North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 07/28/1994

Tonight we'll go to Charlotte for a trip to the men's museum. Good

evening everyone I'm Mary Lou Hart chart. Audrey Kates family continues to enjoy some vacation time answering back a little later next week. For now though we've got a wonderful So once again tonight we'll take you down to the Mint Museum in Charlotte and the reporter on that story is Mitchell Lewis who is celebrating a birthday today. And also we'll continue our series on the Appalachian Trail and just a reminder once again get your pen and paper ready because we'll give you an address to take down later on to see how you can get this full color brochure on the Appalachian Trail. Also tonight our newsmaker interview is with a very interesting man named burger czar who's going to talk about the Big Brother Big Sister program in for side County. For now though we continue our series on the Appalachian Trail. The Southern Appalachian Mountains are known worldwide not only for their vistas but for the variety of forest growth and flowering shrubs to be found there. In his continuing series on the Appalachian Trail Bob Gardner looks tonight at the rich natural beauty to be discovered by hikers passing through North Carolina.

Nowhere on the entire Appalachian Trail is there more diversity than along the roughly 300 miles of the trail in North Carolina. Actually the North Carolina Tennessee border since the trail follows the state line for much of the distance between Georgia and Virginia. For example the highest point on the entire Appalachian Trail is sixty six hundred foot Klingon's dome in the Great Smokies near North Carolina's southern end of the trail with elevation changes of up to 4000 feet. The Smokies also have incredible plant diversity. More species of trees in fact than all of Europe. Almost like a layer cake. And the top layer is where we are now at 6000 feet. And you would expect that there will be plants that would grow and grow and thrive here that will not grow or thrive at the lower elevations in the park. This is really a Canadian farthest thousand miles north of here you find a person firm like this not exactly the same species but in the lowlands where it gets warmer you get into a deciduous farce hoax maypoles be much starch

that type of thing just north of the Smokies is one example of the bald so open treatise mountaintops that are characteristic of the Southern Appalachians. Some are natural others created by man. The summit of Max Patch mountain is a 230 acres grassy meadow that was reportedly hand cleared of timber by a man named Max in late spring and early summer. A hiker can find himself in need deep in wildflowers. As the trail moves northward along the North Carolina Tennessee border the molds become more. These are thought to be entirely natural although no one can explain how they got that way in recent years some clearing has been done to keep the bulbs in their long time open condition. Nobody really knows how the open areas got here but the

man intervenes. The blackberries will move in and take them over. So they hire crews to come out and cut the blackberries during the summer. Larger spruce and fir trees at North Carolina's highest elevations are under attack from what is thought to be a combination of insects and industrial air pollution. Scientists are arguing about the role will be each on the Appalachian Trail passes through a spruce fir forest that's in better shape than most and it's probably the best remaining spruce fir forest in the south. This is the top of Roan Mountain and you can see this first fire forest is there that's in North Carolina. Mitchell Richlands balsamic lemons down. As elsewhere along rare flowers and plants abound of

the most diverse diverse areas in the world and plants accessible by car and Appalachian Trail hikers often run into crowds of visitors who have come to see the mountains famous rhododendron way for ordinary folks to get a taste of what hikers for weeks at a time. Well tomorrow night we'll visit with some people whose love for the Appalachian Trail motivates them to spend many hours of their own time keeping it in shape. Now if you would like a full color

brochure like this one published by The National Parks Department please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to North Carolina now P.O. Box 1 4 9 0 0 0 RTP NC 2 7 7 0 9 dash forty nine hundred. Now to the oldest art museum in the state. It's the Mint Museum in Charlotte. It's a Lewis takes us on a brief tour. When people visit Charlotte's Mint Museum they usually ask two questions why is it called the mint and how did it become a museum. Well let's find out. And most museums the history begins inside. But with this museum it really begins outside in 1799 gold was discovered in Cabarrus County the first major gold strike in the country. And there was so much gold produced that in 1935 Congress passed a bill which pay which bills in Charlotte the first major expansion of the federal mandate. It was a man from 1838 until 1861. In that period it produced over five million dollars worth of gold coins from the gold that was that was being mined in

this area. And 1861 it was closed down by the Confederate government as you can probably imagine from 1861 until the 1930s it functioned in a number of different capacities it was a hospital it was an assay office in 1932. It was what most old buildings often are in the way of expansion. Mrs. Delany who is a supporter of what was to become the main Museum of Art purchased the building had it taken apart stone by stone moved to this location in Eastover park and rebuilt it for a total cost of nine hundred sixty dollars. In recent years the Mint has grown to include a variety of collections from pre-Columbian to contemporary. Two of the most noted collections were given to the museum by private donors. They are the down home collection of historic pottery and porcelain. And in 1985 the museum was given a gift of American and European paintings by Harry and Mary Dalton. The various collections at the museum total about 20000 pieces. I asked Jim Hackney director of

development and marketing if there is a special collection people come to see. Well a lot of people do come to see the variety of the museum and that's the one thing we hear from most of our visitors is the fact that we have tremendous amount of diversity in our collection. We have a nice African collection at the museum and in fact we're one of the few museums in the country that show what we call Spanish colonial art art from the Central and South America. After Columbus came but before these countries became full independent on their own so there's really a tremendous variety for the visitor as they come here. But primarily people come to museum to see paintings scry European and American paint. Jim what North Carolina artists do you have featured here. Well there are several. Certainly Elliot Dangerfield one of the greatest painter several work in the state spent a lot of his career between federal and Blowing Rock. We have one of his great master works a museum that was actually a Blowing Rock at night saying we have a wonderful painting

by Hobson Pittman who was outside of Raleigh when he was working in the earlier part of this century and contemporary art by North billions is very very important. North Carolina is one of the top glass studio glass producing areas in the country and currently in our Alexander gallery we have two great pieces of North Carolina glass one by Harvey Littleton who's really considered the Grand Master of the glass movement in the nation and he lives here in the site in North Carolina and also one by Winston-Salem artist by the name of John Kuhn one of the earliest American works of art is a spectacular quilt made by a woman named Sarah Caldwell. The quilt was made in Mecklenburg County in the 1830s. Another great work is a landscape of little gorge by William Charles Anthony Fredericks. He taught at the Greensboro female academy in the late eighteen hundreds. Jim how do you see the future of the Mint Museum. Well just like the diversity that one will find here there will even be even more so

I think the future of the myth is that people will begin to realize more and more that art museums are a place of dynamic activity. It's not just Maza Lilium of old things that we have great contemporary works of art here. Another great North Carolina piece that we have is by Charlotte native rye mayor beard and his wonderful masterpiece Carolina shout just represents the type of diversity this is now coming into American art museums and specifically the mint. I think people will realize that museums offer us a place to be contemplative about who we are as a person and how we relate to the society around us and we can learn new things about different cultures other than our own. And the MIT museum is located at 27 30 Randolph Road in Charlotte. It's open every day but Monday on Tuesday it's over from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday the museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and the Sunday hours are 12 to 5:00 p.m.. Now the

price of admission varies so please contact the museum for more information. Take down this phone number here it is 7 0 4 3 3 7 2000. Well coming up Mitchell Lois will review the events making news from around North Carolina. He's the birthday boy and a little later in the program I'll have a conversation with Bert resort of the Big Brothers Big Sisters programs that don't go away. Good evening I'm Michel Louis with a review of today's statewide news. The

contents of Warren county's hazardous waste land field are being tested to determine if a cleanup should begin at the site. State officials and environmentalist are locked in debate over whether the landfill should be detoxified that would involve using technology to treat contaminants in the dump to render them harmless. The landfill contains thirty two thousand cubic yards of PCB contaminated soil PCB as a toxic family of chemicals considered to be cancer causing. In the late 1970s it was discovered that a transformer company was illegally dumping PCBs by the roadside along 210 miles of highways in 14 Piedmont counties. The soil was scraped from the road sides and transported to a dump created for that purpose in Warren County in the early 80s. Construction of the dump there had prompted months of protests by local residents and environmentalists who argued that the county had been chosen for the landfill site because its residents were mostly poor black and politically powerless. The current tests are being done because state officials say they need more information about the

contents of the warren county dump before deciding whether to clean it up. That cleanup would cost millions of dollars. State officials say the results of the landfill testing may show that the threat posed by the dump is not severe enough to justify the expense to detoxify it. However environmentalists say they expect the test will show that the site poses a threat to the local water supply. The test results will not be available for at least a month. North Carolina plans to use computers and other high tech gear to catch tax cheats on the highway. The state is going after an estimated 40 million dollars it believes it's losing from truckers trying to avoid North Carolina's twenty two point five cents per gallon fuel tax. North Carolina's taxes higher than those of surrounding states. Truck drivers who buy fuel and other states and drive through North Carolina are supposed to file quarterly reports with the state. The truckers are expected to pay taxes based on the number of miles they traveled through North Carolina and the amount of gas the trip would take. Truckers who buy fuel in North Carolina but drive outside the

state are allowed to file for refunds on the tax check by the state's transportation and revenue department show requests for tax rebates far exceed the taxes being paid. The state will set up a computerized system that way stations that would record when and where a truck entered and left the state giving more accurate estimates of miles traveled and fuel taxes due. Eating fish may help protect smokers from lung disease. A study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and several other universities suggests that smokers who eat fish are significantly less likely to suffer from emphysema and bronchitis. Current and former smokers who ate fish an average of four times a week were compared with those who ate only once every two weeks. Those who ate plenty of fish had a one third lower risk of bronchitis and two thirds lower risk of emphysema. Researchers believe that fish oil makes the difference. The study appears in The New England Journal of Medicine. Governor Jim Hunt is one of two newly appointed governors

named to the National Education Goals Panel. He joins New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman who is also a new appointee Indiana Governor Evan Bye and Illinois Governor Jim Edgar. The panel formed in 1990 includes eight governors two officials from the Clinton administration four members of Congress and four state legislators. This fall the panel will release its fourth report on the amount of progress made toward achieving the national education goals outlined in the Goals 2000 educate America Act which was passed by Congress last April. Two towns in Watonga County are involved in a legal battle over liquor. The residents of seven devils voted earlier this week to put a state ABC store in town but the operators of a store in neighboring Banner Elk are suing to block the would toggle elections board from certifying the Seven Devils vote. That's because they're worried about competition. The lawsuit argues that seven devils doesn't have enough registered voters to open its own store. A Latakia County Superior Court judge will hold a hearing on the case next week

in Madison County banner. One hundred twenty two thousand dollars from profits at its ABC store. Enough to pay for 16 percent of last year's budget. Today's weather was much like yesterday's with partly cloudy skies and a few scattered showers especially around the Piedmont. A severe storm went through the extreme northeastern corner of the state late this afternoon. Highs were mostly in the 80s with a few 70s in the western part of the state tonight partly cloudy skies will persist except on the coast where clouds will be heavier. There's a fair chance for thunderstorms from the Triangle west. But in eastern North Carolina the chances are about 60 percent lows will be mostly in the 60s and low 70s. Tomorrow will be another partly cloudy day and the chance for thunder showers while still present will diminish just a little. Highs in the mountains will be in the 70s. But everywhere else we'll see temperatures in the 80s. Tomorrow IBM is expected to announce

plans to consolidate its personal computer operation and Research Triangle Park. This will mean moving more of its PC offices and workers from other parts of the country to IBM as a manufacturing site at RTP. IBM is also announcing that it's joining forces with Westinghouse Electric Corporation to provide the network management software for a global satellite communications system. The satellite is intended to provide efficient avoidable satellite voice and data communications services to mobile and rule users of the wireless telephone communications network. State transportation officials are trying to make it easier for football fans to get to the Carolina Panthers games in Charlotte. There's talk of moving Charlotte's Amtrak station closer to the stadium that will house the city's new football team. Travelers now have to take a cab from the north try on Street Station into downtown. Transportation officials are looking at the current Greyhound bus station as a potential site for the move. The lease on Amtrak's current station expires in 1996. The stock

market advance today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose over 10 points to close at thirty seven thirty point eighty three gainers lead decliners by 8:50 as 247 million shares moved on the New York Stock Exchange. The Standard Poor's 500 index was up over one and a half points and the Nasdaq composite index was ahead fractionally. And now for some stocks of North Carolina interest. A

few hours a week of your time seems a small price to pay to have a positive impact on a young child's life. Our guest this evening is Bert desired from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Forsyth County. He is here to tell us how a small investment of our time can change the life of a young boy or girl right here in North Carolina. And Bert can I call you Bert. Please do. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. I guess I first want to clear up the association between Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America the national organization you hear about is there a connection here between that and your organization. There is there about 500 agencies across the country that are affiliated with the National There are a dozen in North Carolina that are affiliated with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. There are many other agencies. Doing mentoring in North Carolina that also need volunteers besides Big Brother Big Sister organizations. OK now you said that key phrase mentoring is that. Is that what your program entails or tell me

the significance of your program. That's the concept upon which it was founded and it's still the basic concept for most agencies some venture off into counseling and doing some other things but the core program is providing a volunteer to serve with one child one on one. See that's basically once a week. Do things with them. Why is that has there is there a definite need out there I mean do you just have a long list of children who really need a big brother big sister. There's a need I could respond to the things that why a child may need a mentor I think the proof in terms of the fact that there's a need is in Winston-Salem we have over a hundred kids on our waiting list and we've got 100 175 kids that have a big brother or big sister. Now how does a child become eligible to have a big brother big sister. We hear this term kind of thrown around this at risk. Is it only for at risk youth. No it's not and conceptually it's basically just for children. In our case for children single parent homes

95 percent of these kids live with their mom. We also have grandparents that have custody of kids for one reason or another that they're eligible. But there are a lot of programs that deal with kids at risk which could mean anything in this day and age. A lot of the kids that we deal with are at risk according to whatever those definitions may be. That's not necessarily how we market ourselves or how we present ourselves. I am the big concern I think is that many people would probably really like to volunteer but they don't know if they'd be volunteering as an adult to help a child. And if it would really be significant or is this child you know sort of going to a juvenile program are they going to be such a problem that it would be tough for an adult to volunteer. I don't feel so. Basically the trend now when you talk about at risk kids and as you're talking about children that older children that are adjudicated delinquent then unfortunately you're usually talking about a neighborhood that a child may live in and the high

rates of violence. Substance abuse and those sorts of things. That doesn't make our kids are 6 to 13 so we don't have too many 8 year olds that are particularly dangerous. But they're being labeled and I'm not comfortable with this but they're being labeled at risk simply because the neighborhood area. OK now volunteer can do a lot of good in that situation and we don't want to scare him off because by saying they're going to an at risk neighborhood either I mean there was a lot also that the volunteers really can can do a lot of good for the child's life. Tell me a little bit though about what the volunteers get out of it they do. They must get some significant something out of it as well. Most of the violence the best volunteers would tell you they get more out of it. They don't say I don't know what I'm going to do with my little brother but I sure I'm you know enjoying this and it's a good experience you know learning a lot of things about folks that maybe are from a different background experience than than what you grew up with. You

see the benefits of a child being nurtured and growing. We have kids that because of an involvement with somebody besides mom and most My mom's a good mom. But here's somebody that doesn't have to care about me makes the kids feel better they do better in school. They get along better with mom at home. We get along better with their brothers and sisters. Interesting point. Yeah it really is. As far as what you actually do with your little brother little sister there are folks out there right now that are kind of interested in volunteering to be a big brother big sister. What do you do do you give up you know an hour of your time a week or a day a week to go to a movie or what is it that you do. The key is once a week. I don't care if it's an hour four hours and some days are going to be busy so it will be an hour or two and then sometimes it'll be all day Saturday. But the key is once a week that child gets consistency and do pretty much what you and the child want to do. Check it out with them. If you've gone through our program then

you've been screened so ideally we're not going to send some maniac out with some child to do inappropriate kinds of things where you have to think of both sides of it as well. And basically again bottom line it for me that your goal is that you do hope that you know some adults out there WERE have a positive impact on somebody who's maybe just getting the influence of one parent is that the idea. That's basically it. I mean we can I can tell you a hundred stories of success stories that will warm your heart something new. There's a guy right now that lives in California that was matched in Winston-Salem when he was in graduate school. He is now sending his ex little brother through the University of Maryland. Now I don't want to play can you. Madam next vacation no doubt I could tell you tons of those. That's really nice I'm sure you have a lot of wonderful stories and we're out of time but I sure do appreciate you joining us this evening. And I guess the best advice we can give people if they would would like to volunteer for the program is just look in the phone book under the chapter that might be in their area here in the

state. There is going to be some kind of program in every county in North Carolina with its best friends or pals buddies. Look into the social services part of the Yellow Pages. Good advice thank you for being with us tonight thank you enjoyed it. OK. We want to hear from you. Simply call our viewer comment line at 9 1 9 5 4 9 7 8 0 8. Or write us at P.O. Box 1 4 9 0 0 RTP NC 2 7 7 0 9. You can fax a message to 9 1 9 5 4 9 7 0 4 3. Or try our Internet address UN CTV at aol dot com and please give us a daytime phone number in case we need to follow up. Before I leave you tonight there's a few things I have to tell you about coming up tomorrow I will talk with Scott Colley who's invented something to keep you cool on these hot muggy days See now you have to tune in tomorrow to see what I'm talking about. Also life saving

stations will be looking at that. And the final installment of Bob Gardner series on the Appalachian Trail I have really enjoyed it tomorrow as part 5. Now don't forget once again in case you're interested in this full color brochure you can mail us a self as a self addressed stamped envelope to North Carolina now P.O. Box 1 4 9 0 0 RTP NC 2 7 7 0 9 forty nine hundred and one more thing before I let you go the chief justice of North Carolina Supreme Court today announced the date of his retirement that will be at the end of this year James XOM Jr. has served 27 years on the bench 20 of them on the Supreme Court. The judge says he plans to relax catch up on his reading and he also plans to pursue his favorite hobby you guessed it the chief justice is an avid motorcycle rider. All right. Good for you Hope you enjoy that retirement. Thank you so much for joining us tonight we'll see you back here tomorrow. That's all for now I'm married to her charm and happy birthday to Michel Louis come on over here. Good night everybody.