North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 12/01/1997

The It's Monday December 1st. Tonight yelling into a treasure trove of Torvill history in North Carolina nails. Good evening everyone and thanks for starting a new month with us here at North Carolina now. Tonight we take a look at two institutions working to preserve Tarheel history and culture. We'll take a trip to Harker's island to preview a festival that's helped to transform the tradition of duck

production into a true art form. Plus Anya Williams will take us on a tour of the Wilson library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The library is a depository for millions of books maps and pictures detailing North Carolina life. But we begin tonight with a look at some new state laws affecting all North Carolinians. December 1st marks the date when many laws passed by the general somebody last summer go into effect including in this new batch of laws as North Carolina's graduated driver's license law which lengthens the process for getting a driver's license. Also anyone under the age of 18 who buys cigarettes and store clerks who sell cigarettes to minors will now face a tougher misdemeanor charge and another new state law makes it possible for someone to get a protective force training order for domestic violence even if the couple in question don't live together. But some of the toughest new laws going onto the books today deal with drunk driving. Here to tell us more about the new DWI laws or Tonight's guest Lieutenant Governor

Dennis Wicker and Joe Parker the director of the Governor's Highway Safety Program. Thanks to you both for joining us tonight. Thank you. Governor if I could begin. How are these laws tougher when it comes to drunk driving than the laws that we have previously had here in North Carolina. Well this law for the first time is going to focus on the repeat offender which has been a problem driver on our highways for many years. For the first time we're going to say to the repeat offender if you want to get behind the wheel in an impaired state we're going to seize your car. We're going take your car on the spot. We're going to put you in prison for a long time. And while you're there we're going to get you some help through treatment and counseling so you won't get out and go back to your old habits and go back to your old buddies and and get behind the wheel again an impaired state so it's much tougher than we've seen before and I think it's going to make North Carolina drunk driving some of the toughest in the nation. Let's go through some of the specifics of this law to give some folks some information of what we're talking about here Governor you mentioned to begin with that the state will now be able to seize the vehicle

of habitual drug drivers why is that important. Well in many instances we see repeat offenders drive with a revoked license and they don't own a car. So you know they use a car buy a car gain access to a car. We're going tell car owners that they can they can loan their cars to who they want to. And we're going tell repeat offenders that you can get behind the wheel of your own car if you want to but if you do and you have a revoked license and get caught We're going take your car and we think this is going to send a very strong and clear signal to car owners that they better know who's behind the wheel and whether or not they are responsible driver. Mr. Parker another thing that this law does is that it increases the number of days that a license is revoked from 10 days to 30 days. Why is this significant. It triples it from 10 to 30 as you say sometimes. Currently that's administrative revocation. It it hardly gets 0 in the computer system before the 10 days are up if it happens to be on a Friday night patrol

trooper didn't get it back to the office on Monday morning and the secretary is on vacation. So sometimes they slip through the net that way that we don't get them but 30 days that's a meaningful revocation. Governor one of the aspects of this law that a lot of people are applauding is that they feel that it perhaps may help with under-age drivers who drink and then go out on the road systems. Why is it important to target these drunk drivers. Well these are your your drivers that have the indiscretion of youth. They are as mature. And they are going to have errors in judgment. More likely as a young person this belief sends that signal again to young drivers hey look you you need to be responsible when you're behind the wheel. We're going to be tough Only if you are not. And hopefully that will make an impression upon them to be safe. Use designated drivers don't do things that could cause a consequence of a

death or maiming on our highways. And we believe this will save lives ultimately on our public roads in North Carolina. Mr. Parker is it significant that this particular law is taking effect on December 1st a time when we're kicking off the holidays and people might be thinking more about going out socializing and then perhaps getting behind the wheel of a car. It is a good time for it to begin. As we come into this major holiday season it's also Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Drug and drug driving emphasis mark and we try to put a lot of that into the public mind during the summer when you have so many holidays. So it's a good time for it to began. We won't see dramatic effect during the month of December what we will see some reduction I'm sure but cumulatively these new laws will help us a great deal with the impaired drivers on the ways. I really think one of the keys is is launching it. Of course

you have to have a starting time and as Parker said this is a good time to do that with the holiday season but I think a real key to notching down the number of alcohol related deaths and namings on our highways is to make the public aware of how tough this law is 365 days a year. And we're going try to do that through the Highway Safety folks that heads our highway patrol public service announcements that will be playing. We think that if the public is really aware of the consequences and the seriousness of of drunk driving that this will keep down the number of those deaths and names that do occur on our Public Highways. Finally a question for both of these starting with you Governor is this enough or do we need to do more to pay closer attention to drunk driving in North Carolina. Oh I've said many times this is the beginning not the end of what we need to do to keep drunk driving at an absolute minimum in this state. We can do more we need to continue to focus upon our young drivers and we can do some things there and some other ideas that I think

will be coming forward to help impress upon them not to get behind the wheel in an impaired state. We need to look at drugs and alcohol in this new law a tax that problem as well but we can do more in technology. And I think we can do a lot more in treatment in counseling this preventive than proactive before the death occurs before the maiming of course. These are the things that I think we need to focus on in the future to keep those drunk drivers off our highways. Our legislature with the governor's leadership and with lieutenant governor's leadership have given us some great tools to work within these new laws. Our law enforcement across the state through our Bouzid lose it program is. The best in the country there's a lot of attention being placed to it. We're putting a lot of emphasis on getting the impaired drivers off. We've got to bring the judiciary into the mix and we're planning a conference along with Mothers Against Drunk Driving to bring judiciary up to speed with the other two branches of government.

I want to thank you both for joining us tonight and sharing this information that's so important for all North Carolinians. Thank you for having us. If you'd like more information on North Carolina's new DWI laws you can call the Governor's Highway Safety Program at 9 1 9 7 3 3 3 0 8 3. Well let's say that you were interested in finding out how many laws like the ones going into effect today have been passed by the General Assembly. Where would you go to find that information. Well inside Wilson library on the campus of u NC Chapel Hill lies to incredible collections about the history of our state. In part one of a two part series. Son William shows us the North Carolina collection. The North Carolina collection began in 1844 when then university president and former Governor David Swain became concerned that North Carolinians were not sufficiently knowledgeable of the state's past and its culture. The project started with just a few books about our state and it's grown into a three part collection.

We have more than a quarter million published items related to North Carolina either by Cantet or by authorship. We have 15 excuse me we have almost a half million photographic images and then we have about 15000 items that you normally associate with a musical. The goal is to acquire as much information about North Carolina as possible. Library officials try to get a copy of every book related to the state with the exception of technical manuals and medical works. The publications collections help researchers and writers with their own work in the publications collection where people do their research. We have materials from histories of North Carolina counties or communities to a religious and church histories to creative writing by North Carolinians either set in North Carolina or by North Carolina authors. We have had 25000 reels of microfilm primarily but not exclusively newspapers. The state documents

collection. About fifty five hundred maps. So that's a real broad collection of all related in about content authorship and author on the collection features many authors who reached national and international fame in some instances their life stories and their works reflect benchmarks in history like the poetry of George Moses Horton Horton was a Chatham County slave who taught himself to read and write. He later became the first Southern black to have a book published. Horton spent many hours on the campus of u and C Chapel Hill selling love poems to students to raise money to buy his freedom in 1845. I asked Governor Swain president Swain and several faculty members decided that to help Horton buy his freedom they would subscribe to a book that additional poetry that he would publish. The book was published in Hillsborough.

It apparently did not sell well enough for him to to buy his freedom so he remained a slave until the end of the of the Civil War after the Civil War researchers say Horton followed union troops back to Philadelphia and after some correspondence with university officials was never heard from again. And while he lost touch with North Carolina the impact of his work still lingers. These and other rare pieces in the collection show the richness and diversity of our state's history including the oldest Bible brought to the state by the second permanent English settlers. And the confederate textbooks used in public schools. We have a small but important collection of Confederate textbooks published in Greensboro and Raleigh. The idea was that the textbooks that school kids were at the beginning of the war being assigned to read had northern influences in emphasizing New England history too much. And so there was an organized effort in many of the Confederate States to publish textbooks and Sterling Albright foreign and Greensboro published a

number of the photography section is just as diverse as the publications collection. It features some prominent political and social figures. But many of the images are of ordinary folks. Here are some of the pictures of one of America's first female photographers Mary Wooten of new birth. Historians believe the images show the commitment to preserving a visual record of common people. Photographs have come to the library in a number of different ways over the years. Sometimes they come with gifts of personal papers and those were transferred to us at other times they have been given by someone who knew we were trying to collect photographs. I wanted to do something with a collection that that person had built over the years. Another accumulation over the years is the collection gallery. It's filled with over 15000 artifacts from a display case explaining how North Carolina was the leading gold producing state in the country before the California gold rush to the galleries period room.

Stepping inside one of the pyramid rooms is like stepping back in time. Inside this early Karolina room for example our furnishings from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Library official say everything found in the room is either an original or an accurate reproduction of things found during this time period. That even includes the paneling on the walls the paneling for the car and was from the Nixon TN area. Elizabeth City general area is from the approximately 17 40s. It was from a Quaker style customs house that was along the water and when ships would come in with produce and other goods for trade they would have to stop and declare what they were bringing into the colony. And it represents kind of a middle class middle economic class from that time period other period rooms paid tribute to the early exploration period and the man who sponsored the voyages of Sir Walter Raleigh another particularly unique treasure is a reproduction of the early 19th century library at the Hayes

plantation. And even to its contents are we were pleased that several scholars now that we have these books available are just fascinated with the contents of it because you get a good impression of what the Johnston family and their their kin were reading they were some of the most politically prominent people in North Carolina. But whether politically prominent or an ordinary North Carolinian there is something of interest for everyone at the North Carolina collection. So far they have the largest and most extensive collection related to any state in the country. We have been collecting a very long time and we've been collecting comprehensibly So we go. We go back to the beginning of printing in the state and we come up to the present and then we try to collect as broadly as we can just what I was saying about this subject area in that subject area. We have sometimes been described as the conscience of the state. We are with preserving the materials that help us know who we are. Unless those

materials are preserved and not only preserved but made accessible to the public then we lose that historical awareness that support for any any people to to know who they are and where they have been so that they can better plan whether the way they want to go in and look at where they currently are. Wilson library is open to the public seven days a week. Tomorrow night sun you will give us a tour of the library southern historical collection is a collection that documents both the joys and sorrows of Southern Living. Well coming up how the production of the duck decoys has turned into a true art form. But first let's check in with Michel Louis for a summary of today's statewide news. Hi Mitch. Hello Shannon. Good evening everyone. Topping our news a new state. A new set of state and federal guidelines are threatening the closure of dozens of landfills across the state. The new rules require the installation of synthetic liners to prevent contaminants from seeping into the ground. The requirement takes effect on January 1st and is expected to force 39 city and county landfills to shut down a number of counties in the southern Piedmont including Gaston

Catawba and Caldwell counties are rushing to complete new landfills by early 1998 while several others are searching for temporary garbage disposal sites. North Carolina tobacco farmers are bracing for news of a reduction in Federal Crop quotas for next year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is scheduled to announce its annual quota and price support figures in two weeks. The figures will tell tobacco farmers how much of the crop they will be allowed to raise and 98 observers predict that the proposed tobacco settlement combined with a large volume of surplus leaf could result in a 20 percent cut for North Carolina farmers a 20 percent cut could translate into an end come drop of 200 million dollars or more for the state's tobacco farmers. Today's release of the state's 1997 child health report card shows an overall minor improvement. The state was bumped up to a grade of C plus Last year North Carolina posted a C minus this year's grade was pulled up by a reduction in teen pregnancies and an increase in nutrition by teenagers but was held low by an increase in the

use of cigarettes and marijuana among high school students. The state was also graded down for an increase in the number of youthful homicides. New cases of AIDS and tuberculosis and cases of child abuse and neglect. North Carolina's plan for developing a low level radioactive dump site has once again run out of money. The state's low level radioactive waste management authority had petitioned the southeast compact commission for more time to come up with a funding plan. The commission today turned down North Carolina's request for an extension saying the state must resolve a projected funding shortfall before they send the state any more money without continued funding the state will have to put off the dumpsite project or seek money from some other source. New Hanover County has volunteered to experiment with replacing the state's Work First program with its own reforms. Already the county has reduced its cash assistance welfare rolls by 43 percent. New Hanover is one of 26 counties moving to revamp local welfare programs next summer the General Assembly will select a group of counties to participate in a two year pilot program. Those counties will

be able to write their own eligibility rules and have the authority to change the amount of cash assistance issued per family. And now for a look at what happened on Wall Street today. When there is a festival that celebrates part of our coastal heritage the carving of hunting

decoys. David Holt host of Folkways reports on this traditional craft and how it has evolved into a whole new industry. Early 20th century many families along the North Carolina coast made their living hunting water for the birds within shooting range. The hunters use decoys usually hunters conceal themselves among a large group of decoys in an open area where birds could easily fly the honey of water evolved into a sport they gave a big boost to the coastal economy just sprang up along the coast to handle the influx of Northerners coming to hunt including such well-known places as Franklin Roosevelt and Babe Ruth. Coastal families supplemented their income by becoming large caretakers and hunting guides. Many

guides also became expert at carving their own decoys. The flocks of birds and hunters have largely gone now but duck decoys have made a transition from just a tool of the trade to the ranks of folk art for collectors. And there's no better evidence of that than this event and duck decoys Festival on Harper's Island. The carvers formed the core sound decoyed carvers guild can help expand the market for the carving and to do that they started the course sound decoyed festival held the first weekend of December. Ten years ago people who wanted to Coase when other areas in the Eastern Shore Maryland and since the festival here has started we have become a declared destination. Most of the carvings here are aimed at buyers who want a decorative item for their shelf or a mantle altogether. The festival has achieved its purpose of creating a thriving market

for hundreds of carvers. In 1998 the festival was first in Beijing it was planned to be a place to buy. You feel that way about what is happening. It has become educational experience time experience and they're learning. But take away the market for do always run from industry. Folks start lining up early in the morning long before the doors open so they can get the first pick of the carvings over the weekend. As many as 12000 people will crowd into the local school which houses the event first place in division. Great thanks. Got a good bit of Gander part of our normally free she did not know if you know

at the float competition judges award points for how well a decor floats how it writes itself in the water and how realistic it looks obvious that right at the center on the right on the right. To write a letter there is still a great interest in the authentic working decoys. They range in price from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars. The work of some carvers might bring more than that. Ladies and gentlemen I have no better $5000 $5000 now if I have fifty five hundred fifty five hundred announcing $6000 and I asked out of the auction as a lively of men were collectors hope to pick up a bargain $6000 now six thousand six thousand yes it's 6000 there sixty five hundred sixty five. Yes it's an exit ramp and I was now standing 500 back saying if I want to

you know OK yes I think if I want to now fix and if I wanted all of it send if I wanted all of it we got the RAM running Paul dowager. These birds have been bought by the festival from all over the country and are auction to the highest bidder collector's hope to pick up a bargain and the proceeds go to the benefit of the decor museum by room and fire warning. Does anyone want a n x Sandy $500 on my left and down fraud it is so limited and they are all $75 Thank you God. The museum also helped sponsor the decoys festival in just a few years the festival has become a tradition in its own right. You can buy just about anything you can imagine to do with waterfowl. You can learn to sound like a duck. They're calling contests. And even retriever

demonstration. So the core sound festival includes something for everyone. If you would like to go to the decor festival it's coming up this Saturday and Sunday December 6 and 7 on Harper's Island. For more information call the Course and waterfowl museum at 9 1

9 7 2 8 1 5 0 0. Finally tonight December 1st is World AIDS Day and in recognition of the many North Carolinians who have died from AIDS Glaxo Wellcome in the Research Triangle Park is displaying ninety six panels from the AIDS memorial quilt each of these panels commemorates the wife of a North Carolinian who has died from AIDS. Good night everyone.