The Ocracoke Observer April print edition hits the stands later today.
Like the rest of us, the copies come by the ferry (Swan Quarter). There is news, and an editorial on Ocracoke’s lifeline to the rest of the world, as well as the regular features, activities for visitors and the entertainment calendar.
Copies will be available throughout the island and selected locations on Hatteras Island and the mainland.
By Peter Vankevich
(Listen to King Mackerel And The Blues Are Running by clicking below)
Bland Simpson has had a long and prolific career and life experiences.
Hailing from Elizabeth City, he spent a lot of time on the Albemarle Sound marveling at its nature and cultural history which has inspired his writings about Eastern Carolina. One of them is The Great Dismal: A Carolinian’s Swamp Memoir (1990).
In his teens, he was a page for the U.S. Congress, attending 6:30 a.m. classes way up in the cupola of the Library of Congress before heading across the street to the U.S. Capitol when sessions began. He was class president of both his senior year in high school and freshman class at Chapel Hill.
After serious consideration, he passed on a career in politics for more creative endeavors and moved to New York City to pursue writing musicals and songs. He later turned to writing of both fiction and nonfiction. These days he is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he has taught since 1981.
He is a rare man of letters who is equally comfortable playing piano and singing the many songs he has written. He performs solo and is a long-time member of the Red Clay Ramblers, a Carolina string band that has been around for 44 years. Their performances include old-time mountain music, bluegrass, country rock, New Orleans jazz, gospel and the American musical.
Simpson displayed many of his talents recently in Deepwater Theater in a program sponsored by the Ocracoke Friends of the Library. Starting by reading excerpts from previous writings and discussing his most recent book Little Rivers and Waterway Tales, which includes photography by his frequent collaborator and wife, Ann Cary Simpson, he then took to the piano and sang several songs he had composed.
Bland got exposure to folk music from the famous Taylor family, James, Livingston, Kate, Alex, Hugh and their parents, who put on informal folk music gatherings in the gym of Chapel Hill High School. Back in the mid-1960s, these were called hootenannies.
Simpson recalled James Taylor fondly.
“He gave me contacts in the new Beatles record company, Apple,” Simpson said. “James was an enormous inspiration, encouraging me and many others to play music.”
That was in 1968–around the time Taylor’s eponymous album with Apple Records was coming out.
Simpson took piano lessons in junior high school, and in college started playing more seriously that led him to New York. Some of the musicals he has written are Diamond Studs, Kudzu, Fool Moon and King Mackerel And the Blues Are Running.
Listen to King Mackerel And The Blues Are Running:
This Sunday, April 3, the Ocracoke Fire Department will hold an open house from 2 to 4 p.m. to celebrate its 50th anniversary. In the last 50 years, the community has grown as has the fire department.
Everyone is invited to come to the department to share some of the memories of the past 50 years and celebrate wha the fire department and community has achieved.
This is a thank you to the many people who have served in the department. It is a thank you to the people who have donated funds over the years and participated in the 10 years of the annual Firemen’s Balls. For 50 years, Ocracoke residents and visitors have been there to help when needed.
By Connie Leinbach
Members of the North Carolina Shell Club think shells are rather extraordinary.
“A creature that makes a shell like this is kind of wonderful,” said Doug Wolfe of Beaufort, as he admired a tulip shell during the group’s meeting March 19 on Ocracoke.
The group of shell enthusiasts meets several times a year at various coastal locations, said Everett Long, president, and one of the best meeting spots is Ocracoke.
Wolfe, a retired marine scientist and the club’s go-to identification person, related his shell-inspiration story: When he was about five years old, he found a giant horse conch on the Jacksonville, Fla., beach.
To his youthful horror, he had to leave it on the beach.
“But I’ve been collecting shells ever since,” he said, noting that he has thousands.
Shells, Wolfe said, are 98.6 percent calcium carbonate. The rest is composed of proteins exuded by the snail.
The calcium carbonate holds the shell together and produces the colors and patterns.
“The snail genetically knows where to put the colors,” he said about the animal inside. “The amazing thing is that they put the pigments in the right spots because a lot of these creatures live in 100 feet of water where it is dark.”
Wolfe explained all this while looking at the collection of the evening’s speaker, Ann Sommers of Centerville, Va., a club member who has collected shells diving on shipwrecks off of Hatteras for more than 30 years.
In her talk, Sommers added to Wolfe’s explanation of shell colors and patterns, noting that it’s all about taste.
The mollusk uses taste to determine where it left off in its shell-creating process, thus the different bands of color, she said. This she learned from a new book on shells called “Spirals in Time,” by British marine biologist Helen Scales.
To a reporter’s question about why some shells found on the beach are black, Wolfe explained that his best guess is that there are anoxic sediments in the ocean floor in which shells get buried for long periods of time—maybe centuries–where no light gets to them. Hence their black color. Then, through whatever force, they get churned up and tossed onto the beach.
Club members took a day trip to Portsmouth Island, and a table was laden with their catches of the day, as it were—various shells, coal, old decoys and other detritus that can be found on the beach.
Dora Zimmerman of Mechanicsville, Md., had captured the “find of the day,” as adjudicated by Wolfe. This was a scotch bonnet with two adult lips.
“Most scotch bonnets don’t have two mature edges,” Wolfe told the assembly of about 40 in the Ocracoke Community Center.
Scotch bonnets—the state shell—are the prizes to find, Long had said in an interview prior to the club’s arrival.
The club has about 84 members from all over North Carolina and the Eastern shore.
Portsmouth Island across the inlet is a major draw for the group.
“As soon as the boat lands at Portsmouth we scatter like cockroaches,” Zimmerman said about the quest for beach treasures.
Her friend, Nancy Timmerman of Wilmington, was on the second boat of club members to hit Portsmouth’s shore and so was not in the first wave to hit the beach.
But she’s OK with that since, while everyone ran off to the beach, she looked down and found a scotch bonnet right beside the boat.
“I like finding things,” she said about what interests her about shelling and the club. “I like finding whatever there is to find.”
Text and photos by Connie Leinbach
“It feels like I’m tasting the ocean,” said at least two visitors at the Clam Chowder Cook-off Saturday in the Ocracoke Community Center.
They were talking about the five entries in the traditional chowder category in this second-year fundraiser to benefit the Ocracoke Child Care Center. There were there entries in the non-traditional category.
Close to 120 attendees sampled the soups and voted on their favorites, choosing the Corkey’s Store entry (with 35 votes) as best traditional and WOVV 90.1 FM’s entry as best non-traditional (with 49 votes).
Ocracoke Preservation Society (OPS) received runner-up in traditional and Jason’s Restaurant got runner-up for non-traditional.
Jenny Mason, owner of Corkey’s Store, said her father, Charles, had made the chowder.
Her brother, Shane, had harvested the clams fresh, and that, she said, was the key to their chowder.
“Fresh clams, water, how much bacon, which potatoes to use—red or white…” she explained. All of these decisions factor into the final product.
She said her father, who doesn’t like to attend public gatherings, would be so pleased to get the one-of-a-kind “Golden Clammy” trophy created by island artist Susan Dodd.
“He and Susan are BFFs,” Jenny said, adding that she will display the trophy in her store along Creek Road.
Deborah Wells, who made the prize-winning non-traditional chowder for WOVV, said her personal favorite version is New England style.
“Fundamentally, the recipe is the same as the Ocracoke traditional style, but with the addition of flour, butter and cream at the end,” she said. “This gives the broth a bit more richness and body, and I really like that.”
Voters did, too.
“I didn’t realize there were so many different chowders,” said Pam Simmons of mainland Hyde about the traditional soups. With her family, she attended the cook-off for the first time.
She and her family conferred before voting, she said.
“We all voted differently,” she said.
Rebecca Worth of Richmond, Va., remarked on how different the five traditional chowders were.
“The Post Office entry had a distinct smoky flavor,” she explained. “Chester’s was a little saltier and the one by the OPS had less salt.”
She echoed Ben Waldman of Greensboro, who also said, “it tastes like the ocean,” as he downed a cup of the OPS entry.
“I’m happy and full of fat and grease,” gushed Laurie Berner Garrish after she had tasted and voted.
Ellie Libby, who’s been visiting Ocracoke since mid-January, said she wanted to vote for all of the entries.
So did Earl Pugh Jr, of Lake Landing, mainland Hyde, who is chair of the county board of commissioners.
“There were no losers,” he said.
Others who entered chowders were Sharon Brodisch for the Cove B&B; Chester Lynn; Celeste Brooks, Ocracoke’s postmaster; and Gaffer’s Sports Pub.
The fundraiser netted about $2,200 for the Child Care Center, said Bob Kremser, treasurer.
The center reopened March 21 under the new directorship of DeAnna Locke after having been closed for the season since last fall.
Chaeli Moyer, who has been the director since 2014, left the position in January to pursue other opportunities.
Under Moyer’s leadership, the center regained financial solvency, renovated the building and upgraded the program, said Amy Johnson, board of directors’ president, at a community meeting March 2.
Last fall, the center achieved five-star rating—the highest level awarded by the state the licensing agency, and was approved to operate on a seasonal basis.
Parents interested in enrolling their children this year are asked to call the center.
Volunteers are needed at the center especially in the spring before summer staff arrive.
Interested persons should call 252-928-4131 for information.
By Connie Leinbach
Ocracoke had an orchestra, film festival, an art show and puppet parade on Friday.
These were the fruits of Arts Week, an intensive immersion in the arts for all students in Ocracoke School.
Mainly sponsored by Ocracoke Alive, the week has continued since 1999, said Kitty Mitchell, Ocracoke School art teacher.
This year, the week had nine artists—five visiting and four local artists.
“This year, two of our visiting artists came all the way from Florence, Italy,” Mitchell, Arts Week coordinator and emcee, said during a community assembly Friday morning in Ocracoke School gym at the conclusion of the week.
Those were two videographers Anna Rose and Andrea Tani, who had done some work for the Ocrafolk Festival last year and who were asked to join in the Arts Week activities.
“This was the first thing we did anything with a school,” Rose said in an interview after the assembly. “We were just blown away how creative the kids were in four days.”
In Italy, Tani makes music videos and Rose does video art installations and sculpture.
The two showed several videos made by groups of students as part of the program.
“The quiet kids came out with the most creative work,” she observed.
Senior Kevin Perez worked on a video called “I Can’t Sit,” depicting some pratfalls with chairs and benches. He was so inspired that he created a five- to seven-minute drama that he’s completing with Tani.
They filmed it Thursday with islanders Brooke German, Jubal Creech and fifth-grader Iris McClain, and Perez will put it on YouTube when it’s done.
“It was an excuse for Andrea and Kevin to work together,” Rose said.
Genevieve Miles of Winchester, Va., worked with fibers with the students. In addition to teaching them how to crochet, she taught them about looming wool and weaving.
“I didn’t have anything to weave with,” she told the assembly. “So I went to the Village Thrift and bought some tennis rackets, and we used them to weave with.”
Islander Kim Hansen taught the students tie-dying (along with color theory) and Gloria Perez did Mexican crafts and shared Mexican culture and dances.
Robert Chestnut taught the students intaglio printing, Carol Woolgar taught mixed media drawing and Tara Grey taught jewelry making with beads.
Barbara Smith and Scott Paulson of Vermont brought “a mini van full of steel drums from Trinidad,” said Scott.
“You don’t need to read music,” Paulson told the assembly. “I can’t, and I went to college.”
They pair taught both students and community members, and three different “bands” performed on Friday with Paulson accompanying on drums.
After the middle school and first high-school steel pan groups played, the second high-school band called themselves “A Tribe Called Stacey,” and rocked it out with their rendition of “Tequila.”
The community band played last and accompanied a parade of students wearing papier-mache masks created in the class taught by Donovan Zimmerman of the Paperhand Puppets, who have been part of the Ocrafolk Festival for the last few years.
Earlier in the week, the community steel drum group practiced in Deepwater Theater.
Ellie Libby of Waterboro, Maine, who’s been vacationing on Ocracoke since January, was part of the small group and enjoying her first time playing the steel pans.
“I’ve wanted to play steel drums,” she said. “What an opportunity.”
Cape Hatteras National Seashore personnel are scheduled to start rebuilding the public beach access boardwalk March 28.
Improvements will include installing a sidewalk along the south edge of the existing parking lot, providing a 10-foot by 10-foot concrete apron adjacent to the sidewalk, installing a new ADA-accessible boardwalk with pre-cast concrete decking and aluminum handrails, and providing a new ocean viewing platform near the end of the boardwalk.
Work is scheduled to conclude by Memorial Day.
During the construction period, visitors will have limited access to the comfort station and shower facilities. A marked foot trail to the beach is provided from the comfort station.
Pre-nesting Areas for 2016 Shorebird Breeding Season
To protect breeding habitat for important shorebirds, Cape Hatteras National Seashore (Seashore) staff are implementing pre-nesting restriction areas on several beach locations. During the winter, staff conducted annual assessments of preferred breeding habitat for piping plover, Wilson’s plover, American oystercatcher, and colonial nesting water birds. All pre-nesting areas will be marked by April 15 and all informational maps and supporting information will be posted at: http://www.nps.gov/caha/learn/prenest.htm.
Pre-nesting areas do not impede off-road vehicle (ORV) or pedestrian access. The pre-nesting areas are established based on the recent breeding history at the Seashore and the actual habitat conditions observed during the annual assessment.
As the birds arrive and begin to establish territories, Park staff may be required to modify these delineations depending on where the breeding territories are established.
Site-specific restrictions are posted at each location to provide the most accurate and up-to-date status.
The Park encourages visitors to observe these unique breeding activities from a safe distance thereby ensuring the continued survival of these species unimpaired for future generations.
Online purchase of beach-driving permits
ORV permits are available online by visiting www.recreation.gov website, or at the following park locations: Bodie Island Lighthouse Visitor Center (8210 Bodie Island Lighthouse Rd, Nags Head), Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Visitor Center (46368 Lighthouse Road, Buxton), and the Ocracoke Visitor Center (40 Irvin Garrish Highway).
The permit offices are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., year-round, seven days a week, except Christmas Day, with expanded hours on weekends and holidays during the summer season.
The cost of an annual permit (valid for the calendar year) is $120. A seven-day ORV permit (valid from the date issued) costs $50.
For more information, call 252-473-2111, or visit the park webpage at: http://www.nps.gov/caha/planyourvisit/off-road-vehicle-use.htm.
Expanded campground dates
Camping in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore camping season will be expanded this year. All four campgrounds–Oregon Inlet, Cape Point, Frisco and Ocracoke–will be open April 15 through Nov. 28.
All campgrounds accommodate tents, trailers and motor homes up to 35 feet. Each campground also provides rest rooms, potable water, showers, grills and picnic tables. No hookups (utility connections) are available.
By Connie Leinbach
A project on how the phases of the moon influence the tides won top honors Wednesday at the Science, Technology, Electronic, Math (STEM)Fair in the Ocracoke School gym.
The project, by 10th-grader Mac Kalna, featured a computer presentation and the phases of the moon illustrated with partially eaten Oreo cookies.
STEM is the new term for the heretofore-named science fair. It is sponsored by the Hyde County Extension office and coordinated by the school and the Eastern 4-H Center.
While Kalna was not available to talk about his project, third-grader Auggie Giagu was busy showing onlookers how his lemon batteries actually created an electrical charge.
“It’s the citric acid and the zinc in the nail,” he said while positioning a contact on a small LED bulb. “See. It gives off a faint glow.”
Three lemons, according to Auggie, can produce 2.81 volts, and five lemons produce 4.74 volts. Auggie didn’t know how many lemons it would take to power his laptop computer. Maybe next year he’ll investigate that.
“He was really inspired,” said his mother Paige Bennett, the third grade teacher.
While only the sixth through high school grade projects competed, all the students received participant ribbons.
An investigation of which fish food would increase the mass of a gold-fish the quickest, by seventh-grader Dylan Esham, won first place in the seventh-eighth grade category.
Eighth-grader Mila Ortiz explored how humidity affects persons with fibromyalgia, a muscle disorder.
“I wanted to see if the humidity increase would make a person with fibromyalgia have more pain,” she said. Although she surveyed several people over seven days, her results were inconclusive.
Other projects included how magnets can be used for transportation; what effects coffee has on plants; cleaning up oil spills and how raw eggs react when immersed for a while in vinegar, lemon juice or Coca-Cola.
High School science teacher Jennifer Garrish said the fair is one of the great events the school sponsors. “It really helps our students,” she said.
Natalie Wayne, the Hyde County extension director, was
impressed with the projects.
“There were many outstanding projects by the Ocracoke students,” she said. “I think they realize the value of learning by participating.”
The following received honors in the fair:
Best in show: Mac Kalna, 10th grade
Most Creative: Kalai Samick and Cody Pinter, ninth grade
Best Artistic: Katie Kinnion, fifth grade
Fifth grade winners: Katie Kinnion, first; Max Elicker, second; Iris McClain, third
Sixth grade winners: Julian Bennink, first; Jackson Strange, second; Brandt O’Neal, third
Seventh-Eighth grade winners: Dylan Esham, first; Hannah Belch, second; Russell Stevens, third.
High school winners: Mac Kalna, first; Kalai Samick and Cody Pinter, second; Sam Evans and Colby Austin, third.
Peter Vankevich contributed to this story.
Tideland Electric Member Cooperative will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday, March 24) in the Ocracoke Community Center about their “smart thermostat” giveaway program.
Tideland has been selected to participate in a pilot project being conducted by North Carolina Membership Corporation which owns the island’s peaking generator.
Tideland is responsible for installing several hundred “Ecobee3” smart thermostats on the island by June 1. The thermostat, which retails for $249, will be free for the first 300 HVAC systems enrolled in the program.
To qualify, members must have either a central air conditioning system or heat pump and Wi-Fi internet. (Mini-split heat pumps do not qualify).
Full details will be discussed during the community meeting.
Update (3/24/2016): Ocracoke made it to Round 3 and is now vying with Tybee Beach, Ga. The voting link is below.
Ocracoke will be featured in two national magazines this summer, Coastal Living and Southern Living and is included in two “best beaches” contests.
Coastal Living magazine has included Ocracoke Island in its first-ever Beach Madness Bracket, “The Best Beach in America 2016.”
The island also was part of a recent USA Today poll about the Best East Coast Beach.
“We were ranked third when USA Today took down the leader board,” said Sundae Horn, the Ocracoke Civic and Business Association travel and tourism director.
For the Coastal Living contest, the magazine asked the state visitors bureaus in 30 coastal states to nominate a beach.
VisitNC, nominated Ocracoke, and the public gets a chance to compete in a playoff style bracket that runs in conjunction with March Madness with the top beaches from every coastal state in the country.
“Both of these contests (and another Coastal Living editorial spot that’s coming up this summer, and one in Southern Living) are a direct result of Ocracoke, the OCBA and the Hyde County Planning Office hosting the VisitNC TRAC team back in October,” Horn said.
TRAC stands for Tourism Resource Assistance Center, composed of representatives from the Division of Tourism, departments of Commerce, Cultural Resources, NC GreenTravel and other agencies.
The group visited Ocracoke last fall to explain their services and counsel island business in marketing.
In the Coastal Living contest, the winning beach will earn the right to call itself Coastal Living’s Best Beach in America 2016, and will be featured in the June 2016 issue of the magazine, as well as in several special digital packages.
Each playoff round is an online vote, and each beach’s ability to advance to the next round is completely determined by the number of votes garnered during that voting period.
The URL for online voting is coastalliving.com/beachbracket
Here is the schedule for the rounds:
Round 1: has completed. Ocracoke beat Virginia Beach and advanced to Round 2
Round 2 (Sweet Sixteen): March 17, 7 p.m. to March 23, 5 p.m.
Round 3 (Elite Eight): March 23, 7 p.m. to March 28, 5 p.m.
Round 4 (Final Four): March 28, 7 p.m. to March 31, 5 p.m.
Round 5 (Finals): March 31, 7 p.m. to April 3 at midnight
The winner will be contacted after April 4.
As of 1030 last night, Ocracoke was at 76 percent over its competitor Hampton Beach, HH, with 24 percent
In addition to the contests, Ocracoke will be featured in the “All-American Summer” story in the July-August issue of Coastal Living.
Southern Living magazine also was on the island March 17 since Ocracoke was selected for a photo shoot in a “Barefoot Beach Town” story to run in June 2016. Several locales were photographed as was the beach.
