SWINGING AWAY
Steamers open hot,
Edenton Post 40 not
SPORTS, B1
482-4418
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
OLF PROPOSAL
State 60P
backs No-OLF
movement
BY SEAN JACKSON
Staff Writer
An Edenton-drafted proposal to nix a U.S.
Navy airfield landing in this area has support
from the North Carolina Republican Party.
The state GOP’s executive committee ap
proved a resolution Sunday to oppose an out
lying landing field, also called an OLF, in sites
targeted by the Navy in counties in northeast
ern North Carolina.
“I was just overwhelmingly impressed with
the groundswell of grassroots sentiment be
hind this resolution,” Linda Daves, N.C. GOP
chairwoman, said of the resolution passed
Sunday in Charlotte during her party’s state
meeting.
Chowan County GOP chairman Bob
Steinburg 1'’>V'* -raft the resolution passed
1/ state Republican Party leaders in Charlotte
several days ago.
Steinburg things the groundswell of support
form county GOP officials across the state
could persuade North Carolina’s two Republi
can U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole
- who have both recently opposed the Washing
ton County option - to reject the other sites in
the northeast.
Both Dole and Burr have suggested that the
Craven County site is a more acceptable op
tion.
With congressional leaders’ recent moves to
reject funding for the Navy’s top selection in
Washington County, Steinburg hopes North
Carolina’s grassroots groundswell will con
vince Dole and Burr to take a more public, of
ficial stance against an OLF coming this area.
Dole is up for reelection in 2008. Burr will be
on the ballot in 2010.
“It’s going to be interesting,” Steinburg sai
The OLF opposition from Chowan and sur
rounding counties is a “powerful” sign, Daves
said, of the unity of opposition against the
Navy’s plans to site an OLF in Washington
County, within miles of Pocosin Lake National
Wildlife Refuge.
See OLF,-Page A2 >
Carter
BY EARLINE WHITE
Managing Editor
After they
walk across
the stage at
Friday night’s
commencement they know
where they are going, geo
graphically at least.
Ryland Elliott and Lee
Ann Lawrence will be going
to UNC-Chapel Hill this fall;
Kim Carter and Rachel
Barham will be staying in
the area and attending
ECSU.
From a school of five hun
dred, where they’ve spent
their entire educational ca
reers alongside life-long
friends, to schools where
they may know practically
no one, all four know they
are on the brink of some
thing big, but how big they
are not sure.
♦ ♦ ♦
INSIDE
Holmes seniors nab
record scholarship total.
Page A7
The Chowan Herald
salutes Class of 2007.
Pages C4-6
look over at the desk beside me
and not see Marvin [Bonner]
who I’ve had in all my classes,”
Lawrence — who plans to study
biology, she thinks—says. “The
first week I’m going to ring his
phone off the hook.”
Leaving friends and family be
hind is something that
Lawrence is accustomed to for
short periods of time — a week
up north with relatives, a week
or two at cheerleading camp.
Leaving friends and family
will be the hardest part, the
other students said. Only five
other John A. Holmes seniors
will be attending UNC-Chapel
Hill.
Carter, who will only be 30
miles away from home, in Eliza
beth City, feels the same.
“It will be a big change, leaving
home. I’ve only spent one week
away on vacation with my rela
tives. But I called my mom every
day. I’m a spoiled brat,” she
laughs.
Carter plans to study music per
formance and hopes to land a
record deal,
❖ ♦ ♦
The students have wants. One
hopes to pledge a sorority another
wishes for clean clothes with no
bleach spots. One hopes for a nice,
“normal” roommate, another of
settling in a new house, rather
than a dorm.
It will be a time of drastic
change and confusion, but like
any traveler at the beginning of a
long trek, the students seem ready
for it.
Elliott grimaces when asked
about the daily trek to class across
Carolina’s campus of over 200
buildings. “I’ve been there be
fore, and orientation will help,
but...”
“And we’re pretty much
homeless until they tell us
where we’re staying,”
Lawrence says of dorm assign
ments. “I hope I get air condi
tioning.”
L living the comforts of
hoi^ behind, the college
bound kids prepare for budgets
and beers, or lack thereof. All
four t lan to work over the sum
mer to save up for late-night
pizzas, but tuition and books
will come from another pocket.
Elliott chose Carolina be
cause of the university’s up
standing reputation in his de
sired career choice, nursing.
He received several small
scholarships.
Lawrence chose Carolina af
ter spending a summer work
ing with Project Uplift, a pro
gram designed to lure minori
ties to UNC-Chapel Hill.
She was awarded a Carolina
Covenant scholarship worth
more than $60,000.
With that she is required to
maintain at least a 3.0 GPA
three years of her stay. “That
means no partying for me,”
See GRADS, Page A6 >
LOCAL BUDGET PLANS
Home taxes
increasing?
Chowan — YES
Edenton — [sjq
BY REBECCA BUNCH
Staff Writer
The realty tax rate in Chowan County is
climbing by 1.5 cents per $100 of assessed value
in a draft budget for next year.
County Manager Cliff Copeland is recom
mending that the rate increase from 54.5 to 56
cents in his proposed budget.
Meanwhile, the total budget would climb by
slightly above
seven percent to
$25.6 million.
The proposed
rate hike did not
come as welcome
news to Roy
Kirkman, who has
been trying to sell his home on Gum Pond Road
for six months.
“My suggestion to the county manager would
be to ask him to cut expenses instead of rais
ing people’s taxes,” Kirkman said.
“If they keep on raising taxes, they’re going
to be taking a lot of food out of the mouths of
poor folks in Chowan County.”
Kirkman said he has dropped the asking
price for his home to $289,000 — well below its
assessed value of $306,000 — but still has had
no takers.
The proposed tax increase will not likely in
crease his chances for making a sale, said
Kirkman, who is retired from the military and
lives on a fixed income. It is the future of oth
ers like himself that has him concerned, he
said.
In Copeland’s budget message, presented to
the county commissioners Monday night,
Copeland noted that sales tax revenue for the
county “remains extremely flat” in explaining
the decision to propose a tax increase.
Among the major proposed expenditures in
the budget:
■ Furniture and equipment for the public li
brary expansion, $240,000, plus $300,000 to com
plete funding for the library addition
See BUDGET, Page A2 >
INSIDE
Town's proposed budget
includes 2 percent
electric-rate hike.
Page A2
Hartman, 32, mother, sister, friend passes after battle with cancer
BY EARLINE WHITE
Managing Editor
In December 2006, Nicole Hartman
was given two months to live. The can
cer she had fought off so bravely two
years prior had reappeared, this time
on her lungs.
But cancer could not kill her spirit
and Hartman, 32, continued to fight
with the same conviction that got her
through the first set of treatments —
“I’ll do whatever I need to do,” she’d
say to her family and friends.
Hartman proved the experts wrong,
laughing and loving through not two,
but six months.
Hartman’s body was laid to rest
Sunday in Beaver Hill Cemetery while
nearly 150 of her closest loved ones
sang one of her favorite songs, “I’ll Fly
Away.”
She not only got to spend Christmas
with her children, Alyssa, Nicholas
INSIDE
Nicole Hartman obituary.
Page C8.
and Kennedy Belle, but Mother's Day
as well.
She watched from the dock as Nicho
las reeled in dinner, while she held on
to Kennedy Belle as she sat alongside
Hartman in the wheelchair.
All those who knew her, know that
it was for her children that Hartman
fought to hang on.
Hartman will be remembered as
a loving mother, a caring sister, a
truthful daughter, and a confidante.
She was a fighter, a lover, patient,
never judging, though often-judged
individual, whose spirit will carry
on in all those who knew her.
See NICOLE, Page A2 >
Hartman
©2006 The Chowan Herald
All Rights Reserved
PI : : £ V *
INDEX
A Local
Crime Report .A4
Opinion .....A8
jgjji mM
B Sports/School
Recreation News.B1
i Cycle Speedway.B3
NASCAR.. 84
a...-* «•' ■/" .
<&-. ^ > -4: ,r
C Community News
Upcoming Events .~..C2
Society...C7
Obituaries.C8
Church...C9.10
':!«J‘i.■«, 8* ■ : ii'i 1 !
D Classifieds
Buy/Sell/Trade.D1
Service Directory...... D2
Employment...D3
Nancy Morgan
retires as
county clerk
Community, C1
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Potatoes * Coleslaw