HEY, SMITHFIELD:
Are-you-ready-for-some-food-fun!
The fun and
food arrive this Saturday
with the 39th edition of
the Ham & Yam Festival
– a celebration of
Johnston County's
agricultural heritage.
Launched in 1985, Ham
& Yam filled a void
left by the demise of
Smithfield's Farmers Day,
which during the 1940s and
1950s had marked the
opening of the Smithfield
Tobacco Market, which
vanished altogether with
the end of the federal
tobacco program a decade
ago.
In 1985 Johnston County
had five country-ham
producers and led the
state in the production of
"yams," which more
accurately stated are
sweet potatoes. Today,
we've got just one
country-ham producer –
Smithfield's Stevens
Sausage Company – and
Johnston County ranks
fourth in sweet-potato
production among North
Carolina's counties,
according to the latest
N.C. Department of
Agriculture report.
And yet, Ham & Yam has
survived, its organizers
promising this year's event
to be bigger and better than
ever with 250 food and craft
vendors expected. Downtown
Smithfield Development's
Executive Director Heidi
Gilmond says Ham & Yam
activities bring "more than 10,000 visitors to
Downtown Smithfield and
infuse nearly half-a-million
dollars into
local businesses."
Kicking
off this Saturday's day
full of activities is a
return of two
street-running events: the
5K Hog Trot for all ages
and a shorter Piglet
Stampede for the very
young. Those runs start
and finish at the Bob
Wallace Jaycee Kiddie
Park.
Here's where
to sign up online>
A Classic Car Show hosted
by the Southland Car Club
will line a portion of
Market Street, which will
be closed to vehicular
traffic between Front and
Fourth streets.
Here's the
list of all the day's
street closures>
Live music will be
presented on three
Downtown stages.
The Smithfield
Firefighters Association
is hosting a Whole Hog BBQ
cook-off, with the
finished products offered
for purchase.
Winners of Cooperative
Extension's annual "What's
That Yam Thing"
sweet-potato decorating
contest will be announced
and entries displayed.
A Kids Zone will be set up
with games, rides, and a
petting zoo.
And a staple of the
festival since its
beginning – the Kiwanis
Club's ham-
biscuit
tent – will be back for a
treat worth waiting in
line to enjoy.
Capping off Saturday's
musical entertainment is a
free concert by
award-winning Country
Music artist Aaron Tippin
(right) at the
refurbished Neuse River
Amphitheater, starting at
7 p.m.
Here's the
schedule of the day's
activities and
entertainment>
Here's a
listing of Ham &
Yam's commercial
sponsors>
Red lines show
boundaries of the
district where alcohol
may be consumed
outdoors.
Smithfield's "Social District"
introduced this week
Just in
time for Ham & Yam,
the newly established
district for consuming
alcohol beverages outside
of Downtown businesses was
activated this week.
Approved by the Smithfield
Town Council last July, it
took till now to get
approval from the N.C.
Alcoholic Beverage Control
and produce signage (a
sample is shown here)
and procedures for
policing the district,
which stretches along
Market Street from the
Neuse River to Fourth
Street with offshoots to
include the riverside
amphitheater, the Little
Brown Jug, and the 100
block of South Third
Street.
The Town Council debated
whether to authorize the
district, with a majority
voting in favor after
agreeing to limit its
operating hours to 3-10
p.m. Wednesday-Friday and
noon-10 p.m. Saturday.
Initially, the Downtown
Development Corporation
had sought more days of
operation, including
Sundays.
READ the
DSDC's announcement
about the district and
its rules of
operation>
Powell
Livestock: still doing
business after 67 years
H.B.
Powell, with his son's
assistance, continues to
operate the cattle-trading
business his father
started here in 1958. He
says Powell Livestock
sells 350-550 cows every
Thursday and 175-225 goats
and sheep every other
Wednesday. The transcript
of Gary Ridout's interview
with him appears on the FEATURE
PAGE>
Schools
seeking $10 million more
from county
The
Johnston County Board of
Education received
Superintendent Eric
Bracy's proposed budget
Wednesday afternoon but
deferred its approval
until the board's next
regular meeting May 13.
The county's appropriation
for its share of operating
expenses of Johnston's
traditional and charter
schools is $104,000,000
this fiscal year. The
proposal unveiled this
week seeks $114,082,706 –
an increase of 9.7% – in
the new fiscal year that
starts July 1.
Here's what accounts for
the requested increase:
The proposed extra funding
for the county's share of
pay raises for all
employees as well as
salary supplements for
teachers and other
certified employees is
based on the assumption
that the state will raise
their pay by 3% this year.
Governor Josh Stein has
proposed raises for
teachers amounting to
10.6% over the next two
years while the N.C.
Senate has approved a
budget proposal providing
a 2.3% average raise for
teachers this year. The
N.C. House has yet offer
its proposed budget.
The $4,309,247 line-item
for "Department Budgets"
is mostly to cover the
county's share of costs
for new curriculum
materials for both
Language Arts and Math.
The proposed $1,200,000
for "Contracted
Custodians" in addition to
full-time staff custodians
is included to make up for
the expense currently
funded by federal
COVID-relief money no
longer available. Board
member Michelle Antoine
expressed outrage during
Wednesday's presentation
that such personnel costs
were covered by temporary
federal aid provided by
the Elementary and
Secondary School Emergency
Relief (ESSER) Fund
initially authorized by
Congress in 2020.
The relatively modest
$102,675 increase in
Superintendent Bracy's
proposal to cover an
expected "Low Wealth
Funding Cut" is related to
recent real-estate
revaluation, which raised
overall property values
throughout Johnston County
by 70.6%. Chief Financial
Officer Stephen Britt told
the school board Wednesday
he fears that cut will
grow to a much larger
amount as the state
re-calculates "low wealth"
funding for all of North
Carolina's school systems.
Mr. Britt said the
$1,100,000 increase in
county "Pass Through" aid
for charter schools is
based on an estimated gain
in their enrollment of 168
this coming year. That
would push enrollment in
all the charters attended
by Johnston County
students (both in-county
and out) to 4,369, Mr.
Britt projected, while
enrollment in Johnston's
traditional public schools
is expected to remain near
its current 37,061.
That flat-growth
projection prompted Ms.
Antoine to question the
size of the
superintendent's
recommended increase in
the county's
appropriation. "When are
we going to stop these
giant increases?" she
asked.
Mr. Britt defended large
jumps in county aid for
schools in recent years.
"We've had a tremendous
amount of growth in
academic achievement," he
asserted. Board Chair Lyn
Andrews added: "Look at
what we've done for
teachers in the last five
years" – a reference to
locally funded raises in
their salaries and
supplements, plus
significant raises in pay
and bonuses for most other
school employees.
Meanwhile, the County
Commissioners will be
struggling with how much
overall increase in
appropriations they're
willing to accept in the
wake of real-estate
revaluation that could
result in higher bills for
most taxpayers in the year
ahead.
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GREAT SELECTION OF GIFTS, CARDS,
JEWELRY & OTHER
UNIQUE ITEMS
The
apparent malfunction
that caused last
weekend's power failure
in most of Smithfield
involved the connection
between Duke Energy's
main line and the Town
of Smithfield's
substation near the
intersection of Buffalo
and Hospital roads.
Cause
of Saturday power
outage: "unknown event"
"An
unknown event caused the
breaker between the Duke
Energy feed line and the
town’s substation to open.
Cause is unknown,"
reported Ted Credle, the
Town of Smithfield's
director of public
utilities.
"Duke responded quickly
and, exercising
appropriate caution, ran
through a plethora of
diagnostics to make sure
their transformers were
not damaged," Mr. Credle
told the Weekly Sun.
"After they completed
their testing, they
'closed' the circuit back
in and we threw in the
main-line breakers, one at
a time."
He said the outage
affected about 3,100 of
the town's power
customers.
Checking out the situation
Saturday night, this
reporter found the lights
remained on for residences
and businesses east of
Bright Leaf Boulevard and
south of Holding Street
which get their
electricity from the
town's newer substation
off Brogden Road east of
I-95.
Last Saturday's outage
occurred around 6:45 p.m.
following a brief rain
shower. The power came
back on around 10:40 p.m.
Johnston's
employment total continues
to rise
The
latest monthly report from
the N.C. Department of
Commerce showed 124,452
Johnston County residents
were employed in March –
another record high –
while the number of
Johnstonians filing for
unemployment benefits
totaled 3,923, producing a
jobless rate of 3.1%.
That's the same as the
revised rate for March
2024 when an estimated
109,304 Johnstonians held
jobs. Meanwhile, the
statewide unemployment
rate for March of this
year was 3.7%; the
national rate 4.2%.
VIEW the
state's county-by-county
report for March>
(Johnston County Visitors Bureau photo)
Ava
Museum's federal
digitization grant
terminated
It's
the first reported local
incident of federal
funding cuts ordered by
the Trump Administration
since January. The $24,936
"Inspire! Grant for Small
Museums" from the
Institute of Museum and
Library Services (IMLS)
was awarded last year to
the Ava Gardner
Museum to digitize
its collection of
oversized paper-based
materials including film
posters, large-format
photographs, and
scrapbooks.
The museum announced the
grant's termination,
"effective immediately,"
on its Facebook page two
weeks ago. The
digitization project "was
under way to be completed
in August 2025," the
museum's posting stated.
The work was being done
with assistance from the
Johnston County Heritage
Center and included the
purchase of equipment "to
properly care for these
parts of our collection,"
the announcement noted.
Angelica Henry, the
museum's executive
director, issued a
statement about the
termination this week: “The
public should know that in
the short-term, the loss
of this grant will not
affect the daily operation
of the museum; but it does
impede the long-term
protection of the museum’s
collection,” she said.
“Please continue to
support not just us, but
all your local museums and
libraries, as many of us
have been affected by this
recent mandatory change.”
According
to a posting on the State
Library of North
Carolina website,
the Ava Museum grant was
one of 13 awarded by IMLS
this past year apparently
impacted by a Presidential
Executive Order issued
March 14 entitled
"Continuing the Reduction
of Federal Bureaucracy."
Those grants ranged in
size from $9,950 to the
Historic Hillsborough
Commission up to
$5,089,381 to the N.C.
Department of Natural and
Cultural Resources.
WHAT'S COMING UP
County
Commissioners will meet
twice on Monday
The
regular first-Monday
sessions begin at 10 a.m.
and at 6 p.m. at the
Courthouse.
VIEW the
agendas once they're
posted on the county's
website>
Town
Council to take up
traffic, major road
repair Tuesday
Downtown
traffic recommendations
and the resurfacing of
Outlet Center Drive
headline the agenda for
Tuesday's 7 p.m. meeting
of the Smithfield Town
Council at Town Hall. The
council will also receive
results of the independent
audit of the town's
financial records for
fiscal 2023-24. A public
hearing is scheduled on
annexation of West
Smithfield Elementary
School requested by
Johnston's school system.
If time permits, the
council may resume work on
the town's 2025-26 budget.
VIEW the
complete agenda posted
online>
A
WORD (OR TWO) FROM
THE EDITOR
Smithfield's "Fresh Market" and a
boyhood memory
I
remember growing up as a
four-year-old residing
with my parents and older
sister in my grandmother's
house on Church Street
where she tended a
good-sized garden in the
backyard. For this little
guy, it seemed like a
"farm," although I can't
recall exactly what was
grown there.
Perhaps it was started as
a World War II "Victory
Garden," when Americans
were encouraged to grow
their own produce as part
of the communal war
effort.
That was brought to mind
by the announcement from
the Downtown Smithfield Development Corporation that a "Smithfield Signature Fresh Market" will be launched next month in partnership with local farmers and Johnston Community College's Small Business Center.
"Starting Saturday, June 14th, and continuing every other Saturday morning through October, Downtown Smithfield will come alive with the sights, smells, and flavors of fresh, local farm goods," reads the announcement from DSDC Executive Director Heidi Gilmond. "From 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. (noon), residents and visitors alike can shop a vibrant selection of seasonal produce, locally raised meats, fresh flowers, handmade goods, and more – right in the heart of our community," she wrote.
Unlike recent attempts to start a farmers market along Downtown's South Third Street, this time it will be set up in the county's parking lot at the corner of Third and Johnston streets.
With the boost from JCC, perhaps this one will survive.
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the SMITHFIELD
WEEKLY SUN
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