to compete and it’s a fun little town. In five weeks, I compete again at the Eagle Man in Cambridge, Maryland.

The second-place award and $750 went to Garrett Mayeaux of Irving, Texas. He came across the final line with a chip time of 3:50:22.

“I am the same, two years in the pro division,” Mayeaux said. “I had taken some time off and started training again in January. In two weeks I am going to Shang Hi, China and am going to do a race over there.

If you are at the top of the triathlon nation, you can make up to a million dollars, Mayeaux said.

Benjamin Deal placed third Saturday with a chip time of 3:53:30 and received $500.

“My favorite part was the swim,” Deal said. “The water temperature was perfect, it’s not choppy and you can see clearly – it’s just beautiful.”

“I think that was my favorite swim I’ve ever done,” Mayeaux said. “I love it that you can just do dolphin diving for a good 20 yards. Some lakes are like… muddy and black when you swim in them and you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. So, coming to this lake was incredible.”

Bladenboro

By 8 a.m. archers from all over North Carolina began arriving to Allen Brothers Outdoors in Bladenboro and at 9 a.m. they were ready to begin “nocking” their arrows.

The day was dubbed Bladen County Aim For A Cure by Steven’s Stompers - ALS Awareness and North Carolina Aim For A Cure and the reason was joining forces to shoot competitively and become warriors to help promote awareness and raise money to fight for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Archer and organizer Alex Daniel from Bladen County has put this shoot together with the help of Ron Allen from Allen Brothers Outdoors who donates the land for the competition each year. It was actually North Carolina Aim for a Cure presenting Bladen County Aim for a Cure.

“The first Bladen County Aim for a Cure was in 2017,” Daniel said. “We came along Steven’s Stompers who are a local ALS walking team who started when we did who came on to partner with us. Today we are looking at between 40 and 45 archers. We’ve had higher numbers but there is a lot going on today; graduations, and other things. We probably have more folks here today NOT from Bladen County.”

The shooters arrived, went through registration, warmed up at the practice targets, ate sweets and goodies donated by Burney’s in Elizabethtown, and after splitting into groups, off into the woods they went to locate and shoot at life-sized 3-D animal targets.

Each group eventually got to shoot at each target, whether that was a skinny turkey 20 yards away or a white tail buck at 40 yards. Bigfoot even showed up and archers got to enter a separate contest to see who could hit bigfoot from a long distance.

“I’ve been to a lot of shoots,” Daniel said. “Everyone is not quite as good as this one. This is a fun venue. We are actually doing three more events this year not including this one. We’ll be in Ash in Brunswick County, Swamp Fox Archery in Tabor City in July and we’ll be at Neuse River Bowhunters in Selma in August.

Elizabethtown

The Champion Karate club officially held their grand opening Saturday morning at 1107 F West Broad St. in Elizabethtown.

The grand opening was held primarily for children from ages 4-15 where the kids could come, get a free trial lesson and a free uniform. There were also specials going on during the grand opening for registrations and family rates.

Vince Patrick and his wife, Kimbery were on hand to welcome new prospective students and to share their karate coaching staff from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

By 10:30 the parking lot was full and there were a line of people waiting to sign up and get their karate on. Instructors were set strategically around the huge studio – some with punching bags and some with implements of training.

One of the trainers and Patrick’s right-hand man and Second in Command in the studio is Colton Boswell who has been with the studio for almost two decades.

He actually started when he was 10 years old and at 29, he looks back on a very fruitful venture and his passion to train and teach children how to defend themselves. Boswell is a fourth-degree black belt.

“I usually teach five classes a day and I go Monday-Friday, so I’ve taught a LOT of kids,” Boswell said.

The studios both in Whiteville and now Elizabethtown have a very strong mentor and icon in Chuck Norris who still keeps tabs on his students – one of those being Patrick. When you walk into the studio, one of the first things you will see listed on a board is the Chuck Norris code of ethics.

Patrick is descended from the Waccamaw Siouan tribe and he grew up in the Buckhead community just outside of Bolton/Lake Waccamaw.

“I got into the martial arts when I was about 16 years old,” he said. “I studied at a small school in Bolton and then I eventually went to Wilmington and trained under John Maynard. He was a Chuck Norris blackbelt. He holds multiple degrees in different styles under World Champion Joe Lewis. From there I met Miss Renee Ashley who also trained under John Maynard.”

Ashley was a native of Bladen County and had a Champion Karate center here in Elizabethtown. Patrick would travel to E-town and train under Ashley in her Broad Street studio. In essence the opening of this karate studio Saturday is a resurgence of a great teaching center of Elizabethtown’s past.

Elizabethtown

The last of the big events in Bladen Saturday concluded at Cape Fear Vineyard & Winery. It was as if you found yourself running from one activity to the next, but just couldn’t seem to miss out on any of the day’s excitement.

The Bladen County Hospital Foundation hosted a fundraiser to help with hospital expenses that are not covered in the budget and those things that may slip through the cracks, such as vein finders according to Cape Fear Valley Health – Bladen County Hospital’s Development Director Jeane’ Pope.

“This is equipment that can really help our nurses and can give a quicker response,” Pope said. “We are hoping for a good turnout – this is our first year that we are doing this and there are also other things going on.”

The event was called “The Kentucky Derby Experience” which was earmarked to raise money that would benefit the Bladen County Hospital Foundation. The night would begin with some hors d’oevres and give the guests a chance to look at silent auction items, have a few cocktails and fellowship with other people – comparing notes on the horse(s) they were going to bet on in the 151^st running of the Kentucky Derby.

The room worked up to a fever pitch at about 6:45 with last minute bids being made on their favorites and also their Dark horses. Promptly at 7 p.m. they were at the starting gates and ready to run. As everyone knows by now, the favorite – Journalism could only muster a second-place finish, but Sovereignty with 7-1 odds was Sovereign and ran for the roses with a finishing time of 2:02:31 and won by one and a half lengths. Baeza finished third and Gambit came in fourth.

The crowd went wild and not many were with Sovereign… well… one that we know of cheered loudly. Bladen County Hospital CEO Spencer Cummings who had bid on both Journalism and Flying Mohawk is now looking to the second leg of the triple crown for redemption.

It truly was an elegant evening of Southern tradition with everyone decked out in their Derby attire and most extravagant hats – not only by the women.

After the Deby Dinner people settled in for casino night and hopefully they regained some of their confidence after their horses, muddied and soaked came off the track with their heads hanging and their tails between their legs.

It was a night to remember and many were already clearing their calendars for May 2, 2026 in Churchill Downs – or Elizabethtown.

The winners for the night:

Overall best Attire – Jessica Murphy

Best Couples’ Attire – Ben and Cindy Lewis

Spectacular Derby Hat – Wendy Huges

Most Dapper Gentleman – Jamie Ammons

Most Creative Derby Ensemble – Oarol lilly-Reynolds

Most Winnings for the night went to Stumpy Bordeaux

Derby Horse Race Winner – Chris!

Due to the boundaries on deadlines for the paper, more attention will be given to each story within the next few weeks and pictures will be posted of each individual event this coming week.

ELIZABETHTOWN – “Related by passion and interest” is what Silvia Kim and Krista Hansen will tell you when the co-workers at “A Shelter Friend” begin to explain the conjoined heart they have for abandoned and unwanted animals.

Their Bladen County magic turns animals into pets and their reach is nationwide.

“We are basically operating as a liaison group and helping with the county shelter, because as you probably know, they end up with far more animals than this area could possibly adopt out,” Kim said. “So what we tend to do is network them throughout the country.”

Hansen, born in Chicago she began pursuing her master’s degree when she was only 16-years-old from the University of Illinois. She gained a degree in environmental physiology animal science.

Kim was born in Germany and she moved to the United States with her family when she was 8-years-old. They set down roots in Wisconsin as her dad was in the military and had family there.

For these two to get together and find their purpose in Bladen County was perhaps an interesting mix of luck and providence. They met at a County Animal Response Team meeting (CART) after some severe hurricanes came and devastated North Carolina.

“SART was the state level and CART was the county level,” Hansen said. “It was after some of these hurricanes that the state organization was formed. We, being animal people signed up to see what we could do as far as housing animals. I was with large animals and would find people that could take care of horses and other livestock in the case of evacuation. It was a good program. The County Extension office was the one who got us all rolling.”

A Shelter Friend formed in 2007 and incorporated as a nonprofit 501c3 in 2008.

“She (Hansen) asked me to come to the county shelter to take pictures,” Kim said. “At that time there were 10 tiny kennels at the old shelter, 3-4 dogs in a kennel and it was bad.”

“It was a high-kill gassing shelter,” Hansen said. “They had one bank of cat cages, but never any cats in there because they killed them right away. Once I went in and there was a cat in a trap. 40 dogs, and this cat in a trap waiting for his hold period to be over so he could be killed. It was cruel, but it was the way of the times and across the country – most municipalities were gassing them. Before all of that I saw something in the Bladen Journal with a headline that said, ‘4200 animals euthanized at the shelter last year.’ And nobody knew. That’s where we got our start. We needed to let people know this was going on.”

The problem, Kim said with taking pictures of possible animals to adopt on Tuesday, was that on Thursday the animals weren’t there anymore. At that time, they were posting them on Pet Finder.

“Even if anybody looked on Pet Finder, the animals were gone,” Kim said. “It was useless. I was basically taking pictures of dead animals.”

These were the days before animal control ordinances that had a set time before they could be killed.

“Now, our main task is working with animals at the (Bladen County) shelter,” Kim said. “We go in and we assess the animals and see if there are animals there that would be a fit for some of our rescues. Most of them go to foster-based rescues because of the fact that, let’s face it… if you take home a shelter dog there is almost always a training process and unfortunately, the failure rate is very high because these dogs don’t know anything. We do encourage crates (during the training process).”

Hansen said that Kim has set up a network across the country of different rescues and trusted partners and animals are not just being shipped off to Walmart parking lots.

“Right now, our county shelter is inundated with puppies,” Kim said. “There are about 20 puppies right now and at least 30 more waiting to come in. This is because there’s no spay/neuter ordinance and no licensing. Licensing is one way to pay for a spay/neuter program. Other counties are able to spay/neuter before adoption from their county shelters, but Bladen hasn’t made that a priority yet.”

“Here there are a lot of hounds,” Hansen said. “At the end of the hunting season – many of the dogs are expendable and sent to the Bladen Animal Shelter.”

Most people have seen the notice in the Bladen Journal that says, “Low-income Bladen County residents who want to get their pets spayed or neutered through A Shelter Friend’s Low-income Spay/Neuter Program can call 910-645-2297 for information and sign-up. Share this number with friends and neighbors who are producing unwanted litters of puppies and kittens! Don’t Wait. Stop this cycle… do it now.”

The question is how a nonprofit can find the money to help people in need.

“Donations,” Kim said. “Everything you see here is donation based. And I beg.”

100% of donations go toward the animals and their care. Now, A Shelter Friend is not a place where the general public can just drop off animals. That must be done through the shelter. This organization tries to rescue the overflow and the candidates for relocation into their network.

Both Kim and Hansen are volunteers – but some of the money that comes in for the animal care goes toward those who come in to clean and care for the animals.

“We do have a few people that are paid,” Kim said. “Only because it’s almost impossible to find those volunteer caregivers on a regular and consistent basis. We are inspected by the State of North Carolina and we have a state license.”

A Shelter Friend organization works tirelessly to turn the quality of life into success for their future pets. Donations are not always regular and not always adequate. Both Kim and Hansen agree that if they could find someone with grant-writing abilities, it would be something the team would really be grateful for. They, in addition to finding more volunteers are looking for someone to donate a singlewide home to help house the animals as they are completely full right now.

“If we could find someone to donate one in good condition or even a very low-priced home would be so welcome,” Kim said.

There are so many miracles and blessings in this type of nonprofit and the women have years of success stories even in the midst of all the odds against them. They have good days and bad days. When asked what the greatest challenge might be in this journey, Hansen responded.

“I recognize the most difficult thing for me is speaking to people whose pet just had a litter,” she said. “They say things like ‘I didn’t think she was old enough’ or ‘I planned to get her spayed, I just never got around to it.’ Litter after litter after litter. Female cats can get pregnant between 4 and five months. If she weighs 3 pounds, get her spayed. Female dogs can come in heat at six months. As she approaches that age, get her spayed. Then, as we are working with people to qualify and schedule their pets- they may not reply to our calls or they may even blow off their appointment. Vet appointments are difficult enough to get post covid, DON’T MISS IT.”

A Shelter friend at a glance:

A shelter Friend is made up of volunteers giving pets a second chance at life.

A Shelter Friend, Inc. Is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with a vision:

To End the killing of Homeless and Unwanted Pets.

A Shelter Friend volunteers believe that a world which shows empathy toward animals will show more compassion and tolerance toward each other.

What We Do

ASF provides positive publicity and increased visibility of the Bladen County Animal Shelter to increase adoptions. Previously, 90% of the animals entering the County Shelter did not make it out alive. This number has dropped to less than 10% for dogs since ASF was formed.

Volunteers make use of the internet and telephone to connect homeless and unwanted dogs and cats at the County Animal Shelter with rescue organizations and adoptive homes nationwide.

ASF acts as a liaison, coordinating rescue efforts and assisting with the logistics, including veterinary care quarantine and transportation.

ASF organizes and subsidizes a spay & Neuter Program for the pets of low-income Bladen residents. 300 dogs and cats are spayed and neutered each year.

Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) is the humane solution to community cat populations, and A Shelter Friend is proud of our Bladen County TNR Program. Community cats are humanely trapped, brought to a veterinarian to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated, ear tipped (the universal sign that a community cat has been neutered and vaccinated), and then returned to their outdoor home. For cats and for communities; TNR works. ASF relies on your donations to keep this lifesaving program running.

ASF Quarantine

A Shelter Friend Quarantine is a private animal shelter in Bladen County, licensed and inspected by the NCDA & CS. A Shelter Friend’s Quarantine facility has two components. The indoor facility houses unwanted puppies, cats and kittens pulled from the Bladen County Animal Control Shelter and cared for until cleared for travel to approved rescue organizations, usually within two weeks.

The outdoor kennels house the older dogs – young adults tossed away when they grew big and rambunctious, or seniors callously dumped when they began to slow down or acquire health issues. At the County Shelter animals are euthanized after a holding period if space is needed. The County budget provides very little for veterinary care. Thus, A Shelter Friend Quarantine provides care and buys precious time for dogs until we can find their well-deserved “happy-ever-after”.

Proper animal care takes money, Food, medications, vaccinations, electricity, propane, fuel to drive animals to vet appointments, transports plus vet charges and never-ending repairs.

Donations to A Shelter Friend help change the future for thousands of homeless, unwanted and abused pets of Bladen County, NC, now and into the future. 100% of all donations will save lives.

Donate and be a part of something amazing!

Saving lives is expensive and every month we struggle to pay our expenses while fighting to save the lives of these poor animals that NEVER asked to be on death row.

We help when the kill shelter gets a medical emergency that they would need to euthanize because they only have minor medical provisions in their budget.

Young shelter animals can get sick with many illnesses including parvo and upper respiratory infections. We take in and quarantine, deworm, medicate and vaccinate puppies and kittens.

We administer and subsidize a spay/neuter program for residents with limited incomes.

ASF volunteers connect with good Samaritans feeding “community cats” to Trap, Neuter, vaccinate and return these cats back to their caretakers (TNR).

ASF gets animals out of the County kill shelter when they have a commitment to go to our rescue partners throughout the country. This not only saves the life of that animal but gives the precious gift of time to others at the shelter until they are adopted or rescued.

This costs us many thousands of dollars each month. Since 2007 A Shelter Friend has saved over 1,000 dogs and cats, puppies and kittens each and every year. Our vet bills, spay/neuter, boarding and transport are now more than $200,000/year.

A quarter of a million pets are put to sleep or euthanized in animal shelters in North Carolina every year, including the puppies of purebred dogs. Spaying and Neutering helps reduce the number of homeless pets and pet deaths.

DUBLIN – There is always something going on at Lu Mil Vineyard. From months of Christmas tree lights to the fall North Carolina Grape Festival to just last month where 550 runners came in to run in the “Run, Sip and Savor” wine 5K at 438 Suggs Taylor Road in Dublin, North Carolina.

Last Saturday was the eagerly anticipated May Jamboree at Lu Mil. With more food that you could eat in a lifetime and a variety much like a carnival food corridor, there was a lot of calories to “sweat off” on the grass dance floor that sits at the bottom of the outdoor amphitheater directly in front of the stage.

Although the event didn’t officially start until 2 p.m. there were plenty of cars driving in to get a good parking spot well before the official opening. Perhaps a few glasses of home-grown wine as they waited.

Denise Bridgers and Ron Taylor, owners of Lu Mil are very community oriented and when it comes to this day, their vineyard gives back to the community by way of a free event. With three bands playing throughout the day, unlimited food and smooth wine – Saturday was a time to kick back or get out on the dance floor and kick out the jams. It’s a time for family. It’s a time to forget the rest of the world and its agenda – at least for a few hours. It truly is sampling the goodness of Bladen County at its finest.

The first band to take the stage was relatively a new band, Loose Floorboards – with a mix of funk and rock warmed the crowd up right away with LOUD, LOUD and LOUDER. The hills of surrounding the amphitheater began to fill up as the second band performing at Lu Mil for the first time, Crenshaw Trucking Band (CTB) took the stage after a “between bands performance” by Miss North Carolina hopeful Hailey Hudson. Hudson is a graduate of East Bladen High School, a graduate of the University of North Carolina and is now pursuing her law degree in Chapel Hill.

By 4:30 a group of people decked out in pink shirts that said, “Peace, Love, Line Dance” were forming and dancing on the hill overlooking the band stage. And they started to dance. Like they were serious about making a run on the stage.

Before CTB was finished with their last song, the pink flash mob had descended and began to line dance. During the setup of the final band, Rivermist Band, they danced some more. It was contagious and by the first song done by Rivermist, they had completely taken over the infield. People that weren’t even in the line dancing groups began to flood into the mob. Old, young, all generations and genders were represented and what was amazing was that they all knew the routines.

A little more wine… another trip to the food trucks… and they were back for more during the last three hours of the jamboree.

It really was a festival for families and community to come together. In a time when the nation is in a panic over protests, infighting and politics, it was a safe place to come and simply fellowship with those around you who appreciated good music, activities for the kids which included collard greens, pizza, hamburgers, slushies, ice cream and bouncy houses and of course, for the adults, the thing that Lu Mil is best known for, it’s Muscadine wine.

It’s a festival that had a little bit of everything including fishing in the designated fishing ponds on the back of the property. It was like going to grandma’s Sunday afternoon – only with bands and 2,000 people. People were encouraged to bring their tents, their coolers and picnic lunches or choose between all the different food trucks that had everything from barbecue to chicken and waffles.

“This is our fifth year,” Kayla Bridgers said. “We started it back when COVID was in full swing, so we couldn’t do anything inside. Daryl Davis or as everybody calls him, ‘Double-D’ is one of our friends and he would have something like this in his backyard. He got to talking with Ron, (Taylor) one of the owners and Ron said, ‘well, why don’t you come and play at our amphitheater,’ and we’ll get some local bands to come.”

“For the first year, we had around seven people,” Bridgers said. “By the next year it grew and then people started contacting me to come out and set up food trucks and things like that. Daryl actually still helps by getting onstage and introducing the bands.”

“Well, before we did the backyard thing, we actually started in my living room,” Davis said. “I was having to move it outside due to COVID about four years ago and Ron (Taylor) heard about it on Facebook and we got together. He lined up the food and I lined up the music we’ve been doing it here ever since.”

The day did see a bit of rain, but most people just figured it was to calm down the dust being kicked up from the dance floor.

“We had a little rain; maybe 20 minutes and then… it stopped.” Bridgers said with a big smile on her face. “And now… we have a nice breeze. I think the best part of this is that there is something for everyone to do. We have face painting for the kids, bounce houses, ice cream and slushies and wine.”

It has really evolved from Davis’ living room and has become a premiere and beloved festival known throughout the state for all it has to offer.

ELIZABETHTOWN – The Russo-Ukrainian war has been raging since 2014 and is still raging today in spite of promised peace talks and cease fires.

It makes you wonder how long the conflict in Elizabethtown is going to go on in spite of promises of peace and cease fire.

“We haven’t been on the same page in a long time,” Cameron McGill, Bladen County District 3 Commissioner and Pastor of Lake Church in White Lake said. “The first meeting we had in the basement of the courthouse was just kind of formalities. Fast forward to the second meeting we had at the airport. There are pictures all around the room of these homes that are going to be built. Nice homes. Mayfair-style homes like in Wilmington. Admittedly it creates a sense of excitement. I’m an observer at this point. They talk about the number of homes, the scale of the construction; and a couple of key things stood out.

“One, they said were going to be built as workforce housing. This will help us recruit people that we need in the industrial park. Engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers, professional tradesmen, everybody.

“There will be different homes for everybody. They said, ‘now understand, because it’s going to be built in the industrial park, this is not going to be a kid-friendly community.’ My radar went up. I asked what the price point of these homes were going to be. They said, the low to mid to upper three-hundreds. Different styles and different sizes. I thought, hmmm. Bladen County, that’s pretty high end.”

When McGill asked if the professionals would have kids, or if they planned on having kids, would they not be eligible to live in that development.

“At that point they said, ‘it’s just not safe for kids,’” McGill said. “The next meeting they had airbrushed kids on bikes and playing in yards and I asked what changed? It was an indication to me that things were changing. Then all of a sudden, the pictures of the houses started changing until there’s no foundation, no crawl space, there’s no eaves on the houses and it looked like glorified military houses. The next time we saw the pictures; they didn’t look nearly that nice as they looked like a doublewide with no windows.”

McGill couldn’t sit back and proceeded to ask more questions. He got a confirmed answer that the town would own the land, a nonprofit builds the homes and people are going to buy the homes.

“How can you sell a home that is built on municipally-owned land?” he asked. “It didn’t make any sense. They said, ‘Well, there’s going to be some challenges and we’re going to have to get some new legislation. I asked who is going to pay the taxes? They said, ‘Oh, everybody pays taxes.”

McGill is open and not afraid to speak what has been spoken in those early meetings, but admits that things have changed. Whether the Town of Elizabethtown knew all along it was going to change or whether it altered the plans midstream, it has people confused.

“From the county perspective, we’re unclear,” McGill said. “I told them about the time I was traveling to Goldsboro and my GPS messed up and I ended up in Beulaville. I’m sitting in the middle of Beulaville and I asked, ‘How did I get here?’ Folks, I’m in the middle of Beulaville again and I want to know how did we get here? How did we possibly get to this point?”

McGill said that he would not speculate as to any improprieties, but also said that that there was a general lack of understanding. He did talk about a quote from another commissioner who spoke, looking back at a bigger picture.

“He made a great point,” McGill said. “’People who have just moved to this county in the last few years have turned people against one another who have been lifelong friends. We grew up together, went to school together; how has that happened?’ And that’s where we’ve got to figure it out and get back because the community is too valuable.”

Bill Horner III from Business North Carolina magazine dropped a second in his series on the happenings in Bladen County May 1. The article was entitled, “A DIVORCE IN BLADEN: A rural southeast N.C. County, praised for its job recruiting efforts, is fractured by disagreements.”

He began with his lede which read, “If you’re curious why economically distressed Bladen County owns a quartet of new airplanes, acquired during a three-day, $2.5 million buying spree last August, buckle up. That’s part of a larger story with as much turbulence as a willow in a hurricane.”

As he did in the first article, he reported objectively the “he-said, he-said” of the feud and cited Chuck Heustess as the director of both the Bladen County Economic Development Commission and its wonderfully named nonprofit real estate developer, Bladen’s Bloomin’ Agri-Industrial Inc. who actually walked Horner through the emptiness which is the Elizabethtown Industrial Park.

He also mentioned Dane Rider as the prizefighter for the other side and said he was “a former West Point garrison commander who serves as Elizabethtown’s town manager, is the prime target of Heustess’ angst.”

In another portion of the article that he subheads, “Taking the gloves off,” he wrote, “In recent years, Bladen County has received praise for its rural economic development efforts, buoyed by a strong relationship between the county and Elizabethtown. But Charles Ray Peterson, the county commission board chairman and acting county manager since the end of 2023, characterizes it differently.

“‘There is no relationship,’ says Peterson, a commissioner since 2002. ‘They’ve been dragging, they’ve been putting us off on things, and we’re not waiting another day. I took the gloves off on this one.’

“On March 28, Bladen’s Bloomin’ filed a civil suit against the town of Elizabethtown for failing to comply with an Oct. 18 public records request. The same day, Elizabethtown issued a press release blaming the county and Bladen’s Bloomin’ with “misinformation” and “divergent views” that have stymied projects.”

Further questions arise within the article as Horner wrote, “Some of the more egregious concerns for Heustess are $15 million in state DEQ grants that Peterson says are in limbo; $1.3 million in lost Golden LEAF funding, and another $1 million in road, water and sewer funds from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and Golden LEAF that were lost because, as Heustess says, “Elizabethtown just didn’t do what they said they were going to do. That helped lead to the airplane purchases. In early 2024, the county announced Vulcanair North America would use a 36,000-square-foot building at the Elizabethtown airport to manufacture its four-seat Vulcanair S.p.A-Model V1.0 trainer aircraft. Bladen’s Bloomin’ planned to invest $3 million to build the facility, but Heustess says the town decided it would handle construction instead. Subsequent delays threatened the project’s viability, he says. The company says the plant will open in September, though no construction had started as of mid-April.”

The complete article in Business North Carolina can be read by going to: https://businessnc.com/siler-city-a-lionized-piedmont-town-embraces-transformational-change-while-grasping-to-retain-its-charm-2/

And the conflict continues to rage.

The following is from an archive and features a moment of humor that wasn’t humorous at the time.

Anyway, as fate would have it, I flew on United the same day they were dragging a doctor off another plane at the same airport because they were overbooked.

I call it, “I flew United… And kept my seat.”

I was going to fly into the Big Apple. It was much worse than it sounded. Actually, the apple was tasty, but getting to it… was not.

Planes freak me out. I’ll start there. Actually, maybe not the planes so much as it is the people who own the planes, fly the planes, fuel the planes and… no, wait. It’s the planes that freak me out. I mean, you could have the most conscientious pilot in the world, flying confidently at a safe altitude when the plane decides to eat a flock of Canada geese over the Hudson River.

Funny, nobody lists how many animals were harmed in the making of that flight.

Cue the nosedive. Complete with a feathered boa.

Also, if you think too much about it and consider you are really flying in an oversized aluminum can you would need a Valium. Because, just dropping from roof level would be painful, but dropping FROM SPACE; there’s no coming back from that.

And. Are you ready for this?

I flew United. (OK, I could hear the gasps all the way into next week)

The day the doctor left skid marks. In the aisle. In the arms. Of the seat police.

Actually, there must have been a full moon out that night because it seemed like every person we ran into had protruding, pointed teeth poking out through their pickle-juice scowls. And their little green flying monkeys weren’t pleasant either.

Minneapolis terminal. Oh, how the excitement turned to giggles and shrieks. The first encounter began with a new United check-in electronic kiosk that you have to navigate before they even allow you to go to talk to a real person. For an impatient and “running behind” traveler, I just want to say, “THAT’S NOT FUNNY.”

It cost me an extra $35 because I found myself pushing buttons at random and gathering the spewing paper tickets like I had just won at the slots in Vegas. They could make even bigger money if they put a “swear jar” over every machine. I’m just sayin’.

Because of the delays at ticketing, (don’t hear that one very often. Yeah, right.), I was afraid that I’d never get on the plane in time, but when I got to the gate, the lines were stretched back as far as St. Paul with people trying to check their carry-ons. Something about overbooked flights in Chicago.

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

And of course, when something happens in Chicago, it never stays in Chicago – and paralyses the entire world. I am now so indoctrinated that I wake up in Minnesota and stumble to the television where I check the weather report… FOR CHICAGO.

NO breakfast and I don’t know why I didn’t at least stop for a pretzel to tide me over until I got to the scrumptious meal they were serving on the plane. (Threw that in just to see if you were paying attention. Psyche.)

Oh yeah. Pretzels and a medium pop in an airport will cause you to have to put up your car for collateral and give blood at terminal B, gate 36, which is where all the medical planes are hangared. And, $12 for a small bag of almonds in the gift shop? Are you KIDDING me?

I got back to the gate where heard the gate attendant BEGGING people to check all carry-on luggage as, “the plane is full; we will ‘forward’ it to its final destination.”

Which isn’t a bad thing IF your final destination is really where your bag is going. Trust me. It isn’t. It will have a better vacation than you’re having – make sure you train it to take pictures.

I had nightmares of my last trip where the luggage was lost and when they finally delivered it, it came back to me complete with all kinds of stamps on my suitcase from such exotic places as Morocco, Portugal and of course, Cleveland. I still can’t figure out where the parrot came from that popped out of my garment bag.

Being one of the last persons to board, it was such a treat to finally walk down that gate tunnel to the plane and walk into the warm stench of disdain from all the disgruntled and “running late” passengers. All of them, looking at their watches and then up at me as if sending me a signal that this was all my fault.

Finally seated, I opened up my personal Hemisphere Travel Magazine which appears on every back seat of every United plane.

Here are a couple of quotes and my injected and inferred comments in a parenthetical form that accompany Mr. Oscar Munoz’s (United’s king pin) kind greeting to every happy passenger.

“Every day I see our people go the extra mile for our customers and for one another. (why just last week we tossed a guy from one of our planes to make room for one of my favorite stewardesses named ‘Bunni’). First, our Shared Purpose: ‘Connecting people. (ejecting people…) Uniting the world (Inciting the world). We fly right: On the ground and in the air, we hold ourselves to higher standards in safety and reliability. (We have first aid kits available if people accidentally fall on arm rests and are bleeding from the head.) We fly friendly: Warm and welcoming is who we are. (Hostile and welcoming you to come along peaceably or we will use force to drag you off our plane is who we are. You may be wounded by “friendly” fire.)

There is much more in the Munoz dialogue. Pick up a copy – it’s a hoot. My sides literally hurt from laughing so hard.

BLADEN COUNTY - East Bladen has finished Waccamaw 1A/2A Conference play with a 7-5 record. If East Columbus beats West Columbus on Thursday, then the Eagles and East Columbus would be tied for the top 1A team in the conference.

The teams would play Friday to break the tie with the winner to receive the higher seed in the upcoming N.C. High School Athletic Association playoffs. The site for the game would be determined by the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) ranking. Through Wednesday’s games, East Columbus was ranked No. 6 and East Bladen No. 7.

If West Columbus defeats the Gators on Thursday, then East Bladen will be the Waccamaw’s top 1A team and could host at least two home games in the NCHSAA playoffs.

East Bladen defeated East Duplin 9-8 on Wednesday in a non-conference game. West Columbus beat East Columbus 8-4 on Tuesday.

The teams split their regular season meetings with East Columbus winning 4-3 on March 18 and East Bladen winning 4-1 on March 21.

NCHSAA playoff pairings are expected to be released Monday with games scheduled Tuesday.

EAST BLADEN SOFTBALL(7-7, 6-6):

at Clinton(4-12, 1-7) - Mon 6 PM

East Duplin(11-7) - Wed 6 PM

WEST BLADEN SOFTBALL(8-7,5-3):

Red Springs(1-19, 1-7) - Tue 6 PM

at Red Springs(1-19, 1-7) - Fri 6 PM

EAST BLADEN GIRLS SOCCER(12-1-1, 10-1):

at Hoke County(7-12) - Mon 6 PM

Midway(5-9, 3-3) - Tue 6 PM

WEST BLADEN GIRLS SOCCER(2-14-3, 1-4-1):

South Brunswick(4-9-3) - Mon 6 PM

Red Springs(10-6, 3-3) - Tue 6 PM

at Red Springs(10-6, 3-3) - Fri 6PM

Monday, RD 1 of NCHSAA BOYS TENNIS DOUBLE-TEAM

Monday, WACCAMAW CONFERENCE TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIP

Wednesday, SAC 6 CONFERENCE TRACK & FIELD CHAMPIONSHIP

HOPE MILLS - The West Bladen Knights defeated the South View Tigers for a 9-6 victory in a non-conference match-up last Monday evening. West Bladen junior Weston Hillburn went 2-for-4 at the plate, was responsible for two home runs and he batted in five runs in the victory over the Tigers. The Knights fended off a five run serge from their opponents in the sixth inning to secure their sixth straight win. South View sophomore Malachi Jones led his team at the plate with a 2-for-3 performance and he batted in two runs in the defeat.

Senior right-hander Brady Durden pitched 5.2 innings against South View to earn the win on his resume and he struck out three of the 27 batters he faced. West Bladen’s overall record moves to 14-4 and they’ll look to seal the SAC 6 Conference title this week with matchups against Red Springs. The Knights are currently in a three-way tie for first-place in the SAC 6 standings with Midway and Clinton at 6-2.

Red Springs will enter Bladenboro this Tuesday on a two game losing streak and they’ll hope to make up ground over St. Pauls in their final two games as they occupy last place in the standings. The Knights will take on their in-county rivals East Bladen on Thursday evening for their final home game of the regular season and they’ll conclude their week on the road against Red Springs. West Bladen are in poll position to earn the top-seed in the SAC 6 Conference and they’re currently first in the 2A East RPI-rankings.

The Midway Raiders have an overall record of 16-6 and they hold third in the 2A East RPI-rankings with two games remaining on their schedule. The Raiders will travel to St. Pauls this Tuesday and they’ll host St. Pauls on Friday in a SAC 6 clash. St. Pauls is 2-6 in conference action and their struggles this season has landed them in fifth-place in the standings. The Clinton Darkhorses have posted an overall record of 15-4 and they currently rank 10th in the 2A East Region RPI-rankings.

The Darkhores will begin the week with a match-up against East Bladen this Monday and their final two games of the regular-season will be against the Fairmont Golden Tornadoes. Farimont have an overall record of 11-11 and they occupy the fourth-place spot in the conference standings at 3-5. The Golden Tornadoes will look to finish the season strong as they have a shot to get into this year’s postseason; Fairmont is ranked 24th in the 2A East Region RPI coming into their final week of the schedule.

Clinton defeated Harrells Academy in a 14-4 victory last Tuesday as they’ll charge into Elizabethtown with some momentum. East Bladen has been one of the hottest teams in the Waccamaw Conference in recent weeks with an overall record of 10-9. The Eagles got a 7-4 victory over Wake Christian Academy last Monday on a neutral field before taking a brief break.

East Bladen went into the final week of the season ranked seventh in the 1A East Region RPI-rankings. They will also take on East Duplin in addition to their non-conference match-ups with Clinton and West Bladen. The East Columbus Gators are in poll position to capture the top-seed for 1A teams in the Waccamaw Conference as they rank sixth in 1A East Region RPI at 13-6.

The Gators will play their final two games against West Columbus in a Waccamaw Conference clash to conclude the regular-season. South Columbus and Whiteville will battle it out for the Waccamaw Conference title in the final week of the season. The South Columbus Stallions sit atop the Waccamaw conference standings with a 10-0 record and The Whiteville Wolfpack are right behind them with an 8-2 record.

The Stallions can secure the top-seed in the Waccamaw Conference for 2A teams with a victory over Whiteville. South Columbus is ranked sixth in the 2A East Region RPI-rankings at 15-3 and Whiteville are ranked eighth in the RPI at 14-4.

The Knights, East Bladen baseball, girls’ soccer and softball teams, and the West Bladen softball team are expected to qualify for the upcoming state playoffs.

Baseball and softball state playoff pairings are expected to be announced May 5 with first-round games scheduled May 6. Girls’ soccer pairings are expected to be announced May 9 with first-round games scheduled May 12.

Although there are exceptions, the top 32 ranked teams in each classification of the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s East RPI will qualify for postseason berths. Conference champions are seeded first based on RPI, then the remainder of the field is determined by RPI.

The Ratings Percentage Index formula includes a teams’ winning percentage, the winning percentage of opponents and the winning percentage of opponents’ opponents. It’s a way of rewarding teams that may lose against stronger competition than a team that wins against weak competition.

Here are the rankings as of Sunday morning with upcoming opponent’s records in parenthesis:

BASEBALL

WEST BLADEN

• Record: 14-4 overall, 6-2 Southeastern Conference

• RPI: .655583

• Rank: 1 in 2A East

• This Week: Tuesday home vs. Red Springs (6-14); Thursday home vs. East Bladen (10-9); Friday at Red Springs

• Last Week: Beat Overhills 13-1; Beat South Columbus 9-4; Beat South View 9-6

• Outlook: The Knights are in a three-way tie with Midway (No. 2 RPI) and Clinton (No. 10 RPI) for first place in the conference. A pair of wins against Red Springs would assure them of no worse than a tie for first and, most likely, the conference’s top seed based on RPI. The non-conference game against East Bladen could determine if West Bladen is No. 1 overall in 2A East.

EAST BLADEN

• Record: 10-9 overall, 7-5 Waccamaw Conference

• RPI: .543150

• Current Rank: 7 in 1A East

• This Week: Monday at Clinton (15-4); Wednesday home vs. East Duplin (12-7); Thursday at West Bladen (14-4)

• Last Week: Beat Village 13-6; Lost to Freedom Christian 8-7; Beat Wake Christian 7-4

• Outlook: The Eagles most likely will host a first-round game whether it’s as the conference’s top 1A team or based on RPI, but a win or two in three non-conference games against teams with winning records wouldn’t hurt. If East Columbus wins both of its games against West Columbus this week, then the Gators would be the top 1A team. If not, then East Bladen has a chance to be the top 1A team.

SOFTBALL

WEST BLADEN

• Record: 8-7 overall, 5-3 Southeastern Conference

• RPI: .533446

• Rank: 16 in 2A East

• This Week: Tuesday home vs. Red Springs (1-19); Friday at Red Springs

• Last Week: Did not play

• Outlook: The Knights will be in the playoffs. The question is whether they will play a first-round game at home. A pair of wins against Red Springs this week won’t help their case because of the Red Devils’ record. The top 16 rated teams will host a game, but lower-ranked conference champions would jump ahead of West Bladen in playoff seeding.

EAST BLADEN

• Record: 7-7 overall, 6-6 Waccamaw Conference

• RPI: .492879

• Rank: 20 in 1A East

• This Week: Monday at Clinton (4-12); Wednesday home vs. East Duplin (11-7)

• Last Week: Did not play

• Outlook: The Eagles will be in the playoffs, but don’t have a realistic chance of playing a first-round game at home. A couple of non-conference wins in the final week would help a team that lost its last two games before spring break. East Bladen had won six straight prior to those two losses.

GIRLS’ SOCCER

EAST BLADEN

• Record: 12-1-1 overall, 10-1 Waccamaw Conference

• RPI: .551179

• Rank: 5 in 1A East

• This Week: Monday at Hoke County (7-12); Wednesday home vs. Midway (5-9)

• Last Week: Did not play

• Outlook: The Eagles will be the conference’s 1A champion and host a first-round game. East Bladen hasn’t lost since being shut out 8-0 at home by Heide Trask. The Eagles then beat Trask 2-0 three days later. There are four games remaining to tune up for the playoffs.

WEST BLADEN

• Record: 2-14-3 overall, 1-4-1 Southeastern Conference

• RPI: .335143

• Rank: 47 in 2A East

• This Week: Monday home vs. South Brunswick (4-9-3); Tuesday home vs. Red Springs (10-6-0); Friday at Red Springs

• Last Week: Did not play

• Outlook: The Knights will wrap up their season this week and will not make the state playoffs.

BLADENBORO - The West Bladen Lady Knights will play their final three games of the regular-season this week. They’ll start their week off with a non-conference match-up against South Brunswick away from home this Monday and they play their final two games against Red Springs in a SAC 6 Conference match-up. West Bladen has posted an overall record of 2-14-3 and they are fourth-place in the conference standings with a 1-4-1 record.

The Lady Knights have lost their last six games and they’ve been hunting for a victory since the end of March. South Brunswick will host the Lady Knights this Monday but they also have been going through similar struggles as they’ve had an up-and-down season at 4-9-3. West Bladen will be back at their home field on Tuesday for their final home game of the season against the Red Springs Red Devils in a conference match-up. Red Springs has posted a 10-6 overall record this season and they are currently tied for second-place with Midway at 3-3.

The Red Devils suffered a 3-2 defeat to Midway in their last match before the Spring Break period and they’ve only secured a win in their last four games. Sophomore forward Jurielys Quinones leads Red Springs in the scoring department with 23 goals to her name. Senior forward Montserrat Villagomez-Ruiz has also been Quinones partner upfront as she’s been responsible for 10 assists and 14 goals in a potent Red Springs attack. West Bladen will close their season out on the road against Red Springs on Friday evening.

The Clinton Darkhorses secured their fifth straight conference title before the Spring Break period after steamrolling St. Pauls in a 9-nil victory. The Darkhorses have been on a nine game win streak since their last loss and they’ve won those nine games by a combined score of 59-nil. They’ll host C.B. Aycock in a non-conference match-up this Monday and they’ll travel down the road to take on Cape Fear on Wednesday for another conference match-up. Sophomore forward Jenna Jackson leads the frontline for the Darkhorses as she’s responsible for 20 goals and 16 assists this season.

Clinton are currently sitting in 19th for the 2A East Region RPI-rankings but they have a chance to move up the rankings with victories in their last few games. The Franklin Academy Lady Patriots are currently first in the RPI-rankings for the 2A East Region as they’ve posted a 15-0 record so far. Clinton and Franklin Academy will clash with one another on the final day of the regular-season on May 7th.