Rockingham, NC 50centsFriday, March 18, 2011

INSIDE NEWS, 6B

Officials say Japan disaster won’t hurt US

INSIDE OPINION, 4A

Time for serious leaders

WEATHERMainly sunny. Very warm. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.HIGH: 84LOW: 54

INSIDE SPORTS, 1B

Frazer moves up, brings home top prize100% recycled

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DeathsEloise Gould, 76, Brooklyn, N.Y.James Neeley, 57, Rockingham

Virginia Sellers, 86, RockinghamObituaries can be found on Page 5A.

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Vol. 80, No. 55

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COMMISSIONERSCONTINUED ON PAGE 5A

BEARCONTINUED ON PAGE 3A

STORIESCONTINUED ON PAGE 3A

BUGSCONTINUED ON PAGE 5A

MCKINNEYCONTINUED ON PAGE 3A

Black bear spotted in countySightings rare for Piedmont regionDawn M. KurryRichmond County Daily Journal

Bears are common in the mountains and coastal regions of North Carolina but rarely live in the heavily-pop-ulated Piedmont.

Wildlife enthusiast and tur-key hunter Kent Gillis collect-ed evidence of a black bear in the Roberdel area.

“I run deer cameras all the time,” Gillis said. One of his cameras captured images of a black bear at night using an infrared camera that takes black and white images.

“I got home and was going through (the pictures) and I saw that big bear,” he said.

Perhaps you have heard about a bear sighting in the county. Biologist Jonathan Shaw believes there may be one or two male black bears that have claimed Richmond County and maybe some of Moore County as home.

“We don’t have a breeding population,” Shaw said. “We do see young males passing through. They are pushed out of their home range this time of year. Since 2009 I’ve had reports and good evidence that there may be a resident bear, there may be a couple, but no female.”

Shaw said it is unlikely in the near future for a female to come through the area for the males to breed with.

“Males go through the dis-persal process,” explained Shaw. “This is true for mam-mals. The males leave the area.”

Folks may remember hearing about a bear shot in Hamlet in the summer of 2009. The year before that, a bear was killed by a vehicle on Highway 74 near Highway U.S. 1.

If you dabble in the hunt-ing community, you may hear about the bear that has

Kelli EasterlingRichmond County Daily Journal

The nationwide epidemic these little creepy crawlies are causing is finally mak-ing its way into this county. Hotels are on the lookout and exterminators have seen the numbers of reports ris-ing.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and have never had to deal with this prob-lem until about a year ago,” said Mike Little, owner of Canady’s Termite and Pest Control, in Rockingham.

“Just in the last six months I’ve treated around six homes, two apartment com-plexes and two dozen hotel rooms,” said Little. And the numbers just keep rising.

Why have they been sweeping the nation again, after so many years of being practically eradicated? In an interview with Forbes magazine, Michael Potter, Ph.D., an entomologist at the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture, said he believes the explana-tion lies in a perfect storm of increased international travel, greater movement of people in general and chang-es in pest control practices, including the use of bug pes-ticides that are less effective than DDT, for example.

Potter added in his inter-view that there has also been a “total loss of awareness and lack of vigilance, peo-ple in the old days knew to check their hotel beds, their clothing when it was back from the laundry and what their kids brought home from camp. We opened the door and allowed them to come roaring back.”

Bed bugs have often been associated with lower socio-economic situations - they were thought of as a pest that only bothered poor, dirty people.

Today’s bed bugs defi-nitely do not discriminate based on income, and are being found in the swankiest hotels, movie theaters, cor-porate offices, cruise ships and dorm rooms.

“We have a contracted pest control agent who does monthly inspections,” said America’s Best Value Inn Manager Jyoti Patel. “Thank

Photo of an immature bed bug, courtesy of www.bedbugger.com.

CONTRIBUTED

Ed "Moose" Duke is a professional liar and storyteller. He and Bolton are good friends and often travel together and perform at many of the same events.

CONTRIBUTED

J.A. Bolton lives in Rockingham and is a profes-sional storyteller.

Dawn M. KurryRichmond County Daily Journal

A laugh lasts for a few sec-onds. A good memory may last forever. This is the motto of Ed “Moose” Duke.

Duke and J.A. Bolton are local storytellers, and good friends.

“I met J.A. over a year ago at the Boldfaced Liars Showdown in Laurinburg,” Duke said. “He’s my closest male friend. He’s down to earth, a good ole’ country man.”

“Moose is a good friend of mine,” Bolton said. “We have really progressed in the story-telling industry, if you can call it that.”

Bolton writes his stories down by hand to learn them. Both Bolton and Duke tell stories from their lives, some good, some funny, sad, but very

much real.“I tell what has happened to

me,” explained Bolton. “People can relate to that.”

Many festivals and fairs include storytelling perfor-mances, and some events exist solely for the storytellers to compete against each other. The audiences can range from small children to youth to adults to seniors, and the sto-rytellers must prepare for each.

“I won’t do adult club com-edy,” Bolton said. “Storytelling has a family atmosphere.”

Each storyteller has a style and preferences. Bolton feels he is still new to this hobby and finds the most difficult audi-ence to be small children.

“With children you’ve got to express yourself more, be more

Philip D. BrownRichmond County Daily Journal

County commissioners will travel to Huntersville next Wednesday to get a better handle on what the county’s next tourist attraction might look like.

Commissioners will visit the Huntersville [Discovery Place KIDS] facility in advance of a sim-ilar attraction being built

in Rockingham, where the city has worked to make the project a reality for some time. The city also plans to seek funding from the county to bring the tourist attraction to town.

Chairman Kenneth Robinette said he’s previ-ously visited the facility, but looks forward to other commissioners getting an eyeful of just what is being proposed for the county.

“I just want to give all the commissioners a chance to actually see what

the facility looks like, espe-cially since they’re going to be asked to support it,”

Robinette said Thursday. “I look forward to them being able to see the kids there, and the activities they have for them and the educational aspects of it, and also what impact it has had on Huntersville and its downtown area.”

Discovery Place KIDS opened in Huntersville in October, and has already drawn thousands to the downtown area there.

A month before its open-ing, Discovery Place and the City of Rockingham announced a similar facil-ity would be built in down-town Rockingham.

“Having something of this stature in Richmond County would be huge, not only for Rockingham and Hamlet but for the

Philip D. BrownRichmond County Daily Journal

U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell once again called Thursday for McKinney Lake Fish Hatchery to be handed over to the state.

Kissell introduced H.R. 1160, calling for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to take possession of the fish hatchery from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and U.S. Sen.

Kay Hagan are expected to fol-low suit in the upper house of Congress.

The warm-water hatchery, located near Hoffman, provides catfish used to stock lakes across the state as part of the Community Fishing Program of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

“This hatchery is such an

CONTRIBUTED

U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell meets with McKinney Lake Fish Hatcher Superintendent Rick Bradford last year. Thursday, Kissell once again introduced legislation calling for the Hoffman facility to be taken from federal control and given to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

Bed bugs creeping into town

Commissioners to visit Discovery Place KIDS

Liars, laughs and the art of storytelling

Kissell stays course on McKinney Lake

“I just want to give all the commis-sioners a chance to actually see what the facility looks like, especially since they’re going to be asked to support it.”

Kenneth RobinetteChairman