The Blogger's mini-biography
This is a combination of bios originally entered into my profile at Classmates.com. I want to keep this around for when after my membership in Classmates.com expires -- Bill LindauI've been living in Hamlet since the summer of 1990. Lately I'd been free-lancing for The Moore County Independent, and before that, The Pilot. My sister Sara lives in Aberdeen and has been a reporter for The Pilot for almost 19 years. I never got married. Just me and my PBS programs and my arts. I've been in three plays this year and had small roles in two movies and a TV show. I did some comedy at a couple of rural nightclubs last year, and in 2005-06 I took voice and piano lessons. I haven't quite gotten my singing career off the ground, but when my schedule permits, I do my stuff in the voice lab at Sandhills Community College, on Monday afternoons.
High schoolI was a late bloomer when it came to girls. One of my two biggest crushes was on one of my teachers. A 27-year-old woman who taught dramatics and sophomore English in the first year of Pinecrest (1969-1970) was one of those objects of my affection. She's 10 years my senior. She lived in an apartment close to my home on Ashe Street. I used to tell her my parents took the keys to the family car from me and I needed a ride to school.She knew what I was up to, but she didn't say anything about it until years later, when I saw her again and we went out to dinner.My next biggest crush was on a Class of 1972 grad. That crush took place the same academic year. Karen K. moved to Southern Pines from Greensboro in the winter of 1970. She transferred from Grimsley. She made friends with Lois Cowan, and I'd talk to them during a free mod at the library. After awhile I walked Karen to her classes. In the summer I asked her to go on a double date with Patty Quillen and Mike Porter, but it didn't work out. She had a boyfriend when she moved here and she'd go back and see him every once in awhile. The next school year she dated Alan Stewart, a Class of 1970 graduate attending North Carolina State. I called her up a few times in my senior year and we talked a lot, but never became more than friends.Teachers who inspired me the most: Brenda Phelps, the late Sue Owen and the late Harold Sadler. Brenda Phelps got me interested in dramatics; Sue Owen in writing and Harold Sadler in history and not goofing off and using my head in school.Great memories: Oh, it'd take volumes.Doing the two plays in which I had the lead was definitely among them.So was hanging out in the drama lab with Scott Ivey, Mike Porter, Robbie Buffkin (later Mrs. Rod Harter), Susan Williamson, Andy Faircloth and Lord knows who else. Chanting "M-M-Muscatel!" with Mike Porter.So was letting one blast in Fred Hurst's all-male English class. We had wooden seats that could carry sound and I gave out with one that you could hear all the way down the hall. Mr. Hurst just went ballistic!
"Don't think because there's no girls in the class you can do that. It's uncouth as h---! You want to PBLFLLLT, you go to the bathroom."
Before the class was out, somebody else blasted one.
Other memories:
* Sneaking out of school with a certain friend of mine's kid sister (she was a frosh, I was a senior) and taking a drive up and down the highway
* The parties at Robbie's old cabin just south of Pinebluff
* Swimming in Pinebluff Lake and Highland Trails. The time we tried to get my dog to swim at Highland Trails and the poor terrified animal about clawed me to death in the water
* The beach trip with Billy Schloegl, Gary Shoe, Larry Matthews, Tim Mercer and Greg Jett. We all got stinking, barfing drunk. One time I barfed in one of Greg's boots
* The post-graduation trip for some of the folks in the Class of 1970
* Going to the rock festival at Love Valley in July 1970, with Steve Warlick, Bobby Henderson and Mike McDonald
* Another bit of GI humor: The late Gary Williamson loved to let 'em rip. But he quit doing it after Neil McInnis, the physical science teacher at East Southern Pines, suspended him from class for two days and wouldn't let him in without a note from the doctor
* "Great Expectations" in play form by Harriet Welsh's ninth-grade English class. Ginger Worsham played a wheelchair-bound Miss Havisham and Robert Buchholz played the adult Pip. One scene looked more like "Kiss of Death" in which Richard Widmark pushes a crippled woman down a flight of stairs. That's exactly what happened when Buchholz wheeled Ginger offstage. You heard a kalump-lump-lump, followed by a cry of pain (Ginger wasn't seriously injured, fortunately). The play was such a mess that poor Miss Welch was crying. Neither she nor any of the other freshman homeroom teachers came back after that year (1967-68).
Plus many more.If I could do it all over again, I'd do some of it. Definitely not all of it. There's a lot I don't miss, such as being picked on, and the arguments with my parents.
CollegeThe summary of my college years:
1971-1973 -- Went to East Carolina.
Took a medical withdrawal in the Spring quarter of 1973. I had a nervous collapse and went into therapy, including stays at Duke and Highland hospital. Zelda (Mrs. Scott) Fitzgerald was one of Highland Hospital's (in Asheville) most famous patients.
I didn't like it there. I did all sorts of dope.
But it wasn't a total cock-up.
In my freshman year I was in "Much Ado About Nothing", in a non-speaking role and a guard on the night watch. That was kind of fun.
I went home about every weekend in my freshman year, except during rehearsals for "Much Ado About Nothing." I went home about every month in my sophomore year until I quit early in the spring semester.
Sometimes the guys would have a panty raid. One part of the campus featured a high-rise women's dorm surrounded by men's dorms. The guys would whoop it up outside the women's dorm and the women would throw panties down.
I hitchhiked home for the Christmas holidays in my freshmen winter semester and went up to Sandhills, when classes were still going on. A bunch of us rode out to the edge of the baseball field and got wasted. I kept hollering "Panty raid!" and cracking everybody up.
We went back to the dining area just wiped out. I mentioned to Jeff, Barbara, Steve and Paul what it'd be like if things happened in reverse, like snot going back into your nose. Jeff was laughing so hard he was crying. I was, too, when I wrote this down.
In the summer of 1972 I worked at the Blue Ridge Assembly, a YMCA-sponsored religious resort in Black Mountain. I enjoyed it there. My roommate was a Dane named Karl Fynbo. He, Paul Ballantyne and Carl Paulson were among my best friends. I met Becky Webb there and fell in love with her.
After spending the spring and summer of 1973 in therapy, I started to go to Sandhills Community College. I quit in the winter quarter 1973-74, but went back in the summer of 1974 and got my Associate in Arts degree in May 1975. I took creative writing for both college credit and as a continuing education course, under the late Page Shaw.
I took laboring jobs and wrote book reviews for The Pinehurst Outlook between the time I finished at Sandhills and the time I went to the University of North Carolina and got my B.A., in Comparative Literature.
At UNC I worked at Swensen's Ice Cream Parlor, the Chez Condoret and the Robert B. House Undergraduate Library, among other places.
The only school organization I joined was the Association of International Students. I served as a counselor in an orientation camp for incoming exchange students. Many of those foreign students became close friends, such as Sue Claire Yates (England); Georg Janze and Hans-Gerd Loehmannsroeben of the University of Goettingen (West Germany); and three Japanese girls: Yoko Mitsuhashi, Keiko Goda and Fusako ("Sako"), whose last name I forgot. Yoko and I wrote each other for awhile after she went back home.
After graduation I did something amazing: Went to England and worked in a pub in Nottingham. I spent a week traveling around the European continent by train. I was abroad from late August to late November.
Labels: Blogger's biography
Creative Connection: Artist helping young and old alike to get their creative juices flowing
Joy Hellman talks about her artwork at the Joy of Art Studio, located on East Connecticut Ave., in Southern Pines. Every Thursday she conducts an expressive painting session titled Creative Connections.
From The Moore County Independent, Nov. 23, 2006
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
The Joy of Art Studio in Southern Pines conveys such a clear message. Joy Hellman is the name of the artist/instructor who owns the studio. Then there's the delight that comes from artistic self-expression, of falling under the spell of the creative process.
Hellman takes a lot of Joy (pun intended) in her work indeed. She says she wants her students of 4 years old and up through adults to experience the same joy that comes from creative self-expression.
In addition to the children's sessions, Hellman currently has two small adult groups that meet on certain evenings: Creative Connections and Artist's Way. She provides no instructions; participants work with any media they like, including collages and writing as well as oils, watercolor and pen and ink. They talk about their work, about any issues they might have that they could express in their art.
"Through art, through writing, through collage, through clay, through any type of media forms," she said.
Creative Connections meets Thursdays at the Joy of Art Studio, 7-9:30 p.m. Artist's Way meets on Friday evenings.
Art among the Creative Connections group is "a free-form thing," Hellman says. In both groups, Hellman teaches the artists "how to trust their own (creative) process.
She encourages her students, no matter how old they are, not to be so rigid, to use any media they like, all for the purpose of self-expression. She makes no hard and fast rules, and does not really give instruction to either of her adult groups, but makes suggestions instead.
She describes Creative Connections as a bit of a support group. "I'm not an art therapist," Hellman says, "but we do issues and it can be a support group."
"Art can be very therapeutic," she adds. "Art can be a catharsis."
In her classes, the children she instructs explore their own therapy as well.
There is no charge for either Creative Connection or Artist's Way, Hellman says.
Artist's Way is another group that's "not just a group where we talk, but also where we express ourselves. You might discover other media," Hellman says. Artist's Way takes its philosophy from a book titled, "The Artist's Way," bu Julia Cameron. "I've had frustrated artists who rediscover themselves and their work," Hellman said.
She likes this philosophy when it comes to art. "The most important things about artists: To grow, explore, experiment and always trust your own process," Hellman said. "I think it opens up a door that they've never been aware of before."
The Joy of Art Studio is located at 130 East Connecticut Ave. You can tell the store's open and Hellman's in when you see her scooter parked right outside the door. Going in, you see her paintings and other works all over the place, along with covered table where she does a great deal of her work, and some little angels.
She does not work with just one media. She likes to do oils, watercolors, polymers, pastels, clay, pen and ink. She does not adhere to any one style, such as Impressionism, Surrealism, Cubism etc. "I'm doing fibers right now. That may change."
She does not believe in imposing a great many rules in her programs.
"It's very, very, very free, it's a very free-form thing," she added. "It's like, people come here all the time -- 'Oh, well, I'm not an artist.' -- you know, they say that. But when they work with me, they discover that there's other aspects of art that's -- everybody's an artist. Picasso said that. He said, 'Everybody's an artist.' The problem is, that we forget that, you know.
"So, I really believe that art can be used -- I almost want to say therapeutically. In other words, it's a wonderful tool for getting in touch with feelings, getting in touch with thoughts you might have, maybe it's just right on the surface, that you need to explore or express yourself."
During the art sessions at her studio, she usually combines painting and collage. The students can also work subconsciously, via a certain type of collage or working with clay.
"We put together images from magazines (for the collage), and we don't think what we're doing," Hellman says. "It's more subconscious. It's like almost like your dreams have pictures, symbols. Well, we do a collage, and then we individually interpret it ourselves, because it's amazing how that process works, as long as you don't think about it."
"The same thing with clay," she says. "When I do clay, I tell the people, 'Take the clay. Play with the clay. Work with the clay. Close your eyes while you're doing it. Don't think about what you're doing. Open your eyes at the first shape. What does the shape say to you?' Go from there."
"It would be borderline therapy, therapeutic art, but I'm not an art therapist. I just use different techniques, like the art therapists do."
Some of her works she might sell, some are not for sale. She is more into teaching and showing others how to improve their artistic skills, to work with the creative process, than she is of becoming an artistic superstar.
Sometimes in her classes for younger students, the teacher becomes a student, Hellman says.
"I combine forms," she says. "I express different forms to the kids and I'll do that form myself. It's a constant tapping into your inner child...When I work with children, I find I learn about things, and I can create more things."
In her career in art instruction, she has worked with people with disabilities both emotional and physical, worked with seniors and abused women and children, she said.
Hellman comes from Minneapolis, where she says at one time she lived across the street from "Prairie Home Companion" host Garrison Keillor. She has lived and operated her studio in Southern Pines for the past four years, and lived in Sanford for 10 years before coming to this area.
Hellman spent eight years studying art, then decided to become a teacher. She has been teaching art for 14 years.
Her husband, Bob Schmidt, is a locally famous artist as well. An accomplished actor, he played the lead in the Sandhills Theatre Company's production of Ira Levin's "Deathtrap," and done his share of work as stage manager with other productions.
Hellman uses art for another purpose: Turning the students on to history.
"It's a great way of getting kids to learn things and have fun," Hellman says. "When I teach, I want them to enjoy what they do and learn something."
She says a painting can tell a lot about a culture and the time the artist created it.
"The paintings we see, we can tell something about the past, about how people live," Hellman said.
"It's a universal language. You can go into a museum and not know anything about the culture, but you can look at a painting and tell all sorts of things about it."
Hellman is more interested in teaching art, in helping people through the creative process, and not so interested in making a living solely on her paintings.
Some of her works, such as a painting of her muse, she will not sell, she says. The painting, which hangs in the studio, is an example of some mixed media. It includes a joint compounds, caulking, as well as real makeup for the eyes, Hellman says.
"I will will that painting, because it's special to me. It's priceless."
Hellman says she will do an occasional painting by commission. But making a living is a different story.
"With commercialism, it becomes too much of a product," Hellman says. "You do your painting to meet a market."
"I'd rather do art that comes from a different part of me and donate it to somebody," she added. "I admire artists that can make a living (selling their works), but I can't do that."
Labels: Newspaper features about Moore County
Whatever you think of Christmas, lots of good things seem to happen
This column was edited and appeared in The Moore County Indpendent, Dec. 21, 2006. This is the pre-edited version; too much was omitted. -- The AuthorBILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
The United States remains a predominantly Christian nation, despite the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Otherwise, all the government offices would stay open on Christmas Day.
The amazing thing about Christmas, even if you adhere to another faith, is how much this holiday touches all our lives for just one month in an otherwise bleak time of the year.
About everybody celebrates Christmas in one way or another, showering their friends with gifts, throwing plenty of parties and taking off from work to go somewhere. Even people who aren't all that religious celebrate Christmas. Some celebrate even if they adhere to other faiths.
After all, the man whose birth many people celebrate every Dec. 25 said a lot of things nobody can disagree with, such as loving your neighbor as yourself, stop doing bad things to each other such as murder, war, theft, lying and abusing women, children and the elderly, and helping people who are worse off than you are, to name a few.
Whether you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan or even a confirmed atheist, I can't think of anybody who travels through neighborhoods and downtown areas at night and does not get a kick out of all the lights, the brilliant decorations and the giant Santa Clauses and snowman. Some call it kitschy, but as one who has embraced the Jewish faith, it's a lot better to look at on a cold winter night than empty, dimly lighted areas. People tend to get bummed out when the mercury dips, and one whole month of twinkly lights really isn't a bad idea as far as I'm concerned.
I grew up as a Protestant, attending church in several denominations until I finished high school, and then I took a break from organized religion for quite a few years. I grew up like most other young Americans in the history of this country, caroling, drooling over presents and going to parties.
Seven years ago, I embraced the Jewish faith, but that has not stopped me from participating in the Christmas activities. Two other Jewish friends of mine celebrated Christmas as well, giving gifts while celebrating Hanukkah during the same months.
Earlier this month, another local Jewish resident and I had small roles in "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," a Sandhills Theatre Company production that played Dec. 1-10 at the Sunrise Theater. Marcia had no problems being in a production centered on Christianity. Much to my surprise, I met at least two members of my synagogue among the audience.
Jews don't think Jesus is the Messiah, as Christians believe he is; they believe the Messiah has yet to come. Nevertheless, they consider him among the greatest prophets of Israel, and Muslims have a great deal of reverence for him as well.
I have no quarrel with anybody of any other faith. The Jewish faith may welcome converts, but it does not actively try to convert people, as certain other faiths do. If you have a different view of the Lord than I do, that's fine. All I ask is that you respect my ideas as I respect yours, and no matter how strongly you believe in your idea of the Lord, please don't try to force it on me. I'll be glad to hear you out, but please leave people alone when they're clearly not interested.
Yes, Jesus was a great man. He had a lot on the ball even though he hardly had much more than the clothes on his back and had no formal education. I can think of a number of good things that have happened during the month of December, for the past 2000 and some years, off and on.
For my part, I have noticed how most people are a lot nicer to each other, even when they never see eye to eye. It's a good time to call a truce with your enemies, even if you end up beating up on each other after New Year's Day. One famous example: The Christmas Day truce between the Germans and their French and Scottish foes during the early months of World War I. The French-made film "Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)" depicts that amazing event. The commanding officers on both sides of one battle agreed to stop fighting for that one day. The soldiers spend the day talking, drinking wine and even playing sports, and on the day after Christmas, none of them had the heart to shoot at each other again.
Here's something that happened to me this month. After receiving ads upon ads from two Web sites devoted to looking up old high-school classmates, I caved in last month and bought a year's membership. You had a few weeks free membership, but you couldn't really have much communication with members who have already subscribed.
Earlier this month the site I joined posted my profile. Sure enough, three people I went to high school with checked out my profile. I e-mailed one of them and she promptly answered me. One weekend, I also looked up other people's names on the ever-increasing list. One of the people was a very dear friend of mine whom I had not seen in 31 years and never expected to again. I wrote him and he answered me promptly.
The first person I mentioned that answered me, Susan, was in a class below mine. We knew a lot of the same people and she had a sister in a class ahead of me. For awhile I had a crush on both these girls when I was in high school, though Susan was dating a friend of mine. The last I ever saw her or her sister was the year I graduated high school. Now Susan is living out of state, with a great job in for a wine and spirits distributing company. She has two grown daughters and three grandchildren. We have traded e-mails ever since we discovered each other, even though I had no clue what happened to her after high school.
John was the other one. He was the only student I know of in the history of my high school to attend an Ivy League college (namely, Harvard). He quit after his freshman year, but then went back later. He didn't come back to Moore County that much after 1975. He has worked as a business consultant, even spending a couple of years working for a firm in Japan. Last week he e-mailed me saying he was living in Durham and to look him up the next time I went up there.
I also heard from another classmate who has been living close by. I have run into her in person recently. She was a rather wild kid in high school and a little while after that. Before she was 19, she and her husband got into serious trouble with the law. They both did hard time.
After they served their sentences, they straightened themselves out remarkably. They raised two children and my classmate when back to college. She got both bachelor's and master's degrees and now she is working on a Ph.D. She has been a public school teacher for at least the past 10 years.
I don't give too many gifts and I don't receive any, not even from my best friends or my family members. That doesn't bother me anymore because I know they love me, and they know I love them.
But hearing from those people after all this time was as good a gift as you can ever receive. I consider that a Christmas present. I would not give up any of my friends or family, past or present, for a million dollars.
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or any other greeting of your choice.
Some of my advice: Give each other plenty of hugs, even if you feel like smacking somebody half the time.
Also, tell somebody, "You're worth the whole (expletive deleted) bunch put together."
That's a quote from "The Great Gatsby," my favorite American novel of all time. The narrator, Nick Carraway, said that to the title character. I've said it to about half my friends lately. You should see somebody's eyes light up when they hear that.
That's another Christmas present I wouldn't turn down.
Labels: Newspaper columns
Lynne Hinton: Pastor turned novelist discusses writing life, forays into new genre
Pastor turned novelist Lynne Hinton, left, signs copies of her latest book for two local fans at the County Bookshop in Southern Pines, N.C.
From The Moore County Independent, December 2006
Unable to upload photo
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
It was about 20 years before Lynne Hinton found a publisher for the first book she wrote, but she finally achieved that goal -- after publishing several more novels. Now, having published the "The Arms of God" last year, the Durham native and longtime Baptist minister has come out with another book, under another name.
Writing under the name "Jackie Lynn", Hinton published a murder mystery titled "Down by the Riverside," her first attempt at that kind of genre. Hinton, a frequent visitor to The Country Bookshop, was on hand Thursday, Nov. 30, for a book signing for both "The Arms of God" and "Down by the Riverside." "Down by the Riverside," a story inspired by the death of a member of one of her congregations, was published in June by St. Martin's Press. "The Arms of God" was published in paperback in November 2005.
The audience at last week's book signing included Hinton's old high-school guidance counselor, Gwen Simmons. Hinton was raised in Fayetteville and graduated from Douglas Byrd High. "She made me the woman I am," Hinton said.
Simmons has published novels since 2000. Other works include "Hope Springs", "The Last Odd Day" and "Friendship Cake". "Down by the Riverside" is intended to be the first novel in the Shady Grove Mystery Series, Hinton said.
Hinton said she wrote "Down by the Riverside" during a trip back to Santa Fe, N.M., where she had loved before. This novel deals with somebody who finds the body of a well-respected man. The death appears to be a suicide, but the woman who discovered the body finds out more and more things, from interacting with local people, that lead her to believe otherwise.
The critics liked the book, she said. "I've decided that critics are nicer to first-time writers," Hinton quipped. This is the first book she has written under a pseudonym.
She has another mystery in the works, titled "Memphis Tea Parties". She hopes the book will be published in 2008, the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. She said the title is based on a phrase from the 1960s. "Tea party" was a term to describe liaisons between traveling businessmen and the women who met them at the Memphis airport.
This book takes a "Pelican Brief"-like angle to the crime the book is about, Hinton said.
"It started me thinking about the Martin Luther King shooting," she said. "Do we really know who did it?"
"Down by the Riverside" was prompted by the drowning death of a developmentally disabled adult named Larry, a member of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheboro, where Hinton last served as pastor.
One day Larry disappeared, and he was discovered drowned after he had wandered off.
"It was the hardest funeral I ever preached," Hinton said.
Following Larry's death, Hinton said she came up with a story based on Enoch, a character in The Bible who did not die, but ended up walking with God, she said.
"The Arms of God" is about a woman whose mother left her at a daycare center when she was 4. The mother did not return until that girl, Alice, was an adult. Alice's mother suddenly dies, and Alice tried to piece together the woman's life.
"The Arms of God" is not a religious book, HInton said. She said publishers rejected it for so long because they considered it too gloomy.
Hinton lives in North Carolina with her husband, Bob Branard. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a master of divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif.
At the Pacific School, Hinton focused on theology through the arts, she said. One of her instructors was a native North Carolinian named Katie Cannon. Through her, Hinton studied African-American literature, and also Third World Literature.
That was when she started working on "The Arms of God", Hinton said.
When she was in the ministry, after becoming an ordained Baptist minister in 1990, Hinton went to film school. She said she did not like filmmaking, but film school turned her on to the arts.
After pastoring her second church, she learned the first novel she had published, "Friendship Cake", was a commercial success. It was published in 2000.
Then she moved to Santa Fe. Her husband retired and she wrote two more books. "The Arms of God" had yet to find a publisher, however.
In 2004, Hinton and her husband moved back to the South. Her first books were published by Harper Collins, and she landed a deal with St. Martin's Press, she said.
Labels: literary works, Newspaper features about authors
Pack the Pickup for Sandhills/Moore Coalition; Vehicle on hand for food for low-income families
From The Moore County Independent, Dec. 7, 2006photos unable to be posted
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
The Sandhills/Moore Coalition for Human Care Inc. and a local auto dealer are challenging holiday shoppers to see how much food they can pack a truck with.
Since Wednesday, Nov. 29, the Coalition, with a truck provided by Bill Smith Ford, has conducted the Pack the Pickup campaign, a holiday food drive for low-income families in the Sandhills.
The brand-new vehicle sat outside the Southern Pines Wal-Mart this weekend, waiting for its bed to be filled. Coalition volunteers accepted donations of food and a few toys, and handed out flyers about the Pack the Pickup event. The donations went to the Coalition's food pantry on West Pennsylvania Avenue, to be distributed to needy families.
The drive has continued through this week, with the truck parked at another local site, said Caroline Eddy, executive director for the Coalition. The Bill Smith Ford dealership, located on Old U.S. 1, is also one of the collection sites.
The volunteers at Wal-Mart worked in two-hour shifts during the weekdays, 10 a.m. to noon, then noon to 2 p.m., later in the afternoon on the weekend.
Eddy said the Coalition did not have to look too far for volunteers to staff the collection site at Wal-Mart. The Coalition is also holding its annual toy giveaway and a drive for clothing for needy families, she said.
"They were great to volunteer so quickly," Eddy said of the people staffing the Pack the Pickup site.
Eddy said shoppers can donate toys to the Pack the Pickup event if they want to, "and that helps a lot of people."
There were 10 slots available for volunteers at the Wal-Mart site last week, and within a day and a morning they were all taken, Eddy said.
"We found out on Monday (Nov. 27) they (Wal-Mart) were going to let us do it," Eddy said. I didn't get the e-mail out until 11:30 that morning, but by 5 o'clock all the slots were filled except one. Then on Tuesday, a woman called at 8 a.m. and said she wanted that last slot."
"We have the greatest group of volunteers here," she added.
"It started with Bill Smith Ford. Wal-Mart let us come this weekend, and we're looking for other places right now," Eddy told this reporter in a Nov. 30 interview. "They (the people serving as volunteers for the Coalition)
Within two days of Pack the Pickup, the Coalition reported at least 50 families being served by the event.
"So there's a lot of need going around the holiday," Eddy said.
Eddy said the Coalition's client waiting room is "jam packed", with the Coalition serving 20 to 30 low-income clients per day.
One of the Coalition's most successful charity drives took place in 2005, for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, she said. Another one, the Warmer Moore Drive, sponsored by radio station W10Z, was held at Wal-Mart, for winter clothes.
"It's just amazing the way people help others in need," Eddy said.
The Coalition is currently seeking donations of clothing, at its current office at 117 W. Pennsylvania Ave., Southern Pines. This building houses the food pantry and the clothing site. Eddy says the Coalition especially needs men's gloves, socks and children's winter clothing.
The Coalition reported that in 2004 and 2005 combined, $373,000 in financial assistance has been distributed, 18,000 families received food and 8,500 received clothing. In 2005, food went to 9,341 families received food; 5,151 received clothing and $190,859 in direct financial assistance was distributed.
Countless individuals, merchants and religious institutions have donated items to the Coalition, especially food, Eddy says.
"A lot of people bring it (food, clothing etc.) in whose relatives have passed."
She says the contributors will usually check the expiration date on the foodstuffs.
The annual toy giveaway usually begins two weeks before Christmas, but this year it began Friday, due to the amount of toys donated, Eddy says. She says people who are already clients of the Sandhills/Moore Coalition may receive a voucher for two toys per child.
Indeed, the Coalition has had so many donations it has had to find other places for them, especially food. A new building for client services is under construction in West Southern Pines. In October the new site was named in honor of the late Voit Gilmore, former mayor, businessman and philanthropist in Southern Pines.
The two thrift shops adjacent to the Coalition's current headquarters offer clothing, furniture, appliances and other donated goods. Individuals, merchants and other groups donated many things to the two new Habitat for Humanity houses across the street from the Coalition, Eddy says. Proceeds from sales at The Resale Shop and Ms. Hallie's Shop help meet the Coalition's costs of operation; recent proceeds included $100,000 of the $190,000 that the Coalition gave away in financial aid in 2005, Eddy said.
Some donations, such as pillows and sheets, come from area motels, Eddy says. They will change the colors and remove their logos from the donated items. One volunteer at the Coalition checks the appliances at Ms. Hallie's Place once a week, Eddy says.
At The Resale Shop, prices of clothing, small household items and some furniture start as low as 25 cents, Eddy said. She said that some area antiques dealers are among the customers at Ms. Hallie's Place.
The Resale Shop and Ms. Hallie's Place are hope Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, Eddy said.
More than 250 volunteers are listed with the Coalition. For more information, to volunteer or make a contribution, contact the Sandhills/Moore Coalition for Human Care Inc., at 910-693-1600 or e-mail
coalition@pinehurst.net.
Labels: Newspaper features about Moore County
Sunrise Theater: Like coming home again
Submitted to The Moore County Independent, December 2006; unpublishedBILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
I lived two blocks from it for about 21 years (off and on), going to the movies in my teens and 20s. Now plenty of people are participating on both sides of the stage at the Sunrise Theater in downtown Southern Pines. Artists as famous as Leon Russell, Leo Kottke, Richie Havens and the Pure Prairie League have performed there.
This quaint little structure closed down as a movie house late in 1981, but the Arts Council of Moore County brought it back from the "dead" before too long. In 1998, a group of preservation-minded citizens calling itself the Sunrise Preservation Group took over the operation of the theater. It became a non-profit organization, taking its funding from on individual and corporate contributions as well as ticket sales from plays, concerts and, yes, movies, among others. Last year, the Sunrise Preservation Group took over the ownership from the Arts Council of Moore County.
The building was constructed in 1898. First it housed a hardware store. It became a movie house in the 1940s, and for close to 40 years it was the primary source of entertainment within walking distance for people in Southern Pines. It was also one of the primary sources of employment for local teens. I'd have sworn about half the kids I knew in high school, plus a few after that, held jobs there.
"Escape from New York," starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef and Ernest Borgnine, and "Blade Runner", that science-fiction movie starring Harrison Ford and Darryl Hannah, were about the last two movies that played at the Sunrise Theater before it closed in 1981.
The Sunrise Theater was one of many small downtown cinemas that folded during the past 20 years, and then were reopened to serve as performing arts centers for concerts, plays, ballets and classic and foreign films. Hamlet's old opera house was old arts and entertainment facility that is being "reborn". Asheboro has an old cinema that has been reopened to serve the same purposes.
You don't see too many one-screen movie houses that show motion pictures only. Such businesses seem to have gone the way of LPs and black-and-white photography. Multi-screen cinemas with ear-splitting sound are the thing. For years, moviegoers in Moore County went to Fayetteville, Charlotte or Chapel Hill to see many current movies and quality limited-run films. Now we have two cinemas, including a 10-screen facility, for current movies, and the Sunrise for the foreign and indie films, plus a few popular ones such as "A Prairie Home Companion."
Even in the 1960s, however, the Sunrise Theater had some competition, namely, the Town and Country Cinema. This Aberdeen cinema showed a lot of the big ones that the Sunrise didn't, such as The Dirty Dozen, Romeo and Juliet and Sean Connery's early James Bond films. In 1976 the Town and Country Cinema added a second screen.
In the age of the Internet and DVD/VHS rentals, cinemas have become a risky business. The Town and Country Cinema folded one time, but it has then been revived. Another four-screen cinema folded early in 2003.
But the Sunrise Preservation Group knows how to keep the Sunrise Theater going, with the variety of shows they put on. Last winter I had the pleasure of working as a stage hand in "Deathtrap", a play by Ira Levin produced in February by the Sandhills Theatre Company. For the first week and a half of this month, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" is showing there.
The Sunrise has kept the stellar attractions coming, with the play "Sylvia" showing in November, followed by the free Thanksgiving Day showing of "The Last Waltz," followed by another movie and then "Best Christmas Pageant." Among the upcoming attractions are the French-made film "Changing Times" (Dec. 11-13), starring Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Gepardieu, "Nutcracker", Dec. 17 and "For Your Consideration", directed by Christopher Guest, Dec. 26-30.
"The Last Waltz" on Thanksgiving night has become an annual event for a lot of rock-music lovers suffering from post-dinner cabin fever. Martin Scorsese's 1978 film centering on the final tour of Bob Dylan's old backup band, The Band, has filled the seats to capacity the past two Thanksgiving Day nights in Southern Pines. It has its share of a regular audience. I saw at least one of my old high-school classmates there, Sam Amato, the past two years. This time he brought his son. Cynthia Leach, Herbie Cameron, Lisa Wylie and Bill Hopkins were among my other old friends who came this year, if not last year.
That movie was a real trip down Memory Lane, with quite a few of the rock-pop-folk icons performing and the movie concluding with Bob Dylan leading a mass singalong with "Forever Young." Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and EmmyLou Harris were among the other performers. One of Neil Young's songs, "Helpless" (1970), always reminds me of one particular party I went to when I was 17.
It was hard to beat as a source of entertainment from the 1940s through the early 1980s. I thought I was one of the oldest people to remember going to the Sunrise as a kid, but one of my old classmates just told me she'd been going there since she was 6 years old (!). Summer Saturday matinees with low-budget monster movies drew scads of kids during that era, and if you lived close to downtown Southern Pines and had nothing else to do on the weekend, the Sunrise was only a brisk walk or a bike ride away.
I'm not really moaning about the good old days, except that if you want to see the big box-office smashes of the week, you have to travel a bit farther. But the Sunrise Theater is experiencing some good new days, with more things to show than simply popular films.
Going through the doors of that beloved place is really like coming back home. For about 30 years my family owned a house on North Ashe Street, and I lived there off and on until late 1987, when I took a job outside Moore County. I still spend a lot of time in Southern Pines, and I still go to a good number of the performances there, either cinematic or live. On my last birthday, I saw Woody Allen's recent film, "Scoop", plus some others I mentioned. The silent classic film "Wings" played there this year. So did the 2005 movie "Merry Christmas", about an impromptu truce on Christmas Day 1914, the first year of World War I.
Last year really gave me a feeling of coming home, of like a second adolescence. Leon Russell and Richie Havens, both of whom I have listened to since I was 17 and 18, put on brief concerts within a month and a half of each other: Russell in early August, Havens in mid-September. I was still living on North Ashe Street when they became popular. A few of my old classmates showed up, too, including Eddie Howell of Charlotte, whose brother Ken is one of the volunteers involved with the Sunrise Preservation Group. Brenda Phelps, my dramatics instructor from Pinecrest High School, also does a lot of work for them.
I cannot imagine any other place that feels more like going back home than the Sunrise Theater in downtown Southern Pines. I hope it continues to host plenty of quality performances and entertainment long after my friends and I are gone.
Labels: Unpublished newspaper columns about Moore County
MS patient does artwork solely with her mouth; Painter Palmer Hill really sinks her teeth into her art
From The Moore County Independent, Dec. 21, 2006
Photos of two of Palmer Hill's paintings done with her teeth, Palmer Hill with companions working on a painting at the Penick Village, Southern Pines, N.C.
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
Palmer Hill has been painting since she was a child. With an exhibit in the Sky Gallery of Aberdeen last month, she has shown everybody that nothing can stop her when she takes a brush to canvas.
Not even a debilitating illness.
Palmer Hill was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Soon she lost the use of her arms, then her legs. But she has persisted with her art. She paints with her teeth.
The results look better than most people can do with her hands. She even sold some of them at her exhibit.
With the help of her talented mother and two friends, Hill continues to paint. She does it once a week for two hours, in her room at the Penick Village in Southern Pines. One person holds the canvas and the other mixes the colors. Once she likes the way everything's set up, Hill takes a brush between her teeth and paints away, for about two hours a session, every Wednesday afternoon.
Hill has been painting with her teeth since 2002. She says she can move her right wrist a bit, but not enough to paint. She uses oils with a water base on canvas. Still life and animals make up most of her subjects.
She has been painting steadily since 1995, but she has been unable to work since 1996.
Hill came to the Penick Home in 2000. Since that year, she has also had plenty of assistance with her art. Pidgie Chapman has been coming in to mix the paints on the palette. Steve Sanders holds the easel for her. Her mother, an accomplished portrait and landscape artist named Joan Milligan, paints the canvas with a background color of Hill's choice every time Hill begins a painting. When Chapman can't make it, others are willing to help.
Mike Harrison is also a member of her little corps, serving as her trainer.
"It's a real team effort," Hill says.
"My mother paints the canvas one color," Hill says. "I do the drawing and the outline and I just paint away."
"I've gotten a lot better at it over the years," she adds. "I'm able to do better with my brush."
Hill says she usually takes about four to five times to complete a painting. The longest she's had to do one is eight times.
Hill cites her mother as the biggest influence on her painting, with her own artwork and taking the young Palmer to museums.
After high school, Hill went to art school, before graduating from the University of North Carolina in the School of Journalism.
Hill worked as a reporter from 1980 to 1987. After that, she found a job doing subtitles for television shows, for the hearing-impaired.
Hill also worked as a publicist for the state of North Carolina's 400th anniversary celebration, which dates back to the settlement of the so-called Lost Colony in what is now Manteo, in 1984.
After that, Hill spent five years as a lobbyist for the Child Welfare League of America in Washington, D.C. She ended up working with the State Department.
At that time, 1992, the bottom seemed to fall out of her life; she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
"I wanted to do that my whole life," she said.
She said it was tough for her; at first she was in denial when she heard her diagnosis. But with the support of her family and friends, she did not fold. For 11 years she has continued to paint.
Hill has plenty of advice for those suffering from Multiple Sclerosis: Take heart and be honest with yourself.
"There are many more treatments for MS now than in 1992," Hill says. "So see a doctor. Don't be in denial of it the way I was. I didn't believe I had it until I lost my legs. So pay attention to your body."
SCC's small-college atmosphere makes alumnus feel right at home
From The Moore County Independent, Dec. 14, 2006; to be republished on a Web site for Sandhills Community College alumni
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
I may be a dyed-in-the-wool Carolina fan, but if Sandhills Community College still had a basketball team and took on UNC, I really would have a hard time choosing sides. The University of North Carolina is a fabulous school, but I've always felt more at home at Sandhills, in the years after I got a B.A. from UNC as well as the years before.
There's a debate about North Carolina's community colleges that really gets my goat. Some people think they ought to provide more technical and vocational programs and less of a college transfer program. Let the kids who want to go to a four-year college or university find one rather than hang around at home. On the other hand, a larger college away from home can make an 18- or 19-year-old feel lost in a crowd, and you can't beat the smaller number of students or the smaller ratio of instructors to students.
Whatever side wins out, I say, keep Sandhills just the way it is.
Last year, with some extra weekday time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at a new art form. But the two-year-college closer to my hometown didn't have the courses I wanted, so I enrolled at Sandhills and took a voice class. The two neighboring schools would've been cheaper, but neither of them had any music or creative writing programs. Then in the spring, I took piano. I learned an awful lot from both Frances Wilson, the voice instructor, and Jennifer Thomas, who taught me piano. Even though I wasn't working toward any degree, they were among the best courses I ever had. Each had only eight students at the most in each of the classes, and I think everybody benefited from the individual attention they received. You don't find that much of that same closeness in too many larger academic institutions.
SCC was chartered in 1963 and officially opened in October 1965. It's known as the first community college in North Carolina to offer a college-transfer program. Here's something I didn't know about this school: It was first located in downtown Southern Pines. It moved to its present campus, on Airport Road between Whispering Pines and Pinehurst, in March 1966.
I went to East Carolina straight out of high school but withdrew before my sophomore year. It's a great school, but I didn't feel so much at home there. After a year and a half off from college, I finished up my second year and got an Associate in Arts degree from SCC. I took courses under Mack Israel, Mack Trent, Haskell Duncan, Page Shaw, Terry and Mary Ann Weaver, Rick Lewis, Terrell West, Ruth Bondurant and Bob Nowell.
Of these, Rick Lewis is the only one remaining on the staff. He chaired the English Department when I went there, and he continues to chair the department that encompasses English, literature, writing and other language arts.
I knew Lewis before he came to Sandhills. Shortly after he graduated from UNC, he taught English at Pinecrest High School for about three academic years.
I met Ruth Bondurant again during Thanksgiving week, when the Sandhills Jewish Congregation hosted an interfaith Thanksgiving service. Members of the McDonald and Jackson Springs Presbyterian churches came to it; Bondurant was at Jackson Springs. I took tennis under her in the college transfer program and conditioning under Terrell West.
Both Bondurant and West are pretty big in the local tennis world. West served as the club pro at Seven Lakes, and coached the Pinecrest tennis program for a few years. When I wrote for the old Citizen News-Record of Aberdeen, I covered quite a few of the tennis tournaments he ran, including a senior tournament at Seven Lakes and a long-running junior tournament that took place mostly in Southern Pines. Eventually he left Moore County to work as a club pro in Raleigh. Late last month, Bondurant told me he is now working in the western part of the state, in the northern foothills I believe.
Man, I miss them both.
I took creative writing under Page Shaw, first for college credit, then as a Continuing Education course. I took it for a total of five quarters, until he left. The continuing ed class was full of regulars. You could take it as often as you liked as an adult ed course. We had all varieties of talents, including several published poets.
Mary Belle "Peg" Campbell was one of the more accomplished poets. She also taught creative writing herself many years later. Bill Byrtus has taught it in recent years. I've taken classes under both of them. I honestly think Page Shaw's course is where I really honed my writing skills. The stories I wrote for the class to critique wouldn't look like much now, but I did get one published years later.
Sandhills had an earlier form of a Mack attack: Mack Israel and Mack Trent. I studied music appreciation and piano under Israel and took a course in philosophy and religion in 20th-century America, a course Trent co-instructed with Haskell Duncan. I didn't take up music again for about 30 years after I taking Israel's classes, but a lot of his instruction came back to me last year.
My friends who first went to Sandhills gave Trent rave reviews for his outspoken, joking style. I don't believe I ever saw him in a bad mood. One of my friends once said any of his history courses should be a graduation requirement. He also taught skydiving lessons on his own.
The college continues to thrive, and it has some quality instructors in about all of their departments. I knew two other retired instructors from Pinecrest: Sue Williamson in chemistry and Lafayette Reddick in social studies. I also met a current instructor when she was at Pinecrest -- as a student. Laura Hill (nee Davenport) joined the faculty soon after she received her degrees. She herself is the daughter of a former instructor, Reynold Davenport.
It's a small world at Sandhills Community College, and that's the way we like it. There's been talk of making it a four-year school and adding dorms. No way. That would take away the school's unique character, one that continues to bring me back.
Labels: Newspaper columns
'Living Madonnas' Dec. 17: 'Still-life recreation' now in 20th year
From The Moore County Independent, Dec. 14, 2006
Adam Faw goes over prints of madonna paintings to be used in "Living Madonnas", produced Dec. 17, 2006, at Community Congregational Church, Southern Pines, N.C. Faw served as artistic director for this production. (Photo by Bill Lindau)
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
It's not exactly drama, and it's not straight lecture. "Living Madonnas" has, however, intrigued holiday festivalgoers for the past 20 years. This unique presentation, featuring reproductions of various Renaissance Madonnas with costumed models, will come to the Sandhills again Sunday, Dec. 17, at the Community Congregational Church in Southern Pines.
This biennial production was last shown in 2003, and it has been presented in the Sandhills since 1986. This year, with Adam Faw now serving as artistic director, the organizers are looking forward to putting it on and hopes the religious, the art lovers and the entire community will enjoy it. The program begins at 7 p.m. that day. Refreshments will be served by church members.
As a narrator tells the story of the Nativity, a total of 10 life-sized reproductions of certain Madonnas are spotlighted, with a costumed model posing as the Madonna in each reproductions. The program features music between the presentation of the paintings with the live Madonna models.
"It's such a visual thing. It's like art, it's visual," says Sue Bowling, publicity chairperson for "Living Madonnas".
Joan Bridgeman Smith returns as the narrator. "She has written some of the scripts,"Bowling says. Sue Aceves serves as the music coordinator.
"The first time I saw it, I had no idea what it was," Bowling said. "The scene is a backdrop for what the masterpiece is."
"It's more like a lecture series," she adds. "It's a narration with a still-life pose....It's not a show in terms of an educational type of thing. It's just spiritual, unusual."
A transplanted New Yorker named Ann Schwer introduced this program to the church during the 1980s. "She had seen this done in a Long Island church," Bowling said.
"I've worked with some church dramas, but nothing specifically like this," said Faw, who teaches dramatics at Pinecrest High School. "I'd never heard of something being done like this before."
Faw describes "Living Madonnas" as "in the category of still-life recreations, not a drama."
Faw says the biggest challenge to shaping up this program is working with the 10 Madonna models, all of them high-school students.
"Each model will have dressers, and then we have to get everything organized so that everything will pull together at the end."
It takes a lot of teamwork and a lot of people to put this production on, Bowling says.
"The night of the program, you have quite a few people," she says. "You're looking at 30 to 50 people doing different things.
She says there are about six people serving as coordinators, including herself, Faw and Aceves. There is also a core committee. Besides the models and the musicians, there are people doing costumes, setting up the stage, the construction sets, lighting, ushers and women of the church serving refreshments.
Everyone involves has a single dress rehearsal the Saturday before the program, Bowling says. The musicians may be the exception, practicing on their own.
Dec. 14, 2003, was the last time the production took place. About 250 to 300 attended that program, in a sanctuary with a capacity of 360. "Living Madonnas" alternates with a full-orchestra Christmas concert, Bowling says.
Faw showed this reporter the names of the paintings chosen for this year's show. Bowling says this is the first time since the 1990s that the show has used any of them. The 10 reproductions are Raphael's "The Holy Family"; Roberto Ferruzzi Sr.'s "Madonna of the Streets"; Tommaso's "Virgin Adoring the Christ", Gentile da Fabriano's "Madonna and Child"; William Dyce's "Madonna and Child"; Raphael's "Madonna of Loreto"; Francesor Francia Raibolini's "Madonna and Child with Two Apples"; "The Manger", by Gertrude Kasebier and "Madonna of the Prairies", by W.H.D. Koerner.
The 2003 program featured another Madonna by Raphael, as well as "The Adoration of the Magi" by Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi, and Sandro Botticelli's "Madonna and Child."
MariJo Brown, the music director for the church, is involved. Among the recent performers were the octet for the church choir, Mary Emma Wilson and Gerry Tobias with a piano duet, Aceves, Brown and Darlene Skinner on piano, The Joy Singers, consisting of Joan Bridgeman Smith, Shirley Reardon, Carole Amlot and Carolyn Coons, Kaitlyn Johnson on violin, Marion Turner on flute and Ed Smith, a baritone, performing "O Holy Night" with Brown on piano.
As artistic director, Faw selected the paintings to do for this show, Bowling said. "Every one to do it (serve as artistic director) has been an artist."
This is Faw's fourth year in the dramatics program at Pinecrest High School. A native of Pilot Mountain, he took this position right after graduating from Appalachian State University.
"I didn't do theatre until just before I went to college," Faw said. "And I was hooked."
"This is definitely one of the strongest (artistic) communities I've seen," Faw added.
Faw actually serves as theatre productions director for the high school. He has served as technical director for many of the shows as well. The biggest production in which he has been involved at the school has been a spring musical.
He says the week of a show can consume a great deal of his time.
"During production week, I'll probably spend 12 hours a day here," he says. "I try not to do that for some of the big productions. But around showtime it can get very busy."
Labels: Front-page newspaper stories
Housing for mentally ill, police training among NAMI's plans
Mental Health group discusses 2007 goals
Housing for mentally ill, police
Training among NAMI’s plans
With photos of Judith Krall, president of NAMI, and the Dunrovin General Store, where patients in the Dunrovin Project are expected to receive jobs as part of a special rehabilitation program by NAMI for brain-damaged individuals.
BILL LINDAU
SPECIAL TO THE INDEPENDENT
Around 800 Moore County residents have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and brain illnesses, an officer with the local National Alliance on Mentally Illness. Many of them do not receive the institutional care that would be better suited for them; their families have the burden of looking out for some. Even worse, others are homeless, and a few have even had themselves jailed for petty crimes in order to have a roof over their heads in cold weather, NAMI said.
NAMI of Moore County has announced some ambitious plans to help their clients. This includes a housing project geared to assist patients in living on their own; a program helping law-enforcement officials to learn better ways to handle mentally disturbed individuals; a program to help military veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a special family education program for relatives of mentally disturbed individuals.
NAMI has celebrated its 10th anniversary this year as one of the biggest champion of the mentally ill in the area. A visit from movie star Patty Duke in October highlighted the activities that would help raise funds to increase public awareness of the plight of those afflicted with psychiatric disorders, physical brain damage and similar conditions. Early in December NAMI celebrated the holidays and the end of the year with a dinner dance at the Southern Pines Elks Lodge. It was also Mental Health Awareness Week.
NAMI of Moore County has a major objective in mind for the immediate future: To lobby the North Carolina State Legislature to pass a law mandating that mental illness receive parity with other afflictions in the health insurance industry, said Judith Krall, president of NAMI of Moore County.
"Forty-two other states have it. All federal employees have it," Krall said. "The average Joe doesn't have it."
Patty Duke, who talked about her struggle with bipolar disorder throughout her adult life, said lobbying for more health insurance coverage for mental disorders has been one of her own objectives.
"We have a lot of things going on in 2007," Krall added.
The first of these things NAMI-MC plans to get under way is the Family to Family Awareness Program. It's a series of 12 weekly classes "structured to help family members understand and support their mentally ill relative while maintaining their own well-being." The first session takes place Jan. 10, and all sessions are free.
This program is geared to family members of close relatives who suffer from such disorders as major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and so-called schizoaffective disorder, panic and obsessive-compulsive disorders and borderline personality disorders.
NAMI-MC has offered two numbers to register or find out more about this program: 295-1150 and 295-2053. The latter number is also listed as the local help line.
NAMI-MC, a non-profit organization based in Pinehurst, offers an annual family membership of $35. This includes membership in NAMI-Moore County, NAMI-North Carolina and the national organization of NAMI. NAMI-MC has an open meeting the first Monday of every month, 7-9 p.m. The group does not meet in July, September or October, and NAMI recommends calling first. These meetings take place at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, in Room A of the Conference Center.
NAMI-MC is a registered 501c3 charity and receives funding mostly from individual and corporate contributions. One of the many ways it raises money is through a deal with a local gift shop. Wednesday, Dec. 13 was declared a designated shopping day at Vermont Treasures LLC of Southern Pines. Registered shoppers were entitled to receive a 10 percent credit for store purchases as charitable donations from Vermont Treasures to NAMI-MC.
The Dunrovin housing project
The Dunrovin residential community just off U.S. 1 south of Vass includes the Dunrovin Country Store and two homes on the property to for three people apiece, said Marianne Kernan, vice-president of NAMI-MC. It is supported through the Dunrovin Community Foundation, LLC, a non-profit organization.
The residents of these homes will be have a residential and rehabilitation program to assist them, NAMI says. Each individual will have his or her own private bedroom on one of the two houses. The two homes are 1,000 and 1,500 square feet, according to NAMI. Plans are also in the works for a clubhouse, recreational areas, places to paint, play music and do other activities, Kernan said.
“I found the property last March,” Kernan said. “And I had to get the support of the Sandhills Mental Health Center, the state and the bank.”
“Our objective is to provide them places to live, job skills and social skills. They’ll have an opportunity for education. They’ll have recreational opportunities. We hope to have a music lab, a place where they can paint. Many of them are very creative.”
Residents of the Dunrovin community must be residents of Moore County or have family members who have resided in Moore County for at least 12 months. They must be at least 18 years old, have a diagnosis of mental illness, not be physically aggressive or verbally abusive and not currently abusing alcohol or illegal drugs. They must be willing to participate in a daily, structured program. There will be a professional staff of therapists around at all times, Kernan said.
Profits from the Dunrovin Country Store will help pay the mortgage on these properties, Kernan said. She says the store will open in February, and the residents are expected to move in in June 2007.
Crisis Intervention Training
Through CIT (Crisis Intervention Training), law enforcement officials should learn how to deal with situations involving mentally disturbed individuals.
“We’re hoping to bring police and the mental health center together,” Krall says. “It’s very important that the police know how to treat somebody who’s mentally unbalanced.
Under CIT, police officers voluntarily undergo 40 hours of training in mental illness and the local mental health system, NAMI says. The training is free of charge from the mental health community.
CIT has been implemented in cities such as Columbus, Ohio and Memphis, Tenn. The Memphis Police Department developed an early form of CIT in 1988. NAMI reported the following results in the years Memphis’s police officers have undergone CIT, police have made fewer arrests and use of force against mentally ill persons; patient violence and the use of restraints in the emergency room have decreased; officers are better trained and educated in verbal de-escalation techniques; there have been fewer arrests for so-called victimless crimes and it has saved the city a great deal of money.
“University of Tennessee studies have shown that the CIT program has resulted in a decrease in arrest rates for the mentally ill, an impressive rate of diversion into the health care system and a resulting low rate of mental illness in our jails,” NAMI reported.
Veterans’ issues
A program for patients suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) should hopefully be in place in 2007, Krall says. Countless military veterans of the Vietnam War, the others preceding it and now the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from it. It was formerly known as “shell shock” and “combat fatigue”.
Krall said she met quite a few ailing veterans during a gathering of the homeless in Washington, D.C.
“We were in the homeless coalition and the vets were there, wandering in the streets, living in the Salvation Army (shelter),” Krall said.
“The ones that I knew were so ill they couldn’t come unless they were bussed.”
“We have a lot of things going on in 2007,” Krall said.
“Most people don’t know about mental illness. We do.”
