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Pardee to open urgent care clinic in Mills River

Henderson County News

County remembers crash of Flight 22

At one minute after noon on Monday, bells rang at the Historic Courthouse, commemorating the 82 people who perished in the crash of Flight 22 and a Cessna at 12:01:18 in the blue sky over Hendersonville 50 years ago.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Don't miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning (139)

You won't want to miss this week’s Hendersonville Lightning.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Dot Marlow, 'our matriarch of philanthropy,' dies at age 85

Dorothy Dellinger "Dot" Marlow, who died Tuesday at age 85, leaves a legacy of giving that prompted a friend to call her "our matriarch of philanthropy." A retired First Union Bank vice president and the wife of the late Glenn C. Marlow, the former county schools superintendent, Dot Marlow served the county in numerous ways during her career in banking and marketing. In retirement she devoted even more time and energy to volunteering, fundraising and grooming a new generation of givers, many of them women in mid-career who were drawn to Marlow's extraordinary grace and sharp insight. Marlow had been hospitalized in recent weeks and then released to hospice care at the Givens Estates Health Center, at the Asheville life-care center where she was a resident. Always well-dressed and perfectly made up, Marlow brought a soft-spoken grace and impeccable manners to every meeting she attended and fundraiser she helped to lead. She brought sunshine and optimism to the table, friends and associates recalled, even when nonprofit boards struggled with intractable community needs. Long a leader in civic life, Marlow expanded her volunteerism after her retirement from banking. After her husband's death in 1999, soon after his retirement as schools superintendent, she persevered with numerous projects that helped the community. She remained active in the Community Foundation, the Education Foundation, Johnson Farm, Glenn Marlow Elementary School, the Pardee Hospital Foundation and many other nonprofit agencies and causes in the Hendersonville area. "She's our matriarch of philanthropy here in this community," said McCray Benson, executive director of the Henderson County Community Foundation. "The only thing she wasn't a part of was our original founding board but the older members of that said they were just the steering committee and she really was the original board." A member of the foundation board from 1983 to 1991 and a vice president, "she was our first leader in the respect of actually helping develop the Community Foundation," Benson said. "She and Ken Youngblood would go out and start visiting folks and start talking about the Community Foundation. She was always a part of everything we did. "When I came in as a new CEO she spent time with me and took me around and introduced me to the community," he added. "She certainly did a lot more than just Community Foundation. She helped with Johnson Farm, she was a champion for education in our community. When Glenn passed away, she and her family started a scholarship in his name. One of her greatest joys was meeting those scholarship recipients and getting to know them. I would say her greatest tool was her ability to use encouragement to guide people into doing more than they ever thought they could do. She looked at everything, no matter the challenge, as an opportunity. "I can't say enough about Dot. She's going to be missed. She helped us learn how to carry the torch but now she's left it with us." Marlow's giving spirit never wavered, even when she might have been able to relax upon her move to a tidy apartment in the Methodist Church-affiliated Givens Estates 11 years ago. No rocking chair could contain her. She drove, during the day, up until her death, making regular trips to Hendersonville for charitable work and to visit old friends. "There is hardly a charitable organization in Henderson County that she didn't touch," said her daughter Valorie Songer. "She remained active when she moved to Givens Estate and she remained active here (at her new home)," taking on a fundraising project for the Givens Estates chapel and other projects. "She just felt so strongly about giving back to the community you're in," Songer said. "She had a very strong faith and part of living that out was helping other people and giving back." Longtime friends admired Marlow not only for her giving spirit but for her sense of humor and openness to anyone who called on her deep knowledge of her adopted hometown. "She wanted to make this place an even better place to live," said Ruth Birge, who met Marlow when she moved to Hendersonville as publisher of the Times-News. "I've known her ever since I've been here. She's one of the first people I met, probably like everybody else who moved here" and had a need to find out what made the community tick. "She put everybody at ease." In her banking career, she mentored up-and-coming youngsters like Tom Apodaca, who became a powerful state senator, and Ross Sloan, a fast riser who is now an executive at TD Bank. "She just put them under her wing and taught them what they needed to do," Birge said. In addition, "she's had a huge impact on lots and lots of women." "These last two weeks she's had the most amazing faith," she said. Released from Mission Hospital into hospice care at Givens Estate, Dot knew that she would be receiving friends and she'd only receive friends if she was properly dressed and made up in a way that showed respect. "One of the interesting things that happened was when she was released from Mission, somebody went to see her. They went to the room and they said, 'Where's Mrs. Marlow?' 'Oh, she's in the beauty shop.'" Born in 1932 in Lincolnton, she graduated from Brevard College, spent a career of 26 years in banking and lived in the Hendersonville area for the past 65 years. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Hendersonville, where she taught the Alma Lee Cheves Sunday School class up until her illness a few weeks ago, and was active in the United Methodist Women and other church committees. She was active in the Henderson County community, having served as president of United Way and as a board member of the Community Foundation of Henderson County, the Hendersonville Symphony, the Chamber of Commerce, the Pardee Memorial Hospital, the Pardee Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Pardee Hospital Chaplaincy Association. She also served on the Boards of Givens Estates Retirement Community, Historic Johnson Farm, and SSEACO-Something Special, now Vocational Solutions. She was an active volunteer at the Historic Johnson Farm and at Glenn C. Marlow Elementary School. She was an honorary member of Delta Kappa Gamma and served as a trustee of Brevard College. She was active on committees at Givens Estates and sang in the Givens choir. Mrs. Marlow was selected as one of Henderson County’s top 50 outstanding leaders by WHKP in 1996. She was the 1977 VFW Woman of the Year and recipient of the 2005 Sauer Charitable Leadership Award from the Henderson County Community Foundation. She was inducted into the Henderson County Education Foundation Hall of Fame in 2006. Dot was awarded the Pardee Hospital Foundation’s Philanthropist of the Year in 2010 and received the Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser Award from the WNC Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2006. She was inducted into the Brevard College Hall of Fame in 1998. She was predeceased by her parents, Samuel Thomas Dellinger and Bertha Mae Dellinger, her husband of 47 years, Glenn C. Marlow, seven brothers and sisters, and her son-in-law, Dr. Donald R. Songer. Survivors include daughters, Valorie Marlow Songer of Columbia, S.C.; Glenna Marlow White and her husband, Richard A. White of Charlotte; and Dottie Marlow Kinlaw and her husband, Dr. John L. Kinlaw of Rutherfordton; a son, Jeffrey A. Marlow, and his wife, Dr. Sherri H. Marlow of Harrisburg; grandchildren Michael J. Songer (Erica), Julie Songer Belman (Travis), Avery White, Anna White, John Cobb, Jacob Kinlaw, Clare Kinlaw and Nicholas Glenn Marlow; and great-grandchildren James, Raymond and Marlow Belman. A Celebration of Life service will be held at First United Methodist Church at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 22. The family will receive friends following the service in the Christian Life Center at the church. A private burial will be held in Shepherd Memorial Park. Memorials may be made to the Dorothy Dellinger Marlow Scholarship Fund at Brevard College, One Brevard College Drive, Brevard, NC 29712 or to the Glenn Marlow Scholarship Fund at the Community Foundation of Henderson County, P.O. Box 1108, Hendersonville, NC 28793.           For more on Dot Marlow's life and legacy return to the Hendersonville Lightning.         Read Story »

Henderson County News

City announces repaving work

Paving crews will be resurfacing or repairing city streets in Hendersonville through mid-September. Some streets will get a new layer of asphalt overlaying the existing surface, while other streets may be milled down before a layer of new asphalt is applied. The repaving work includes two city streets that lead to the new Ingles store from Greenville Highway.   Read Story »

Hendersonville News

Kanuga widening alarms homeowners

More than 100 people showed up Tuesday for the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s public meeting on the Kanuga Road improvements held at the City of Hendersonville’s Operations Center.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Democrat drops out of 11th District race

Democrat Matt Coffay has announced that he is ending his campaign in North Carolina’s 11th congressional district, citing personal circumstances. “The last few months have been an incredible journey, campaigning across western North Carolina six and seven days a week, talking to so many of you throughout the 11th District,” Coffay said. “Unfortunately, I have had sudden personal circumstances occur that are beyond my control. After extensive deliberation with my loved ones as well as with my campaign staff, I’ve decided that I have to drop out of the race in order to address these acute personal needs.” The Coffay campaign said it remains committed to progressive causes across western North Carolina. Momentum created from the course of the campaign thus far will be focused on continued efforts to sustain the movement across the district and bolster the Democratic party in North Carolina, his campaign said in a media release. “I’m very proud of the incredible amount of work that we’ve been able to accomplish, the movement we’ve catalyzed, and the amount of support we’ve received all in a relatively short amount of time,” Coffay said. “We deserve a Congressman that represents the middle class and working families, not by someone whose interests lie with the top 1 percent. For this reason we wish our primary opponent, Phillip Price, and any other Democratic candidates who come forward the best of luck in the fight to defeat Mark Meadows.” Matt Coffay, 30, announced his run for the 11th Congressional District seat in April. He leads a local chapter of Our Revolution, an organization aligned with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. He grew up outside Blue Ridge, Ga., and graduated from UNCA. He was a farmer in Alexander until last year, when he took a job with the nonprofit National Young Farmers Coalition, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported.   Read Story »

Edneyville News

Craftsman-style home in Edneyville added to National Register

The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources has added Otto King House in Edneyville to the National Register of Historic Places. Designed and built in 1950 by its namesake, the Otto King House is significant as an excellent, intact example of Craftsman-style architecture in Henderson County. Although a late expression of the style, the house displays such characteristic features as the irregular floor plan, randomly coursed river rock exterior and projecting gable brackets. The house was constructed according to plans drawn by King, who worked with local stonemason Raymond Rolphy Davis to complete the interior and the exterior masonry, which retains its original painted grapevine mortar joints. The 10.58-acre property also includes three outbuildings, a garage, smokehouse, a barn and an equipment shed, according to the nomination by Sybil Argintar, a historic properties specialist from Asheville. A carpenter, Otto King built the house for himself and his wife, Zura Pace, after the couple bought the property in 1949.  The craftsman-style home is made of river rock with grapevine mortar detail, with two stone chimneys, three vertical over one doule sash windows with stone sills. King also built the garage and smokehouse in 1953 and the barn in 1955.     Read Story »

Henderson County News

Even after 50 years, ‘no one forgets’

The early morning fog had lifted. In the Western North Carolina mountains, Wednesday, July 19, 1967, was going to be a beautiful day, with temperatures in the 60s, a light breeze and clear skies.   Read Story »

Laurel Park News

Details emerge on Jump Off Rock suicide

A man who fatally shot himself at Jump Off Rock last month was unable to hear law officers who tried to help him because he was deaf, Laurel Park Police Chief Bobbie Trotter said. The man was 52 years old, unmarried with no children, Trotter said. "He had a lot of medical issues," she said. "He had a lot going on his life." The man displayed a 9-mm Glock handgun that other visitors at Jump Off could see. Two Laurel Park police officers and Henderson County sheriff's deputies responding to the report tried to talk to the man but to no avail because he could not hear them. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The family is still working on funeral arrangements for the man, who lived with his mother in Hendersonville.   Read Story »

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