Partnerships Announced for WCC Respiratory Therapy Program

A new program at Wilkes Community College is teaming the school with several area hospitals. Trustees learned the details of the respiratory therapy program at their meeting last night. Several hospitals are agreeing to function as clinical sites for the program including Wilkes Regional Medical Center, Ashe Memorial Hospital, Alleghany Memorial Hospital, Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital, Caldwell Memorial Hospital, Watauga Medical Center, Forsyth Medial Center, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Student applications for the program will be accepted until the admissions deadline of May 31. The program is limited in admissions with 10 applicants being selected for the first enrollment date.

WCC May Coordinate NC Culinary Exchange Program

Students at Wilkes Community College may have an opportunity unique among all community colleges in the nation. An exchange program is being proposed to allow NC culinary students the opportunity to study in Paris, France to enhance their culinary education. The proposal calls for a central entity that would be the liaison between the community colleges in North Carolina and the French school the culinary students would be attending. College representatives who met in October at the NC Community College System office are considering Wilkes as the central entity. This would be the only such exchange program for community college culinary students in the nation and the expected starting date for the program is spring 2008.

Freeze Damage Statewide: $112 million

Last weekend’s subfreezing temperatures caused an estimated $111.7 million in crop losses in North Carolina, based on initial reports from all 100 counties. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said yesterday, "It could be days, even weeks, before we know the true extent of the damage.”  The preliminary damage estimate comes from flash reports submitted by U.S. Farm Service Agency offices in counties across North Carolina.

According to the flash reports, nursery crops suffered the highest losses, $57.9 million. Fruits and vegetables, which include apples, peaches and various berries, suffered estimated losses of $26.5 million. Other crops affected by the freeze included corn, wheat, barley and Irish potatoes.

Sounds of Spring: The Crunch of Ball Bat on Mailbox

Sheriff deputies are investigating a recent rash of mailbox vandalism cases. In three separate cases, deputies note damage early Tuesday to ten mailboxes along Holly Acres and White Oak Roads in Millers Creek. In one instance, three neigboring mailboxes were damaged during the night, and as a deputy canvassed the neighborhood along White Oak Tuesday morning, he found another broken mailbox. In the second instance, a woman who lives on Holly Acres reported arriving home from work about 5am to find her mailbox and those belonging to six neighbors had been bashed around. Deputies have no suspects in the apparently related cases.



In an apparently unrelated case, deputies were directed to an unidentified man by the victim of another mailbox bashing. Cindy Owens told deputies over the weekend she'd been having problems with this man, and she wouldn't put it past him to knock down her mailbox and break the post. Damage is estimated at 100-dollars, and deputies have not filed any charges in the case.

I'm Not Selling

There's going back on an agreement, and then theres' REALLY going back on an agreement. Sheriff deputies say two women had a written agreement for one to sell the other her mobile home for five thousand dollars. Bobbi Cleary had a copy of the signed agreement when she reported the case to deputies, and she had made the 3-thousand dollar down payment she'd agreed to. She was also to make 200-dollar a month payments to pay the balance of the sale price. But when she went to the house along with her husband and children Tuesday morning, Misty Wyatt met her at the door with a shotgun pointed at her chest. She said in no uncertain terms that not only was she not selling the house, but if Cleary thought she was getting her 3-grand in cash back, she had another think coming.



Wyatt now faces a charge of assault by pointing a gun and obtaining money by false pretenses. Ownership of the house will probably have to be straightened out in a civil court case.

Bar Fight Ends With 2 Hurt, Facing Charges

A fight at a local bar Monday night ended with two men injured, and both facing charges. Wilkesboro Police responded to Dooleys about dinnertime Monday on the report of a fight in progress. By the time they arrived, one of th emen involved had made it outside the building. Jeffrey Scott Davis told the officer he had been hit on the head with a bottle of ketchup, and then turned around and beat his attacker to a pulp. The other man, Randall Smoot, was unconscious in the men's room.



Others in the bar say this is how it happened: Smoot approached Davis as he sat at the bar, and told hijm he wasn't afraid of anyone -- a statement apparently made due to an ongoing disagreement between the two. Davis ignored him, witnesses told police. A while later, he got up and went to the restroom. He tells police he was minding his own business when Smoot smashed a ketchup bottle over his head. He did suffer minor cuts and scrapes from that. Davis says he turned around and started beating on Smoot, driving him to the ground, where he kicked him several times for good measure.



The officer took Davis to jail and charged him with assault inflicting serious bodily injury. Smoot was rushed to Winston-Salem by Wilkes EMS, and faces undetermined charges when he is released from the hospital.

Woman Shot, Circumstances Under Investigation

Sheriff deputies aren't entirely sure what the explanation is for a woman getting shot in the leg Tuesday afternoon. They were called to a rural North WIlkesboro home about 2:20pm Tuesday by Amos Jones, who said his wife, Katherine, had been shot in the knee. Jones tells deputies he heard a gunshot and her screaming, and when he went to her bedroom, he saw a pistol on her bed. He says his wife told him she'd shot herself, and there was a note on the bed. Mrs. Jones was unresponsive when deputies arrived, and EMS paramedics called for a helicopter to airlift her to the hospital. She underwent emergency surgery Tuesday afternoon at Baptist in Winston-Salem.



Deputies did check Mr. Jones for any gunshot residue, and have not made a determination yet concerning th enature of the shooting. They seized a 357-magnum revolver and two spent rounds, along with four live rounds and other items.

Break-in Nets Guns

A Purlear man says he came home from a business trip to find someone had gone into his house and stolen two guns. It appears the thief knew he was gone and left the doors unlocked, because there was no forced entry. Both missing weapons are long guns -- a Marlin .22 rifle and a Remington BDL-700 model with a high-power deer scope on it. A neighbor says he didn't see anything, and Stacy Huffman has been looking for the rifle serial numbers so the weapons can be entered into the national crime database. So far, no suspects have surfaced. Nothing but the rifles was disturbed.

Home from a Yard Sale to find $8500 of her property missing

A Miller's Creek woman says while she was out garage saling, a neighbor broke into her house and stole nearly 85-hundred dollars worht of electronics, CDs, DVDs and jewelry. It happened Friday morning on Shadyrest Drive in Millers Creek. Ruby Parsons reports a thief stole more than 250 CDs and DVDs worth a total of 48-hundred dollars, along with a 19-hundred dollar, 2-carat diamond ring. Some of the other items stolen were 30 hot wheels cars, some prescription medicines, a ruby ring, several brand new tee shirts, shoes, collectible knives, a gameboy and the associated games, and an antique 22-gauge 2-shot Derringer pistol.



She accuses an unidentified neighbor of the break-in, saying the woman had tried unsuccessfully to break in before. The door to Parsons' home sometimes did not lock reliably.

Chase Leads to Charges

Just the thought of a Ford Escort being chased by sheriff deputies, is enough to give a person a little smile at the absurdity of it all. It happened late last week in Wilkes, though, as a woman tried to get away from deputies who saw her out and about and knew she was involved in another case they were working. A deputy says he was chatting with another deputy at Yellow Banks Road and Elledge Mill Road, and saw the Escort, driven by 40-year old Pamela Fay Mitchell, turned onto Yellow Banks from Dehart Church Road. As the deputies pulled out to make a traffic stop, Mitchell sped off. The deputies turned on their lights and sirens, and chased Mitchell for about a mile or so, untill she got caught up in traffic, which allowed one of the deputes to get ahead of her and force her to stop.



As the deputies approached her, they smelled alcohol. Mitchell admitted drinking and driving, and she had not valid license because it had been revoked previously. Deputies also spotted an open container in the car. She was taken for a breath test, at which she blew a .20, which is two and a half times the legal limit. Deputies arrrested Mitchell on several charges: running from the cops, drunk driving, driving with her license revoked, speeding 80 miles an hour in a 55 zone, and having an open container.