News Blog - January 2011

Local surfer Brett Barley is surfing in the Volcom Pipeline Pro in Hawaii starting January 24 through February 5. We are all proud of our Buxton hometown boy, and are all rooting for him! To watch footage of the contest, visit http://www.ziulscores.com.edgesuite.net/volcom/live.html. Go, Brett!

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Saturday, August 7th is the first Saturday of the month so it's time for another KCA REALLY REALLY FREE MARKET from 9:30 am- 12:30 pm at the Avon Fire Station.

At the August RRFM, we are gathering children's clothing (all styles and sizes) to stock the tables for a Back-to-School Clothing Swap to be held at the Fessenden Center on Tuesday, August 24th from 10am-1pm. Please come out and show your support, browse the unique and beautiful items, and have a fun time! For more information call Jenn at 995-3855.Everyone is welcome at this free event, where all are encouraged to give, receive, and create on their own terms. You are invited to arrive between 9:30 am and 12:30 pm with goods, services, skills, performances, stories, crafts, food, games, music, clothing, furniture, plants, and resources to share with others in the community. The event is self-organized by everyone who participates.

Nothing is required for participation, but please think creatively about the skills you have and could teach, the useful or beautiful things you have and don't need, or the resources you can share with people to create something during the event.

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Before Dare County became one of the richest counties in the state, before it became a top tourist destination on the East Coast, even before the blues stopped running on Outer Banks beaches, Marc Basnight was elected to the state senate.

On Tuesday, Jan. 4, the Manteo High School graduate, a Democrat who became the most powerful politician in North Carolina, surprised almost everyone by announcing that after serving 13 terms ---the last nine as the Senate leader ---he's leaving politics on Jan. 25 because of a health issue.

Basnight, 63, also made another dramatic decision during the holiday break, said his spokesman Schorr Johnson. He became engaged to Sue Waters, an Outer Banks violinist. He began dating Waters, who is in her mid-50s, some time after his wife Sandy died in 2007.

With his speech slowed considerably by a motor neuron disease, diagnosed after his wife's death, Basnight said at a videotaped Tuesday press conference in Raleigh that his health difficulties would not allow him to effectively do his job in the now-Republican controlled Senate.

"Not knowing how quickly this disease will move," he told reporters, "tells me I need to go."

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Doug Doughtie has taken over the Dare County Sheriff's Office at a tough time, handicapped by government budget crunches and a disengaged, discouraged citizenry.

But the veteran lawman, a big man who greets visitors with a cheery smile and a vigorous handshake, said that the key to effective law enforcement comes down to being more approachable, visible and accessible. And less intimidating.

"I want to be open," Doughtie said in a recent interview at his Manteo office in the Dare County Courthouse. "I want people to know that they can come in anytime -- that they can talk to me anytime."

Doughtie, 53, is well known in the county's law enforcement circles --- he was a sheriff's deputy here for 17 years, followed by a part-time stint in Duck ---- but he also has earned his authentic local stripes by holding numerous second jobs over the years, including as a newspaper carrier, a school bus driver and a pool cleaner. That's in addition to volunteering at his church and his three sons' schools.

It doesn't hurt that he knows all the police chiefs in the county's six towns.

"The best part about it is we're all friends," he said. "There's a very nice working environment for everybody."

Community policing has come to seem trendy, yet Doughtie, who lives with his wife Shanon and two of their sons in Kill Devil Hills, said it's just basic police work. That's what he did, he said, when he started his career in 1977 in Ahoskie, where he worked for 12 years.

The police captain then, Steve Hoggard, is now Doughtie's chief deputy sheriff.

When Doughtie decided to challenge incumbent Sheriff Rodney Midgett, who was elected in 2002 after serving for 20 years as chief deputy under retired Sheriff Bert Austin of Hatteras village, he said he believed that the department had strayed from its mission and was disconnected from the community. Running on the Republican ticket, he defeated Midgett in the majority of the county's precincts.

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