TABLE OF
CONTENTS

THE GRAPEVINE '03

IMPORTANT
INFORMATION

03/27/03
A new information kiosk has been constructed in the First Union parking lot on Main Street. One side will have a cork backing for members of the Valdese Business Association and other local organizations. The opposite side will have a large map of the town with identifying markers of the local tourist attractions and VBA members. To submit information to be included in the kiosk, contact Sandi Walker at Dolls and Designs.

A small "parklet" is in the planning stages, to be located between Flowers Auto Parts and Scott Watts' Edward Jones office.

The Valdese Fire Department will be testing fire hydrants in early April. This may temporarily cause some discoloration in your water. The department recommends running a faucet until the water returns to normal. If you have any problems, you may contact the Fire Department at 879-2103.

Anyone interested in youth baseball and softball should contact the Valdese Community Center at 879-2132 by April 4th. Kids ages 5 thorough 15 may register for t-ball, coach-pitch, and baseball and must turn five by August 1st to register for t-ball. Softball is available for ages 9 through 16. Group practices begin March 31st.

For adults interested in some sports competition, the Valdese Recreation Department will have three divisions of softball: Men's Open, Men's Industrial, and Men's Church. Team entry fees are $425, due at 5:00 p.m. on April 17th. For more information, contact Brian McGonagle at 879-2132.

If you get a chance, go see Old Colony Players' performance of Arsenic and Old Lace, the famous Agatha Christie mystery. I fought for three years on the OCP board to do a mystery and now that I'm off the board they do one. Go figure.

03/19/03
The town looks to be getting some Federal money in compensation for textile losses as manufacturers continue to head overseas. Valdese will receive $225,000 which it will put toward repairs and updates for the sewer lines, some of which are forty years old. The project is expected to cost about $300,000 in all.

The Town is also looking at having the state repair the potholes on Main Street and adjust the height of the manhole covers so they will be flush with the road surface.

There's to be a Community Prayer Meeting at the Old Rock School on March 25th to show support for those in the armed services who are overseas. I don't know if a political stance will be taken on the war effort (pro or con) but assume it is nonpartisan.

On Saturday (March 22nd,) the First United Methodist Church will hold a craft fair from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. featuring Red Bird Mission Crafts which sells Appalachian crafts from an area in Kentucky with a fifty percent unemployment rate.

If you weren't aware, the Meytre Grist Mill and its surroundings are undergoing substantial renovations in an effort to restore the mill to working order and making it into a new tourist attraction. Currently, Chuck Moseley and myself are involved, along with Steve Morrow whose Public Works Department has done the bulk of the restorations. We are planning to form an organization much like the Railroad Club that meets at the Old Rock School, who would maintain the facility and operate it for tourists. Beyond that, nothing else has been cast in stone regarding how the club would operate. We haven't even settled on a name, though I'm shooting for "The Grinders." If you're interested, you can e-mail me or Chuck Moseley.

03/09/03
In what may be the quickest move for a business in Valdese, the new auction house that opened in the old Jolly & Sons Hardware store has moved two doors down into the former Older & Better Antiques store. Apparently the first building was not deemed safe by fire codes for the number of people that attended the first auction.  The maximum capacity was rated at fifty persons, based partially on the number of accessible exits. The new building is roughly twice as large and will allow more room for auction attendees.

That old bakery pollution bugaboo has reared its head once again. For those of you who don't already know, that "fresh bread" smell is actually considered a form of pollution and falls under governmental regulation. Therefore, the plant must apply for an Air Quality Permit, issued by the N.C. Division of Air Quality. Anyone who's gotten behind a car with a bad exhaust or passed through Canton, NC on a bad day has to wonder why our government is worried about something that actually smells pretty good. If I remember correctly, the smell is ethyl alcohol fermenting during the baking process.

On the subject of Sara Lee, congratulations to Gene Price on his retirement last week Gene ran the cake department for a number of years and helped start and run the Artisan Bread Shop that sits behind the retail store. Congratulations also to Steve Danner, who was named Employee of the Year. I've known Steve for over ten years and he certainly deserves the award. He's also one of the biggest Wake Forest fans on Earth.

Speaking of Wake Forest, if you see Harold Mitchell (one of Wake Forest's biggest fans,) ask him about "Karoke Night" at Carlton Caruso's last weekend. Apparently Mr. Mitchell is quite the singer.

Louise Johnson Barrett has finally located the final Valdese High School alumni, completing her booklet. She has left the final one hundred copies at the Museum and the Trail of Faith office to be sold by the two entities. She asked me to urge everyone to join the free online service, www.classmates.com and list their alma maters. Basic membership allows you to see what classmates have joined. The "Gold" membership is $30 per year and gives you e-mail addresses and other information specific to each person.

02/28/03
After your yard work on Saturday, consider stopping by the American Legion Hut and taking place in the Valdese Rotary Club Scholarship auction. Among the items up for bid this year are a 1984 Mercedes, furniture from some area manufacturers, a football signed by members of the 2002 UNC TarHeel football team, and some collectible dolls from Dolls and Designs by Sandi.

The pony-ride merry-go-round is back up at the Lowes Foods shopping center. It appeared last January and was around for about a week or two.

Just a reminder that your next water bill will likely be higher than normal. As I noted a few weeks ago, the Town has had to raise its rates to compensate for the loss of revenue it suffered from Alba's ceasing production at the local plant.

The Town has officially kicked off its Water Conservation program. Check the town's official website: www.ci.valdese.nc.us for information on how you can conserve water.

If you missed the Fire Department's Child Seat Safety Inspection a few months back, it will be repeated several more times this year, including today. A list of the future dates will be available on the town's website and I will try to post reminders several days in advance of each inspection. The service is free to all citizens, but if you want to give them a cookie or Cheerwine, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

In case you missed it, Pioneer 10 stopped transmitting data back to Earth. This spacecraft was launched in March 1972 and traveled about eight billion miles, beyond the orbit of Pluto. For reference purposes, that's equivalent to 320,000 times around the equator of the Earth. Not sure if NASA purchased the extended warranty, but they sure got their money's worth.

02/23/03
I recently received an e-mail from Dave Jolly who operated Jolly and Sons Hardware here in Valdese for about a year before lack of business forced him to close his doors. It got me to thinking (again) about why people don't shop in Valdese. I guess everyone has a different reason or excuse but I would imagine most would fall into a few categories with the primary reason being "can't find everything you need."

While this is often true (we don't really have a clothing store, for example) in many cases, like the hardware store, part of a shopping list could be completed in Valdese. My fear is that if someone has a list that includes beer, paint, a television, and golf balls, they're going to try to knock off all their stops in Morganton or Hickory since beer and golf balls (to my knowledge) aren't available in Valdese. A number of people I've spoken with, who are respected, solid citizens have admitted that they are guilty of this behavior. Even I have consolidated errands that took my business away from town, though it usually meant stopping at an out-of-town grocery store. Valdese will likely never be able to meet all of our needs, though it seemed to do a pretty good job back in the days of Sav-A-Center, Belk, Roses, and Western Auto. Unless we make a conscious effort to support our local businesses we'll continue to lose worthwhile merchants like Jolly and Sons Hardware.

To my knowledge, prices aren't all that different between the local merchants and those of the major chains found in Hickory and Morganton, on average. One item may be higher, but is often offset by a lower priced item. And we certainly have the service. Take Major Electric for example. I would feel perfectly comfortable having them deliver and install an appliance while I wasn't home (and have done it several times.) i can't say the same thing for someone from Circuit City or Best Buy. And when is the last time someone at one of those electronics stores cut coaxial cable to a specific length for you?

OK, end of sermon. I'm mainly hoping everyone will consider our local merchants more often when planning their shopping excursions.

On a separate note, if anyone has sent me an e-mail in the past month or so and I haven't responded, please resend it. HCI, my service provider has installed a spam filter that blocks messages before they are delivered to me. The filter sends me a list of the blocked messages in case I want to retrieve a particular message. Unfortunately, there are about forty headers in the list and it's easy to overlook one. It has already blocked a few friendly messages that I managed to catch.

02/18/03
The sleet and freezing rain dampened but the festivities went on for the visiting Waldensian ambassadors as the Waldensian Presbyterian Church celebrated the 155th Anniversary of the Edict of Emancipation. They were guests of honors at dinners at the Winery, the Church, and the L.P.D.A.

Last week's town council meeting was attended by Girl Scout Troop #255 who received commendation for their work building a men's wardroom for Old Colony Players out of a former bathroom. Tammy Black, wife of councilman Chip Black is troop leader. The troop worked on the project for 2½ weeks.

Also at the council meeting, a public hearing was set for March 10th regarding modifications in the town's zoning ordinances. One modification is to allow garages, utility buildings, and gazebos to be located in the front or side of the house for property owners with over five acres of land. As the ordinance currently reads, any non-attached structures must be behind the house.

The Downtown Revitalization Committee is proposing some modifications to the current grant programs offered to new businesses locating in Valdese. They are hoping to end the "rent subsidies" and replace them with three types of grants: Marketing, Facade Improvement, and Landscaping. Under the proposals, the town would match up to $2,500 spent by the business under any of these categories, but the business person would be required to submit (among other information,) a business plan, company history, and principals involved. Currently the proposals only address new businesses or those less than six months old. The committee has plans to address programs for existing programs.

The town recently replaced a number of its computer systems and is looking at donating the old systems to the schools and a local church that wants to create a computer lab.

Rotary will be celebrating its centennial in 2005 and the local chapter hopes to honor the milestone by building a mini park above the tennis courts at the community center. I believe the former park was taken down when the swimming pool was enlarged and the tennis courts were cut from three to two. It is currently a parking area for those playing tennis. To compensate for the lost spaces and easy access, they plan to re-enable access from the south (lower) side.

02/09/03
The Olga Pascal auction was an unqualified success, bringing in more than $15,000, 20% of which will go to the Rock School Arts Foundation, which hosted the event.

If I heard correctly, the Charlotte news reported that our state had more snow in January than did Denver and Detroit. The last four inch  or so snow that hit us last week puts us over a foot for 2003. That's probably the  most we've had since 1993 and there's still a good six weeks or more of potential snow-producing weather to go.

The Waldensian Presbyterian Church will be hosting a delegation from Italy that is here to help celebrate the anniversary of King Charles Albert's signing of an edict of emancipation in 1848 that granted the Waldensian people certain religious and civil liberties. There will be a dinner at 6:00 p.m. at the church and a bonfire in the vacant lot below the Post Office around 8:00 p.m. Tickets to the dinner are available through February 12th at the church (828-874-2531) and are $6 for adults and $3 for kids ten and under.

01/28/03
Hope everyone enjoyed the Super Bowl or at least the commercials or halftime act. We don't usually get to see the game with 8-9" of snow on the ground. Actually, we don't usually get 8-9" of snow, period. They're calling for warmer temperatures this weekend, otherwise this stuff may never fully melt.

The Jolly Hardware building didn't stay vacant long, but you won't be seeing a new retailer in the traditional sense. The new occupant is an auctioneer that will be holding auctions on the first and third Sunday afternoons of each month. Kind of a live, local version of eBay. I believe most of the items will be antiques that the owner travels around and purchases for the purpose of auctioning them.

Anyone interested in auditioning for OCP's performance of Arsenic and Old Lace should mark their calendars for February 10th and 11th. Auditions will be held both days from 6:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. For more information you can call 874-0176 or e-mail ocp@hci.net. More immediately, OCP will be having a dinner theater this and next weekend entitled "Phantom of the Old Rock School." Dinner will be served in the Waldensian Room, downstairs in the Old Rock School then everyone moves upstairs for the performance in the auditorium.

I attended a meeting of the craftspeople who display their creations at the Valdese Heritage Arts Center. There are currently about ten booths and more are on their way.

01/21/03
A few months ago, while driving along the Old John's River road, north of Collettesville, my father and I came across an unusual cabin that was covered in coffee mugs, as was its fence which ran for a couple hundred feet along the driveway and road. Click here for the picture. I submitted a picture to Steve Ohnessorge, WBTV's local correspondent in case he ever needed a story. He, to my knowledge, never used it, but I have been told that it will be appearing on NBC6's Carolina Traveler this Friday at 9:00 p.m. Perhaps Valdese could come up with a similar idea to spur tourism? OK, maybe not..

I noticed some people in the former Jolly & Sons Hardware store doing some renovation  work. Hopefully this means a new business. Mr. Jolly got the building into pretty good shape and it's a shame to see it empty.

According to Mayor Hatley, Morganton's Mayor, Mel Cohen, called upon all the mayors of Burke County to submit a list of names of individuals who could be solicited for donations to help the Red Cross with some of its financial difficulties. Mr. Hatley was offended at the suggestion and replied that he would attend the meeting, but would not offer any names.  If you get a letter from the Red Cross, you can rest assured that Mr. Hatley did not

I'm ashamed to admit that I have not yet been by Creative Corner, across from Myra's, but will soon be adding the company to the business section of the website. I received an e-mail from Jana Mathis that listed their website, www.thecreativecorner.net,  and was very impressed when I visited the site and saw some of the products offered.

I learned in a recent tourism meeting that Jim Jacumin has new plans for the old Frances Garrou High School building. Instead of a hotel/conference center, as I understand it, he now plans to convert it to some type of senior housing that would also have some conference rooms and (according to Chuck Moseley) bed and breakfast facilities.

01/15/03
Jimmy Huffman's store, Tri-County Electronics is coming along quickly and at first glance seems to be moving in the "Radio Shack" direction that was initially indicated. The store will also sell Verizon Wireless cellular phones and service. FYI-Verizon was recently rated best cell-phone service by Consumer Reports magazine. I'll probably switch over myself this November, when a new law is supposed to go into effect letting you take your phone number with you when you switch carriers. Anyway, I noticed some televisions and other electronics near the window so the store hopefully can keep people from going to Morganton or Hickory for their tech-type needs.

Meanwhile, across the street, in the old Janie's Outlet building, the new furniture/upholstery store was moving in inventory. The sign above the door says "Furniture Care" but I'm not certain if that's the name of the store or just text describing their services. This store, too, appears to be close to opening.

As you know, Valdese Tax Collector Ruth Platukas, is retiring and training her replacement. I learned yesterday that this replacement is current Finance Director, Greg Cannon. Who will be replacing Mr. Cannon? None other than Jerry LaMaster, who is returning from his stint in Saudi Arabia with a defense contractor. He left right at two years ago and I'm not sure what his reasons for coming back are. Whether there was trouble brewing in the area or he just missed us here in Valdese.

Plans for the Founders' Day Festival are moving ahead and the date has been set for Saturday, May 31st. Each year, it will be held the last Saturday of August, which unfortunately will be Memorial Day weekend. If you're not going to the NASCAR race in Charlotte, stay home and enjoy our newest celebration. Current plans are to have twenty booths of arts and crafts and two food vendors. There will be musical entertainment, but the performers have not yet been scheduled. You could almost argue to hold the event on the football field behind the Old Rock School, but it will be held on Massel Street, near where the old Train Depot stood.

01/07/03
By now you're aware of the passing of Valdese "ambassador" Parks Sherrill. Mr. Sherrill had battled cancer for quite some time. He was very active in SCORE, the Service Core of Retired Executives and maintained several business relationships with friends in the textile industry in Russia. He was also president of the Historic Valdese Foundation and was one of the leading forces behind construction of the Millennium Clock Tower. You may also recall his was the burgundy Cadillac with the "VALDESE" license plate. Mrs. Sherrill will be keeping the car according to a family friend.

Watch for your February water bill to show a small increase as residents are being asked to cover the revenue loss that will result from Alba-Waldensian ending production in Valdese. The lost revenue, about $9-10,000 per month will require a 25% cost increase for citizens and bulk customers like Triple Community Water Service, a few dollars a month for the average citizen. Existing industries, such as Valdese Weavers and Carolina Mills, will not see a rate increase since they are already suffering from a depressed textile industry and for years have subsidized lower rates for the citizens. During the Monday Town Council meeting, Town Manager Jeff Morse pointed out that Valdese has historically had very low water/sewer rates and that currently the average Valdese citizen (5,000 gallons/month) pays just over $11 per month whereas that same user in Lincolnton would pay about $46.

February will mark the campaign kickoff for the town's water conservation program. You will begin seeing ads and articles in the local newspapers and hearing some on WSVM. The idea is to encourage people to be more careful about wasteful water usage in case this summer proves to be as dry as 2002 was. The town hopes that other cities and towns will follow Valdese's example and encourage similar practices by their citizens.

The town is also considering developing some unused land within the city limits to attract new non-textile and furniture industries that might be less susceptible to foreign manufacturers.