Bassmaster tournament results
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Summer food safety tips
Rage 6
County to swap land with DOT
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July 20, 2005
Vol. 73, No. 29 Hertford, North Carolina 27944
P17/C7
X XUNC 279,4-1306 ^ Pn .
Perquimai
Weekly
-■0 V.::-
DPI releases Adequate Yearly Progress results
ERIN RICKERT
Perquimans County
High School is said to be
the only school in the sys
tem to have met the
requirements needed for
this year’s Adequate Yearly
Progress, preliminary
reports released by the
North Carolina
Department of Public
Instruction revealed
Monday.
Out of four public
schools, three failed to
show Adequate Yearly
Progress — falling short in
test scores of exceptional
students.
“We have target goals to
meet in the system and the
school,” said Perquimans
County Schools
Superintendent Dr.
Kenneth W. Wells. “If they
are not met, score are not
counted. With AYP there is
no credit for the progress
you make.”
Students in grades three
through eight and high
school students in the tenth
grade participated in test
ing of reading and math
comprehension at their
schools in May. A require
ment of the federal
education law
called No Child
Left Behind.
Their proficien
cy, WeUs said, was
based on whether
schools’ were able I
•to meet the profi
ciency level set for
each of their target
goals.
This year Hertford
Wells
Grammar, Perquimans
Central School and
Perquimans Middle School
were scored using 21 target
goals while PCHS
was scored using
17.
Perquimans
County Schools
Public Information
Officer Brenda
Lassiter said to
test proficiency
students. were
lumped into groups
of at least 40 in a number of
categories where they qual
ified — including cate
gories such as race/ethnic
ity, economic status and
special needs.
Wells said when one stu
dent, who qualifies for
more than one of the
schools targets does not
meet proficiency, scores for
each of the categories they
qualified are brought
down.
“We want every group of
students to be successful,”
Wells said. “[But] It’s an all
or nothing proposition.”
During the 2004-05 year.
students were deemed pro
ficient by the state if indi
viduals in grades three
through eight met 76.7 per
cent proficiency in reading
and 81 percent in math.
While students in the tenth
grade were required to be
35.4 percent proficient in
reading/language arts and
70.8 percent proficient in
math.
Though PCHS met their
proficiency ratings,
Lassiter said the three
Continued on Page 10
Community helps locate
hound lost in accident
ECB BREAKS Ground
ERIN RICKERT
The Border Collie miss
ing since his involvement
in the recent traffic acci
dent on U.S. Highway 17
was finally located family
reported Wednesday.
Nine year-old “Double
Dip” had been missing
since he strayed from the
scene of a July 7 accident
that caused a grain truck
and a tractor-trailer to col
lide near where Chapanoke
Road intersects U.S. 17.
Double Dip was riding in
the passenger seat of the
grain truck, as he often did,
the morning of the acci
dent.
The driver of the grain
truck, longtime
Perquimans County farmer
and Double Dip’s compan
ion, 79 year-old Ray
Godfrey would die from
injuries sustained in the
collision.
Sharon G. Meiggs,
Godfrey’s daughter, said
the family had assumed
Double Dip was dead after
seeing the condition of
Godfrey’s vehicle following
the incident.
It was only after neigh
bors near the scene of the
wreck informed the
Godfrey’s they had spotted
Double Dip, Meiggs said,
did they regain hope they
would be reunited
with their precious com
panion.
Then, a ' day after the
accident a resident near the
scene, who claimed Double
Dip was in their yard,
would contact the family.
“We left to get him,”
Meiggs said. “But he was
still so traumatized he ran
from Sonny [Godfrey’s son
Earl] and my mother
[Earline]. He ran straight
across the four lane high
way.”
The family would make
several other attempts to
locate their pet. Earl,
Double Dip’s actual owner,
even parked his pickup in
nearby neighbors’ drive
ways leaving the doors
open and placing several
articles of Godfrey’s cloth
ing on the seat — hoping to
catch him.
“Neighbors kept seeing
him around the area [of the
accident],” Meiggs said.
“They let us use their drive
way’s and put food and
water out. That whole
entire community was
helpful.”
Meiggs said just when
the family had almost given
up they investigated one
more sighting — only this
time Double Dip was closer
to home.
“He was under the tail
gate of a pickup at a house
being built closer to the
New Hope end,” Meiggs
said.
This time, Meiggs said,
instead of running after
the Double Dip, Earl
stepped out of the car and
coaxed the dog who finally
crawled to Earl on his beUy.
“He looked so tired and
pitiful,” Meiggs said. “But
he was home.”
Since his retiu-n Double
Dip like his old self —
swimming in the family’s
Continued on Page 10
PHOTO BY ERIN RICKERT
Bank personnel from Hertford's branch of East Carolina Bank participated in a
groundbreaking ceremony for their new building Monday. The new branch, locat
ed off Harvey Point Road, is expected to be finished in six months.
New Hertford branch to add amenities, space
ERIN RICKERT
Amongst the freshly
laid dirt and the sounds of
heavy machinery. East
Carolina Bank broke
ground Monday for a new
3,600 square foot branch in
the Perquimans County
Commerce Centre.
There, several commimi-
ty officials and ECB repre
sentatives joined Hertford
employees for a ceremony
Branch Manager David W.
Noell said the team has
been waiting for since they
started in their current
location off South Ocean
Highway nearly four years
ago.
"This couldn’t have come
any sooner," Noell said. "We
are looking forward to a lot
of growth."
"Since we opened the
temporary site in 2000, we
have been looking for just
the right site to build a per
manent facility," Mimi W.
van Nortwick, director of
Continued on Page 7
Parker:
Tilley soon
to be clerk
SUSAN R. HARRIS
A magistrate and former
deputy clerk of court has
been named clerk of supe
rior court in Perquimans
County effective Sept. 1.
Todd W. TUley will fiU
the unexpired term of L.
Gail Godwin, who recently
announced that she will
retire at the end of August.
Godwin has held the post
for 17 years.
Tilley’s appointment
was made by Senior
Resident Superior Court
Judge J. Richard Parkerof
Manteo.
“Todd is well-qualified to
assume this important
position and the citizens of
Perquimans County are
indeed fortunate to have a
person of his caliber serv
ing as their clerk of court,”
Parker said of his appoint
ment.
Godwin’s four-year term
expires in 2006, and Parker
said Tilley is expected to
seek election to the post at
that time.
Tilley has served as mag
istrate in the county since
1993. Prior to that, he
worked as deputy clerk
under Godwin for three
and a half years. In addtion
to his magistrate duties,
TiUey works part-time with
Reed Oil Company.
A 1987 graduate of
Perquimans County High
School,
Continued on Page 10
Perquimans County diver takes part in taping for cable television program
ERIN RICKERT
There among the schools
of fish he navigates
through a depth of water
that cannot be penetrated
by light.
As he swims deeper into
the abyss, the eerie dark
ness lifts to show an object
once foreign to this part of
the sea, but after decades
its almost at home among
hundreds of others vessels
that have succumbed to the
same fate here in the
Graveyard of the Atlantic.
And for years, Harrell
Thatch, a member of the
Perquimans County
Technical Dive Team and
master diver at the Outer
Banks Dive Center has
been exploring these
famous shipwrecks off the
coast of North Carolina.
But this time Thatch was
assisting with the taping of
one of the first episodes of
the new season of “Deep
Sea Detectives,” scheduled
to air January 2006.
Featured at 10 p.m.
ET/PT Monday’s on the
History Channel, the show
investigates underwater
mysteries using the
latest scientific forensic
techniques in the attempt
to find new clues that could
help determine the
sequence of events that led
many of these ships to
their resting places
below.
Thatch said the dive cen-
PHOTO COURTESY OF DIVE CENTER
The wreck of the Jackson
now sits on the bottom of
the Atlantic.
ter was contacted by the
show earlier this year and
asked to assist the camera
man, technicians and
show’s stars and expert
divers, John Chatterton
and Richie Kohler, with the
episode.
Last week. Thatch and
six other divers from the
Outer Banks Dive Center,
spent four days off the
coast of Nags Head volun
teering their time to
help with the episode —
featuring the famous
wrecks of U.S. Coast Guard
Cutters Jackson and
Bedloe.
There they dove, like
they had many times
before, to the two nearly
125-foot long ships that
sank during a hurricane
Sept. 14,1944.
As legend has it. Thatch
said, the two both went
down around the same time
that day after being pum-
meled by three rogue
waves close to 75-feet in
height.
The ships had come to
the rescue of the Liberty
ship George Ade after it
was torpedoed by a
German U-boat two days
earlier.
Though the George Ade
had not sunk it was dead in
the water and requested the
assistance of the Jackson
Continued on Page 10
Weekend
Weather
Thursday
High: 89
Low: 73
Scahered T'storms
Friday
High: 91
Low: 72
Partly Cloudy
Saturday
High: 90
Low: 73
Isolated T'storms