THE
ERQUIMANS
. W E E K LY
Steamers reach CPL East final series, 7
"News from Next Door"
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2015
AUG 1 2 RECTI
50 cents
ydlett
named
interim
principal
Getting a touch up
BY PETER WILLIAMS
News Editor
Tim Aydlett is back for
his second curtain call as an
educator.
He retired from educa
tion in 2006, but returned
in 2013 to fill in as interim
principal at Hertford Gram
mar School. He remained
until April 2014 to give new
HGS principal Jason Griffin
a chance to get settled.
When school opens later
this month, Aydlett will be
back — this time as interim
principal at Perquimans
Central School. Aydlett will
be filling the slot held by
Central Principal Melissa
Fields who is stepping in to
fill a void left when Chante
Jordan announced she was
resigning the job at Perqui
mans County High School.
“I guess I can’t stay re
tired,” Aydlett said Monday
This time around, Ayd
lett doesn’t expect he’ll be
at Central long. The school
system hopes to have a
permanent replacement in
place in September, he said.
Until then, he’ll be in charge
of a school that caters to
kids from pre-kindergarten
through second grade.
That’s a bit of a switch for
a man who’s spent virtually
all of his career with high
school students.
“I guess this will round out
my career,” he joked. “I think
they wanted somebody who
was familiar to the county
and parents could relate to.” •
Principals and Superin
tendent Dwayne Stallings
were in a two-day retreat
Monday and Tuesday, ac
cording to Teresa Beardsley.
In a letter addressed to
parents, Superintendent
Dwayne Stallings, wel
comed Aydlett.
“Mr. Aydlett brings a
wealth of knowledge and
leadership experience to
Perquimans Central School,
having served in Perquimans
County for seven years, first
as an assistant principal at
Perquimans County High
School and then culminat
ing his career as principal at
Hertford Grammar School
in 2006.”
In a previous article in
The Perquimans Weekly, Ay
dlett termed himself some
thing of an “accidential edu
cator.”
He enrolled at Mars Hill
College with the idea that
he’d eventually transfer to
See AYDLETT, 2
PHOTO BY CHUCK PAGELS
Robin Trueblood gets high up on a step ladder to apply paint to the front of
Perquimans County High School in preparation for the opening of school.
Chowan Co.
may consider
wind rules
BY REGGIE PONDER
Chowan Herald
It will be next month at the earliest before the county
commissioners hold a public hearing on a planning board
proposal to make the county’s wind energy ordinance
more restrictive.
Last month, the Chowan County Board of Commission
ers was presented a petition with more than 600 signatures
requesting that the commissioners approve recommenda
tions from the planning board that would make the coun
ty’s wind ordinance significantly more restrictive.
But County Attorney Lauren Womble told the commis
sioners at their meeting Monday night that the recommen
dations submitted by the Planning Board on April 6 were
not in the form of a text amendment to the ordinance. For
that reason, she said, the commissioners would not be able
to schedule a public hearing on those recommendations.
The recommendations would have to be drafted as a text
amendment before a public hearing could be scheduled,
she said.
Apex Clean Energy has proposed the Timbermill Wind
Energy Project along the Chowan-Perquimans county line,
which is planned as a 300-megawatt wind energy genera
tion facility. Most of the project would be in Perquimans
County, which already has an ordinance that permits Struc
tures as tall as the Timbermill turbines.
Don Giecek of Apex Clean Energy told the county com
missioners Monday that the Timbermill project is similar in
many respects to the Iberdrola facility that recently broke
ground along the Perquimans-Pasquotank line. Giecek
noted that both projects are in two different counties, are
similar in size and involve vast areas of forest and agricul
tural land.
Giecek also noted Gov. Pat McCrory’s enthusiastic
See WIND RULES, 2
Perquimans FFA Alumni group hopes to form
BY PETER WILLIAMS
News Editor
A meeting is planned Mon
day to form an adult sup
port group for Perquimans
County High School’s Future
Farmer of American (FFA)
program.
Participants don’t have
to have been a member of
FFA when they were in high
school in order to qualify to
join the alumni program.
Angel White, the FFA
teacher at the high school,
said they just need a desire
to support the future of ag
riculture education in Per
quimans County. Monday’s
‘Love PQ’ community outreach effort grows
BY PETER WILLIAMS
News Editor
An effort that started
three years' ago with one
church reaching out to the
community to help has blos
somed to what organizers
wanted in the first place.
They say “Love PQ
Week” in July incorporated
meeting is at 7 p.m. in the
media center at the high
school.
The National FFA Orga
nization is a youth organiza
tion focused on career and
technical fields with a major
focus on agricultural educa
tion.
White said she typically
has 60 to 75 students involved
in FFA each year. She’s been
working with the program
for the past 15 years, but said
there was at least a 10-year
gap before she started when
the program was dormant.
ETA has dozens of areas
See FFA, 4
more people, more groups
and more churches in order
to do more good. Phil John
son, who coordinated the
effort for Bagley Swamp
Wesleyan, said 69 individu
als put in about 1,600 hours
of labor over a five-day pe
riod.
“It’s been our approach
all along that this shouldn’t
be a single church thing,”
Johnson said. “It’s a King
dom thing. The question
was asked if one church
can do 1,200 hours, what
could 52 churches do?”
This year Love PQ got
help from Elizabeth City-
based River City Develop
ment and the Youth Build
program.
Yards were cleaned up,
overgrown landscaping was
trimmed back, wheelchair
ramps were built and rotten
porches were replaced.
The group also tackled
repainting the restroom
building at Perquimans
Comity High School’s foot-
ball/baseball field. Johnson
looks at it this way.
SUBMITTED
PHOTO
Perquimans
County High
School FFA
students
build a
greenhouse
of out water
bottles as
part of a
project last
year.
“The question is what
can we do as a faith-based
group to instill pride? Well
in Perquimans County, the
school system is the biggest
thing we’ve got. By doing
this maybe students will
take pride in their school
and more people will show
See ‘LOVE PQ’, 3
County looking
at health options
Shelter reaches out to find homes
From Staff Reports
Perquimans County and
two other local govern
mental units are shopping
around to find cheaper
health insurance.
County Manager Frank
Heath said the county’s an
nual premium jumped from
$653,000 to $843,000 this fis
cal year.
Perquimans County
along with Albemarle Re-
gional Health Services and
Pasquotank County are the
three major members of the
Northeast Albemarle Group
Health, a self-insurance
pool that collectively had to
pay almost $1 million due to
costly claims and other fac
tors last year.
Pasquotank had to pay
almost $400,000 of that cost,
and it expects its annual
premiums to cost $1.85 mil
lion this year.
The state changed the
law this year to allow up to
another 10,000 people join
the state health plan. With
SUBMITTED
PHOTO
A puppy from
the Tri-County
Animal
Shelter and
Adoption
Center in
Tyner is
turned over to
SPCA staff in
Pennsylvania.
BY REBECCA BUNCH
Chowan Herald
Twenty-two dogs and puppies have a good chance '
to find homes thanks to a new cooperative arrange
ment between the Tri-County Animal Shelter in Tyner
and an SPCA near Philadelphia, Pa.
On July 23 Tri-County Shelter Director Dana Goheen
and Friends of the Shelter member Mary Jo Sellers hit
the road in a van to deliver them through the auspices
of the ASPCAs MAP (Moving Animals Places) program
that helps connect shelters with too many animals to
shelters that need animals that can be adopted.
This was the first drop-off between Tri-County
and the folks in Pennsylvania The Tri-County shelter
serves Perquimans, Gates and Chowan counties.
“I am elated that we have the opportunity to partner
with them in this new relationship,” Goheen said.
Goheen said that it is innovative arrangements such
as these that are keeping a majority of dogs brought
into the shelter in Tyner alive.
“Our survival rate for dogs last year was 80
See SHELTER, 3
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See INSURANCE, 2