Web Run

Chatham project to make biodiesel
[Dec. 21, 2004] Pittsboro -- Toilet water as fuel for your fuel? That's what Central Carolina Community College, the town of Pittsboro and environmental consulting firm Integrated Water Strategies would like. Pittsboro is asking the state for $3.1 million to partially pay to pipe 65,000 gallons of treated wastewater from the town's treatment plant to the community college campus about two miles away. By WEB RUN - N&O

A nutty business
[Dec. 17, 2004] Bear Creek -- In the weeks leading up to Christmas, employees at the Southern Supreme fruitcake shop are as busy as Santa's helpers. Since 1985, Southern Supreme, located in rural southwest Chatham County close to the Moore County line, has been stirring up batches of Berta Lou Scott's not-so-fruity fruitcake. By WEB RUN - Chapel Hill News

Suit filed against Chatham farm
[Dec. 17, 2004] Bear Creek - Three families filed a lawsuit in Wake County Friday against a Chatham County farm, saying their children got ill with E. coli after visiting the farm's petting zoo at the N.C. State Fair in October. The North Carolina Division of Public Health has linked 33 of a reported 108 E. coli cases to Crossroads Farm Petting Zoo in Bear Creek, an area southwest of Pittsboro. But a lawyer representing Crossroads Farm said the animals were inspected beforehand, and signs warned people at the zoo to wash their hands. By WEB RUN - Herald-Sun

Business is booming for amp maker
[Dec. 17, 2004] ittsboro may be a quiet country town, but it creates a lot of noise. The intensity is enough to power a Bruce Springsteen concert -- at least -- and it springs from a tiny building neighboring the town library. Blame noisemaker Steve Carr. He's the mastermind behind a growing breed of guitar amplifiers sold throughout the country -- and now even parts of the globe -- that's made from scratch in his Pittsboro workshop. By WEB RUN - Herald-Sun

Cookbook reflects on caring community
[Dec. 16, 2004] Fearrington Village - What makes a neighborhood special? Residents of one Chatham country community don't have to think twice before answering this question. It's a friendly place, where people reach out to one another and support worthwhile endeavors that benefit everyone. It's a community that welcomes newcomers with a greeting and a home-cooked meal, and recipes are traded over the fence. Diverse and vibrant, with a mix of young and old inhabitants, working or retired or in between, it has a cachet all its own. To put it simply, Fearrington villagers will tell you theirs is a community that truly cares, where volunteering is a way of life. By WEB RUN - Sanford Herald

Textile plants to close; 300 will lose jobs
[Dec. 15, 2004] Charles Craft Inc. will close its last two remaining textile plants in the state early next year, laying off more than 300 people in Scotland and Chatham counties. The Laurinburg-based company announced this week that on Feb. 12, it will shut down its Siler City yarn-spinning plant, which employs about 137 people, and its 176-person Laurinburg plant, which focuses on kitchen-craft products. By WEB RUN - N&O

Rezoning OK'd for 1,546-home project
[Dec. 14, 2004] A golf course community that would more than double Pittsboro's population has passed its first test along the road toward approval. Pittsboro Town Board members voted unanimously this week to approve the rezoning of the 773-acre River Oaks site to allow the mixed-use, 1,546-home development. By WEB RUN - Herald-Sun

More Chatham housing on track
[Dec. 13, 2004] As the Chapel Ridge subdivision prepares to sell more of its Chatham County lots, two smaller subdivisions are on track to be built on the neighboring land. The county's Board of Commissioners approved sketch designs Monday for Page Subdivision and Womble Subdivision. Page includes 74 lots on about 105 acres, and Womble includes 56 lots on about 202 acres. By WEB RUN - Herald-Sun

Cats, abandoned, go wild to survive
[Dec. 12, 2004] Moncure - For years, the park at Jordan Lake Dam has been a choice spot for anglers, hunters and pets that people don't want anymore. After dark, when the park is unattended, dogs and cats are dropped off at its gates or at the 24-hour fishing pier below the dam. Some of them survive. If they are not adopted or killed, they learn to fend for themselves. But the cats often become feral, or wild, creating a nuisance for the dam's neighbors. By WEB RUN - N&O

Chatham actions rethought
[Dec. 11, 2004] A newly sworn Chatham County school board decided Monday to reconsider last month's action to expand its membership. At a work session in November, the board voted to expand its ranks from five to seven by reconfiguring current districts and adding two at-large seats. But the board acted against its own policy by voting during a work session instead of at a regular board meeting, board member Ronald Collins said. By WEB RUN - N&O

New concern raised on Booth Mountain
[Dec. 11, 2004] Chatham County's planning board wants the developer of the proposed Booth Mountain subdivision to alter the plan in several ways, including one that would add to the project's buffers to addresses the worries of some neighboring landowners. But now concern has shifted to whether the board's Tuesday night vote to recommend approval of the 180-home subdivision came too soon. By the time of the vote at about 10:30 p.m., three of nine board members had left, and some questions still weren't answered, said board member Chris Walker, who voted against the recommendation. By WEB RUN - Herald-Sun

High quality talent in Dance Company
[Dec. 9, 2004] On the polished hardwood floor of Amy Salter's 8 a.m. Dance Company classroom at Northwood High, an ensemble of eight works through a sequence of turns, points and leaps, checking form and line in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that make up one wall. By turns, dancers step forward to demonstrate or refine particular movements drawn from jazz and modern dance. By WEB RUN - Herald-Sun

Planners approve Booth Mountain
[Dec. 9, 2004] By the time the Chatham County Planning Board voted on the largest proposed development on its agenda Tuesday, three of the nine members present had left. The remaining members, the minimum necessary for a vote, voted 4-2 to recommend approval of the 180-home Booth Mountain subdivision. Now the county commissioners will decide the fate of the 294-acre project, which lies between Lystra Church Road and Jack Bennett Road, just east of U.S. 15-501. By WEB RUN - N&O

Commissioners seated in Chatham County
[Dec. 7, 2004] Pittsboro - Bunkey Morgan, who was elected to the Chatham County Board of Commissioners in November 2002, has been elected chairman of the board. Morgan, the District 4 representative, was unanimously chosen by the board at Monday's meeting. He succeeds District 5 representative Tommy Emerson, who was unanimously selected as the board's vice chairman. By WEB RUN - Sanford Herald