By Allison McNeill
Carrboro Commons Writer

Cyclists can travel to the heart of Carrboro by the easily accessible bike route. The bike route helps individuals avoid traffic and stop lights, and even better, a bicycle is gasoline-free.
Staff photo by Allison McNeill

With prices soaring to $3.49 for a gallon of regular gas, Carrboro residents and business owners are feeling the pinch in their wallets. The high gas prices have people thinking about their driving habits and considering alternate forms of transportation.

Ben Johnson, who has lived in Carrboro since August, said, “When I have to drive home to the mountains I try to carpool more than ever before. I’m even going to change my voter registration to Orange County so that I don’t have to drive home for that. It’s made me conscious about when and where I’m driving.”

Local business owners are also feeling the effects. David Parker, manager of Amante Gourmet Pizza, has had to deal with gas price related cost increases.

“We now have surcharges on deliveries that come to us,” he said, a sign that other businesses, as well, are trying to find ways to cope.

Although the number of pizzas they deliver has not changed, Parker does foresee some problems occurring if the prices stay at this rate.

“Some drivers don’t want to drive as much,” he said. “When a driver spends $15 to $20 on gas and only makes $15 to $20 on the night, it just isn’t worth it.”
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By Shera Everette
Carrboro Commons Writer

The Carrboro Citizen’s publisher, Robert “Bubba” Dickson (left), and editor, Kirk Ross, say the paper follows a community-centered approach to writing.
File photo by Justin Smith

Readers who picked up the March 27 edition of The Carrboro Citizen got a real surprise: a story about an aerial gondola coming to Carrboro.

Whether readers believed it or not, they saw what community journalism is about.

Especially the April Fools’ edition.

“I like humor,” said Kirk Ross, editor of The Carrboro Citizen. “I think newspapers ought to have a sense of humor. It was a good exercise in learning how different people read the newspaper.”

Catering to the community

Only a community newspaper could report a fictitious town development plan and avoid severe backlash from its readers. Ross said the relationship that The Citizen has built with its readers is the reason why the newspaper is still around after a year of publication.

“I think it’s really connected with a lot of people,” Ross said. “The great thing is that people are taking ownership of this paper. We tell our readers, ‘We’re a couple of folks who know how to make a newspaper, but we’re making it for you. Tell us what you want.’”
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By Evelyn Greene
Carrboro Commons Writer

Photography isn’t just a hobby. For the employees of Southeastern Camera, the art and process of taking pictures has become their business.

A friendly smile and helpful information are just a few of the qualities that keep Chris Johnson (pictured) and Southeastern Camera distinct from Internet companies. With every wall and counter crammed with items for sale, a photo enthusiast is sure to find the accessory he or she needs.
Staff photo by Evelyn Greene

“We do a little bit of everything, basically anything related to photography,” said Chris Johnson, manager of the Carrboro store. From the crowded countertops, lined with rows of lenses ready for purchase or repair, to the walls shelved and stuffed with boxes of film and paper, “everything” seems like an understatement.

When the store first opened on East Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill in 1994, regulars needing supplies and accessories to support their film cameras frequented Southeastern Camera, which is the only store of its kind in Carrboro. In today’s market camera sales are mostly digital.

“We have definitely seen a change from the digital world,” said Johnson, of Mebane. He said that while it started out slow, as the quality of digital cameras improved and the prices dropped, the digital trend rapidly grew.

While the average customer enjoys photography as a hobby, there are many professionals that still come to the shop. This, however, is slowly declining as digital takes over.

“With film, there was more of a need for regular supplies: film, paper and chemistry,” Johnson said.

As digital has become the preferred way of shooting, there is less of a need to go to a professional shop. Photographers can buy a body and a lens with one big purchase and get by without other accessories.

Since 1997, when the store shifted to 205 W. Main Street, Johnson has credited the business’s success with the staff’s willingness to do more than just sell cameras.

“We have to sell ourselves to the customer,” he said. “A lot of it comes down to the personal service, the instruction and the information they can gather from us. All of us are huge photo enthusiasts so we know the cameras, and we can answer just about any question thrown at us,” Johnson said with a proud smile.

Although people do appreciate having a store they can actually walk into, camera stores are slowly closing down across the state, Johnson said.

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By Shannon David
Carrboro Commons Writer

Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm, a family-owned farm since 1757, joined the 13^th Annual Piedmont Spring Farm Tour because of the tour’s emphasis on community-based, local production and the promotion of sustainable agriculture.

Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm has been the home of Rameses, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s mascot, since 1924. Rob Hogan, a 9th generation farmer and the current owner of Hogan’s Magnolia View Farm, shows off the current and future Rameses.
Staff photo by Shannon David

The tour will be held on Saturday, April 19, and Sunday, April 20, from 1 to 6 p.m. The price is $30 per car to visit all 35 farms on the tour, all of which are located in Orange, Alamance and Chatham Counties, or $10 per car per farm. Each car will receive a “Support Local Farms” button with the purchase of a ticket.

The goal of the tour, co-sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) and Weaver Street Market, is to reconnect consumers with their food, promote sustainable agriculture and encourage consumers to buy local products.

According to the CFSA’s Web site, sustainable agriculture is “a food and fiber production and distribution system that is environmentally sound, economically viable and socially just.”

The tour also provides a way for Carrboro to celebrate Earth Day on Tuesday, April 22, just two days after the tour’s end.

According to the U.S. government’s Earth Day Web site, Earth Day is a “time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress.”

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By Katie Spencer
Carrboro Commons Writer

In the green mountains of Honduras, Chapel Hill resident Hunter Barbee found the familiar logo of his favorite coffee shop. And it wasn’t Starbucks. It was Carrboro’s own Open Eye Cafe.

Scott Conary and Guillermo Calderon talk coffee at Finca Santa Rosa in Copan, Honduras. Conary spent a couple of days in August training the staff in roasting and preparing quality coffee.
Photo courtesy of Scott Conary

Barbee, 22, was touring a coffee farm in the small highland village of Copan with a group that spent the week building houses with Habitat for Humanity.
“I just walked in, and the first thing I saw was an Open Eye sticker on the office window,” Barbee said. “I did a double take.”

Excited, Barbee had trouble communicating the coincidence to manager Guillermo Calderon because of language differences.

“I’m sure he actually understood what I was saying, but I just explained myself over and over,” he said.

Luckily, Barbee didn’t need words. He bears the Open Eye logo on his person: a small tattoo on his wrist that gets him a free cup of joe in exchange for a little advertising. The image broke the language barrier.

“I ran around showing the tattoo on my arm and pointing to the picture,” he said.

Calderon, 35, has known Open Eye co-owner Scott Conary since August, when Conary traveled to Honduras to share his knowledge of quality coffee roasting.
“It surprised him to find an espresso machine in the middle of coffee farmland,” Calderon said in an email.

At home in Carrboro, Conary is involved in as much of the process as possible, from roasting at Carrboro Coffee Co., which he co-owns, to retail at Open Eye and Caffe Driade. But the climate needed to grow coffee limits his participation: You can’t grow coffee in Carrboro. This fact connects Conary to places like Copan.

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by Kate Searcy
Carrboro Commons Writer

Out of the almost 1,100 dancers hopping, skipping and twisting to the beat the night of Feb. 22 at the Dance Marathon in Fetzer Gymnasium, about a dozen have something in common with one another besides the love of dance — they are all from Carrboro.

“I’ve been pretty busy just being out-of-control excited,” said Taylor Shirley, a junior linguistics and Spanish double major at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Student “moralers” encourage to the dancers at the kickoff of the UNC Dance Marathon on Friday night, Feb. 22. Coaches Roy Williams, Butch Davis and Sylvia Hatchell also spoke at the marathon, which raised more than $320,000 for the N.C. Children’s Hospital.Staff photo by Kate Searcy

The Dance Marathon, now in its 10th year as a fundraiser for the N.C. Children’s Hospital, saw a record number of participants. All of the money raised will pay for expenses such as phone cards and gifts for children in the hospital.

Students called “moralers” were on stage to encourage the dancers throughout the night. Some of the events planned were kept secret before the marathon in order to surprise the volunteers. However, the first thing the dancers learned was a humorous song to the tune of Britney Spears’ “(You Drive Me) Crazy.”

“Tyler (Hansbrough), your contact fell out,” the dancers sang. “You need solution, but we’re in a drought.”

The participants who live in Carrboro were from different parts of the town, from North Greensboro Street to N.C. Highway 54.

Shirley lives on Sue Ann Court in Carrboro, and she said she had been tirelessly preparing for the marathon.

“I’ve been walking around barefoot on gravel to prepare my feet and lower back for the physical stress of the event,” she said jokingly. “In all seriousness, I’ve done nothing to prepare except to worry about finding someone who will be willing to let me take a nap with my head on his or her shoulder.”

Several hundred dancers had already arrived in the gym about 15 minutes before the marathon was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. A disco ball rotated in the middle of the ceiling, throwing light on the walls as colored shapes swirled across them and rap music poured from huge speakers. The mood was considerably high-energy, as visitors crowded in to watch, and moralers wearing shirts modeled after UNC basketball uniforms got the dancers pumped up.

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by Colin Campbell
Carrboro Commons Co-Editor

Most locals don’t know that the building that houses Carrboro’s Main Street Gallery was once home to the Hollywood Theater, a movie theater that catered to black patrons.

Solomon Gibson points out a photo of himself that appears on a wall map of the historically black community in Carrboro. The map is part of an exhibit entitled “Because We’re Still Here (And Moving)” on display at the ArtsCenter.
Photo by Colin Campbell

But a new exhibit at the ArtsCenter aims to change that. The exhibit, which opened Feb. 8, depicts more than a hundred years of black history and culture in the Carrboro and Chapel Hill area.

The community mapping project, which is titled “Because We’re Still Here (And Moving),” is the result of a collaborative effort by UNC-Chapel Hill students and local teens to collect oral histories.

“The stories were passing with the people,” said Lynden Harris, founder of the ArtsCenter’s Hidden Voices series, who organized the project. “People drive down Franklin Street and have no idea that it used to be an African-American community.”

In addition to the exhibit, local actors will present a performance of the collected stories Feb. 15 at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. at the ArtsCenter. The show was written by Harris and is directed by Kathryn Williams.

The exhibit includes photos of local blacks such as James “Bubba” Norwood. Norwood formed a band at Lincoln High School, the local black high school during segregation. He went on to play drums with Tina Turner, the Monkees and James Brown.

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by Sean Umstead
Carrboro Commons Writer

Tyler’s Restaurant and Taproom is used to eruptions of cheer for touchdowns and slam-dunks, but the cheering did not stop when the screens switched to CNN.

Last week, Tyler’s hosted a Super Tuesday rally for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008, is the day when 24 states hold their primaries, caucuses or state conventions.

Obama supporters take in the excitement of Super Tuesday at Tyler’s Restaurant and Taproom.
Photo by Sean Umstead

The bar and cigar lounge transformed to campaign central, complete with T-shirts, stickers and Obama bobbleheads. Residents from all over the Triangle came out to lend their support to Obama.

The atmosphere was tense but optimistic as supporters watched poll results. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer spoke, the room hushed into silence and then boomed when he announced Obama as the night’s winner over candidate Hillary Clinton.

Barack fever has been building across the country, and it was evident in Carrboro on Tuesday.

“A lot of [his popularity] comes from him being inclusive rather than divisive,” said Obama rally co-host Adam Rodman.

Others expressed a similar sentiment, citing inclusivity as their reason for support.

“He does a better job of closing the gap between people,” said Durham resident Erin Hite. “Hillary [Clinton] polarizes.”

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by Kate Searcy
Carrboro Commons Writer

The Carrboro Cybrary isn’t like other libraries. There are no endless shelves of books or stacks of movies and cassettes. There are however, plenty of computers—computers that are serving a purpose in the lives of many patrons looking to brush up on their technological skills.

Anne Pusey teaches the computer classes at the Cybrary. The award-winning classes are taught solely by volunteers.
Photo by Kate Searcy

The Cybrary, located on the ground floor of the Carrboro Century Center, offers free computer classes to the general public on Wednesday nights from 7 to 8 p.m.

The subjects vary, from computer and Web basics to online health information for senior citizens. Library cards are optional, and pre-registration is recommended but not required. If there is a spot available when the class begins, anyone can come in and fill it, according to Anne Pusey, the circulation supervisor of the Cybrary.

Pusey, who is also a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaches all of the classes available at the Cybrary. The Chapel Hill Public Library, the Carrboro Branch Library, and the Durham Public Library also offer computer classes on differing subjects.

Since the classes are a partnership with UNC libraries, most of the teachers are UNC students, according to Pusey. All of the teachers are volunteers, and anyone can ask to teach the classes, Pusey stated.

The Cybrary is equipped with five computers, so space in the classes is limited but people can also bring their own laptops. The other libraries offering classes have more space – the Chapel Hill Public Library can seat 20-25 people, according to Pusey.

“The Cybrary is a more intimate setting, but as long as we have a teacher, we can offer the classes,” she stated.

The classes offer a great opportunity to the public, according to Pusey. “There is a need in the community to ease the gap between people who don’t have computers and don’t know how to use them and people who do,” she said.

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