North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 11/15/1996

Ier It's Friday November 15th tonight entering the real live world of make believe. A North Carolina now. Right. Hello everyone I'm reading this right. Happy Friday. Thank you for joining us as we close out the week here at North Carolina now. Something fishy is up on tonight's program. We'll speak with Wayne Starnes He's the curator of fishes at the State Museum of Natural Sciences.

Dr. Stansell tell us about a major fish collection being loaned to the museum. But fish aren't the only creatures we're featuring tonight Maria Lundberg enters the world of Paramount shows services and shares with us how all of those fun characters shows and attractions that Carolyn's are born. But we start tonight on the topic of education. Four years ago a governor Jim Hunt created a program called the entrepreneurial schools awards. The idea is to recognize schools in North Carolina that have come up with new and innovative ways to better educate their students. This year's awards are being presented to eight more of our state's schools TONIGHT REPORTER Clay Johnson and videographer Keith Hale bring us the story of one student whose life was changed by an award winning entrepreneurial school. Everybody has always expected me that her I was not about

my sister and it unfinished. She ended up having kids when she was young. Lisa Beard's older sister got pregnant and dropped out of school when she was 15. At 13 Lisa was travelling the same road the same low income single parent home life that had taken its toll on her sister was taking its toll on Lisa and I'm betting she was really she's got some problems and so it's kind of put to me to do everything you know to take care of our stuff at home I'm paying the bills. Bicycle that was in then that meant having a buy that really helped me a war or telling you that I needed to do one with Mark and I just I didn't have any support you know. You know eighth grade Lisa was in trouble. My grades were awful. I was as go our time and that was because my mom just really didn't care if I win or not.

And both absences were increasing as I've cried when the score became aware that they were losing life. It took an innovative high school program called fast track to help find the grandest And you're right that does make me a fasttrack ordinary or Sarah Tucker got to Lisa in the eighth grade and help make sure she got to the night and life has made a very conscious decision that she was going to make it in five instead of letting that become hard to not want to hear even your Fastrack help show her how its curriculum is based on personal and social responsibility. Its goal is to increase attendance improve grades and change attitudes. Achieving that goal begins by developing bonds between teacher and student and between student and student control that person. I can fast track works because of teachers like zero talkers and volunteers like Becky Abernathy. Sarah recruited Becky as a

mentor for Lisa but I met Lisa. I just knew there was a lot of potential there. I just move on. But Becky also knew that Lisa's lack of self-confidence and self-esteem could keep her from realizing her potential. I know the first time I told her how how very pretty and she was just love like this she would stay and she no wonder she was happening. She's helped me even if I wanted her to do well in school. I encouraged her. I would listen when she said I'm just going to quit when I'm just going to quit. I'm not sure we're away from a baby about to take a wife and when I wake

I have been able to do. But Becky has been and I'm believable source of strength and encouragement. Thanks for today. Lisa is 17 years old and a senior in high school. Now my grades are almost there yet and I'm trying. I'm more concerned about school unless I'm set up to be really basic. Bell Curves and friendly push now well that means that you work with the data was to your Lisa's high school in Lincoln to receive the governor's entrepreneurial school's award for its fast track program. This year eight more schools and school systems across the state are being honored for that same entrepreneurial spirit. They are Clark in school of discovery and Bladen County. Daniel's Middle School in Wake County Dare County schools.

Even Miller Elementary School in Cumberland County Isaac Dickson Elementary School in Asheville City Lincoln Heights Elementary School in Wake County. The Occupational school of quarter red county and Terrell Elementary School in Tirol County right now. They're still there through the fast track program at her school or at least a beard found a new direction in life or a fast track mentor to help guide her. I don't really know why but yeah if I want to try and realize I was frightened. Lisa beard has applied to two colleges and has already been accepted at one. She plans a career in veterinary medicine. She has a bright future for any teacher or any school that's working to keep troubled students from falling through the cracks. There is no better measure of success than that. The burden is great in the beginning and

now it's just a joy to see him but you know they're right and making plans for their future. I can see out of it and I've been trying to think back from the 1996 governor's entrepreneurial schools awards are being presented tonight at a banquet in Raleigh. Well still ahead on North Carolina now meet George Jetson and the many other creations of Paramount show services. But first let's say hello to Michel Louis who is standing by to bring us up to date on the events making news around our state. Hello Mitch. Hi there Maria. Good evening everyone. Topping our news state officials are gathering evidence that may result in changes to North Carolina's system of mental hospitals. The Department of Human Resources Division of mental health is working on a proposal to increase

security in those facilities. Officials say the four state mental hospitals are not equipped to handle the number of potentially dangerous patients. They now receive a small minority of patients in mental hospitals have gone through the courts and in some cases have been found not guilty of a crime by reason of insanity or even incompetent to stand trial. A state commission is proposing sweeping changes be made in the structure of the North Carolina court system. The Commission for the future of justice and the courts will make their recommendations to the state supreme court on December 5th. Among them the consolidation of judicial districts the merging of district and superior courts and the appointment of circuit judges rather than election to the bench. The commission is also proposing mandatory appeals and death sentence cases claims of sexual misconduct are now coming out of Fort Bragg. The allegations are the latest in a string of recent reports of misconduct among U.S. military personnel nationwide. Army officials are investigating a November 10th and student

charges brought by a female noncommissioned officer against a male NCO. An army spokesperson says the specifics of the offense can not be disclosed during the investigation. What is known is the incident occurred at an off post residence and both soldiers are in the 528 special operations support but talian New data shows the state's teachers are leaving the classroom not for reasons of money but because of a lack of discipline among students. A state human resources management survey indicates about 60 percent of departing teachers claim disruptive students had a great or moderate effect on their decision to quit. The lack of administrative support influence more than half to leave North Carolina reportedly lost close to 6000 teachers last year alone. Looking ahead to tomorrow's weather warmer temperatures are forecast to move in for Saturday. Most of the state is expected to experience comfortable temperatures somewhere in the mid 50s. It will be about 10 degrees cooler in the mountains about 5 well 10 degrees warmer on the coast.

Present pleasantly sunny skies will cover the entire state for the first half of the weekend. And in business news environmentalist and Tennessee have petitioned their state's attorney general to object to a wastewater permit issue to Champion International Paper by the state of North Carolina Tennessee and North Carolina share the Pigeon River used by champion and waste water discharge. Opposition to the permit by Tennessee could result in intervention by the EPA. The champion paper mill sits 40 miles upriver of the Tennessee border and Canton North Carolina. And now for a look at what happened on Wall Street today. The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences has recently reeled in a

major catch. A marine life collection with over 600000 specimens. The collection includes over three hundred eighty thousand fish specimens gathered over the last 30 years by the U.S. the Institute of Marine Sciences of Morehead City and two other collections of molluscs and crustaceans. Here to tell us more about this collection is Wayne Starnes he is the curator of fishes at the North Carolina State UCM of Natural Sciences Dr. Starrs Welcome to North Carolina now. How exciting this collection is for you it's coming from Morehead City why were they willing to part with it. Well the University of North Carolina Marine Lab they're building a laboratory facility. They're expanding their presence in Seoul the building where the clocks demolished. They're moving in other directions. Their research goals. They decided that it was best since it was a very important resource to consolidate it with our collections in riling so it would be available to anyone in the state and or NY.

Great for your museum. Tell us why this collection is so extraordinary. Well it's the primary documentation of the marine biodiversity of North Carolina documents that variously from the shallow us back water salt marshes out to the Gulf Stream in the depths below. And concert with the collections that we have here now which are primarily freshwater it gives us that kind of documentation from the top of the blue ridge to the Gulf Stream. So there are a couple of things about this collection that are also unique in the in the number of large specimens that it has right it Percentage wise and maybe in total has some of the largest fish specimens in the world that are preserved which are unique resource for research. There are tanks that are yet to come up the road that are thousands of gallons there are such things as 14 foot basking sharks and a lot of other large sharks and other fishes that are available to researchers at most institutions. And not only that but Dr. Schwartz Frank Swartz who built this collection over the last more closer to 40 years was very conscientious of building a large series of

large numbers of. Fish is in collections which give us the physical validity when you when you're trying to do studies through the book biodiversity out there reconstruct life histories are there anything you've brought along with you a couple of samples from the collection which I'm very excited to get to and up first is this example here and this is the tiger shark. Right actually this is a tiger shark embryo. So this is the shark even though it's two feet long wasn't even born yet I believe the mother was probably caught in a fish and turned it over and over on the coast and we brought about 80000 pounds of fishes and other critters up the road and ranging from things of this size to this size and up to 200 gallon tanks and then we have these thousand gallon tanks or 2000 gallon Thank you. You know it's eight or nine it's hard to pick up on the camera just because it's so small but contained in that little jar a little shell of each couple

real Merrick's shells which for some of our more handsome shells and these were taken to some depths awful actually. So it really shows the extraordinary diversity of marine life and we have some other examples that we're going to put up on the screen for our viewers and I'll have you take us through these and talk about these now this this looks like a jar of goo To me it was actually an elastic Sturgeon's which of the species that's in serious decline now. What this enables us to do with these collections from the past give us a resource where we can go back and reconstruct life history things about rich region struck life as your parameters like their reproductive habits or their age and growth and that kind of thing which there was some insight which may enable us to understand our biology better maybe protect them in the long run. Now as we move along to the next char that you've brought along with you tell us why is it so important to have these collections you keep talking about the research and when I think of a museum I think of something that's on public display that I can go and look at. But there's a more important avenue for this correct.

Absolutely they are used for a number of kinds of research. They're used to help us just to discover the true diversity out there by. And by that I mean beyond the obvious you can take a large series of these things and discover that in fact there may be multiple species out there where you thought there were one or a few before you can reconstruct their biology in terms of their age and growth. What they eat. Reproduction and more you can compare that over time because we're able to look at different windows through time to see if there have been important changes which you know alert you to some something in the environment that you should take a harder look at you can look at contaminants in collections from the past for instance our collection was originally used to investigate mercury levels and fishes and the walk up river area number River area because there was discovered that present levels are pretty high and then when they looked at the collection found that in fact this

was true 30 40 years ago so it's not a new problem it's not a less of a problem but at least it would mean there's someone out there dumping mercury in the stream right now. So you know where I need to look that and I have a very strong educational purpose just appreciate the diversity and and maybe how bizarre and interesting some of these critters are out there. Let's take a look at what else you have your doctor there's a couple more things then. OK well this is just a jar Spanish Marichal I included this because it's a it's an economically important species and these large series of Dr. Swartz built up over the years old labels to go back say 30 years and see what was going on with the biology of these these animals and compare with what's out there in the fishery today. OK. If we can pan over to the next story there. These are some more unusual things probably things we know less about these are Cal and I was raise and oh I think you're right. And in addition to the economic species which have been studied heavily this enable gives us some insight into some of the more unusual things that we don't know very much about. OK. To their left and

our cow fish is what you rarely see large cities like these and collections usually is one or two. And it's really nice to have a resource where you can go out there and and gather data from a large series. And and this is I brought him a lot more for his disaster anything else he said that this is a flying Bernard which is one of my favorite fish. And well Dr. Stone's unfortunately we're running out of time but I want to thank you so much for sharing at least a portion of this mammoth collection with us here very much and we look forward. Thank you for being here to look forward to having you back again sometime. Thank you Larry for Shana. Ok bye. When it comes to a popular vacation spots people all across the country love to go to

amusement parks. We are fortunate to have several of them here in the southeast MS Maria Lundberg shows us many of their terrific attractions are created in Charlotte on a visit to a theme park. It quickly becomes obvious that rides attractions and costumes are an important part of the atmosphere creating them a real challenge but at the headquarters of Paramount park. That's exactly what takes place every day. Heads up the group of people who achieve this. We have parks. And every year we come up with a new attraction we have to be fresh in our park. We have to come up with something exciting that will bring people in every year. Our attraction to some shape or form. Entertainment and everyone here pretty much focuses on one part of that you know conceptualizing that from the beginning. Drawing it helping people see it sell the ideas to our own our own management and then the hard part really making it work. Building it you know with conventional methods architecture

electronics lighting and audio all brings it together that's our palette to make these things happen. The art and show design department converts those ideas into visuals. Like this project model we have an existing mountain the in our in our park in Richmond and we're looking for ways to maintain its look. It's a tired mountain unfortunately and so we're going to resurrect it and refreshed it with some new ideas and concepts so this is one of them. We have another concept that we're developing which takes the idea of actually surfing a volcano which is another approach to our having our guests actually feel as if they're inside the volcano and they're following the path of the volcano working two or more years in advance on new attractions. Staff members use the latest technologies to come up with successful designs. But there's more involved than just physically building the attraction. Designers use

computer graphics to create signage that will be used with the attractions in the parks. The merchandise group explores countless ways to incorporate Park characters and attractions into appealing products and the Entertainment Group coordinates everything involved with live entertainment shows. We make shows for the theme parks. We make make means we write we direct we find writers and directors we go from soup to nuts. We're a full production house for theatrical shows. For instance this year at Caroline's it's a beach one presents Beichuan presents retroactive so that's a dance show that we conceive. I'm lucky enough to have the costume designer right here. The producer is right here and the person building the costume is right here so we were just talking and we can make decisions very quickly that way it's incredibly efficient. They even produce music soundtracks right here on site using a keyboard

synthesizer computer and vocals. Rob part or creates original arrangements for a variety of attractions and live entertainment shows. This is a treat for the ears but a visit to the production shop is a feast for the eyes. This is where designs and costumes are actually put together. This is a 55000 square foot facility. We start out in the costume area where they build a singer dancer costumes atmosphere costumes Star Trek costumes costume characters Scooby Doo Movie better the puzzle places fun things in the pattern shop mock ups are made of designs which are then fine tuned before mass production in one year. This unit turns out twenty five hundred to thirty five hundred individual costumes. They also make models of prospective new rides or attractions and are working on creating some original characters which will move and walk in the nearby workshop.

There are areas for woodworking. Welding and painting these crafts people complete more than 150 projects and 40 live shows each year working up to eight months to prepare sets and costumes for the coming season. Also associated with this unit is the Paramount Pictures Group which provides equipment and services for movies made on the East Coast. Appreciate all the hard work talent and long hours they go into the project the Paramount show services. You don't have to go very far. It only takes a visit to Paramount's Carowinds park near Charlotte to see their wonderful creation come to life. The wonderful artistry is evident in animation station from brightly colored panels with favorite Hanna-Barbera characters. Tonight musical shows like a beach blanket bed rock all the costumes and sets were created and built by Paramount design entertainment and production teams.

One of the most popular attractions at Carowinds is also the product of this talented group. It's called the drop zone stunt tower riders ascend one hundred sixty feet in the air then plummets 16 stories in three seconds. It's just the kind of exciting hair raising attraction that draws crowds to the parks. And that response is the big reward for the creative team at Paramount when it's built. You know we still cross our fingers and we watch the people come through these attractions and I think the biggest satisfaction is when we see the kids or the adults you know have a good time on the track that we build you know you go to the park you see the kids. They're loving Scooby-Doo and you know that the folks here in the back spent time sewing their little eyes and Sun the bird together and then you see a little kid running up and I think you want to meet him. In addition to the theme parks Paramount show services also produces a full array of costumes and set designs for cruise ships and

industrial clients. They've also built mascot costumes for a number of professional sports teams including the Charlotte Hornets. And that brings to a close another week of North Carolina now thanks for being a part of it. Please join us next week when Shannon victory will start a multi-part series exploring the explosion of juvenile crime in our state. In the meantime have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Good night everyone. You're wrong

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