North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 04/23/1996

It's Tuesday April 23rd. Tonight the sweet sounds of success in North Carolina. Now. This. Hello everyone I'm afraid I'm a try a a Tuesday evening to you. Thank you for joining us for tonight's edition of North Carolina now. Tonight we're going to take some time to stop and smell the flowers. Kenmore from the North Carolina botanical garden will be here with a beautiful collection of wild flowers. Also tonight we'll look at the booming recording industry in our state with a special focus on Sugar Hill Records. But first John Bazan travels to the triad for a report on an organization that formed a decade ago to fill a very special need. Ten years ago people with AIDS were being shunned by a fearful public. A group of people in Guilford County formed an organization to help those who had contracted HIV the

virus that causes AIDS. This year that organization noted but understandably didn't celebrate its 10th anniversary today. Try out health project has a full time staff of 20 who oversee more than 500 volunteers and its work is needed more now than ever. John Basen reports. Good afternoon. Hope you try and help the project has been helping people in Guilford County who have the AIDS virus since 1986. A lot of people just turned their back and then they want to you know put you out or fire you or you know and there's a place here where we can come to get help. And then we can direct us in a right way to do things and we need that. Trust me the organization assists its clients with medical and legal help as well as transportation food delivery and other support services. One of the greatest needs of people living with AIDS is housing because those in the later stages of the disease often find themselves without a place to live that can provide the care that they require. So triad health

project or THP has joined forces with like minded organizations in the area to meet those needs. THP hospice at Greensborough and hospice of the Piedmont are building beacon place on land donated by Cody mills. There were not very many opportunities for folks to have this kind of service and so we began to look at the options might be in place as a hospice. It's 12 beds six of those beds are for persons who might need residential hospice care and six are in patient level which is a higher level of nursing on. A sliding scale will be available to patients based on their financial needs under the auspices of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. THP and its partners are also building a twenty five unit apartment complex in nearby high point. All of this construction and the successful fundraising that made it possible is a far cry from the late 1980s when THP was struggling to establish itself in a climate of fear about the disease.

Then MacFadden THP executive director for a long time there were groups in our community who didn't want us to speak publicly he didn't want us to distribute condoms or save for sex information who didn't want us to talk about sex or sexuality or sexual orientation because of religious or moral reasons. But the disease was starting to take hold. They were just one hundred fifty five reported cases of AIDS in all of North Carolina in 1986 when THP was just beginning in 1986 there were two clients served by triad health project and. For the past three or four years we've served over 500 people per year. So that gives you an idea of where the disease itself. Has Gone. Bruce Tate he was one of 13 Greensborough residents who co-founded THP. He says even the organization's volunteers were afraid to say what they were doing in their free time. In the early days we had a lot of very dedicated people but they didn't tell their friends or their or their employer what they were doing as their volunteer work. It wasn't something you mentioned.

There was a lot of fear I mean people business people just initially did not want to be alone. John Ashmit is a former head of THP. He says early efforts to get financial support from the business community were resisted but persistence and putting a human face on the disease and made the difference to them when they said I'm not sure about whether or not I want to be involved in this. We just kept going back and would say you had to meet this person meet this woman who lost her son to be executive director Ben McFadden says two things were key in helping to change attitudes towards AIDS. One was when celebrities became associated with the disease. Then there was the sheer number of people falling victim. AIDS began to strike close to home. That's what changes the businesses mind or a school or university or a hospital. A government office or church. Is when one of their own becomes stricken with a disease then they go oh my god that can happen to me. That can happen to us. McFann says the religious community has also moved from indifference to the problem to embracing

those in need. Here in Guilford County. We started with two or three churches who were supportive in the early years. That has grown now to about 60 to 80 churches per year who work with us and form some form or fashion. In the old days when they were written the word AIDS would be like somebody had a 45 with their head and they would back up. No not me. That it be someone else. I don't want to talk about that. One of the first to step forward in the 1980s was Reverend George Brooks who brushed off criticism from inside and outside his church and challenged his congregation to rise above their fears. The question got to be he's a human being. How can I say that I'm a Christian. How can I say I love people and been discarded. This person that God has made. Now churches send food and volunteers hold fundraisers and help to spread the word of compassion for people living with AIDS. That is support from the mainstream of the community. Co-founder Bruce Tastee remembers when he knew that the cause was being accepted.

Home was when I could I can make friends across the US and say the Jay-Zs are sponsoring us now we're there and we're there. You know we've made it. It's been strange. Bruce Tate he and others at THP are relieved that the organization has gained acceptance in the mainstream community. But they know that true relief will only come years from now when AIDS has been defeated and there there's no longer a need for organizations like try at health project the triad health project also developed a program to increase community involvement and raise money called dining with friends. The idea is for supporters of the organization to hold dinner parties at their homes invited dinner guests then make a donation. Last year in Guilford County alone at dinner parties raised over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Parties are being planned in the Triangle for the Saturday night April 27 and on May 18th in Guilford County. Well coming up what's your view of spring plants and flowers survived our exceptionally cold winter. We'll find out in our interview segment. But before we get to that Mitchell Lewis is still

a bit under the weather. So Christina Copeland is filling in the North Carolina News Desk. Good evening Chris. Hi Maria. Good evening everyone. GOP candidate for governor Robin Hayes is stepping up his attacks against opponent Richard Vinroot over the issue of abortion. Hayes is distributing copies of a 1985 newspaper report of a Mecklenburg County Commissioners meeting vinyard attended the meeting to show support for county funding of Planned Parenthood. Vinroot claims he didn't know at the time that the organization performed abortions but there were dozens of abortion opponents at the meeting some of whom spoke about the 2000 abortions Planned Parenthood performed the previous year. Venerates office says he was only at the meeting for five minutes. It also accused Hayes of trying to divert attention from Hayes's support of a controversial sexual abstinence education program and his votes in the General Assembly against strengthening child safety seat laws and mandating minimum 48 hour hospital stays for childbirth in the race for U.S. Senate incumbent Jesse Helms and Democratic candidate Harvey Gantt showed some

fundraising muscle in the first quarter of this year. Records show that Helms raised nearly nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars in individual contributions while Gant raised more than nine hundred twenty thousand dollars. Democrat Charlie Sanders raised nearly $300000 and loaned his campaign another million dollars after the reporting period. Helms also leads in raising money from political action committees or PACs. In the first three months of the year Helms received more than one hundred thirty three thousand dollars in PAC money compared to $50000 for GATT and 16 and a half thousand for Sanders. Meanwhile Helms has canceled a graduation speech at Appalachian State University after students and faculty members protested his appearance. The protesters argued it was inappropriate to ask a candidate to speak during an election year. Although Harvey Gantt spoke in 1990 the year he lost to Helms the Macon County Board of Commissioners has voted to move the skeletal remains of about 90 Cherokee Indians found at a county industrial park. The Eastern Band of the Cherokee had one of the remains left

alone but officials defended their decision saying it was necessary to complete construction of the site. The remains will be re-interred elsewhere in the park beginning in May. The Cherokee leaders say they haven't ruled out possible legal action. Taking a look at tomorrow's weather it will be a picture perfect day with temperatures in the low to mid 60s evenly distributed across the entire state. Clear skies and plenty of bright sunshine should make for a beautifully mild Wednesday. In business news a new study shows that the six major tobacco growing states including North Carolina would lose hundreds of thousands of jobs if Americans stopped smoking but that the nation overall would gain jobs. The study to be published in The Journal of the American Medical Association counters claims by the tobacco industry. The researchers say they're smokers don't spend money on tobacco. They'll have more money to spend on other products boosting the economy. John Charland company says it plans to close 32 plants over the next two years including one in Greensboro. The check printing company says the steps are part of a company wide

reorganization plan. A total of 2500 employees will be laid off. And now here's a look at what happened on Wall Street today. To. You. Do. The flowers and trees around our state are in full bloom. Finally after

what seems to have been an endless winter and a particularly harsh one at that spring has finally arrived in North Carolina but what kind of lingering effect is this past winter having on this spring's flora and fauna. For answers we turn to Ken Moore he is the assistant director of the North Carolina botanical garden. Mr. Moore thanks for being here today. My pleasure. And you've brought along some beautiful some of the wild flowers the botanical garden and some of these are in the local Piedmont Woods blooming. As we sit here well we're going to talk about this in just a minute but I wanted to talk about some of the effects that the winter has had on on some of the plants and shrubs and flowers that we grow around our homes. I know that it's a little bit later than normal having these blooms arrive. How far behind our way. I think we are maybe 10 days if you wanted to try to be specific maybe 10 days late and what I at least I consider normal spring it has been an incredibly hard winter this year and I

think one of the reasons is because we had that wonderful warm spell back at the end of February and I generally think about warm spell occurrence sometime in the middle of January or a little earlier in February this year that real warm spell was a little later plants really sort of got food and rushed to. Then we had that incredible cold week and for the first time that I can remember the early daffodils just went down a couple of nights and they never came back. What does it mean for next spring are these flowers and trees now gone or are they going to come back next spring. What we need to do in your own home gardens wait until the new growth has come out from the spring and it's beginning to burst out right now. People who think they've lost their residence gardenias while those two know probably were killed to the ground but don't dig them out don't drastically prune them yet. Wait two new growth shows and the new growth however wherever it may be on the plant may be coming from the base or it may be further up the

stem. The new growth budding out by the end of the spring. We'll tell you where you want to prune your dead wood out so for the most part we haven't really lost any plant but those ornamental plants that we were really anticipating the flowers like the Yalom forsythia although Camille you know the Bradford pears we lost that this year. Sandy back next we should get them back next spring. You know it's sort of my joke at the Botanical Garden and the other folks working with me whenever the the red and the white azaleas that are beginning to bloom that's when I say oh we're about to have a hard freeze because generally one or other of those azaleas species can get nipped in the flowered almost overnight. So we we can still have some light freezes come in every year we do. It just varies. This year it was much earlier and maybe that's it. Keep your fingers crossed on what you've brought along some beautiful wild

flowers with you and I suppose these tend to be a little bit hardier than some of the plants we try to grow in our gardens. Absolutely. I am my three 30 years of working with the native plants I can really not think of any times when all of these weird freezing weathers the surprises of the lake freezes. I can't think of a time that the native plants that are wildflowers and our plants like our native flowering dogwood and the redbuds Let's take a look at some of the ones you have here of the phone flower the white ones here they are the white ones phone flower shop and that's generally found really a lot in the mountains and here in Piedmont in some of the really beautiful deciduous farms. And even out into the coastal plain. There are about 10 days late this year but they are right otherwise they had not been hurt. They're blooming. They're used to these quirks of our nature because they've been here forever and ever. So what about these purple ones or the purple one.

Well the scientific name is really quite lovely face Sayliyah the common name scorpion weed I'm not sure why that's not a nice name but it's a beautiful spring raw flower. And in certain parts of the state this just covers the fourth floor and we have this right now over there in the shady part of the Botanical Garden. And of course these two spring flowers bloom and in sync it's just it's it's the epitome of spray. Let's move this off to the side now and there's some that you have down here in this face that we're going to take a look at up when I came over I just grabbed a few of the things that sort of walked by as I was leaving the Botanical Garden. This is nice to have around you. And we have. Let's let's take a look here at these orange ones up here on the top. The wild coming Columbine. And that has been a garden plant. It's a wallflower. They play it throughout all of eastern America but you know it your grandmothers had it in their gardens some some good gardeners say it's almost a weed in their gardens that comes up in the garden has hummingbirds.

I to be that good of a gardener. This is a weed it's really like a flower. These white ones here that they look like little snowball snowballs or bottlebrush is that's kin to the witch hazel family and that's called which Alder are if you're going to the local nurseries in the local nursery here and a lot of our native plants now you want to ask for Father Giller. Father Giller. And there's also this is almost like a little Daisy that well you're absolutely right is that sort of an orange version of Daisy. It's it's called again the common name so it can sometimes be very crazy rag work because the foliage looks a little ragged. Nescio is a much prettier name I think but the scientific name. And this is a wonderful wildflower that blooming on the woodland borders and in some of the woods in the central part of the state and then there are other species of the same early Suni's so that bloom a little earlier down in the eastern part of the state a little later up in the Carolina mountains because this

this state of ours is so incredible from the coast all the way to the highest elevations and we have such a diversity of the native floor. We're so fortunate how lucky we are that we live in a state that these flowers grow naturally absolute. Mr. Moore I want to thank you so much for your time this evening and thank you for coming out. My pleasure and get out there and enjoy the states gardens and the wonderful wildflowers everywhere. OK. Well we're going to let our viewers know that there is a special time and place that you can go to enjoy all the beautiful flowers that you're seeing here. The North Carolina botanical garden will be marking a special anniversary on Friday April 26. Now special programs will be held to commemorate the 800 acre land donation that was made to USA Chapel Hill by Mary Elizabeth Morgan Mason One hundred and one years ago events are free and open to the public. But if you would like to attend call the garden at 9 1 9 9 6 2 0 5 2 2 6.

Music in North Carolina is rich with tradition. Sugar Hill Records in Durham has been a pioneer bringing a unique genre of music to a wider audience while creating a spark that helped North Carolina evolve into a successful regional music center. Tonight producer Julia Cox and reporter Maria Langberg profile Sugar Hill Records and its founder. It's not odd for somebody to be in the record business in North Carolina and we're. Very cause started Durhams Sugar Hill Records in 1978 a time when it was somewhat unusual to be in the record business in North Carolina.

It's a decision that turned out to be a successful one despite the fact that it wasn't exactly calculated. You know the rationale for a lot of business decisions sounds better in retrospect. Well I did this that led to that. The truth of the matter is and I think probably if entrepreneurs were honest with you when you do things the first go around you just do them. It wasn't necessarily a great reason. Music critic David Maconie says Sugarhill has led the way in establishing the area as a regional music center. Sugarhill is since they were the first one here and they sort of paved the way for that and there are a lot of record companies here now including mammoth and merge and things like that. But I Sugarhill been around the longest and in a lot of ways I think they've been the most successful being in North Carolina. We operate on our own. We make decisions. For internal reasons and I think we're better off for it.

Did she shine in the sky when the call. The label is also a bit different than many you're used to hearing about like MCI and Sony. It's what's called a niche label and this label is one that sort of picks out a particular style of music and kind of finds itself to that and that tends to be tightly focused in terms of its Nazz Sugarhill it's bluegrass and Singer-Songwriter type stuff. It's you can generally identify bands that sound like they ought to be on Sugarhill. That's kind of hard to put your finger on just what that is but there is kind of an aesthetic at work in there. When we refer to ourselves as roots music label so

we would know we we haven't done all kinds of roots. Musics and there are lots to be done. But I you know there's a certain size. Comfort factor that I like and I want to make sure that we're able to name them all. Sixty miles to seven. In the Valley. What in the world repertoire in terms of handling its artists. Sugar Hill's approach is also somewhat unique. Major labels basically need the overnight mega hits for survival. And while Paul says that's great if it happens it's not his label's ultimate goal. We do have our version of his stock of course for us large sales come at the beginning as well but we try to stretch out the sales over a much longer period of time and this way an artist can have a career

somewhere in between. You know the very bottom in the very top the old and in the way which was a a side project with Jerry Garcia who was a huge bluegrass fan is a perfect example. There is no reason why it would sell you know any less. The fifth year that it did the first year it's just a perennial favorite. Doc Watson fits in that category as well. Doc Watson is the legendary singer musician from Deep Gap North Carolina. His collaboration with Sugar Hill has been one of the greatest joys of posse's career. One day the telephone rang and it was Doc Watson. He said I can still hear of the sun. I like the records you put out. I think I want to do a record with you. And that meant more than anything. First of all it was homegrown you know and being validated I mean here here's an artist who is really revered

around the world and every spring since a few years after Doc's musician son Merle died in an accident in 1985. Music lovers and other musicians including many from Sugarhill converge on Wilkesboro for the Merle Watson memorial festival or simply moral fest. One of these maunna. You got it wrong. It's. Going to spread. I want you to dig the real Watson. Festival first started. It was quite small and it was clearly you know people were coming for Doc to pay tribute to tomorrow. At this point people still come for those same reasons. But the festival itself is is very significant in the music business for postes the

awards. And there have been many are important but it's the music and the listener's appreciation for it that makes all the long hours and hard work worth it. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder you know and just thank you for the music that you produce. And it was very powerful for you know somebody I have no idea who they were you know and they would see again. But it was like yeah that's why we do this with the. Lovely. Lovely. You old Merle Watson memorial Festival kicks off a Thursday evening and runs through Sunday. The Wilkes community college campus in Wilkesboro. And if you would like more information you can call 1 800 3 4 3 7 8 5 7. That wraps up tonight's edition of North Carolina now. Hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow the first ever statewide summit on domestic violence will get underway. So on tomorrow's program Shannon Berger will explore the problem of domestic violence through the eyes

of those who know it best. And if you're having trouble growing grass in your yard then you'll want to tune in tomorrow. We'll feature a research project that might help. Have a great evening everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. Good night. To. You.