Hendersonville News
A part-time gardener and bookkeeper, emergency dental assistant and full-time mom, Betsy Merrell can add Physician of the Year to her portfolio.
The family practitioner was honored as the top doc for Pardee UNC Health Care for 2018 at the annual Pardee Hospital Foundation Gala Saturday night at the Blue Ridge Conference Hall at BRCC. A native of Ohio, Merrell has spent most of her life in North Carolina, from high school to Appalachian State to medical school at Wake Forest University. She and her husband, dentist Joshua Merrell, moved to his hometown of Hendersonville in 2006 and both started private practice at the same time. Betsy Merrell joined Pardee in 2009, first as a hospitalist, becoming a family practice associate two years later.
Betsy Merrell A member of the North Carolina Medical Society, the American Academy of Family Practice and the N.C. Academy of Family Physicians, Merrell served for two years as president of the Henderson County Medical Society. She’s also served on the Board of Safelight and has volunteered with the Free Clinics, Relay for Life and Chamber of Commerce.Besides gardening at her husband’s dental office and decorating the interior, she rears 7-year-old Sophia and 4-year-old Luke. “We have even learned that she has stepped in as dental assistant at 3 a.m., called upon to help with an emergency root canal,” Greg Burnett, a Pardee board member and First Citizens Bank executive, said in introducing her. “She has been known to stand in line for hours to snag UNC basketball tickets and is on the short list to learn of the next U2 concert in the area.”
Philanthropist of the Year
Philanthropist of the Year was Carol Adams, a former Pardee Foundation member and veteran of many fundraising campaigns.
A native of North Carolina, Adams has been a “professional volunteer” since a young age while moving around the South before arriving in Hendersonville in 2003, Mary Olson, the 2017 philanthropist winner, said.After graduating from graduate of Queens College in Charlotte, Adams moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she met the love of her life. Her volunteer service and commitment to philanthropy has run the gamut from the Junior League to the Public Library, the Crippled Children’s Clinic to the Henry Logan Children’s Home and the Parkersburg, West Virginia Community Foundation. In her free time she served as a tennis and swim team coach and a homeroom mom.In Hendersonville, the Pardee Foundation was fortunately to be on the receiving end of Adams’s tireless volunteer service and philanthropy. She helped found the Women Helping Women Committee, chairing the fundraising committee before joining the Pardee Foundation Board in 2005. She served in Carol Adamsvarious roles from secretary to the By-Laws and Nominating committees and co-chaired the capital campaign for the Elizabeth Reilly Breast Center. In addition, the busy mother of two and grandmother of three, Adams serves St. James Episcopal Church in numerous volunteer leadership roles. In addition, she spent countless hours a few years ago working at the Blackwater Grill, which was owned and operated in Laurel Park by her son and daughter-in-law. “After a brief hiatus from the foundation board, she rejoined the board in 2012 and will finish six years of devoted service with tireless commitment to Planned Giving, Generations and Annual Fund; chairing the Annual Fund Committee for the last couple years,” Olson said.“Dr. Betsy Merrell and Carol Adams are both fantastic representatives of our community,” said Kimerly Hinkelman, Pardee Hospital Foundation Executive Director. “Pardee Hospital is a better place because of them and we would not be able to provide the care our community deserves without these individuals. We thank them for making Pardee a better place with their gifts.”
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Henderson County News
City officials made the case on Thursday that a new police station and a broad rezoning could stimulate redevelopment and raise property values in the Historic Seventh Street District. But they sought to assure residents that no property owner would be forced to sell, upgrade their property or move because of potential changes in a five-block area.
“This is not the Green Meadows project from back in the ‘70s,” City Manager John Connet told a gathering that filled the pews at the Agape Christian Fellowship on Cherry Street. “We want to do the sort of things that will allow you better opportunities to improve your property.”The Hendersonville City Council staked an investment in tax dollars in the historic district when it decided earlier this year to build a new police station on Ashe Street. Considered a stabilizing influence in an area spotted with vacant lots, rental housing and blight, the police station is being designed now and scheduled to be under construction about a year from now. Meanwhile, city planners have rolled out a rezoning that would give property owners greater flexibility in how buildings or land is used.
‘Not removing houses’
The Central Mixed Use zoning district is an urban-oriented designed to facilitate development in a pedestrian friendly way with attractive streetscapes and pockets of open space. Design requirements aim to “animate and enliven the streetscape” with such elements as changes in color or material, architectural lighting, works of art, fountains, pools, landscaping and gardens. Spelled out in 25 paragraphs of the zoning code, the streetscape requirements cover street trees and other landscaping (“replace dead vegetation with healthy living plantings”), urban open space and exterior facades of buildings.Significantly, however, single-family homes and duplexes are exempt from the streetscape requirements. Instead, the central mixed use zoning relaxes many residential zoning requirements, allowing greater flexibility for new development like zero-lot line cluster housing. The minimum lot area, at 8,000 square feet, is less than a quarter acre. Bounded by Barker, East Pace and Elm streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the overlay district contains 65 lots and includes 27 rental houses, 16 vacant lots, 10 owner-occupied homes and two non-residential uses. It’s currently zoned R-6 residential.
Property owners listen to a presentation about the proposed rezoning.“This change in zoning is not going to be removing houses,” Dylan Powell, a planning intern who presented the plan, told the property owners. “If you have a house here and want to keep it, you can. Property owners won’t be required to do anything different with their property if they don’t want to.”Homeowners asked several times in several different ways whether the city planned to condemn property for redevelopment. City officials said no.“This is a work in progress,” said Councilman Steve Caraker, who has been an advocate for Seventh Avenue revitalization for years. “What we’re talking about tonight is changing the ground rules to allow a lot more uses in here.”Among the 47 uses the zone permits are single-family homes, multi-family developments, garage apartments, hotels, B&Bs, parking garages, churches, restaurants, nursing and adult care homes, public buildings and microbreweries. While a new police station on Ashe Street would potentially spark development, Connet emphasizes that current landowners and private investors, not city taxpayers, will steer the future of Seventh Avenue.“We will bring a public institution into the neighborhood and we wanted our initial involvement to be as small as possible,” he said. The city cobbled together the police station land from three lots it owned, three vacant lots, one lot containing a rental house and just one that was owner-occupied.“We wanted to limit the purchase of houses that people were living in,” he said.In an interview Monday, Connet said he was generally pleased with the how the reception the rezoning presentation got.“I think we got good input,” he said. “We had people that had concerns but we had folks that were not so vocal come up to us and say they liked the idea. … The idea is we got in there first (with the police station), we rezone the property and let the market drive the change.”The city-initiated rezoning request is scheduled to go to the Planning Board on July 9 and to the City Council on Aug. 2.
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Henderson County News
Early in the first century century A.D. the Roman poet Ovid wrote a poem entitled, “Metamorphoses,” a portion of which is about a sculptor, Pygmalion, who falls in love with a statue of his own creation — the perfect woman. Since then, fascination with the “perfect woman” has been a common theme in literature, television and movies. In Cinderella the perfect woman emerges by means of a bath and ball gown. In George Bernard Shaw’s 1912 play Pygmalion, perfection comes through education. In the seventh season of Seinfeld, Jerry thinks he’s found the perfect woman. How can she not be? She is just like him.
The Love List, this season’s second offering on the Flat Rock Playhouse Main Stage, falls squarely in the “perfect woman” category, but it bears less resemblance to the erudite Pygmalion than to the 1985 John Hughes teen romp Weird Science. In Weird Science two teen-aged computer geniuses, Gary and Wyatt, feed the measurements of a Playboy centerfold among other parameters into their home computer. For extra memory they hack into the Pentagon’s mainframe computer. At the instant of connection with the Pentagon’s powerful machine lightning strikes, and out of the awesome combination of megabytes and megawatts comes, not Frankenstein’s monster, but the sexy sci-fi babe, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock).
It is disheartening to consider that the maturity of the average male, be he 15 or 50, plateaus at puberty unless confronted by a supernatural event. That seems to be a key message of Canadian playwright Norm Foster’s The Love List. The play is set in Bill’s messy New York apartment. It begins with post birthday dinner banter between Bill (Scott Treadway) and his long-time friend Leon (Preston Dyar). Bill, a lonely statistician, is either painfully shy or frozen in grief over the long ago loss of his one true love Justine. Leon, a philandering novelist, tries to get Bill to realize that there are plenty of women for the taking. The married Leon brags about the number of women who, at book signings, will invite him to come back to their place for “coffee and cake.” With a lecherous waggle of his eyebrows he says, “I’ve had lots of cake!”
In honor of Bill’s 50th birthday, Leon is on a mission to get his buddy hooked up with a woman, any woman. If no one else, then a prostitute will do. Bill’s objections are firm at first but then he vacillates between shy reluctance and the fantasy of uncomplicated, no-strings-attached sexual gratification. Seeing the chink in Bill’s armor, Leon reveals with a flourish a paper form he bought for the occasion from a mysterious Gypsy woman. The form is for a “love list,” ten blanks to be filled in with Bill’s idea of the perfect woman. Despite Bill’s frenzied objections, Leon wears him down and the list making begins.
The items they come up are no surprise. Bill wants “ambitious.” Leon wants “big boobs.” Bill wants “sense of humor.” Leon wants “sex every night without having to ask for it.” After an exhausting back-and-forth they finally come up with ten items, Leon sticks the paper in his pocket and they part ways for the night. Leon promises to find the Gypsy woman and turn the paper in to her so she can find Bill a match. He needn’t bother. The next day Bill comes home from work to find a beautiful stranger in his apartment who happens to be named Justine (Ryah Nixon); who happens to know everything there is to know about him; who happens to have every quality on his love list.
Any more and this review could turn into a spoiler. Not to worry, though, because after Justine walks in things happen in a predictable order. You know already know how it will go. Bill is in heaven, Leon is jealous of being replaced by a mystery woman. Justine is not quite perfect, so adjustments are made to the list. which, because Because of the magic involved, , these adjustments lead immediately to radical changes in Justine’s mood or character and, thus, to worse imperfections. For example, a longed-for character trait that seems like it would be charming such as “likes to sing,” becomes annoying when Justine won’t stop singing.
The Love List requires only three actors, and Nixon, Treadway and Dyar are consistently good. Under Lisa K. Bryant’s direction, the action on stage is always fluid, never stilted. Dialogue is rapid fire, especially between the men. Nixon was up to the challenge of a role that required her to change character on a dime. Her red-hot dress and cheap, blonde wig were perfect for her initial appearances on stage as they reflected her two-dimensional, dreamed-up persona. It was a nice touch to dress her later in a more conservative costume to show her potential to develop into a deeper, more complicated character.
The opening night crowd was in a good mood for The Love List. Patrons laughed frequently and at all the right places. They sometimes seemed to laugh before the punch line was delivered. That’s because we all know the story. The age-old quest for perfection in one’s mate never ends well. The sexes are a mystery to one another, but, if you believe Foster, men are no more shallow in what they are looking for in the perfect mate than women are. The play was only first produced fifteen years ago, but it seems dated. At one point Leon yells, “What in the name of Julie Andrews is going on?” Julie Andrews? Why not Christina Aguilera or Destiny’s Child, both of which were popular in 2003.
There is some redemption for Bill and Leon, but our middle-aged protagonists seem to grow less by the end of The Love List than Gary and Wyatt, the hormone driven teenagers, do by the end of Weird Science. Part of the problem as an audience member watching The Love List in 2018 is that the dynamics between the sexes have become much more complicated in just the past year. A radical renovation of the way men talk to and about women is taking place, at least in public. “Boys will be boys,” doesn’t cut it any more and even “Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus” has been reduced to a quaint literary footnote in the context of increasingly fluid gender identities. In light of this, The Love List may make you a bit uneasy. But you will probably laugh anyway. The opening night audience gave the play and the Playhouse actors a standing ovation at the end. Let that be your guide.
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Henderson County News
You won't want to miss this week’s Hendersonville Lightning.
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Henderson County News
FLAT ROCK — The Flat Rock Village Council on Tuesday endorsed an improvement project for Highland Lake Road, turning back an intensive year-long campaign by opponents who described the roadwork as an affront to the character of the village.The vote was 6-1 with Vice Mayor Nick Weedman, a consistent opponent of the project, voting no.“Basically everybody voted for the project except for Mr. Weedman who had an eloquent dissent and mentioned where the project had gone from when he vehemently opposed it to now, that while he still oppposed it and had some concerns, it’s far more reasonable," said Councilman John Dockendorf, who as transportation liaison has guided numerous compromises to try to win support for the work.Mayor Bob Staton read the timeline of the project, starting with a notification from the NCDOT in January 2016 that extra funding had allowed the state to advance the project. Since then, Staton said, the Village Council discussed the project at 23 public meetings. During 2½ years of discussion and negotiation, state engineers made numerous concessions to minimize the impact of the project and address residents’ concerns, council members said.While the assembly room at St. John in the Wilderness was again filled with opponents, “There was some dissenters that came up and thanked us for voting for future of Flat Rock,” Dockendorf said.Still undecided is whether the project will include work to allow a wider turning radius for northbound buses and trucks turning from Greenville Highway onto Highland Lake.“Historic Flat Rock believes that the safety improvement on that corner will not be approved by the state Historic board,” which has authority because it would encroach on the Flat Rock Historic District. “I’m hopeful that between DOT and the council a minimum amout of land will be taken but enough to make the corner a little bit safer.”Dockendorf and other council members said they feared if they did not act now to endorse the safety improvements, the project would be dropped for at least 20 years.
The Cultural Landscape Group: Flat Rock, which organized to stop the project, issued a statement critical of the council's decision.
“We are terribly disappointed that the Flat Rock Village Council has ignored the voices, via petition signatures and otherwise, of the majority of the homeowners in Flat Rock and approved a plan that is an invasion of our Sense of Place and of the character that qualifies Flat Rock’s being on the National Register of Historic Places,” said Bay Chamberlain, a CLG member and Flat Rock resident with deep family roots in the village. “Citizens and politicians alike have an obligation to treat our Village landscapes, park, byways and private properties in a responsible, custodial manner with our history, heritage and environment in the forefront.”
Over the past few months, CLG had presented nearly 1,700 petition signatures opposing the road project to the Flat Rock village council and spoken out on what they called the "damaging and costly impact the project would have, not only on the properties directly affected, but on the village community as a whole."
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Henderson County News
When Sarah Leatham told a friend at her Rotary Club she was looking for a partner for her climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, the friend suggested Alison Alexander.
Although Alexander was also a club member, Leatham didn’t know her well. They met at the Mills River Triangle Stop, which has a craft beer taproom. The time flew by.“I’ve never closed down a gas station before,” Leatham said. “They said, ‘Y’all have to go on.’”That marked the beginning of a lot of time the new friends would share. Since Alison committed to join Sarah and her husband, Erich, on the climb, the two of hiked, worked out and backpacked together.“We have a very easy relationship,” Sarah says. “We are very similar and we look at things in a way that just kind of makes it happen.”Alexander had also gotten a nudge from a friend at Rotary.“Sarah needs someone to climb this mountain with her,” he told her. “I think you should go.”Money raised for the climb goes to Rotary International’s effort to “End Polio Now.”“Rotary’s been one of the largest partners to eradicate polio worldwide,” Alexander said. The partnership has reduced the number of polio cases to under 2,000 in three countries — Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Since 1988 the Rotary effort has immunized more than 2½ billion children in 122 countries. The Gates Foundation doubles every dollar Rotary raises, up to $35 million a year. Leatham takes her inspiration from her memory of a friend’s father when she was growing up in Columbia, Missouri. “It always made an impact on me, everything he was trying to do and how much effort it took,” she said. Her other inspiration is Diane Stillman, a friend’s aunt, who contracted polio at age 20 and died at 43. She’s carrying Stillman’s picture to the summit.“She’s been so inspirational,” she said. “She didn’t let it stop her.”Neither Alexander or Leatham said they’re particularly anxious about the five-day climb. Orientation sessions in Charlotte and YouTube videos have helped prepare them. Porters carry tents, cooking gear and other supplies. They’re part of a group of about a dozen Rotarians making the climb and the only ones from Western North Carolina.“I have the passion for it and climbing in somebody’s memory and honor is going to help,” Leatham said. Having come this far, “They would have to tell me they won’t let me do it if something were to happen.”Besides backpacking with a 50-pound pack, Alexander has been working out at Crossfit and running. The ascent is 12,952 feet and features a temperature drop of up to 100 degrees, from 100 at base camp to zero on the windy Uhuru peak. The final leg is an overnight hike culminating on the summit at daybreak. Each Rotarian is asked to raise at least $3,000 but Alexander and Leatham both have a personal goal of at least $5,000. The Rotarians pay their own way for travel and the climb.“This is not my vacation slush fund,” Alexander tells donors.The trio leaves from Charlotte on July 15 and starts the climb two days later. After a two-day descent from the summit down to base camp, the Leathams and Alexander are going on a five-day safari in Tanzania. Added bonus: “We’re there when there’s a lunar eclipse going on,” Alexander said. That’s even more exotic than closing down a Triangle Stop.
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To donate to End Polio Now through Sarah or Alison visit https://rotary7680kiliclimb.org/sarah-leatham-hendersonville/ or https://rotary7680kiliclimb.org/alison-alexander-hendersonville/.
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Flat Rock News
Flat Rock Square is presenting the first Evening in the Square, a casual, outdoor, family-friendly event featuring live music from Eric Congdon and band. The event is 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, the first day of summer, at Flat Rock Square, the former Singleton Center, on Greenville Highway in the heart of historic Flat Rock. Evening in the Square is free and open to the public. Joining Congdon will be bass virtuoso Jake Wolf and renowned drummer Jeff Sipe (Warren Haynes, Aquarium Rescue Unit). The trio promises to deliver an awesome evening of rock, blues, soul, jazz and more. Guests are encouraged to bring a folding chair. Wine, cider and light refreshments will be available for purchase from Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards at Flat Rock, located in the Square. The rain plan is to hold the event on the patio of Saint Paul’s. To learn more, call 828-698-7000. Read Story »
Henderson County News
A 44-year-old Hendersonville attorney was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling from clients, U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray announced.
Howard Trade Elkins was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Asheville on wire fraud charges for embezzling client funds from his law office’s trust account. U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger also ordered Elkins to serve two years of supervised release upon completion of his prison term.According to court filings, plea documents and court proceedings, Elkins was an attorney with a private practice in Hendersonville. From 2012 to 2017, Elkins engaged in a scheme to embezzle from his law office’s trust account. During the relevant time period, Elkins served as an attorney for estates of deceased individuals. In his duties as the estate attorney, Elkins received funds from various sources into his law firm’s trust account, and was obligated to expend the money to pay various debts and inheritances as directed. According to court records, Elkins would, at times, deposit funds from estate clients into his law firm’s trust account, but did not use the funds as directed. Instead, Elkins embezzled the funds and used it to support his own lifestyle, to gamble, to make lulling payments to other victim clients and to satisfy potential debts and demands related to his legal work.“Elkins’ clients trusted him and relied on him to carry out his duties as their attorney. Instead, Elkins used his law firm’s trust account as his personal piggy bank,” Murray said. “Elkins’ misconduct is reprehensible and, more importantly, it erodes the public’s trust in our legal system."Elkins pleaded guilty in November 2017 to wire fraud. He will be ordered to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence upon designation of a federal facility.The investigation was handled by the FBI. Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Gast of the federal prosecutor's Asheville office prosecuted the case. Read Story »
Henderson County News
Although a wide gulf seems to separate the warring county commissioners and School Board over Hendersonville High School, a compromise design may be closer than appearances would suggest.
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