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As the new year gets under way a retrospective look at 2023 may be in order.

JANUARY:

Making an early appearance, Brick Eric Michael Anderson arrived 5:43 a.m. January 1 at The Outer Banks Hospital. The 20 inches long, 7 pound 20 ounce boy was the first Outer Banks baby for 2023 and joins proud parents Amanda Brickhouse and Christopher Anderson of Kill Devil Hills.

While the young lad began a new life on the Outer Banks, it was the end of the former Sentara Health building in Kitty Hawk when demolition began to make way for a new home for the Kitty Hawk Police Department.

Down in Rodanthe, more than 100 people attended a public meeting to hear a county presentation about erosion and beach nourishment by Dare County manager Robert L. Outten, who reviewed the county’s beach nourishment history, explained the challenges faced, financing required and then answered questions.

OBX Marine Mammal Stranding Team members responded to the beach when a live endangered sei whale calf was stranded in Kitty Hawk. According to a press release from North Carolina Aquariums, because of the young age and poor body condition, permitting agencies recommended the humane euthanasia of the nearly 22-foot-long creature.

With some minor adjustments, the Dare County Board of Education in a special board meeting approved a new policy allowing home-schooled students in the county to enroll and try out for high school athletics.

The month ended on a good note when The North Carolina Symphony String Quartet delighted a crowd at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Nags Head. The hour-long performance sponsored by the Don and Catharine Bryan Cultural Series was free of charge for guests of all ages.

FEBRUARY:

The NC Department of Transportation contracted with Fred Smith Company for $4.8 million in road improvements to US 158 Eighth Street to E. Gray Eagle in Nags Head.

Currituck commissioners passed a resolution requesting the North Carolina State Board of Education amend the career and college-ready graduation requirement framework to allow for a second diploma track: career and technical education. Commissioners hope it will serve as a pilot program to nearby counties, and perhaps the entire state, allowing students to choose a CTE pathway that leads to employment in HVAC, construction, plumbing, electrical, and other vocational trades.

The Town of Southern Shores issued a press release advising that a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision will allow planning, design and permitting work to resume on a mid-Currituck County bridge.

MARCH:

In line with North Carolina declaring 2023 as the year of the trail, Kill Devil Hills resident Luke Halton established Jockey’s Trail, a new 50-mile hiking trail route extending from Jockey’s Ridge State Park up to the North Carolina and Virginia state line at Carova. Starting at Jockey’s Ridge, Halton’s route takes hikers north into and through Nags Head Woods Preserve, around the Wright Memorial to Kitty Hawk Bay and then up NC 12 through Duck to Corolla on the multi-use path, and out on the Beach to the northernmost point of Carova to a concrete obelisk that marks the survey point of a 1728 expedition to fix the North Carolina and Virginia border. According to an Outdoor Foundation report, hiking remains one of the most popular of all outdoor activities with more than 58 million Americans participating in some type of hiking activity in 2021.

Currituck County was one of eight counties selected by the UNC School of Government to participate in an Adult Protection Multidisciplinary Team Workshop in Chapel Hill. The workshop was for participants to learn best practices for establishing a local MDT in the county with professionals from different disciplines committed to working together for the protection of vulnerable adults.

A Red Wolf Recovery Program update advised that five Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge red wolf pups (three female and two male) born into the Milltail area red wolf population now have orange radio collars. Each collar has reflective material to help make them more visible, and a unique letter ID. The collars not only identify the pups as red wolves, they also allow officials to monitor their movements.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper visited Tyrrell County to celebrate a $110 million MEGA grant from the Federal Highway Administration to replace the Lindsay C. Warren Bridge, commonly known as the Alligator River Bridge.

The Outer Banks Community Foundation announced plans to relocate its offices to the Southern Bank building on Highway 64 in Manteo. Founded in 1982 by Outer Banks residents David Stick, Andy Griffith, Edward Greene, Jack Adams, Martin Kellogg, George Crocker and Ray White, with a mission to help meet local needs through charitable funds, the organization has outgrown its Southern Shores flat top.

First Congressional District representative Don Davis visited Tyrrell County Schools with a message of prosperity, growth and opportunities. According to Davis he was inspired by something a principal had once told him, that, “When you get a student to dream, that dream has no boundaries.”

The former Mako Mike’s building in Kill Devil Hills was demolished to make way for a new Kill Devil Hills Fire Station 14 and Dare County EMS Station 1. Station 1 is responsible for providing emergency medical service to one of the busiest and most populated areas of the Outer Banks.

By the end of the month, a 5,200 acre Tyrrell County fire was 45 percent contained. Significant smoke remained and residents and commuters were advised to allow for extra travel time or plan to take alternate routes. Shifting winds meant areas like Columbia and the Outer Banks could see more smoke and areas to the west, including Belhaven, Pantego and Scranton can also expect to be impacted by smoke.

APRIL:

Target officially opened its doors in Kill Devil Hills in the 110,000 square foot former Kmart building. The second major retailer to open on the Outer Banks in 2023, Marshalls, with more than 1,100 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, opened a few days earlier in Southern Shores.

More than 100 people from some 45 federal, state and local agencies were in Kitty Hawk for a joint hypothetical oil spill preparation exercise. The two-day exercise was an opportunity to test and strengthen inter-agency cooperation to a major maritime incident. Participants worked as if a vessel collision with a submerged object released 226,800 gallons of heavy oil approximately 30 miles off the North Carolina/Virginia coast. A major part of the exercise was implementing a system to detect, investigate and respond to incidents in as little time as possible.

After considerable planning, Nags Head broke ground at Lark Avenue and Eighth Street on a new $18 million Public Services complex.

The Town of Kill Devil Hills Fire Department received a North Carolina Insurance ISO rating of one. The North Carolina Response Rating System ranges from one (highest and best score) to 10 (for areas not recognized as a certified fire department by the state). That makes the Kill Devil Hills Fire Department one of only 28 fire departments out of more than 1,200 departments in the state. An ISO fire rating is a score provided to fire departments and insurance companies by the NC Department of Insurance Office.

It took Matt Willey about two weeks to complete a mural on the outside of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge Red Wolf Center one mile south of Columbia on Highway 94. The project transformed a nondescript beige building into an eye-catching work of art aimed at bringing awareness to the endangered red wolf population.

MAY:

The former Davis High School in Engelhard was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) by the U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service. The NRHP is an official list of the nation’s historic places worthy of preservation, authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Davis High School (later known as Davis School) was built in 1953 just west of the rural Hyde County fishing village of Engelhard and served black students from the nearby communities of Engelhard, Fairfield, Middletown, Nebraska, Slocum and St. Lydia.

Southern Shores elected to try a new traffic control method aimed at mitigating cut-through traffic heading north to Duck and Corolla from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Rather than barricade streets, the popular GPS mapping and phone app company Waze was contacted for assistance in routing people along US 158 and NC 12 instead. Posting signs and closing streets just lightened traffic in one area and increase it in another.

Visitors were again reminded not to dig deep holes on the beach due to the danger they present to beachgoers and emergency response staff after a 17-year-old male from Chesapeake, Va. died on a Frisco beach. The youth was trapped under several feet of sand following a hole collapse east of ramp 49. Cape Hatteras National Seashore law enforcement rangers, Dare County Emergency Medical Services personnel and Hatteras Island Ocean Rescue staff assisted with extracting the teenager from the hole and administering CPR, but resuscitation efforts were not successful. Each year officials are called to fill in deep holes, some have been large enough to have easily eaten an ocean rescue truck. Not only extremely dangerous to those who dig a hole, they also pose a hazard for other beachgoers, emergency responders and wildlife.

First Flight High School distance runner Tatum Dermatas pulled ahead of everyone on the final lap of the 3A girls 3200 meter run to win a North Carolina High School Athletic Association state championship on the NC A&T Irwin Belk Track at Greensboro. After running most of the race behind North Lincoln’s Macy Parks, Dermatas pulled ahead to clock a personal best 10:59.01. Her time was more than four seconds ahead of teammate Morgan Miller’s second place 11:03.85 and well ahead of Parks in third at 11:08.89.

Founded in 1996, the collegiate summer baseball team Outer Banks Daredevils re-branded itself and became the Outer Banks Scallywags. The team returned to the original field at Manteo High School with a packed June through August game schedule.

North Carolina’s first Wawa convenience store and gas station broke ground in Kill Devil Hills with plans to open the first quarter of 2024. Wawa representatives, local leaders and community members gathered for the groundbreaking across the street from the new Target. The privately held, family-owned chain of 1,000 convenience retail stores currently operates in six states and Washington, D.C. The move into North Carolina is the company’s first state expansion in approximately 10 years. Another store is planned for Elizabeth City along with others in Rocky Mount, Greenville, Wilson and several east of I-95.

Several hundred people gathered at the Old Lighthouse beach access in Buxton to watch the return of six rehabilitated sea turtles back to the ocean. Volunteers from North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island and Network for Endangered Sea Turtles, along with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, assisted in the release of four juvenile green sea turtles, a juvenile Kemp’s Ridley and a 209-pound adult female loggerhead named “Miss Piggy.” Volunteers paraded the turtles around the crowd for photos and a closer look at the marine reptiles before returning them to the sea after months at the Sea Turtle Assistance and Rehabilitation (STAR) Center on Roanoke Island.

A 33-ft. sailing vessel named the True Love washed ashore on the beach around milepost 10.5 in Nags Head. The United States Coast Guard had rescued the owner 90 miles off of Cape Hatteras who flew back to his residence in France. Due to hazardous weather conditions the vessel was anchored in place about 8 miles offshore but, according to Coast Guard officials, the owner had been unresponsive in coming back to claim his vessel.

JUNE:

After it was announced that the Pioneer Theatre, which opened in 1918, would close in 2023, new owners appeared and invested in a piece of Roanoke Island history to give the 105 year old theater new life. The new owners, Michael Basnight, Jamie and David Hatchell, and Derek and Sharon Hatchell, said the Pioneer Theater will be expanding its reach to include not only new movies, but also classic movies, matinees and live entertainment.

Down 0-1 at halftime, The Manteo High School girls’ soccer team came back in the second half of the 2A State Championship game against Wheatmore at UNC-Greensboro to post a 5-3 win. The team was recognized by Manteo commissioners for their hard work and historical 2A State Championship win and a highway banner congratulating the team was given to them as well to display proudly at the school.

After taking over CenturyLink local assets at the end of 2022, Brightspeed began looking at ways to provide redundant paths for Internet service to Hatteras Island. Steve Brewer, director of government affairs for Brightspeed, updated Dare County commissioners with information about reducing public safety outages when fiber optic cable is damaged on Hatteras Island. Currently one fiber optic cable runs the length of Hatteras Island for internet, phone service and 9-1-1 operation.

Thomas Adkins, of Sutherland, Va., earned a spot in the record books when he caught a 17-pound, 1.9-ounce blueline tilefish near Tower B, offshore of Nags Head. The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries recently certified that catch as a new state record. Also called gray tilefish (Caulolatilus microps), the fish measured 36-inches total length and had a 20.5-inch girth. It bettered the previous state record of 16-pounds, 8-ounces caught off Oregon Inlet in 2004. Adkins said he was fishing with his father when he landed the fish using cut bait and a Shimano 700 reel on a Trevala rod.

JULY:

While many area youth were heading to the beach with plans to chill out or just take things easy for the summer, the annual Manteo Baptist Church Summer Basketball Camp offered athletes ages 8 to 14 an opportunity to develop a number of important basketball skills. Promoted as the perfect place for both novice and seasoned players to learn new skills and hone some old ones, the camp was run by former Manteo High School boys varsity basketball coach Bud Hendrix.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein made a brief visit to Donal C. O’Brien Sanctuary and Audubon Center at Pine Island near Corolla to learn more about the conservation and restoration efforts taking place there. A $97,604 award from the North Carolina Department of Justice Environmental Enhancement Grant Program in 2020 helped pave the way for a landmark Marsh Conservation Plan that identifies a number of threats facing Currituck Sound along with a blueprint on some of the best ways protect and restore a rare and valuable coastal ecosystem for both the people that visit the area and the wildlife living there.

Columbia Early College High School played host to a Standard Response Protocol National Safety Training session with more than three dozen law enforcement and school officials from Tyrrell, Washington, Camden, Perquimans, Hertford and Bertie counties gathered for the four hour school safety training event. Tyrrell County Schools Superintendent Dr. Karen Roseboro said after she became superintendent in October she realized during some fire and evacuation drills that there were some discrepancies in expectations related to how school personnel and emergency management personnel responded. A North Carolina Department of Public Instruction grant for school safety provided an opportunity for Roseboro to contract with the I Love U Guys Foundation.

For the first time in 27 years, according to Currituck commissioner Owen Etheridge, the county increased its countywide tax rate to $0.56 per $100 of assessed value, a 10-cent increase. Major reasons for the tax increase were said to fund education construction costs, school resource officers, and to supply the public safety departments with much needed updated equipment and vehicles. According to the last census, Currituck County is home to about 31,000 year round residents, but it is currently ranked as the second fastest growing county in the state. From 2010 to 2020, Currituck experienced a 20 percent population increase.

Michael Palkovics was introduced as the new Kitty Hawk police chief. Palkovics retired in June as lieutenant colonel and second in command over support operations for Henrico County, Va. He replaces Lieutenant James Helms, who was named interim police chief following the departure of Joel C. Johnson. Johnson retired January 31 after 30 years in law enforcement, 22 of them with Kitty Hawk.

AUGUST:

North Carolina First Lady Kristin Cooper made a special cameo performance in The Lost Colony playing a lady in waiting in one brief scene.

A splash pad opened in Kill Devil Hills at Meekins Field Park. In addition to the splash pad, there were other recent upgrades, including new playground equipment, a new restroom building with a family bathroom that includes a changing table, drinking fountains, water bottle refill station, new picnic shelter with tables, sidewalks throughout the park, upgraded lighting, expanded parking lot and a new drop off circle.

Three people died and three others were injured requiring medical treatment in an early morning structure fire on the 1800 block of North Virginia Dare Trail in Kill Devil Hills. The fire was extinguished and contained, but due to the magnitude of the fire, fatalities and injuries occurred. A home to the immediate south also sustained minor damage, but its occupants were safely relocated. In addition to response from Kill Devil Hills Fire and Police departments, fire crews from Southern Shores, Duck, Kitty Hawk, Colington and Nags Head, along with Dare County EMS and the State Bureau of Investigation were also on scene and assisted in the operation.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper visited The Learning Center of Perquimans County and spoke to a small group of local residents about the need for meaningful investment in early childhood education. The only public stop announced for the day, Cooper toured the center on Bear Garden Road and, while interacting with students and staff, he commented that not only are child care and early childhood education important, it’s important that child care be quality care. Cooper pointed out that providing support benefits children, families and the workforce making it a three tiered win.

John Curtis “Jay” Tolson appeared in Dare County Superior Court charged with second degree murder in the July 2020 death of Amanda LeeAnn Fletcher Hartleben, a 38-year-old Kitty Hawk resident and mother of two. On July 22, 2020, Tolson called EMS to Hartleben’s West Kitty Hawk Road home, saying he found her bleeding and unresponsive. Hartleben died three days later in a Virginia hospital. Three days into the trial, Tolson pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 56 to 80 months for voluntary manslaughter with credit given for time in custody.

SEPTEMBER:

Retired Dare County Clerk of Superior Court Betty Mann was surprised during an Elected Clerk’s Summer Conference at The Beaufort Hotel in Beaufort, North Carolina when retired Tyrrell County Clerk of Court Nathan “Tommy” Everett announced that Mann is the 2023 recipient of the Rachel Joyner Award, a special award named after long-serving Nash County Clerk of Superior Court Rachel Joyner, who retired after an extraordinary 65 years of service to the clerk’s office. A tireless servant and master politician, Joyner, 91, passed away earlier in 2023. Here in Dare County, Mann was a close friend with Joyner and served as clerk of court for 18 years before her 2000 retirement as only the fourth Dare County clerk to hold that office. During her tenure as clerk of court, the office staff grew from supervising three people to 16 while the number of case filings rose from a few hundred each year to several thousand.

A ribbon cutting ceremony at Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head was held for the unveiling of a new Mountains-to-Sea Trail Eastern Terminus Monument.  The Mountains-to-Sea Trail is an 1,175 mile trail winding across the width of North Carolina from Jockey’s Ridge State Park at the eastern end westward to Clingman’s Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at the Tennessee state line. The trek across the state is along a series of footpaths, roads and state bike routes that take hikers through mountain vistas, rolling Piedmont hills, past mountain streams, coastal swamps, hardwood and pine forests, lighthouses, sand dunes and several miles of seashore. Starting at the western end, the third highest point in North Carolina, hikers descend from the third highest point in North Carolina at 6,643 feet to sea level on the eastern end before entering Jockey’s Ridge State Park where the new monument awaits.

One hundred and twenty years after Wilbur and Orville Wright made history in their Kitty Hawk Flyer with the first-ever powered flight, Dare County Schools and the National Park Service opened First Flight High School’s aviation lab at Wright Brothers National Memorial. Juniors and seniors will construct a Van’s RV-12iS aircraft, a modern two-seat all metal side-by-side airplane. Over the next two years, students will take aviation electrical, mechanical, manufacturing and design engineering courses with hands-on learning. The course will be taught by Admiral Joey Tynch, who will be accompanied by volunteers/mentors from the Dare County Radio Control Flyers Club and the First Flight Society. After extensive testing and certification by the FAA, each student involved in the project will be invited to ride in the plane piloted by a Tango Flight member.

Area swimmers place took first place overall in the North Carolina Senior Games held at Triangle Aquatics Club in Cary. An unofficial tally put the Outer Banks team in first with 1,083 points, ahead of second place Mecklenburg County with 1,008 points and Brunswick County in third with 743 points. Some of the 22 swimmers, the most Dare swimmers ever to attend the meet, credited their success to team manager Harry Schiffman. A former UNC Chapel Hill swimmer in 1959-60 era, Schiffman not only led the team to the pool he placed first in three of his five events. An inspiration to others was 92-year-old Charlie Erwin, who picked up gold medals in four of his six events.

OCTOBER:

Running the entire month of October and into the first week of November, Wisezah Datawn Buckman was in Dare County Superior Court daily to face more than a dozen pending felony charges related to the October 12, 2017 failed prison escape attempt. While serving a 32-year sentence for second-degree murder at Pasquotank Correctional Institution in Elizabeth City, Buckman and three other inmates orchestrated an escape attempt that left a dozen state employees and inmates hurt and four state prison employees dead. It remains the deadliest prison escape attempt in the history of North Carolina. After defense layers admitted Buckman was a prison break participant, it took seven days to seat a jury followed by five prosecution days and two days of evidence and testimony from the defense. The jury needed just two and a half hours to find Buckman guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and 10 other felony charges.

The Buckman trial then entered a sentencing phase, which is required for first-degree murder cases. While state prosecutors only needed one day to prove all death penalty requirements were met, defense lawyers spent eight days trying to sway jurors to instead sentence Buckman to life in prison without parole. After deliberating almost five and a half hours, the Dare County jury agreed that Buckman be sentenced to death for his participation in the escape attempt. Another inmate, Mikel Edward Brady II, was found guilty of his murder charges in a 2019 trial and a jury sentenced him to death. Two other participants, Jonathan Monk and Seth Frazier, are still awaiting trial.

All six Dare County municipalities were surprised to learn that a draft state budget bill provision would strip away control of a $35 million affordable housing grant previously awarded by the state to Dare County and place key decision making back in the hands of the state while essentially exempting any Dare County affordable housing projects from local zoning authority. It would also, in essence, force communities to provide services regardless of their capacity to provide them and without regard to the needs of the citizens who paid to put those services in place.

Cape Hatteras Secondary marching band took top honors at the 48th edition of the Peanut Festival and Battle of the Bands Division 1A at John A. Holmes High School in Edenton. The band took First Place in Overall 1A Bands, First Place General Effect, First Place Visual Effect, First Place Music and First Place Percussion. The band’s color guard received a second place award, and the drum major came in third.

First Flight closed its regular cross country season in dominant style with conference championships and unbeaten records for boys and girls. After Nighthawks boys grabbed five of the top seven finish spots for an easy first place conference finish with 20 points (Currituck was second with 62), First Flight girls had an even better performance with all seven First Flight scoring girls in before any other runners in the eight-team conference finished. First Flight coach Dan Murray pointed out that a 1-7 sweep for a perfect score of 15 is something rarely seen in the sport and that the entire All-Conference First Team squad is girls from First Flight. Currituck County girls were second with 71 and Manteo a close third with 75.

At two different regional cross country meet locations, First Flight, Currituck and Manteo teams advanced to the state meet. In Jacksonville, First Flight girls won the East Regional 3A division and Nighthawks boys placed second while Currituck boys in fifth place also advanced to the state meet at Kernersville. Running at the Lenoir County Fairgrounds in Kinston, Meredith Gaskill placed first overall and with five scoring runners among the top 10 finishers the Redskins won the girls 2A East meet. A fourth place finish for Manteo boys meant both Manteo teams earned a trip to the November 4 state meet at Ivey Redmon Complex in Kernersville.

After repeated delays on grant funding, construction along a portion of NC-12 in Duck between the former Resort Realty property and Sunset Grille finally began. Plans call for developing a living shoreline along a portion of Currituck Sound to reduce wave energy and protect the fragile coastal wetlands there, the extension of sidewalks and bike lanes on both sides of NC-12, raising the elevation of a low-lying stretch of NC-12 to reduce flooding, and installing stormwater management improvements to reduce flooding and improve water quality. Lane closures are part of the daily construction process to this access to the Currituck area of the Outer Banks.

Town of Manteo Police Chief Vance Haskett retired after 24 years of service to the town. Haskett was awarded Officer of the Year during his first year on the police force, promoted to sergeant in 2005 and became chief in 2007. Lieutenant Brad Eilert was sworn in as the Town of Manteo’s interim police chief.

NOVEMBER:

Dare County municipal election results saw John Windley replace Ben Sproul as mayor in the Town of Kill Devil Hills and Sherry Butcher Wickstrom replaced Bobby Owens in the Town of Manteo mayoral election results.

Running at Kernersville, First Flight High School sophomore Morgan Miller defeated 150 of the state’s best cross country runners to claim a 3A state championship. Starting several places behind the early leaders, Miller worked her way into third place near the one mile mark behind Fike’s Erin Pope and West Henderson’s Breanna Budzinski, both seniors. Gaining ground with every step, Miller passed Budzinski after an uphill climb in the second mile and sprinted past Pope in the final 200 yards to win the championship with a time of 18:05. First Flight girls finished second just 8 points behind North Lincoln in the team standings. Later in the afternoon, in the 2A Division, Manteo girls also finished second without any runners finishing among the top 10. Although a distant second behind NC School of Science & Math, the fight for second place proved to be a close one with a mere 10 point spread between Manteo in second and the fifth place team.

Dare County announced that Spencer Gregory, who worked for the Dare County Parks and Recreation Department since September 2000, was promoted to the position of public services director following the retirement of longtime public services director Tim White. Gregory will serve as the director of the Dare County Parks and Recreation Department’s three divisions and is responsible for coordinating the operation of multiple sports organizations providing youth sports programs, as well as budgeting, maintaining and facilitating the operation of multiple programs.

North Carolina State Auditor Beth Wood resigned from her elected post following an indictment for misuse of a state-owned vehicle. She was alleged to have used a state-owned vehicle in 2021 and 2022 for personal activities outside her official capacity. Wood was also cited for leaving the scene of a 2022 crash. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor hit-and-run involving the crash and paid fines and court costs.

First Flight dominated the North Carolina High School Athletic Association boys 3A soccer match at MacPherson Stadium in Browns Summit near Greensboro to claim a 3-0 state championship title over Hickory High School. Scoring twice in the first half and again in the second, the Nighthawks held off several scoring attempts by the Red Tornadoes for a win over the top western division team. It was the 17th game this season First Flight held an opponent scoreless. All totaled for the season, the Nighthawks scored 104 goals giving up only six, one goal shy of tying the state record. It was the fifth state playoff appearance for First Flight, winning it as a 2A school in 2016. Following the game, an independent panel voted Nighthawks Goalkeeper Colin Rhodes the game’s MVP.

Construction on a living shoreline and resiliency project began along a portion of Duck Road located between the former Resort Realty Property and Sunset Grille. Fred Smith and Millstone Marine will be working to install sill walls and remove shoreline rip-rap. Lane closure work is scheduled to occur Monday through Wednesday and no lane closures planned from midday Wednesday through Sunday.

A $2 Powerball ticket purchase during a gas stop at a Columbia Duck Thru Food Store earned Tyrrell County resident Lloyd Armstrong a handy $1 million prize. The odds of matching all five white balls to win the $1 million prize were 1 in 11.6 million. After discovering the win, Armstrong and his wife took pictures of the ticket. Following the required federal and state tax withholding deductions, Armstrong took home $712,501.

DECEMBER:

The Dare County Board of Commissioners welcomed Bea Basnight to fill the board seat made vacant from the untimely death of commissioner Jim Tobin.

Colington resident Stephanie Anderson raised almost $9,000 for the Cowell Cancer Center in Nags Head, hiking 2198 miles from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail.

On the 120th anniversary of a 12 second event that changed the world, the first successful manned powered-airplane flight by Orville and Wilbur Wright, Beech Aircraft founders Walter and Olive Ann Beech were inducted into the Dr. Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. According to keynote speaker C.K. Lee, president of the American Bonanza Society, the couple put flying within the everyday reach of everyone. Following a portrait unveiling, descendants of John Daniels, Adam Etheridge, Will Dough, W.C. Brinkley and Johnny Moore, the five eyewitnesses to the first flight, placed wreaths at the base of the boulder marking where the four Dec. 17, 1903, flights took place.

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