North Carolina Now; North Carolina Now Episode from 07/15/1996

It's Monday July 15th. Tonight New Zealand someone thinks swimmers enjoy some good southern hospitality in North Carolina now. Hello everyone I'm reading the trite thank you for joining us as we kick off a new week here in North Carolina now.

Whether you are a native or a transplant to this beautiful state our guests this evening have some information important to all North Carolinians. It's 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the south. That's actually the name of a new book authored by John Shelton Reed and his wife Dale. The Reids will join us a little bit later on the program to talk about their book. There's also been much discussion regarding education reform. Well one facet is the concept of charter schools. Tonight Producer Derek long will explain how charter schools work and what they were intended to accomplish. But we start the show in the western North Carolina community of Hendersonville athletes from around the world have been preparing right here in North Carolina for the Olympic Games which get underway in Atlanta this week as producer Patty Vera tells us the New Zealand swim team has been training and Hendersonville but they've also been teaching North Carolinians about the culture from Down Under. And along the way the swimmers are learning quite a bit about the Tar Heel State. What has the people of Hendersonville dancing in the story

and more specifically the New Zealand Olympic swim team. They've been training in Hendersonville for the past two weeks. But on this night at just one of the celebrations before they head to Atlanta they swimmers from down under are concentrating on dance steps instead of dives bringing a bit of the Olympics to western North Carolina was the dream of the Henderson County aquatic team as it has been the best experience and the highlight of my parents involved with the team. I wanted their children to experience the excitement of the Olympic swimming and did the work to make it happen. It's been the hardest two years of my life but it's worth it all to be with this team and these people it's just worth it we do it all over here. Innocence has been exactly what we anticipated. The hospitality is just first class weekend and any capacity whatsoever. I've gone

out of the way the people we have people come up and congratulate us and just make us feel wonderful wonderful people holding cell right. Your body is very smooth. They were trying six times a week trying to oust morning and then three days a week I got to the gym and dryland work as well. So here breaks through three days a week I'm working out for six hours a day and and then the other days just four hours a day. Peyton Park is a big reason hundreds and Bill was chosen. It has provided the team with ideal training conditions giving future Olympians a chance to see what it takes to go for the gold. I think it's pretty cool that I've got other kids other people from a different country. I never thought I'd be able to see it with just things

and just what good everything that I can I have a harness that's really not right. Serious training time. The Libyans have gone out of their way to get to know the community and are genuinely appreciative of the Southern hospitality paper being so accommodating and friendly towards us it's just we've all been given host families and they've just accepted us as if we have part of the family and we've been out for dinner and the like or restaurants in town of being shouting us dinner so we've been to a different place every night is just right. It's amazing how friendly and and kind everyone is and how they want to meet Hass and just be part of the Olympic experience. Coming here Anderson builds hospitality hasn't gone unnoticed.

The ambassador from New Zealand came to Western North Carolina to thank everyone for the support. I think I've done a tremendous job. I firmly believe that one of the great advantages of this this Olympic Games in Atlanta has been the involvement of the surrounding states the communities the towns and the surrounding states in the lead up preparations to the games I think that makes everybody feel a part of that. What is otherwise a narrowly focused event here on the courthouse steps the athletes and their coaches are given going away gifts. Silver medallions shaped like an Apple representing the pride of Hendersonville with a swimmer as the apple stem. Thank you good practice for accepting the medal. It's like hope to receive in Atlanta when the team arrives in Atlanta they will find a state of the art Olympic village surrounded by big city glitz and athletic stars from all around the globe. But no matter how they do win their Olympic meets they are all world class ambassadors who have won the hearts of the folks in Hendersonville here in Hendersonville.

We've had a real opportunity to savor what the real purpose of the Olympics was meant to be and that is to extend a hand in friendship to other countries and to share culture and experience and promote a real unity in the world. Then they sail and swim team left or has left Hendersonville for Atlanta earlier today. We wish them and all the athletes competing in this summer's games the best of luck. Well coming up what we all should know about the South. But first Michel Louis has what we all should know about today's statewide news. Good evening Mitch. Thanks Zoraida. Good evening everyone. Topping our news both state and federal agencies are out in force to assess the full extent of damages following Hurricane Bertha. The State Department of Agriculture the American Red Cross the North Carolina Emergency Management Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency are all tallying up the damages. Preliminary reports indicate nearly 6000 homes were affected by birth those winds and rain damage to corn tobacco and other crops could well be the

most severely impacted according to county Farm Service Agency reports Onslow Brunswick. Jones and Lenore counties are reporting greater than 75 percent losses in tobacco and corn and the state Agriculture Department is estimating one hundred fifty five million dollars in losses throughout 11 counties based on FSA reports and economic losses are reaching into the millions of dollars per day along the Outer Banks. Another hog spill has been reported in eastern North Carolina Division of water quality spokesman Don Reuters says a million and a half gallons spilled from a 1 acre lagoon on a Craven County farm. The farm is located along a state road near the Neuse River. Although officials are not sure if any of the waste is in the river. It's also unknown when the spill occurred. Inspectors from the State Division of water quality have been flying over hog farms in southeastern North Carolina following Hurricane Bertha to see if any waste lagoons overflowed as a result of heavy rains. Newly released papers

show a decades long struggle inside Liggett and Meyers tobacco company about the health issues surrounding smoking and attempts to create a safer cigarette. Tests performed for the company in the mid 50s concluded that residues from tobacco smoke caused cancer in laboratory mice. But the company refused to a law to allow researchers to publish their findings. To this day the Durham based company denies a link between smoking and cancer in humans. Retired Researchers also say work on a cigarette that may have reduced health risks was squelched because creating a so-called safe cigarette would imply that other cigarettes are unsafe. A new partnership between the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and the Mecklenburg Department of Social Services could cut the county's welfare costs in half. The partnership was finalized by an $84000 contract between the two bodies under the contract members of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce agreed to hire welfare recipients and put them to work. The chamber has 4000 plus members Mecklenburg County Commissioner parks Helm says. If

successful the partnership would save some 13 million dollars per year. It appears that a compromise is on the way in the general assembly for school technology. But some are concerned that education will be compromised in the process. The Republican controlled state house went from zero to 20 million dollars in its budget for school computers while the Democratic controlled Senate is expected to cut its proposal for the program from 25 million to 20 million. Senator Leslie winner a Democrat from Mecklenburg County says the reduction will cut out something worthwhile. Gail Morris with the public school forum of North Carolina says a cut in technology money will not reduce equipment purchases but will prompt school systems to cut corners on maintenance and training. An Illinois company is angry and lost a chance to produce automobile inspection stickers when North Carolina despite putting in a lower bid than the winning company the Myer record company says the state acted improperly when the Division of Motor Vehicles awarded the contract to a higher bidding company. In choosing American Dick

Allen manufacturing the state agreed to pay forty two thousand dollars more than it had to given the Myer accord bid ael Felton the director of enforcement for the state DMV said problems with inspection stickers provided by my record back in 1992 led to his decision this time to choose the other company. Thank you baby out of luck after waiting until the last minute to plan your a limpet vacation. Well think again. Officials say of getting tickets are your concern. You should know there are some tickets still available for the Atlanta games. The tickets can still be purchased by telephone or online at the Olympics Internet site. And now for a look at tomorrow's weather near 90 degree temperatures will spread over most of the state tomorrow. Charlotte Greensboro the triangle Fayetteville and cities east out to Wilmington will all post a high around eighty nine. Boone in Asheville will be cooler but not by much. Partly cloudy conditions will likewise cover the state tomorrow with roughly a 30 percent chance of rain near the coast. In business news the

Concord Board of Aldermen has approved a plan that offers businesses rebates of up to 85 percent on property taxes for five years. If they build or expand in the city under the program a business with an assessed tax value of 5 million dollars they get rebates of up to 75 percent of property taxes paid over five years. Companies valued at 20 million dollars could get 80 percent rebates and those valued at 100 million dollars or more could get 85 percent. The board's decision on the program follows a similar action that took place in Cabarrus County. Well stock prices took another nosedive on Wall Street today. Here's a look at how the markets closed. I moved to North Carolina from the Midwest a little more than two years ago. At the

time it would have been nice to have some sort of handbook to help ease the transition. Well that Handbook has a rod It's called a one thousand and one things everyone should know about the self its authors are Dale and John Shelton Reed who joined us this evening welcome to the program. Thanks thanks for having me. Dr. Reed You are a professor of Southern Studies at you and say Chapel Hill you are quite the expert in this subject. So everyone says let me put it that way. Why do you think that the South has such a cultural identity that maybe other regions of the country don't have. Well we've got some quotations in our book actually dealing with favored versions of Walker Percy because we lost the war. I think that does have something to do with sort of the South has been the most distinctive regional culture in this country and there's a real sense of pride there too. The other is we try to get at that in the book

not not so much to feed the pride as look at the reasons for it. Well tell me why did you decide to write this book. RHODES We started on it three years ago we realized that the Olympics are going to be in Atlanta the summer a lot of the world's attention would be focused on Atlanta and we hope down the south more generally same time I think to do. Well Mrs. Ray let me let me talk to you a little bit with you. You've coauthored this book with your husband. How difficult was that to co-author a book once we got into it it was fine I was terrified actually beginning because John's been writing about time decades and I had never written about so what we did was really divide the labors. It's divided into chapters and we basically took chapters that interested us or I took chapters that I thought I knew things about like literature I know I knew that I knew more about Southern literature than John did so I felt I could handle that. And then there were some chapters we divided up

between us I mean the one that was neither. Doesn't mean anything about it. And we just did a lot of research the very first thing I wrote was a little scary you know but I gave it to him he liked it. And from then on it was fine. We did. We never wrote a sentence together I think that would be very difficult to sit down and actually construct a sentence together what we did was edited each other and that was easy. And it was very helpful the book had to be only a hundred thousand words and getting it down to 100000 words actually turned out to be very difficult. That meant that each one of these little entries was sort of a hundred words. Were there any areas of confrontation maybe where there was something that you thought was important to include that maybe your husband didn't or vice a versa. Minor we really were able to come to agreements fairly easily we had a began to get a sense of flow and how things would fit together and it was it just became obvious that some things didn't really need to be and they or some things didn't quite fit.

And it was fairly easy to negotiate I thought you knew each of us wrote chapters that were far too long and then the other one would suggest what needed to come out and make it the right length. You know we knew it had to be like that had to be any help but getting it back was welcome and was it difficult. Dr. Read to determine what was included in the book because I notice there are some very serious topics but also some very light topics as well. Yeah we certainly did mix it up while we we wrote a proposal to the publisher Doubleday where we listed a dozen or so topics that we thought would wind up to be chapters. And that's pretty close to what worked out we've got a chapter on the geography and Byron man for example. Flora and fauna we've got a chapter on the Civil War and the Confederacy we've got a chapter on race relations and politics but then we have chapters also on literature and food and music and art. The last chapter is one of my favorites it's it's about the

South. There's a myth that images of the South the television and motion pictures and so forth which could be a book of its own. Basically you could do the thousand and one things about any one of these chapters and that was that was the problem. Yeah well we don't have time to mention all one thousand and one items but if each of you could maybe talk about what are some of your favorite things that are in the book and Mrs. Reed will start with you. Oh that's that's really difficult. I think some of the things are that interest me are actually things that John knew that I didn't know about public opinion polling results about the self that southern boys really are more easily angered and they'll fight back faster than northern boys who would have thought there were data to support that. And John knows these things are not a fact. Rush Limbaugh was talking about this very same study just today. Yes some were very timely. Well Dr. Wright what about you what are some

of your favorite items. Well I like the ones on the representation of the South in the movies and television. What turned out to like that I didn't expect to was the chapter on economic life southern corporations. We had it in there because we felt we ought to you know what. It actually turned out to be quite interesting. If you stop and think about it start listing corporations. You could make a strong case that the South has been the seed bed for a sort of inertia in innovation in the last 25 years if you look at corporations that have come up with entirely do things to do like Federal Express or CNN or corporations that for better or for worse have changed the way of doing business in their field like Wal-Mart or Hospital Corporation of America. You know there are so many of these and they're all Southern. I was impressed I learned something that I didn't know. One thing that I find when you try to put a label on something whether it be a

region or people or whatever that you find that there are going to be people that disagree with that label that say well that's not us we are this are you finding anything particularly with your book but in your studies overall about the South that there are people who come out and say you can't label us all. Well that's the nice thing about having a thousand and one things you know you you can't label everybody but you can sure suggest that there are a lot of exceptions to any generalization. Fact with a certain pleasure and coming up with things that. People should know because they're not what you'd expect. For instance this business about commercial innovation. Who'd have thought of that the South was was where exciting new business things were happening. I mean that's not been our historic image you know we've been I recall to a region then. All right well Dr. Rhee and Mrs. Reed I want to thank you very much for coming on the program tonight it's a fascinating topic I look forward to reading the book I

haven't had a chance to to look at it yet but I look forward to it. Thanks I had a lot of problems a lot of us talk about it. All right thank you. Have you ever thought about starting your own school called the General Assembly recently passed legislation which would allow certain people around the state to do just that in a way the program calls for setting up charter schools correspondent Derek Long spoke with two education experts about how these schools might help meet the educational needs of the state.

Well charter schools are a new kind of public school. They are schools that can be started by average groups of citizens to meet special or unique needs that children may have. Charter schools provide an opportunity for the exploration of alternatives to public education in an effort to encourage innovative approaches to meet the diverse educational needs of our children. North Carolina joins more than 20 other states in passing a charter school bill. The state has banned. Granted permission to establish 100 and I really would like to see 100 different models. They are able to try some things that are new and different and they're not restricted by as many regulations as a traditional public school. It would provide parents and counsellors a choice of programs where they could perhaps place a child

better so the child's needs would be better mapped. For example some charter schools might specifically deal with handicapped children. Other charter schools might have more of a vocational focus and might do more job training kinds of things. We have others that focus on the arts so there's an enormous range of potential for charter schools and they can they can focus on any particular kind of need that that particular group of children might have. As long as they still offer the basic subjects that are required for public schools because charter schools are public schools which is something that people often forget about they think charter schools or private school but in fact they are public they would allow. Freedom from rules and regulations that we currently have in the public schools. Well for example in North Carolina the charter schools would not have to have as many sort of teachers as a regular public school would have to have in in the lower grades.

Only 75 percent of the teachers would have to be certified in the upper grades it would only be about 50 percent of charter schools will have to comply with regulations regarding safety health civil rights and disability rights. However they will have the autonomy to determine the school's budgeting curriculum in operating procedures. Funding for charter schools comes from the State Board of Education an amount equal to the average per pupil allotment from the local school appropriations. Well the issue of the start of funds for public schools has been one of the toughest issues for people across the country to deal with. North Carolina has not allocated monies for a start up capital. It's just like starting a small business is hard to start a small business without some capital. When ever you are introducing something new the kinks have to be ironed out and there are going to be some failures I anticipate some failures and my hope is that the public would have some mercy with this idea and we hope in North Carolina

that we'll have some creative approaches and we'll see parents and teachers try some new things to start schools start charter schools that are a little different from the regular public school. But it provides a great opportunity for individuals who have been crying out that we need change is an opportunity for them to seize the opportunity. We want to make it work in North Carolina and help to be as successful as it can be here. If you would like more information about starting a charter school in North Carolina you can contact a weaver Rogers at the State Board of Education. It's located at 3 0 1 north Wilmington Street in Raleigh. The zip code is 2 7 6 0 1 Desh twenty eight twenty five or you can call 9 1 9 7 1 5 1 3 2 2. Well that wraps up tonight's edition of North Carolina now. Thanks for being a part of it. On tomorrow's program we'll bring you another in our series of profiles spotlighting North Carolina teenagers who through the reactions are trying to bring an

end to violence in their communities. Also tomorrow night producer Billy Barnes brings us insight into the workings of the state Supreme Court. Enjoy the rest of your Monday and then we'll see you back here Tuesday night for another edition of North Carolina. Good night everyone. It'll it'll it'll it'll it'll.