From Carolina Tiger Rescue: Lucky was one of a kind. His spirited, playful personality made him especially popular with visitors and volunteers alike. Lucky loved his toys; everything from giant balls to barrels. He also loved his pool. He spent a lot of time in it during hot summer days. He would lie in the pool with one big front paw up on the rim and look so happy peeking over the edge. Most of all, he loved to play stalk-and-pounce with visitors who walked enticingly along his habitat fence.

Lucky’s favorite treat was turkey and rice baby food. When an open jar of baby food was held up to the chain link fence, Lucky would slurp the baby food out of the jar with his big tiger tongue like it was the best thing in the world.

Lucky came to Carolina Tiger Rescue from Detroit. He was confiscated by police in 1997 when they found him in the back seat of a car during a traffic violation stop. He weighed 40 lbs. and was about 4 months old. He spent the next ten years at the Michigan Humane Society and Belle Isle Zoo. During that time, Carnivore Preservation Trust sent Carmelita tiger to Michigan to keep him company. When the zoo closed in 2007, Carmelita returned to Carolina Tiger Rescue and brought Lucky with her.

In February, Lucky stopped being his usual playful self and his appetite decreased. He was being treated with antibiotics for what we hoped was an infection when other symptoms emerged. His behavior indicated a brain tumor. On March 21st, Lucky was put under anesthesia in order to examine and diagnose his condition. During the procedure, he stopped breathing and passed away on his own.

Lucky will be remembered for the good times we shared and for the joy he brought to so many visitors. To Lucky, we send out a collective chuffle – our warmest tiger greeting to our departed friend.

SOUTHERN PINES

“We are excited to have Cynthia join the Red Cross leadership team,” says Regional Executive Director Barry Porter. “With her solid background as a not-for profit manager and fundraiser, Cynthia brings excellent experience recruiting key community leaders to the board and engaging them as fundraisers. She will bring energy, enthusiasm and creativity to the role.”

The general public is invited to attend a “Meet & Greet” for Bradley on May 17, 2012, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Moore County Red Cross Office located at 115 E. Pennsylvania Avenue in Southern Pines.

Bradley has more than 20 years of progressive nonprofit management experience, most recently as Executive Director with Communities in Schools of Moore County. In that role, she led the efforts to raise the $500,000 annual organizational budget with direct fundraising through various channels, including grant writing and overall management of staff. In order to accomplish the mission of the organization, she was responsible for ensuring a cooperative partnership with the school district and keeping the community informed about ongoing dropout prevention programs.

Previously, she was Executive Vice President of the Moore County Chamber of Commerce, also serving as interim President. In her various roles with the Moore County Chamber, Bradley led membership, fundraising and marketing efforts. In addition, Bradley’s business development background includes working for the Gaston Regional Chamber in Gastonia, NC, and the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce in Fairfax, Va.

The Red Cross hired Bradley to fill the Executive Director position after the retirement of A. J. “Buddy” Spong earlier this year.

“I really appreciate the volunteers from the Chapter that served on the Search Committee, working with me to understand the changing role of the Executive Director in the community,” Porter says. “We all agree that Cynthia brings a passion for the mission of Red Cross.”

About the American Red Cross:

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or join our blog at http://blog.redcross.org.

Mary Wayne Watson

The Moore County Historical Association invites you to a free lecture by Mary Wayne Watson on “Women’s Attitudes Toward Secession and the Civil War.” The lecture is  Sunday, June 24 starting at 2 p.m. and is at the  First Baptist Church of Southern Pines. Visitors should use the May Street Entrance.

Watson is no stranger to Moore County  audiences. This  noted English professor is sponsored by the  N.C. Humanities Council as part of the Roads Scholar program. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her doctorate from the University of Virginia.

Her lecture focuses on unpublished manuscripts and correspondence by gifted North Carolina women whose perspectives of the Civil War period show the impact of Sherman’s scorched earth policy on the area, following the first period of idealism, followed by sadness and loss during the four years from 1861-1865, as North Carolina and the rest of the South continued to suffer loss and misery into the post-war period. Watson actually used as her basis letters her own great-grandmother in Scotland County wrote during that period to a family in Moore County, in the process revealing that North Carolina had a surprisingly literary heritage in years of hardship and loss.

Watson also has done presentations on her own great uncle, a North Carolina Poet Laureate named John Charles McNeill, and a cousin, Gerald White Johnson, a journalist and historian.

The lecturer has taught English at both middle and high school levels in public schools. She also taught at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., and is currently a professor of English and literature at Nash Community College in Rocky Mount.

For more information, call (910) 692-2051  or visit the MCHA website at www.moorehistory.com.

The 24^th annual 2012 Writers Competition of the Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities resulted in 35 awards given in ceremonies Sunday, April 29 in the Great Room at Weymouth in Southern Pines.  Money prizes are awarded each year for fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Competition is in four categories: Grades 1-4, grades 5-8, grades 9-12 and adult. The annual contest is open to students and adults in Moore County.

The 2012 publication of the winning entries in a bound booklet is available at Weymouth Center, The Country Bookshop, and the Arts Council of Moore County.  The 2011 Writers Competition resulted in slightly more awards for honorable mentions and third place – 49 – than were awarded in 2012 for the lower grades. The number of honorable mentions and  runners-up selected is at the discretion of the judges.

Each year judges are selected from the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Weymouth Center each year receives a check from the Donald and Elizabeth Cooke Foundation for purposes of conducting the annual competition, the awards, and publication of the anthology of winning entries.

The annual competition is overseen by a local committee of volunteers. The 2012 judges were Jonnie Martin, a novelist residing in Vancouver, Washington, and is a native of Texas. She earned her Masters in Fine Arts from Queens College in Charlotte, N.C. , and judged the fiction entries. The non-fiction judge was Lacey Brosan Lyons, an adjunct professor of English with writing emphasis at Belmont University in Tennessee.  She is editing an anthology dealing with race, culture, and identity issues and is also writing a book about epilepsy. The poetry judge is Susan Laughter Meyers, who has won poetry prizes, and published her poems in a collection by the University of South Carolina Press. She lives  in rural South  Carolina.

For more information, see www.weymouthcenter.org, call (910) 692-6261 or e-mail weymouthcenter@pinehurst.net.

One of my favorite local lettuce varieties this spring has been Speckled Mountain Trout Lettuce from David’s Produce in Ellerbe. One of the great things about the farm to table trend is the variety of fruits and vegetables being produced and readily accessible. Lettuce is a great example. There are basically six types of lettuce:  butter head, Chinese, crispy head, loose-leaf, romaine and summer crisp. In North Carolina, many farmers grow butter head (Green Haven Hydroponic Plant Farm in Carthage), loose-leaf and romaine (David’s Produce) and other varieties across the region.

May is National Salad Month. Think of lettuce as a base for some amazing spring salads. Lettuce is a natural and fresh food that has all kinds of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Lettuce has 247 percent of your recommended daily amount of vitamin A, 147 percent of vitamin K, 10 percent of iron, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If lettuce is the canvas, you can be the artist and create a great side dish or a meal in itself.

As a child, I can remember my mother attempting to grow her own lettuce and thinking it tasted like crunchy green water and dirt (make sure to wash it), but over time I grew to like it. You can easily grow your own in a small planter or garden box. You will taste the difference; it is nothing like grocery store iceberg.

Build your salad wisely, and add in other fruits and vegetables. If you want to make a meal, add a lean protein like grilled chicken, fish or lean beef. Play with texture; add nuts, sprouts or raw vegetables for a crunch, sautéed onions or peppers for savory flavors and fresh berries for sweetness. Consider a creamy goat cheese or tangy feta for additional calcium. Your choices are endless!

The one pitfall many of us fall into is the dressing.  Many store-bought dressings are loaded with fat, sugar, sodium and hydrogenated oils. Read the labels and consider making your own. With all of the flavors in your salad, you can use a basic olive oil, vinegar, Dijon, lemon juice and salt and pepper to make a vinaigrette.

Speckled Mountain Trout Lettuce

& Tuna Salad with Strawberry Vinaigrette

2 cups Speckled Mountain Trout Lettuce (or any variety)

1 piece grilled Ahi or Yellow Fin Tuna (4 to 6 oz.)

4 spears grilled or blanched asparagus

½ cup fresh strawberries (diced)

1/8 cup toasted almonds (for topping)

1/8 cup crumbled goat cheese (or any cheese)

Makes 1 serving, double for two. Wash lettuce thoroughly and pat dry. Layer the lettuce in the bottom of your bowl or plate and top with grilled tuna, asparagus, strawberries, and goat cheese.  Sprinkle with toasted almonds and drizzle dressing over the top.

Strawberry Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tsp. lemon juice

¼ cup smashed strawberries

1 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Salt & pepper to taste

¼ cup olive oil

Morris, owner of Rhett’s Restaurant, can be reached at (910) 695-3663.

This is the month we officially honor mothers.In reality, it’s something we should be doing all year, not just one day in May.

In 1868, Ann Jarvis of Grafton,    W. Va., first proposed a day honoring mothers of sons lost in the Civil War. Her hope was that reconciliation between mothers would lead to a more general healing after the war. Her cause proved to be an uphill battle, and she died before she saw the first Mother’s Day celebrated May 12, 1907 in her home church in Grafton. Her daughter, Anna Marie Jarvis took up her mother’s cause after her death.  Finally, on May 8, 1914, Congress declared the second Sunday in May as an official holiday recognizing and honoring mothers.

For a few years, it was a quiet celebration. Soon, however, commercial interests caught on to the powerful meaning of the day and now more flowers, candy and cards are sold for Mother’s Day than any other day. The younger Jarvis became upset with the commercialization of the day and actively fought against turning what she and her mother had hoped would be a day of quiet reflection into a commercial circus.

So, how should we celebrate Mother’s Day?

Those of us who are mothers, but no longer have our own mothers with us, have lots of mixed feelings about the day. There is emptiness when you can no longer say face-to-face, “I love you, Mom.” There is joy when our own motherhood is appreciated by our children.  I may not be speaking for all mothers, but we don’t really need a bouquet or chocolates when a big hug will do. (Of course, being treated to a brunch or dinner out is quite acceptable, giving us a day way from the kitchen.)

One of the best ways to honor your mother is to follow the principles she taught you. It brings great joy to me, when I see my daughter helping out a friend.  When someone tells me that she is “just like you,” I am very pleased. But I do want her to be her own person.  When I was growing up, I didn’t always appreciate the comments that I was a carbon copy of my mother. Now that I have reached maturity, I know I am a lot like her in both appearance and mannerisms, some good, some not so good.

There are many mothers who may have rather lonely days — family lives far away, or there is no family left.  Those of us who have been blessed should share our day with others. Perhaps you have a neighbor who is like a sister or mother to you. Include her in your day. Nearly all of us have had at least one outstanding teacher.  Send her a card to say thanks. Our teachers played an important part in our formation. Aunts are often a special part of our lives, yet we don’t have an official day for them. Remember them.

Grandmothers, who gave our mothers life which we then passed on to another generation should get special attention. I would gladly give up any material gift in order to celebrate with my mother and grandmother.

To all the mothers out there, thanks for everything!

Review by Cos Barnes

I always find it refreshing to switch back from today’s action packed literature and read about a writer I read as a child. Possibly no author is more endeared to a woman reader than Louisa May Alcott, if the reader read “Little Women.” “The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott” gives those fans more of their beloved heroine.

The first chapter has this quote from “Little Women:” “Don’t laugh at the spinsters, dear girls, for often very tender, tragical romances are hidden away in the hearts that beat so quietly under their sober gowns.”

We all have in our heads the descriptions of the author’s destitute family: Bronson, father, a Transcendentalist philosopher and dreamer who would rather talk than work; his harried wife, Marmee, overworked and misguided caregiver who has been brainwashed about the necessity for giving away one’s worldly goods to the poor, and the sisters, Anna, Louisa, Lizzie and May, who complete the close-knit clan.

In this book, the year is 1855, and the family has just moved to Walpole, New Hampshire for the summer, thanks to the largess of a relative who had an unused house to spare. We learn of Louisa’s frustration early on, as her dream is to live in Boston and write.She is trapped at age 21 like her sisters in the daily grind of domesticity, sewing worn-out clothes, doing laundry, picking apples, cooking and cleaning.

She is determined to escape and pursue her writing career. Obstacles keep getting in her way. She meets Joseph Singer. In spite of her writing career and role in the movement for women’s rights, she falls for him, but situations prohibit a romance. This book is romantic fiction.

Have you noticed that over the past 20 years or so beauty parlors have been changing their names? Used to be beauty parlors were everywhere: “Ed and Amy’s Brake and Tire Service and Beauty Parlor,” “Emerald City Beauty Parlor,” “Exquiseete Beauty Parlor Specialists” and, my personal favorite, “Acme Beauty Parlor #2.”

The first part to go was the term “parlor.” I’m thinking it sounded too 19th century. When you hear the word “parlor,” don’t you think of Grandma’s living room? The sofa covered in see-through plastic, doilies on the tables and dusty Hummel figurines on little wall shelves built especially for them?

Parlor just sounds stuffy. And mayhap beauty parlors were called that because lots of beauticians operated out of their converted front parlors. Nothing like getting your hair set in rollers while Adeline Johnson’s husband, Floyd, sits three feet away from you in the Barca-lounger eating chips and watching the football game on TV.

Parlor became salon or saloon depending on the proprietor’s ability to spell. The first time I saw a “beauty saloon” advertised, I thought I could go in, get a haircut AND drink myself silly. Imagine my disappointment. It wasn’t a very good haircut either. This means if they can’t even get their own name right, your hair is probably in for the same treatment.

If you aren’t going to a salon, are you going to a spa? I really don’t like the name spa for a place that cuts my hair. When I see spa, I envision so much more than what a “hair spa” can do for me. I see spa, and you better be breaking out the good wine (and I don’t mean the kind that comes from a jug), have at least a half-gallon bowl of death-by-chocolate ice cream waiting near the Barbara section and be prepared to massage the kinks out of my neck. After that, whatever you do to my hair has got to be more than half decent, or you need to be hoping I’m tipsy and won’t notice.

When did they start taking the word “beauty” out of the names? My momma, my aunties and the next door neighbor lady all went to the beauty parlor and, trust me, they had expectations.

I think it has to do with suing and the whole truth in advertising thing. For example, if I go into a grocery store, I expect to come out with groceries. I go into the Dairy Queen, I expect to get my Mocha Moolatte with extra chocolate. And when I go into a hair salon, I still expect to come out looking better than when I went in, even if beauty ain’t in the name.

When the first cave woman had her friend, Uga (if perchance your given name is Uga please don’t write me, I’m already sorry), braid her hair, she did not intend to look butt ugly when she left.

Therefore, I want a haircut that makes me look 20 years younger, accentuates my waves, curls and the grey streaks alongside both temples (which would be prematurely grey, and therefore sexy, if I actually were 20 years younger), minimizes humidity frizz, is wash it, shake it and go-able and/or hair dryer-able without manipulating it into any labor intensive styling, looks great in the wind, does not need any hair product (aka spray) to keep it in place and can be trimmed between salon trips by my husband with my sewing scissors.

Do you think I’m asking too much? I mean, really, do you?

Cohea, a freelance writer, can be reached by e-mailing  a37_tao@hotmail.com.

May and the early signs of summer are here. This month, we offer stories of inspiration, each like a single flower within a blooming bouquet perfect for Mother’s Day and Memorial Day.

We go aboard the USS North Carolina in Wilmington to witness a marriage vow renewal ceremony. This special event wrapped up the 70th anniversary celebration of the USO of North Carolina.

We also meet one courageous Marine, who lived to tell his story of the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 and ventured back to the site earlier this year with a little help from his friends.

Joining the Peace Corps may seem like something to do when you’re young, but we’ll learn how one mom had the urge to follow in her daughter’s footsteps and joined as a retiree.

With inspiration all around us, one grateful granddaughter shares a moving tribute to her gardening grandmother.

Growing things is truly a family affair at Gross Farms, and we learn about the five-generation farm focusing on the bountiful strawberry crop in honor of National Strawberry Month, leaving you seeing fields of red.

And speaking of red, we share a Carolina Conversation with N.C. State University Athletic Director Debbie Yow, who is continuing a family legacy, living out her own dreams and inspiring young athletes in the process.

Completing this editorial bouquet is our cover story featuring New York Times® bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews. Her new novel, “Spring Fever,” is a perfect way to kick off your summer reading. We go beyond the book jacket to learn about the personal side of the author, who set her new book in North Carolina and brings her Southern characters to life for readers. We also share an excerpt of “Spring Fever,” which doesn’t hit bookstores or e-readers until June 5.

And last, but certainly not least, if you are a fan of social media, please “Like” us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter,    @OutreachNC, for sneak peeks and prize gieaways. Until next month…

—Carrie Frye, Editor

Richard Croxton

Richard has 20 plus years of sales experience, mostly in print and radio advertising, and is a welcome addition the OutreachNC team. Richard is not new to the senior industry, teaching part-time at Wake Tech’s “50 Plus” Creative Retirement program. Richard’s wife Trudy is the assistant executive director with Kisco Senior Living’s Woodland Terrace in Cary. The couple lives in Holly Springs with their three children, Caroline, 17, Catherine, 15 and Archer, 8.

Croxton joins the OutreachNC team, which includes Editor Carrie Frye, Advertising Director Shawn Buring and Marketing & Public Relations director Susan McKenzie.