Henderson County News
Q. A couple of months ago they found a skull and some bones near Mud Creek. Did they ever find out who this person was?
The remains found on Dec. 5 have not yet been identified nor has the cause of death. Hendersonville police sent the remains to the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem. Dr. Jerri McLemore, a board certified pathologist, who performs autopsies at the facility could not disclose specifics on the Hendersonville case, but she quickly admitted that there is a backlog at Wake Forest Medical and that her office is understaffed. “It’s rare to have a case where the remains have not been identified,” said McLemore, “but some cases get priority based on urgency.” Using soft tissue samples, an autopsy at Wake Forest Medical can usually determine age, height, gender, race, length of time since death. When there is none to analyze, Dr. McLemore can send remains 100 miles down the road to Dr. Ann Ross, a consultant at N.C. State University. Dr. Ross is a forensic anthropologist who works on hard tissue evidence — bones and teeth. When she gets remains from Wake Forest Medical, Dr. Ross first inventories and x-rays them. The chain of custody of the remains is important particularly if she has to testify in a court case. Her lab measures the long bones and then does a biological profile. If enough of the key bones and teeth are available, the decedent’s height, age, and sex can quickly be determined. Ancestral origin is more complex and for that test Dr. Ross uses a software program. When unknown cranial remains arrive at her lab, Dr. Ross’s team can employ a research technique she calls 3D-ID. Here the skull is measured three-dimensionally using selected anatomical points. Measurements are then recorded and a computer compares the numbers against stored data. In a sense, the lab technician can “put a face on a skull” and make an informed determination on age, sex, and natural origin, all of which is needed for our unknown person found in Hendersonville. “The frontal sinus pattern is just as good, if not better, than a fingerprint,” Ross said. DNA tissue analysis is an option and Dr. Ross confirmed that usable samples can be taken from bones and teeth but much depends on the time elapsed and condition of the remains. DNA analysis is expensive, and some labs are backlogged for more than a year. “Another problem with DNA testing is that unless you can match it to a known family member, you can’t make a positive identification,” said Ross. If the medical examiner in Winston-Salem cannot determine how the person died, the NCSU lab in Raleigh can help. Using precision equipment that looks at fracture patterns and sequence, technicians can often establish the cause of death such as blunt force trauma and whether a crime was committed. Dr. Ross is assisting with the European Migration Project. She said that there are many would-be refugees who leave Northern Africa by boat, never make it to land, and are recovered with no identification. Italian medical examiners have used Dr. Ross’ expertise and her 3-D ID methods to determine areas of origin. Identification is about matching remains to those reported missing and there are national databases for each group. NamUs.gov is the primary website for both. NamUs has listed 315 persons missing in North Carolina and 114 open cases of unidentified remains. This is low compared to 1,573 unidentified in Pima County, Arizona. Remains can come in many forms including those that have been buried or cremated. So do we have any clues as to the identity of the remains found in a wooded area behind the Green Meadows development? Tim Jones, the Hendersonville Rescue Mission’s operations manager, does. He reported a missing person in January of 2015. This individual was a regular at the mission but chose to spend nights on the street. “It’s heartbreaking for me to talk about this,” Jones said. “He likely froze to death on a bitter cold night.”
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Hendersonville News
RALEIGH — The Hendersonville Lightning received eight awards during the North Carolina Press Association’s annual Winter Institute, including recognition for its coverage of the murder of Thomas Bryson, the fight over Hendersonville High School, news obits of prominent community figures and editorials.
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Henderson County News
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Ken Nolan, the son of Don Nolan of Hendersonville, at the premiere of ‘Only the Brave’
Ken Nolan realized he had drawn a tough assignment after he signed on to write the screenplay for a movie about the Granite Mountain Hot Shots, the Arizona wildfire crew memorialized in “Only the Brave.”
The Hot Shots lost 19 of the 20-man crew when the Yarnell Hill wildfire roared over the firefighters in June 2013.“It was a two-year process,” Nolan said of the screenwriting job. The first hurdle was winning the support and cooperation of the firefighters’ families. “People were not very willing to talk about it.” Nolan grew up in Buffalo, New York, and Portland, Oregon, but has a connection to North Carolina because his father, Don and his wife, Ann, had retired to Flat Rock. Ken has visited many times. He enjoys touring the Carl Sandburg home and hiking Big Glassy.Back in Arizona, the key was his first meeting with Amanda Marsh, the widow of Eric Marsh, crew leader of the Granite Mountain Hot Shots.Over time, “I got people to trust me, especially Eric’s wife, Amanda,” he said. “I told her, I don’t want to do this if you don’t want to do this. She really pointedly asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”A movie, far more than the GQ story that had first chronicled the Yarnell Hill fire in depth, would reach far more people.“A movie would be a testament to the guys like your husband,” Nolan told Amanda. “The world would see what they did.”With Amanda’s blessing, Nolan got widener access to surviving family members and friends. Whenever he wrote, he had 19 obituaries spread out before him — mini-biographies of young men who left wives, mothers and fathers, siblings, children and babies.He wrote the script without a commitment from a studio to buy it.“The idea is that on spec you gamble on yourself that when we finish a script we’re going to send it to a studio and they’re going to buy it,” he said. “Black Label said, ‘OK, we want to make it and we’ll pay you.’”
‘Blackhawk Down,’ the big break
Nolan moved to Los Angeles in 1990 to pursue acting and screenwriting. When he was approached about writing the script for “Blackhawk Down,” based on the book by Mark Bowden, Nolan had never heard of the dramatic mission of 160 elite U.S. soldiers surrounded by a large force of heavily armed Somalis. Once he read the book, he immediately signed on. That led to a 2½-year education in “how to tell this super complex story.”“It was a great learning experience for me. Rewriting over and over again is a brutal teacher but a really good one I think,” he said. “I thought, ‘Yay, I made it. I’m going to get so many movies made.’”He has had numerous movies made, including “The Company” and “Transformers: The Last Knight.” “Only the Brave” was co-written by Eric Singer, who came into the project when Nolan’s commitment to “Transformers” pulled him away.When he’s not writing, Nolan reads nonfiction, mining for stories that would translate into gripping cinematic drama.“Scenes typically last no more than three pages,” he said. “Anything longer and the audience just gets really restless. It’s a very arcane writing style and profession. I think of it like making little cabinets or watches. It’s very precise. Writing a novel is like building a house, you can go anywhere. (Movie) audiences are savvy and they’ll throw fruit at the screen if they don’t get what they’re used to.”
Dad is ‘Bushed’
Nolan enjoys visiting his dad and his stepmother, who recently moved from Flat Rock to a smaller townhome in Hendersonville. Asked if he had been exposed to the reaction his dad got for his uncanny likeness to former President George W. Bush, Ken recalled it immediately. “He used to call it getting Bushed,” Nolan said. “People would stare at him in restaurants and he’d say ‘I’m being Bushed.’”Ken saw it first-hand once when he walked through an airport with his dad.“People were stopping and turning around and whispering, ‘Is that him?’ Dad is a performer, he wishes he were a performer.”Ken, 50, and his two brothers turned that DNA into professions. Older brother Dave played guitar and brother Matt is a Hollywood actor (“Argo,” “Jersey Boys” and numerous television roles).“Dad really instilled in me my love of movies,” Ken said. “He took us to movies when we were little kids. He took us to things he probably shouldn’t have taken us to, like ‘Jaws.’ His favorite movie was ‘Giant.’ He loved James Dean. He had a James Dean jacket he would wear around as a teenager.”Nolan regrets that “Only the Brave” failed to harvest any nominations. “No, it was completely overlooked and it was very sad,” he said. “These awards are really given to movies that have really run a campaign like a political campaign.”If “Only the Brave” fell short of a box office smash every producer (and screenwriter) hopes for, it has the advantage of a second, perpetual life through streaming.“Last week so I got a flurry of emails” from people who had just watched it at home and were thrilled, Nolan said.In the early 2000s, screenwriters made good money on DVD sales and rentals.“I made much more on DVD sales than I did for writing ‘Blackhawk Down,’” he said.Now that his movie can be seen by millions of streaming subscribers, Nolan said he’s not even sure how much he’ll make. He and his screenwriting friends have talked about it.“None of us have had a movie since this whole streaming thing,” he said.
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Flat Rock News
FLAT ROCK — Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards has opened a tasting room in Flat Rock Square that will offer wine-pairing dinners, pairing classes, tapas and small plates and events.
The new venture has something that the popular tasting room and the new Appalachian Ridge Cidery on Chestnut Gap Road lack — a commercial kitchen.
Saint Paul Flat Rock in Flat Rock Square (formerly the Singleton Centre) serves five white wines, six red wines and four dessert wines. Occupying the corner location with an upstairs deck, the tasting room has something that the home location lacks — a commercial kitchen. The Dragonfly restaurant previously occupied the space.
“We wanted to do something a little different than the tasting room,” said Meredith Ward, the 25-year-old daughter of Saint Paul founder Alan Ward. The new venture is just getting started but has plans for events, cooking classes and pairing dinners. It serves locally roasted coffee from Hendersonville-based ShareWell Coffee Co.
Wines include charconnay, the award-winning Laurel Hill Vidal Blanc (best in show in the biggest state wine contest), Chestnut Gap, Jasper and Petit Verdot, with prices ranging from $6 to $15 a glass. Wine is for sale by the bottle, too.
“We hope to partner with some of the local Flat Rock businesses to do some events,” said Ward, a 2010 graduate of Hendersonville High School and graduate of N.C. State University in social work. An on-call social worker for the county DSS, she works seven days and seven off. Read Story »
Henderson County News
The North Carolina State Bar reprimanded attorney Michael Edney for professional misconduct in the handling of an estate, according to an order issued last Aug. 9.The bar’s Grievance Committee investigated a complaint against Edney filed by a client identified only as S. M. According to the committee, Edney was hired to handle the estate of the complainant’s father in December 2014. At that time, “the complainant’s mother, Mrs. L.M., gave you two checks made payable to her late husband or his estate,” Grievance Committee Chair DeWitt “Mac” McCarley wrote in the reprimand. “You did not place those checks in a fiduciary account, but placed the checks in a file where they remained until the complainant spoke with you in April 2017.”Edney, the chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, admitted to the bar that he took no substantive action on the estate for two years and that he did not “adequately stay in touch” with the client “due to your busy law practice and other obligations.”The Grievance Committee found that Edney violated state bar rules by failing to communicate with the client and failing to place the decedent’s checks in a trust account.The state Bar suspended Edney from practicing law for two years in June 1999 for what it said was his mishandling of a client’s appeal of a criminal conviction and his failure to respond to either the client’s letters or the state Bar’s notifications. The state Bar reinstated his license in April of 2000 after it determined he had complied with the terms of disciplinary order.“That’s gutter politics,” Edney said when asked about the disciplinary action. He suggested someone planning to run against him leaked the order to the press. “That’s what these folks are trying to dig up. It’s not newsworthy and I’m going to comment on it.”
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Henderson County News
Marco’s Pizza, the newest competitor in the growing list of pizzerias in the area, has opened and is doing a strong business already for takeout, delivery and dine-in of its pies, wings, subs and salads.The first chain restaurant to open on Seventh Avenue in decades, Marco’s has been growing fast regionally, opening five locations in the Upstate South Carolina. The Hendersonville store at 310 Seventh Avenue East is its first in Western North Carolina and more are planned.The menu features build your own from 22 toppings plus eight specialty pizzas including All Meat, Hawaiian Chicken, White Cheezy, Chicken Fresco, Deluxe, Pepperoni Magnifico and barbecue chicken, from $6.99 to $19.99; six subs ($5.99); ($5.50 for 6, $10.99 for 14); antipasto, chicken Caesar, Greek and chef’s salads ($6.49) and baked cinnamon squares ($4.99) and double chocolate brownies ($5.99) for dessert. Marco’s does not serve beer and wine. It offers delivery a few miles from the store, for an $2.99 charge.Manager John Podhany said the new restaurant, which opened a month ago, has been drawing steady and sometimes big crowds. He’s still learning the rhythm of Hendersonville diners.“One day (on a Sunday) they were lined up the door” before noon, he said. “The next week they didn’t come until 12:30.”Located next door to the new Triskelion Brewing Co., Marco’s expects to do plenty of takeout orders from taproom customers. Hours are 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday and 11 a.m.-midnight on Friday and Saturday.
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Hendersonville News
Those who thought Cook Out had pulled plans to open a restaurant in Hendersonville can breathe a sigh of relief.The cheeseburger, barbecue and milkshake drive-thru specialist, another fast-growing purveyor in the highway interchange market, has pulled a permit for its store at 2548 Chimney Rock Highway next door to the Golden Corral and across from drive-in competitor Sonic.The Lightning first reported the Cook Out lease of the property from Boyd L. “Bub” Hyder in December 2016. Fourteen months later, Mlb Construction Services is ready to start work. A car wash that occupied the property has already been cleared. The contractor plans a 4,000-square-foot building worth $1.4 million, according to a building permit.Started in Greensboro in 1989, Cookout has more than 200 locations in the Carolinas and eight other states in the South. The privately held company is known for its “never frozen” burgers, chicken sandwiches and hotdogs grilled “outdoors style” and a menu of 40 milkshake flavors, including chocolate cherry, mocha, peach cobbler, fresh watermelon (in the summer), egg nog (in December), walnut, peanut butter banana and candy bar flavors. Unlike many of its competitors, Cook Out ranges beyond grilled burgers and hot dogs to offer barbecue sandwiches, BLTs, hushpuppies and chili cheese fries.A Cook Out spokeswoman said it doesn’t take contractors long to put up the building. The Cook Out on U.S. 64 East will be open “definitely by the end of the year,” she said.
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Henderson County News
Pardee UNC Health Care administrators and board members thanked Charles Albers for 36 years of service to Henderson County Wednesday during the regular meeting of the Board of Directors.
In addition to his general surgery practice, Dr. Albers has served as Chief of Surgery, Chief of Staff and on the Board of Trustees for Pardee Hospital, from 2000 to 2005.
"As far as I can tell, he's the only active surgeon to serve as chair," said Dr. David Ellis, Pardee's chief medical officer.
Born and raised in Carmine,Texas, a town of 223 people, Albers graduated with 10 others from his high school and went on to earn an undergraduate degree from Texas Lutheran. He earned his medical degree at Baylor and got this surgical residency from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. He started his career at Pardee in 1981.
In 2006 he was asked to start and lead a new breast care program at Pardee and became, Ellis said, "the anchor of our breast surgery program."
Learning from his wife’s personal experience with breast cancer, Albers set out to create a fully integrated and navigated continuum of care for the breast care program.Taken from an excerpt from a 2016 column in which Dr. Albers explained , he noted that in 2006, “
"There was nothing terribly cutting edge about breast care programs," Albers said in a 2016 column about the the evolution of the breast care program at Pardee. "We all had relatively comparable technology, performed the same types of surgeries, and offered similar treatments. However, I knew that there was one key area where Pardee could be innovative and that was in how we treated our patients. I knew immediately that I wanted our new program to treat everyone like a doctor’s wife. Pardee would make it their mission to offer a level of service unlike any other, allowing each patient to completely and efficiently navigate a truly integrated system.”
That system has evolved into a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary program that serves women and men. The leadership of the breast care program will transition to Dr. Jennifer McAlister. "Dr. Albers has made a tremendous impact on the lives of many women in our community,” Ellis said. “He leaves a strong legacy with our Breast Care Program and has worked to create a seamless transition in leadership to Dr. McAlister. We are grateful to him for his vision and his dedication.” Read Story »
Henderson County News
You won't want to miss this week’s Hendersonville Lightning.
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