For residents of Greenwood Homes, Scotty Hills, Forest Hills and Eutaw Heights near Cain Road, apparently their efforts to fight a halfway house for federal inmates in transition from incarceration is becoming an unwelcome reality, with grading of the landscape and slaying the old trees for the arrival of Dismas Charities that will back right up to homes along Shamrock Drive in the Scotty Hills neighborhoods and an apartment complex. “We haven’t given up our fight, but we realize that there is nothing we can do to stop the construction,” says George Turner, who is among many including Rafael Rivera and Bobby Grantham who have fought to keep Dismas Charities from encroaching on their neighborhoods. And I stand with them. Still, with the grading equipment evident, the train may have left the station
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Memorial Day to honor and remember military veterans is just four months away, and Don Talbot is looking for someone or an organization to take over the annual ceremony at Freedom Memorial Park. “I would hate to see it fall to the wayside here when we have so much talent available in the community,” says Talbot, the 82-year-old Vietnam War veteran who has organized and directed the event from 1998 to 2022. “This is not about me; it is about duty, honor, country and community.” With all of our military connections to Fort Bragg, seems like someone or some organization could be found. Truth is, no one does the Memorial Day ceremony better than Don Talbot.
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Some good news for the 41st annual Fayetteville Dogwood Festival scheduled for April 28-30 as the nonprofit organization has received $25,000 for marketing expenses from the Cumberland County Tourism Development Authority. “We are very excited to announce this year’s national headliners, returning traditions, anchored attractions and other special features of the festival,” Sarahgrace Snipes Mitchell, executive director of the festival, says in a news release. This year’s festival will be previewed on Feb. 15 at the Aevex Veterans Club at Segra Stadium.
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“Thank you for such a wonderful article,” Nancy Boyette Miller writes in an email about our Jan. 30 column about the 50th anniversary of the first class to graduate from Fayetteville Academy. “We had an incredible time this weekend. On my way into town, I realized my father, if still alive, would be 100 next month and he would be so thankful to see how the academy has continued. Thank you, again, for your spotlight on this school.” Yes, Mrs. Miller, we can only imagine John Boyette’s pride in the private school on Cliffdale Road.
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Mary Sutton says that being a teacher in 1970 when Fayetteville Academy opened is a memory to cherish. “It was a time in my life that was perfect,” Sutton says about our Jan. 28 column on the first graduation Class of 1973. “The timing was perfect when Joe Lassiter gave me that telephone call,” she says about the private school’s first headmaster. “I loved teaching there. I met so many wonderful people, and the list goes on and on.” Sutton was hired to teach fourth-grade students and did not teach the first graduates, but Sutton says the class went on to much success in life. Sutton also was the cheerleader adviser and taught at the academy for 15 years.
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“Mr. Kirby, the play was a great success,” Berthenia Lindo writes in an email about our Jan. 27 CityView digital column on “A Glimpse Into Evans,” the play she wrote and directed about the Rev. Henry Evans, who founded Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church in 1801. “Because of your amazing article, I had many phone calls. One call came from Pastor David Woodhouse, the pastor of Hay Street United Methodist Church. He was so kind as to grace us with his presence” at the play staged Jan. 28 at the John D. Fuller Complex on Old Bunce Road. “I truly believe he enjoyed his front-row seat. There were only a few seats left in the building, and most of them were paid for. I cannot thank you enough. I will be following your stories from now on. God bless you.” Thank you, Mrs. Lindo, and all of us at CityView Media delight in telling the great stories of this community. And the historic downtown Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church on North Cool Spring Street is one of those stories.
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“I spend quite a bit of time around the old church picking up litter in the FILI. park and behind the church up to the bridge over the Cross Creek on the Linear Park Trail,” Chuck Smith writes in an email about our column about Evans Metropolitan AME Zion Church. “Homeless call me the ‘Tie-Dye Litter Guy.’ They even help me sometimes for some coin. Wondering if Annette Billie, in her research, found any Evans members who fought for the Confederacy.” If anyone would know, Mr. Smith, it would be Annette Billie, the retired Fayetteville State University mathematics professor who wrote a book in 2006 about the definitive history of the church.
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“I want to take a brief moment and give you my personal thanks, as well as on behalf of the Massey Hill Lions Club, for having Bill Kirby do the article in CityView regarding the 50th anniversary Oyster Roast event,” Michael McCaskill writes in an email about our Jan. 25 column on the oyster roast held Saturday at the Massey Hill Lions Club on Camden Road. “He captured the essence of the event perfectly and provided some deserved recognition to the many men who laid the foundation of the club and those who now continue their work in the community to sustain this annual event. Well done to those at CityView who made this article possible and for continuing to make the local community keenly aware that there are still good people and many great things happening in Fayetteville.”
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“Mr. Kirby, I would like to thank you from me and our family in reference to your excellent and comprehensive article on the annual Massey Hill oyster roast sponsored by the Massey Hill Lions Club,” John D. Barbour III of Richmond, Virginia, writes in an email. “It was very thoughtful of you to mention the original charter members, with one name in particular, and that being J.D. Barbour. J.D. Barbour was my dad, and speaking on behalf of my siblings, Judith Kirchmam and Rick Barbour, your article made us feel very proud and sad as well. Our dad died in 1975 of lung cancer. Mr. Kirby, thank you again and to CityView for publishing this article and bringing joy to us and knowing that our dad was a proud man who surely enjoyed serving Fayetteville and his community through the Massey Hill Lions Club and beyond.”
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“Thanks for your touching article about Bob Carter,” Jennifer Hammond of our own CityView writes in an email about our Jan. 18 column on the late chaplain at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center from 1971 to 2003. “Were you the one that wrote the column about my aunt Brenda a couple days after she died? I was 13 and cut the article out and kept it tucked in the drawer in my nightstand so I could read it when I missed her. It’s still at my parents’ house. When I heard Chaplain Carter passed away, I had the most beautiful vision of her waiting for him by the pearly gates, arms wide open.” Yes, I did write about Brenda Carter McFadyen’s passing at age 31 in 1998. Now she and her father are together, again. Robert Glenn Carter died at age 86 on Jan. 14.
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“Hi, Bill Your column about the new hospital was so very good that I just had to reach out and congratulate you on an article well done,” Faison Shaw Covington of the McLean Foundation writes in an email about our Jan. 15 column on the $33 million Center for Medical Education & Neuroscience Institute at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center. “It captures the whole impact of this occasion. Thank you. And, yay to Fayetteville!”
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“Bill, the reason for this email is to tell you how much I have always enjoyed your columns in The Fayetteville Observer and now in the daily CityView updates I get online,” former Fayetteville resident Larry Rose writes in an email. “You have an unexplainable way to tell a story. As we all get older, you have kept so many people connected in the way you capture a person’s life after they are gone. I can’t remember all of them, but a few come to mind — Leonard Black, Mike Uzzell, Jesse Byrd, Joy Cogswell, Bo Thorpe, Todd Lecka, John Rose, and, most recently, Bonnie Bell. There are so many more, but I hope you get my point.” They were people who made a difference in this community and beyond, Mr. Rose, and all of us are the better because they passed our way. As for telling a story, all the credit to my late mother and Wilt Browning, the former columnist for the Greensboro Daily News, who was the finest columnist I ever knew, and I stand on Wilt Browning’s journalism shoulders. And my mother’s shoulders most of all.
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Let’s hope Punxsutawney Phil doesn’t see his shadow Thursday on Groundhog Day for the sake of an early spring.
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Fayetteville Justice for Our Neighbors, a nonprofit organization, has received a $12,000 grant from the Arts Council of Fayetteville-Cumberland County for “Tour Around the World: Exploring Immigrant Experiences Through Art,” scheduled for May. “Although there have been powerful cultural events in Cumberland County in the past, this program is different in that it seeks to not only display the richness of cultures that surround us but also educate, empower and mobilize members of the community to embrace cultural inclusivity,” Brandy A. McPherson says in a news release. The event, featuring musical, visual and literary expressions, focuses on the impact of Cumberland County’s immigrant population.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
