"It could be a tinge in your accent, or a story you heard from your grandfather.
"If something tells you that you’re a descendant of the Gullahs or Geechees, the commission to preserve their heritage wants to see you Thursday evening," says the Wilmington Star-News. "The state representatives of the Gullah/Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission will have a public forum then at St. Stephen AME Zion Church to find out which projects people connected to that culture – or those interested in it – would like to see.
" 'Let them tell us their story,' Lana Carter, a commissioner from East Arcadia, said of Gullah descendants. People of that heritage came centuries ago as slaves from West Africa to the U.S. coast from Jacksonville, Fla., to Wilmington, and that’s now the length of the preservation corridor. ..."
AT hikers numbers increase 25 percent "Just days in, Murray McGill's path along the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail is just beginning," says Gannett News Service.
"His legs are getting tired, shoulders are starting to wear down from the heavy backpack and his brow is wet as he hunts for a water refill at Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
" 'Why do it? I have no idea. I'm crazy I guess. I have no idea why you do this,' Murray McGill said.
" It's the kind of hike you can't find in his home state of Florida. The swamp just doesn't have the same terrain as the mountainous jaunt through 14 states.
" 'There is a Florida trail. But no one does it,' he said with a laugh.
" This spring, more and more people are starting that same journey. Maine to Georgia or vice-versa.
"According the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, it may be as many as 25 percent more setting out for the three to six month hike. ..."19 places in N.C. added to National Historic Register
"Nineteen properties and districts across North Carolina have been added to the National Register of Historic Places, including three in Raleigh and one in Harnett County, state cultural resources officials said Tuesday," according to the News & Observer.
Among them are: Mount Hope Cemetery, just south of downtown Raleigh; Mary Elizabeth Hospital, built in 1920 at the intersection of Wake Forest Road and Glascock Street in Raleigh; and the Harrington-Dewar House near Holly Springs.
OBX author Stick dead at 89
"A man known for his writings about, and his love for, North Carolina's Outer Banks has died.
"Michael Stick of Chicago said Tuesday that his father, David Stick of Kitty Hawk, died of natural causes Sunday at Albemarle Hospital in Elizabeth City. He was 89," according to the AP.
"Stick's books include 'Graveyard of the Atlantic,' 'The Ash Wednesday Storm' and 'The Outer Banks of North Carolina,' ..."
Poe's bookcase stands in N. Raleigh
"In 1849, Edgar Allen Poe staggered to a drunken and delirious death on the streets of Baltimore, scattering to history some of the creepiest stories ever written -- the black cats and beating hearts that still scare children awake at midnight.
"And now, by an odd chance, you can see a sliver of Poe's literary life standing seven feet tall in Eliza Kraft Olander's sunny office, looking out on a cheerful garden of lilacs and roses," says the N&O's Josh Shaffer.
"She keeps paperback copies of Deepak Chopra and Anaïs Nin on the walnut shelves where Poe once stacked his own volumes. Though there's nothing tortured or black-hearted about North Raleigh, you can't help but picture his ghost floating past to flip through the pages.
" 'If it is haunted,' Olander said, 'I have a lot of religious stuff, too. I collect crosses from French cemeteries.' ..."
