by Jock Lauterer
Director, the Carolina Community Media Project

Over the last nine summers, I’ve led community journalism workshops at over 130 Tar Heel newspapers. This summer, I’ve decided to focus on the independent (or semi-independent) community papers, particularly the so-called “non-dailies,” which are clearly weathering The Great Recession far better than their big-city daily cousins. Last month I went to one of the state’s most “dug-in” pair of weeklies, the Clemmons Courier and the Davie County Enterprise Record of Mocksville where the average tenure of the staffers was in the double digits (including 85-year-old Sara Campbell, who’s been there 63 years!) This week, by contrast, I wanted to find out about a daring start-up over in Garner, just southeast of Raleigh. What I found there should restore your faith in the future of journalism.

WHAT KIND OF A FOOL…?

Garner Citizen staffers proudly hold up fresh copies of their paper, hot off the presses. The paper’s owners are Barry Moore, second from left, and Debbie Moore Rodwell, far right.
Jock Lauterer photo

Newsprint, the office cat, had left her gray catnip mouse on the newsroom floor of the Garner Citizen, bearing silent witness to the old saying: You can tell it’s a community newspaper if there are kids and animals in the newsroom.

But the Garner Citizen (News & Times) isn’t just another 2k paid circulation weekly, of which there are literally thousands across the country. The bold newcomer to the Wake County newspaper wars, an almost 2-year-old indie, gives the lie to a snarky blog post I read recently: “What sort of FOOL starts a newspaper in 2007?!”

Answer: Adventurous entrepreneurs, who love journalism and their communities and who, in these times of newspaper churn, see and seize the opportunity.

In Garner’s case, that would be the sister-brother team of Debbie Moore Rodwell and Barry E. Moore, whose Vol. 1, No. 1, hit the streets of this “great little all-American blue collar town” (Debbie’s words) on July 24, 2007, out of a sense that Garner needed a “great hyper-local newspaper.”

From the get-go, Debbie and Barry have had a no-holds-barred attitude, thinking of themselves as pioneers taking part in a newspaper revolution and “redefining the newspaper world,” says Debbie, the energetic 40-something publisher with a career in marketing and sales. “We ‘re open to try anything. We think outside the box. Put on your seat belts!”

It’s difficult not to get pumped about community journalism when you’re around someone with so much positive energy. “This is the most rewarding job I’ve ever had,” she vows.

“Brother,” as Debbie addresses Barry, strikes me as a good business match. A retired police officer, Barry serves as executive editor, and grounds the paper with his solid business sense. When I asked him why they decided to charge (75 cents per copy and $39 a year) for their start-up, and why they didn’t go with the free model, Barry responded without a pause, “It never occurred to me to give anything away.”

BIG NAME; LITTLE PAPER

The Citizen has a curious handle for a start-up with “News & Times” in smaller type tacked onto the bottom of the larger The Garner Citizen on their flag and business cards — a tribute I’m told, to the historic Garner News and a defunct paper named the Garner Times. Making this more confusing, there IS a Heartland Publications LLC-owned paper across town named The Garner News, and the competition includes the relatively new McClatchy bureau paper, the Garner-Clayton Record. If that sounds like a lot to go up against, Barry is confident: “I really don’t consider them competition,” the latter of which he says is spread too thinly over too much territory to be effective.

Both Debbie and Barry are locals, and they think that is central to how well they’ve done. “We are at all the functions,” Barry explains. “ We partner with everybody. We serve on commissions. We are local-local- local.” Debbie chimes in, “Our relationship to this community is organic. We’re home-grown.”

THE YOUNG AND THE ENERGETIC

If business acumen and energy describe Debbie and Barry, the word to describe their newsroom is: Youth. It’s a young and enthusiastic crew throwing themselves into this start-up, led by 28-year-old City Editor Paul Tambasco, a former 8th grade teacher who started at the Citizen in September after coming over from the Garner News. The other staffers I met were: 31-year-old Rachel Healy, the Web designer and editorial and production manager who’s been there about a year; Creative Director Courtney Flaherty, 23, who’s been there a year; Amy Townsend, 23, editorial assistant, who started in October; and Graphic Designer Jay Gross, a senior at Campbell, who just joined the staff.

Here’s another another dynamic: not one of the young newsroom staffers is actually from Garner. So, bottom line, the staff of The Garner Citizen is still just getting to know one another. And they are still getting to know Garner.

But novelty is one of the engines of a start-up, and Debbie is confident: “There are so many people out there cheering us on,” she says. “It’s like Christmas every week when I open the newspaper.”

THIS AIN’T CARY, Y’ALL

Although at first Garner appears to be just another former small town engulfed by Raleigh sprawl, Citizen staffers make it very clear, their town is NOT Cary. So while in-growth has increased rapidly in recent years, the town situated just southeast of Raleigh still boasts a significant indigenous population of Garner natives.

“Garner has a very strong sense of identity,” explains Paul. As an example, Debbie points to the annual turnout for Garner’s Relay for Life, which she claims, eclipses the efforts of all the surrounding communities.

Also, Garner’s proximity to downtown Raleigh makes it attractive, says Barry. “Garner is closer to Raleigh than Raleigh is to Raleigh.” What used to be “the best-kept secret in Wake County,” is being discovered by families seeking small-town amenities within easy commuting distance of the big city. However, Garner is not the bedroom community it used to be, insists Barry, because the town now provides work, entertainment, lifestyle opportunities and options for its own residents. “You don’t have to leave Garner anymore,” he says.

But when you go looking for a “downtown Garner,” you will be hard- pressed to find much. Surely nothing like Mocksville with its classic tree-shaded courthouse square. Sadly, much of the Garner I saw was that mind-numbing generic American strip Sprawl Mall layout straddling highways devoid of a shred of local atmosphere, originality or character.

GIVING THEM WHAT THEY WANT

All the same, the Citizen aims at tapping in on Garner pride by “giving them a product they can’t get anywhere else,” Debbie says, pointing to two exhaustive graduation special sections devoted to the local high schools. The photographs, printed in the 32-page tab on hi-brite paper, are so crisp that they just about leap off the page.

Owners and staffers alike say they are looking forward to their first NCPA competition this coming year when they expect they’ll be in the thick of the folks walking up to the podium to collect press awards. And that wouldn’t surprise me one bit either.

ON TO WAKE FOREST

Next week I get to take a sentimental journey back to old Wake Forest, where the Allen family, in some iteration, has owned the Wake Weekly since the early ’50s. My own association with the Allens dates back to the ’70s when I had my own community paper. Since then, it has been my remarkable pleasure to watch the Wake Weekly grow into one of the state’s very finest weeklies.

I can’t wait to find out what they’re up to this summer. Stay tuned.

by Jock Lauterer
Director
the Carolina Community Media Projecte

Permit me to disabuse you of the notion that all newspapers are failing.

Sure, we all know that many major metro dailies were already in a dismal state prior to the economy tanking last fall, due largely to investor greed and corporate owners taking on too much debt. Since then, their sad demise has been all too well documented.

So take a deep breath and allow me this summer to take you beyond the beltways, off the interstates and out onto our state’s “blue highways” where we boast at least 190 smaller newspapers, including about 140 weeklies — many of which are still independently owned, or at least owned by small groups which could hardly be called a “chain” in the sense of a company the size of a McClatchy or a Gannett.

Most everybody who works at the Davie County Enterprise Record and Clemmons Courier has been there “since dirt.” Veteran Editor-Publisher Dwight Sparks, with 24 years behind the mast, knows his staff is committed to their paper and the community.
Photos by Jock Lauterer

I’m interested in this size newspaper, not only because I used to help run a pair of weekly papers and the fact that I teach “community journalism,” but also because of what I’ve observed firsthand over nine summers of workshops statewide from Murphy to Manteo.

In spite of the economy, I’ve witnessed in weeklies (and especially in the non-chain weeklies) a strength of community spirit and a vitality of robust sustainability that will restore your faith in journalism.

So wouldn’t it be instructive to ask: what are these folks doing right? How are these community papers weathering what some are calling “The Great Recession?” Is there a formula, or at least a common denominator among these successful small-town news institutions?

I decided to start with a pair of western Piedmont papers I’ve long admired, the Clemmons Courier and the Davie County Enterprise Record of Mocksville, both owned by the Evening Post Co. of Charleston, S.C., and printed at their sister paper in Salisbury.

WELCOME TO MOCKSVILLE

Turn left off the mind-numbing sameness of 1-40 thirty minutes west of Winston-Salem and almost magically find yourself driving through the soundstage of Meredith Willson’s THE MUSIC MAN: An old-fashioned picture postcard tree-canopied county seat downtown square dominated by a classic 19th century cupola’d courthouse with IN GOD WE TRUST emblazoned over the white columns.

Ringing the square are law offices, eateries and local small-town businesses with names like the coffee shop Kool Beanz. Not a national franchise chain store in the lot.

Big city reporters would call Mocksville “sleepy,” but I find it just right. Diagonal parking along the main street forces traffic to creep and defer to pedestrians. The sweet pace of life makes me jealous. (To my way of thinking, Chapel Hill shot itself in the foot years ago when they did away with diagonal parking on Franklin Street, where pedestrians like me take our lives in our hands trying to get across the 100 block.)

But Mocksville (locals pronounce it MOCKS-vul) feels just the right size to me, several thousand folks who clearly love it here. The New York native who runs the Davie County Senior Center is one, telling me she couldn’t take the frantic pace of nearby Winston-Salem. She loves the town and the neighbors who “let me know right away— no running power equipment on Sunday.

That pretty much says it all — that and the chimes of the Mocksville First United Methodist Church playing old hymns at noon. The kind of place where at the Senior Center a retired Baptist preacher kept wanting to know “What’s your church affiliation?” until I told him I was a fallen-away Unitarian.

BEEN THERE SINCE DIRT

Part of the staff that puts out the Davie County Enterprise Record and Clemmons Courier assembles for a team photo. And they ARE a team.
Jock Lauterer photo

It never fails, but when I find a town like Mocksville, I imagine cloning myself into whoever is lucky enough to run the local community newspaper.

Today it’s Dwight Sparks, who’s been a fixture in the local journalism world for 24 years.

But compared to some other staffers, the editor-publisher of the two papers is a newcomer.

So it didn’t take long to figure out one of the major reasons for their success. In a word, it’s continuity. Just look at this line-up.

Sara Campbell, who just turned 85, started at the Enterprise Record in 1946 and has been there 63 years. Now she just works on Wednesdays when the paper comes out, and some people refuse to buy the paper from anyone other than Sara herself. Dwight tells me she’s said many times that she wants to die at her desk.

Legendary photographer James Barringer, who just turned 70, started in 1965 and been there 44 years. To this day he still takes drop-dead great prep sports photos.

Vivacious General Manager Robin Snow started in 1973 and has been there 36 years — long enough, in her words “to have made photographs of three generations.”

Check out these other employment records:

Clemmons Courier secretary Kay Henderson, 25 years.

Courier sports editor Chris Mackie, 23 years.

Enterprise Record Managing Editor Mike Barnhardt, 24 years.

Advertising Director Ray Tutterow, 19 years.

E-R Sports Editor Brian Pitts, 14 years.

Staffer Jeannie Trotter, 14 years.

Staffer Jackie Seabolt, nine years.

Staffer Linda Morison, eight years.

And Dwight points to two “county correspondents” with even longer track records. In an email, Dwight writes, “Our ‘Advance News’ and “Four Corners New’ writers have both been at it for 50 years.”

So you can safely assume that Dwight runs a “happy shop,” the kind of place people love to work at. Fact is, that’s exactly what they told me. “We love this newspaper,” vowed Robin. “This is our newspaper.”

The bald truth is that it’s legally owned by folks in Charleston, but the psychosocial-spiritual ownership lies here, AND with the enviable reader loyalty exhibited by the approx. 2,000 paying readers of the Courier and the 9,000 paid subscribers of the Enterprise Record, some of whom insist on buying the paper on Wednesday even though they’ll get it in the mail the next day!

What does this sort of staff commitment gain the papers, I asked? Access and trust, they told me quickly. “I don’t need a press pass,” says Robin. Politicians often time their announcements and law enforcement officials schedule their busts and perp walks to Tuesday afternoon so the local weeklies can get the scoop.

In my humble view, these two papers are perfect examples of the “beloved institution” of which MLK spoke. Dwight observes, “The years we have invested in this community is remarkable.”

The community has noticed. Even in this lousy economy, there are local businesses that advertise with the papers, I learn, just because they “understand they need to support their local newspaper.”

HISTORY ON THEIR SIDE

Eighty-five-year-old Sara Campbell, who has worked at the paper for 63 years, says, “This is a town that loves to know everybody’s business.”
Jock Lauterer photo

As Dwight explained, the first paper in the region was the Record, started in 1899 as a Republican Party paper. Next came the Cooleemee Journal in 1901, and then the Enterprise in 1916, the Democratic Party paper. The Enterprise and Record merged in 1958. The Cooleemee paper was significant because it was the first (or one of the first) papers in the state to go “cold type” or offset in 1965. That technology allowed them to run huge photographs that impressed everybody — and to this day, the legacy of the Cooleemee Journal can be seen in the photo-heavy, family-oriented pages of both papers, printed expertly at the Salisbury Post.

RIGHT ON THE SQUARE

Both papers got an A+ on the Lauterer Accessibility Test. That’s where I walk in the front door unannounced and ask to see the editor or publisher. Papers where I can “walk right in” score the highest. Papers with locked newsrooms, keypad entry only, a receptionist Nazi, video cameras and/or a uniformed guard with a gun flunk my test.

Lauterer’s “Virtuous Triangle” goes like this: the more Accessibility the public has, then more likely the community journalist is to feel Accountable, and therefore the more Accurate he or she will try to be.

Here’s another of my litmus tests: is the paper office located centrally downtown so pedestrian traffic is facilitated and even encouraged? Again, Mocksville particularly gets another A.

So I barged right in the office (located smack-dab across the square from the Courthouse), with the old heavy glass and wooden door creaking just like your Aunt Maude’s. It was the homiest sound, and there to greet me with a smile (me, a rank stranger) was Sara, who, when we got to talking about her age, said with a smile, “I’m kind of like that old door; the older I get, the squeakier I become.”

THE HOOVER ADAMS FORMULA

Veteran publisher Hoover Adams of the Dunn Daily Record is famous for saying that his paper’s formula for success is simple: just run lots and lots of photos of local people.

OK, so let’s put these two papers to the Hoover Adams Test.

In a random issue of the Enterprise Record, I counted 154 identifiable faces in that week’s 30-page broadsheet. In the 26-page broadsheet Courier, I counted 160 faces (many ID’ed in the caption too). Multiply 314 times 8 (all the family folks, etc. who care) …and you get 2,512 local people impacted this week alone by just the photos in these papers. Don’t you think they’re gonna want to buy the paper? You betcha.

This is no accident. “We run lots of big pictures of kids,” Robin says. “We can make stars out of middle school and high school kids, and they’re a star for a week.”

Speaking of school coverage, both papers mine their local schools relentlessly. Up at Clemmons, there’s been a 30-year tradition of high schoolers writing “The Titan Tattler” column for the Courier. Students come begging to write for the paper, Dwight says. Repeat: begging.

THE NEWSPAPER OF RECORD

When I asked Dwight and his staff to “assess their assets,” here’s something else he mentioned: “We are the old newspaper of public record,” meaning that they run arrests, court records, fire/police/arrest log, tax liens and legal ads. In fact, the Clemmons Courier, located in the southwestern edge of Forsyth County, gets the county’s legals because as one staffer told me, the major metro paper has “priced itself out of the market…We’re racking up on their stupidity.”

NOT ALL SUNSHINE CARE BEARS AND RAINBOWS

So what are their weaknesses, the greatest challenges they’re facing? Not surprisingly, “Ads are a struggle,” concedes Advertising Director Tutterow, with formerly dependable real estate and automotive advertising down significantly. “They’re just not advertising,” he says.

But the papers are profitable, and Sara Campbell thinks that’s due in part to their relative isolation, particularly Mocksville, located midway between Winston-Salem to the east and Statesville to the west. “We’re the only paper here…and doing well because they’re no competition — and we’re a FAMILY paper too!”

The absentee ownership factor in distant Charleston, S.C., has not been without its speedbumps, with some furloughs and the loss of one part-time ad typesetter. Corporate did move all the classified ad administration to the larger paper in Salisbury, a change that chaffs some staffers used to controlling all their content in-house. But compared to their big-city cousins where entire newsrooms have been decimated, this is nothing and they know it. “As long as we are profitable,” says Dwight, “they leave us alone.” And there is absolutely no prior restraint on news content.

ONLINE

Regulars head for a great lunch at Snook’s Old Fashion Barbecue on NC 158 between Clemmons and Mocksville.
Jock Lauterer photo

The Enterprise Record has a fairly handsome nothin’-fancy online version, (though I truly detest those winking/blinking adds poking me like a stick in the eye). All the same, there’s veteran photographer James Barringer’s consistently excellent sports photos to anchor the sports page…a local angle on the H1N1 flu, and a lead story about gangs (gangs?!) in rural Davie County. Good reading…until you get to the end of the brief, where it abruptly stops, and then you see “SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAVIE COUNTY ENTERPRISE…ETC.”

Pretty clever marketing, if you ask me. They get you hooked and then jerk away the carrot. Hmmm. How much do they want, I wondered. See? It worked for me and I don’t even live here! I like this online model: a taste for free but you pay for the whole enchilada. If I lived here, I’d shell out for sure.

But truth be told, the e-version of both the Courier and the Enterprise Record don’t hold a candle to the print product. And I think it’s obvious they’re putting their best efforts into their proven, profitable hold-and-fold newsPAPER. The online version, clearly, is a work-in-progress.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Dwight is also the editor of the Clemmons Courier 11 miles back toward Winston-Salem. The two towns of Clemmons and Mocksville couldn’t be more different. After driving around Clemmons for an hour looking for its center, I conclude it’s been “Caryized.” There is no there there. What there is is one after another boring homogonous tickytacky developments with predictably boring names: Asbury Place, Meadowbrook, Hampton Way. I’m sure wonderful people live here, but I mourn for this McCity, an exurb to Winston-Salem. Creating a sense of community at the newspaper must be a stretch.

AUTHENTIC NORTH CAROLINA

Leaving the sameness of Clemmons and Driving west on 158 back toward Mocksville, not far from Dutchman’s Creek you come to rolling farmland of nodding blue bachelor buttons blooming — and suddenly there is Andy’s General Store and “Snook’s Old Fashion Barbecue” — and you know that all is still right with the world.

Snook’s daughter, Rita Reavis, offers a first-timer a test taste of Snook’s delicious barbecue. Nothin’ could be finer.
Photo by Jock Lauterer

At Andy’s store (glass counters, wooden floors) nothing much has changed in 40 years, and you can still get Moravian Chicken Pies there. Across the highway and over at the corner of Juney Beauchamps Road, Snook’s BBQ joint caused my car to mysteriously do a U-turn.

A gaggle of oddly-arranged clunky little buildings huddle around a parking lot filled with pick-up trucks: a sure barometer recommending a great good place.

Inside the tiny take-out booth, Rita Reavis offers me, an obvious “first-timer,” a forkful of BBQ for my culinary inspection. She did this completely on her own; I did not ask. But I did receive. Truthfully, I wasn’t even hungry, but how’s any true Tar Heel gonna pass up an honest-to-God-greasy-spots-on-the-brown-paper-bag BBQ joint? Exactly. I chowed down.

On the walls inside Snook’s I spot a framed yellowed newspaper clipping from 1984 spotlighting Rita’s dad, Snook, in the Clemmons Courier. And what was the by-line on that full-page feature? Who else? Dwight Sparks!

As I’m leaving, Rita hollers at me, “You come back and have some banana pie, now!”

THE FORMULA

Before leaving Mocksville, I swing through Rich Park, an oasis of a mid-town forested park within the town limits, complete with picnic shelters, nature trails and manicured baseball fields, around the outfield fence stand the large advertising signs from long-time local businesses that made that ball field possible: Graham Funeral Home, Caudell Lumber, O’Reilly Auto Parts… and then my eyes rest on another long-time local business that is a community institution right there amid the others…“Davie County Enterprise Record.”

Why am I not surprised?

By Carly Brantmeyer
Carrboro Commons Photo Editor

“I have lived through hell,” said documentary photojournalist Donn Young, while recounting his experiences as a survivor of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the storm that has been deemed one of the nation’s worst natural disasters.

Donn Young, the director and curator of “40 Days & 40 Nights,” holds the project’s signature print, as he sits in his in-home office. Young made the photo after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.
Staff photo by Carly Brantmeyer

Young moved to Carrboro in August 2008 and recently moved to Chapel Hill last month, after living in New Orleans since the early 1980s.

Last month, he shared with UNC-Chapel Hill lecturer Jock Lauterer’s introductory photojournalism class his journey and mission to archive, restore and preserve his photography and the artwork of other New Orleans artists, for the state of Louisiana and for future generations.

The storm hit on Aug. 29, 2005. Young and his family evacuated on Aug. 27. Despite a sense of hopelessness and destruction after the storm hit, Young said he felt called back to New Orleans.

For years, Young documented human rights, housing projects and jazz musicians.

After Katrina struck, he proposed to the state of Louisiana a vision for a project that would document the face of Hurricane Katrina and the destruction that flooded the city. Young, who became the director and curator for the project, called it “40 Days and 40 Nights.”

Read more

By Katie Reich
Carrboro Commons Staff Writer

Chancellor Charlie Nelms of North Carolina Central University will be speaking at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Chapel Hill this weekend for its fifth annual Men of Destiny conference.

“I’m going to deliver a message about what we must do as men to raise, nurture and mentor a generation of character-centered, service-oriented boys and girls to become leaders in our communities, our state and in our nation,” Nelms said.

The 11 a.m. worship service titled “100 Men in Black” will be held Sunday, April 19, at the church, which is located on the corner of Merritt Mill Road and Franklin Street.

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By Elisabeth Arriero
Carrboro Commons Staff Writer

Carrboro residents can soon feel twice as safe when it comes to fires.

Only one fire station, located at 301 W. Main St., serves all of Carrboro. But by next year, Carrboro should have a second fire station at 1411 Homestead Road.
Staff photo by Elisabeth Arriero

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen accepted the final plans for a second fire station in town at its Tuesday night meeting.

Kenneth Newell of Stewart-Cooper-Newell Architects, the company that created the design, updated the board on some minor changes to the new station, which will be located at 1411 Homestead Road.

“This is just a stunning plan,” said Alderman Randee Haven-O’Donnell after the board heard Newell’s update.

The Board of Aldermen plans to budget $3 million for the new station during the 2009-10 fiscal year. That figure does not include funding for the estimated 12 new staff positions that the station would create.

Carrboro town manager Steve Stewart said that due to the recent economic downturn, now is the best time to plan for such a construction project.

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By Kelsey Kusterer
Carrboro Commons Staff Writer

At the spring opening of the Wednesday Carrboro Farmers’ Market on April 8, a sizable crowd turned out for free seedlings and advice from Tim Stark, author of Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer.

Tim Stark, farmer and author of Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer, signs a copy of his book for Allison Hayes, a Chapel Hill resident and volunteer at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market. Stark discussed his book and gave advice on gardening to farmers’ market visitors Wednesday.
Staff photo by Kelsey Kusterer

Sarah Blacklin, the farmers’ market manager and a Carrboro resident, said the midweek market starts
each year on the second Wednesday in April when the danger of the last frost passes. The first Wednesday market, located at 301 W. Main St. in Carrboro, was stocked mostly with herbs and baked goods.

“It’s a nice way to break up the week,” said Blacklin of the midweek market.

Blacklin knew that Stark would be attending a public dinner in Chapel Hill at Lantern Restaurant the evening of April 8. When Blacklin approached Stark about hosting a discussion of his book at the farmers’ market, he agreed.

Along with having the chance to speak with Stark, market-goers also had the opportunity to get a free seedling at the market entrance. Local farmers donated a variety of seedlings like bok choy and sun gold tomatoes.

Jane Saiers, a medical writer from Chapel Hill, and Anne Jackson, a portrait artist from Carrboro, came to the Wednesday market for the seedlings and a chance to talk to Stark. They have tried growing tomatoes in the Northside Community Garden, located at 400 Caldwell St. in Chapel Hill.

Blacklin hoped the free seedlings would encourage visitors to plant their own gardens and give visitors the opportunity to ask Stark and other farmers for gardening advice.

Read more

By Kelly Esposito
Spanish-Language Coverage Team

Leave it to two scientists to shake up the bicycle business in Carrboro.

Cycle 9 bike shop employee Kristen Scheckelhoff demonstrates one of the many possible uses of a cargo bike. Some bikes can carry up to 400 pounds of cargo, including people, groceries and luggage. “A cargo bike can work as a car replacement,” Scheckelhoff said.
Staff photo by Kelly Esposito

Co-owners Morgan and Elise Giddings opened Cycle 9 bike shop, located at 601 W. Main St., in December. The store sells electric, cargo and folding bikes that are intended for practical uses instead of just recreation.

Elise Giddings is trained in environmental science and is a former biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. And Morgan Giddings is a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she teaches microbiology and immunology, biomedical engineering and computer science.

Morgan Giddings said she has always been a bike aficionado, and she first started using an electric bike in 1994. She said she was disappointed that the idea never seemed to take off.

“I realized a few years ago that one of the biggest barriers is that the standard bike shops just don’t promote them,” she said. “They’re mostly interested in the recreational market.”

But the need for a different type of bike shop was not the only impetus for starting the business. Both Elise and Morgan Giddings have concerns about oil dependency and want to promote greener forms of transportation.

“We can take the bike beyond what it is now,” Elise Giddings said. “People could use it more readily for shorter trips and use their cars less.”

Cycle 9 was originally an online store that began last spring. The pair opened a retail location in May 2008 in nearby White Cross, west of Carrboro. Elise Giddings said they thought Carrboro was a good place to move the store because of the town’s bike-friendly reputation.

“There are a lot of bikers here, and the town itself is encouraging of biking,” she said. “We thought it was a really good fit with the theme of the business.”

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By Corey Inscoe
Carrboro Commons Co-Editor

Think chocolate éclair cake, strawberry balsamic tiramisu, New-Orleans bread pudding, Mama’s coconut pie and Cinnamon-Toast-Crunch cupcakes. Is your mouth watering yet?

Katrina Ryan, owner and executive chef of Sugarland on Franklin Street, is making a wild-berry crostata with buttermilk gelato for the “A Taste of Home,” event at The ArtsCenter Friday. All the proceeds from the event help fund Hidden Voices latest project “Home is Not One Story.”
Staff photo by Corey Inscoe

Then satisfy your sweet tooth Friday at the ArtsCenter’s latest benefit, “A Taste of Home.” Starting at 8 p.m., the event will feature wine, appetizers, live music, a silent auction and tasty treats courtesy of 30 area chefs. The benefit supports Hidden Voices, a group created in 2003 and based in Cedar, N.C., that aims to “challenge, strengthen, and connect our diverse communities through the transformative power of the individual voice,” as stated on the group’s Web site.

Proceeds from “A Taste of Home” will go directly to Hidden Voices’ latest project, ”Home is Not One Story,” which focuses on homelessness.

“We have been working with folks around North Carolina who are dealing with or have dealt with homelessness,” said Lynden Harris, director of Hidden Voices. For months, Hidden Voices has worked with local shelters and organizations to raise awareness and work to overcome the stereotypes and shame associated with homelessness.

For example, Harris said that most people think of an older white male when they think of a homeless person. But in reality, white males only make up a minority of the population, she said.

The average homeless person is nine years old.

For the event, “A Taste of Home,” Harris asked 30 area chefs — her “dream team” — to create desserts that remind them of home. The team includes Mark Day, the 2007 National Association Catering Executives’ “Caterer of the Year,” Karen Barker from Magnolia Grill in Durham, Chris Holloway from A Southern Season as well as Dorette Snover, the owner of Chapel Hill cooking school C’est Si Bon.

Katrina Ryan, the executive chef and owner of Sugarland on Franklin Street plans to make a wild-berry crostata with buttermilk gelato for the event.

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