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Mr. Lamm's son Mickey (left), daughter Linda Carroll, and son Travis were on hand for the unveiling of the highway's signage at a ceremony held this week.

Four miles of I-95 is now the "Carl Lamm Highway"

The naming – requested by the Smithfield Town Council and other local officials, and recently ratified by the N.C. Board of Transportation – was celebrated Tuesday afternoon during a gathering of family and friends inside the last home base of Carl Lamm's radio station beside US 301 between Four Oaks and Smithfield.

Mr. Lamm was a legendary broadcaster whose 72-year career lasted from 1958 until his retirement in 2019. He owned and operated radio stations WMPM and WTSB during most of those years. He died in August at the age of 97.

Among those invited by the family to pay tribute to Mr. Lamm at Tuesday's gathering were State Representative Donna White, County Manager Rick Hester, Sheriff Steve Bizzell, mayors Vick Medlin of Four Oaks and Andy Moore of Smithfield, Board of Transportation member Leo Daughtry of Smithfield, and Country Music singer-songwriter and retired state legislator Charlie Albertson of Duplin County.

The four-mile stretch of I-95 bearing Carl Lamm's name extends from mile marker 88 outside Four Oaks (shown below) to marker 92 beside Wal-Pat Road in Smithfield. Mr. Lamm resided within a stone's throw of the Interstate near Four Oaks.

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Another highway-naming tribute: the "Tony Braswell Bridge"

NCDOT recently named the bridge at the Peedin Street Extension over US 70 south of Pine Level in memory of County Commissioner Tony Braswell, a nearby resident who died in office March 9 at the age of 79. He had served 18 years on the county board. Previously he served terms as Pine Level's mayor and town commissioner.
NCDOT photo of the Tony Braswell Bridge looks westward above four-lane US 70, with two-lane US 70 Business headed toward Smithfield visible upper left:

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School board defers calendar decision till February

Johnston's Board of Education will wait until its February 9 meeting to decide on a calendar for the 2025-26 year. Chief Academic Officer Anna Kuykendal told the board Tuesday that the school system's Calendar Committee will reconvene in early January to explore options. Public feedback will also be sought, she added.

A return to that process was prompted by the board's decision last month to rescind a "modified year-round" calendar that would have started classes in early August. The board's legal counsel had ruled it to be in violation of a state law prohibiting most schools from opening earlier than the Monday closest to August 26 each year.

The choice now before the board is whether to continue the present "modified" calendar that shortens the first semester ending the fall term before Christmas or return to a "traditional" calendar extending the first term into January.

Whichever is chosen, the earliest Johnston's schools may open for the 2025-26 year is Monday, August 25.

Lyn Andrews re-elected as board's presiding officer

The vote was 5-2 with members Michelle Antoine and Ronald Johnson dissenting. They're seated on the far left and far right in this screenshot from Tuesday's meeting. Other members of the reconstituted board following November's election: (left to right) Kay Carroll, Kevin Donovan (seated next to Superintendent Eric Bracy), Chair Lyn Andrews, re-elected Vice Chair Terry Tippett, and April Lee, the only newcomer on the board.

Board urged to keep Innovation Academy in place

During last month's "Public Comment" segment and again on Tuesday, the board heard from several parents and students objecting to a possible relocation of the Innovation Academy presently housed at Smithfield's South Campus.

Apparently under consideration is a proposal to move the selective program to some other campus to make room for the Choice Plus Academy presently housed on the former Smithfield Elementary campus on Rose Street.

The Innovation Academy is described as "a choice middle school" open to students throughout Johnston County, especially "first-generation college students, under-represented minorities, or those seeking a different learning experience."

Choice Plus is a program for students of all ages deemed by school officials to be in need of an alternative learning environment.

The Board of Education has not discussed the relocation issue at any of its recent monthly business sessions.
 

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DA says policeman acted with "reasonable" force

District Attorney Susan Boyle's office announced last week that a white Smithfield police officer was justified in his use of force during the arrest of a black suspect in the Amazon parking lot on October 18.

The incident, shared through a bystander's video on social media, drew heated comments from Councilmen Marlon Lee and Travis Scott at a town board meeting November 12. The two called for greater transparency by the town's staff regarding the incident, with Mr. Lee saying he would vote to fire both the town manager and the chief of police if given the chance.

READ a news story including details of the DA's findings in the JoCo Report>
 

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The choir's members were photographed at the concert hall's entrance by an accommodating tourist: (left to right) Curtis Brookshire, Jacob Hand, David Wiley, Darla Hamm, Todd Johnson, Joyce Kilpatrick-Jordan, Donna Johnson, Sharon Burford, Theressa Rose, Kay Hewitt, and Jenny Quinn.

St. Paul's choir performed in NYC's Carnegie Hall

Choir's director called it "a mountain-top experience"

Eleven members of the choir from Smithfield's St. Paul's Episcopal Church joined a mass choir for a sold-out performance in New York City's famous Carnegie Hall Thanksgiving weekend. Accompanying the choir was a local delegation of 15 from St. Paul's congregation, including spouses of the singers.

Todd Johnson, the choir's director, explained how the performance came to be:

"In 2019, when I was music director at Benson Baptist Church, I received a letter from Distinguished Concerts International-New York inviting my choir to audition for a Carnegie Hall concert, conducted by composer Joseph Martin. We had presented one of Mr. Martin's Christmas musicals and somehow made it on the publisher's list of prospective performers.

"We sent in a video and were accepted into Martin's 280-member choir. Of course, there was a fee just shy of $1,000 per person to cover production costs, but it turned out to be a great experience.

"When I became music director for St. Paul's in the fall of 2023, I asked the choir if they would be interested in singing with a mass choir on the stage of Carnegie Hall, and the response was a resounding 'Yes!' We settled on doing Handel's Messiah on December 1. Since I had a track record with DCINY, they accepted us without an audition.

"We held two fund-raising dinners, which included mini-concerts by pianists Ella Ann Holding and Jonathan Levin. Members of the congregation also contributed generously to make this experience possible."

Mr. Johnson said the ensemble traveled to NYC on Thanksgiving Day and had two intensive half-day rehearsals – on Friday and Saturday at a Times Square hotel. "Then we rehearsed with the 35-piece orchestra at Carnegie prior to the concert on Sunday," he said. "By Saturday tickets were sold out."

The mass choir – including choral groups from several states plus youth choirs from Austria and Canada – performed the Christmas portion of The Messiah as well as its "Hallelujah Chorus" and "Worthy is the Lamb."

"The work we did with Dr. Jonathan Griffith, our conductor, took us to a new level musically, and the concert itself was truly a mountain-top experience that we will cherish for years to come," Mr. Johnson concluded.

Here's a photograph of the mass choir and orchestra on stage in Carnegie Hall:

 

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By a single digit, SSS sent to higher athletic group

The N.C. High School Athletic Association is expanding from four to eight classifications for interscholastic competition starting next school year. Based on last year's enrollment, Smithfield-Selma High School has been reclassified upward.

In fact, SSS has the smallest enrollment of any school in the new 7-A classification: 1,617. The largest school in the 6-A group has 1,616 students and includes West Johnston High (1,614) and South Johnston High (1,335).

SSS joins Clayton High (1,983 students) and Cleveland High (1,941) in the 7-A group. Presently SSS is a 3-A school while Clayton and Cleveland are 4-A, the state's highest classification up till now. Corinth Holders High (2,253 students) is in the new 8-A group that includes school enrollments as high as 3,300.

North Johnston High (823) is in the new 4-A group, Princeton High (602) is assigned to 3-A, American Leadership Academy Johnston (505) is in the 2-A group, and Neuse Charter School (232 students) remains classified 1-A.

The coming realignment will produce changes in conference affiliations. Presently, SSS competes in the Quad County 3-A Conference along with South Johnston and West Johnston while North Johnston and Princeton compete in a 2-A league.

A new Johnston County Public Schools policy, meanwhile, bars students enrolled in alternative academic programs including the Career and Technical Leadership Academy and Johnston's Virtual Academy from participating in interscholastic athletics at their district's high school.

Up till now, that has been allowed. But that changed over the summer as school leaders feared the specialty-school athletes could inflate a high school's enrollment enough to push it into a higher sports classification and thereby reduce the school's competitiveness.

Several students appeared before Johnston's school board on Tuesday pleading for a waiver of the new rule for specialty-school students who've previously been competing on local high-school teams. The board did not respond.
 

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WHAT'S COMING UP

Smithfield's Christmas parade starts at 7 p.m. this evening
The procession moves westward on Market Street from Sixth to Second streets. Beginning at 6 p.m. you may partake of free hot chocolate and cookies while supplies last at Town Hall on the corner of Fourth and Market. Santa's Workshop on the Courthouse lawn beside Third Street will be open from 4 to 6 p.m.

Town Council faces two Waddell Drive townhouse requests
The Smithfield Town Council at its regular second-monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Town Hall will consider two requests for townhouse projects off North Smithfield's Waddell Drive: one for 17 units discussed at a public hearing last month, the other for 16 units that will be addressed during a new public hearing.
VIEW the complete agenda for Tuesday's council session>
 

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DEATHS & FUNERALS

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A WORD (OR TWO) FROM THE EDITOR

The heat's on in Johnston, and that's a good thing!

Wake County has seen a rash of school closings in recent weeks because the heat wasn't working. That's not happening in Johnston County's public schools.

The reason appears to be this county's sterling stewardship of public funding coupled with our school system's pro-active maintenance team.

Over the past year, especially, we've reported contract after contract for replacement of aging HVAC systems at many of Johnston's schools. A large portion of those projects were done with federal ARPA money allotted to this county under the American Rescue Plan Act – a key element in federal relief to combat the COVID pandemic. (Does anyone remember, now that it's behind us?)

The never-ending challenge to keep our public schools in good working order will continue with funding included in that $120-million school-bond issue Johnston's voters approved last month. Several of the projects to be financed are for HVAC overhauls at elementary schools including South Smithfield. (HVAC, by the way, stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning).

Some of us older folks can remember when students were sent home from school in late summer because of overheated classrooms that weren't air-conditioned. We've come a long way from those days, thank goodness.

Johnston County's economic success story
Business North Carolina magazine has a "sponsored section" in its December edition that offers an overview of our county's recent progress in economic development. You can read all about it on the magazine's website>
 

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