Latest news with #TheBuckleyReport
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
GTCC lays down the beat
JAMESTOWN, N.C. (WGHP) — A group of college students couldn't be more excited about an album drop, but it's not from Taylor Swift, Foo Fighters or Harry Styles. It's from Guilford Technical Community College. Yep, the students themselves wrote, recorded and are now distributing their first album. Teacher Mark Dillon says it might not be such a surprise if you saw their classrooms. 'You wouldn't believe this is a community college. It's crazy how much facilities we have,' Dillon said. 'Our students recorded all the tracks and then mixed all the tracks.' Ally Young is one of them. She began taking piano lessons when she was five and even considered majoring in musical performance when she went to college. But life took her in other directions until she found the program at GTCC. Now at 32, she's part of the album with a song she wrote called 'Wolf Song.' 'This is something I have dealt with as an adult, and a lot of my female friends have dealt with … I got angry and decided to write a song about it,' Young said. She believes women are often not believed when they say something happened to them. Young not only wrote and sang the song, but she also played keyboards for some of her classmates' songs. Dillon says this is far from a vanity project. 'A lot of them will walk away with studio credits. A lot of them will walk away with recording engineering credits, which is valuable in the field. If you can walk into a studio and say, 'This is what I've done. I have credits. They're listed and everything. I'm available on Spotify and Amazon,' that carries weight out in the field,' Dillon said. 'Students who probably wouldn't work together under different circumstances are now clearly back there hanging out and doing their thing. They're literally back there plotting their next album.' Hear some of the songs in this edition of The Buckley Report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Western North Carolinians work to get lives back on track after Hurricane Helene
MCDOWELL COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Carter Francois looks across a half-rebuilt Alpine Inn and says without bravado: 'I'm kind of proud of myself.' He should be. His entire livelihood washed down a mountain in McDowell County as Hurricane Helene dropped nearly two feet of water on western North Carolina overnight. He had to rebuild it all without any income. 'The numbers for a rebuild, compared to what I paid for this place, are astronomical,' Francois said. 'So I never thought I'd be saying $1,600,000 to put it back … kind of the way it was.' Every day for the last seven months, Francois and his business partner, Steve Carlsen, have done the tedious work of digging out and rebuilding. 'I've been here every day … It seems like a lifetime,' Francois said. 'You wake up and go, 'How the heck am I going to get out of this?'' One way is with the help of caring people. One of them is Chastity Murphy, who is part of a 501c3, which is a registered charitable organization called Carolina Relief Fund. 'Carter's story just really hit me hard, and I wanted to do whatever we could to try to help,' Murphy said. She brought it to the others in the organization, including Joe Russell. Russell points out that doing work as they're doing with Francois is nothing new. 'We've been helping people for about 12 years when houses burn down and with needs at Christmas,' Russell said. Russell, Murphy and their team have met with Francois on multiple occasions to see exactly what he needs. See more on how Carolian Relief Fund is helping Francois recover in this Mountain of Trouble edition of The Buckley Report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Despite injury, Triad man competes in ‘Mongol Derby'
GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — A century or so ago, it wasn't uncommon for a man to spend much of his life on a horse. Today, it's very rare. But then, Fred Berry has always been a little different. Berry is an attorney who grew up in Greensboro and didn't venture far from home for many years, attending Wake Forest University for both his undergraduate and law degrees and has practiced in the Triad since, but he's seen the world in the years since in ways most of us never will and it goes back to his younger days. 'For 35 years, I was the Huntsman for the Sedgefield Hunt Club,' he says, who first started riding when he was about 10 years old. 'And what that means is twice a week, my wife and I would load up a pack of fox hounds and a couple of thoroughbred-type horses and go to the woods and gallop around. And so that gave me the panache, if it were, to be able to ride cross country.' That chance came when he learned about The Mongol Derby, which bills itself as the world's longest and most difficult horse race. 'It's 10 days of racing for about 12 hours a day and you pick a horse randomly off the horse line, and then if the herder can ride it, then you get on it and you ride about 25 miles to the next horse station, then you swap out and do it again and do it again and do it again,' says Berry about how the race is run. But a few weeks before the race, Berry was out riding (and he happened to be on his wife's horse) when the horse bucked him seriously damaging his shoulder, which put him in a very difficult position. 'I was faced with do I go ahead and race with a bum shoulder or do I lay off a year and heal and be able to race fully equipped?' He ran but it was almost impossible to compete in that condition. But, in the end, it was a trip that was worth his time and effort, though it makes a reporter wonder why a guy would travel to the other side of the world for such a difficult challenge. 'It just spoke to me,' he says. 'I've spent a lot of time in the west riding cross country, have been in California riding big, big, open land and being on a horse and being in big country is a nice thing to do for me.' See more of Fred's journey to the Mongol Derby in this edition of The Buckley Report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Guilford County Schools Superintendent Whitney Oakley shares education hourney with FOX8
GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Some kids wander for years, trying to figure out what they want to be as an adult. Whitney Oakley was not one of those. 'I knew on the first day of school that I wanted to be a teacher, and there was never a doubt about that,' Oakley aid. She started her schooling at Guilford Primary Elementary School in Guilford County. Though she did leave the county to attend East Carolina University, she came back to her home town and began teaching at Frazier Elementary School on the south side of Greensboro before earning both a master's degree in Elementary Education from Greensboro College and a PhD in Educational Leadership from UNC-Greensboro. Triad teachers struggle with students bringing phones to class That led to consistent promotions. For the first one, she did cross over the county line to become a principal in Alamance County. But she returned soon after that to take jobs in Guilford County leadership. 'I was perfectly happy in the classroom,' Oakley said. 'Every time that I've stepped into a new leadership role, it's because a mentor or someone in the building asked me to.' But her time in the classroom teaching special education, kindergarten and third grade remains with her today. 'I haven't lost sight of what it was like to be in the classroom. I stay close. I'm a parent, so every day, I have a new appreciation for teachers with my own kids, and I also love being a principal, so I spend a lot of time in classrooms and with principals, and I think staying proximate helps,' Oakley said. She's quick to answer when asked what the pull is to remain in education when she could probably make more money in the private sector. Saved by the Bell: Guilford County middle school teacher aims to ensure students don't 'disappear' 'The power and just the relationships … The impact that teachers can make every day, and then the student goes home with that,' Oakley said. 'There are lots of stories of teachers that would put their stuffed animals out in front of them when they were little, and that's all really true, but I knew from Ms. Welborn, my kindergarten teacher, that I wanted to be just like that.' It's been quite a journey, and it was not always what she thought it would be. 'It's different every single day,' Oakley said. 'But I can say that I have so much loyalty to this community. It's a community that's given back to me in so many ways and continues to give back to me. I knew I wanted to raise my kids here … When the opportunity presented itself, it was already home and, so … it's complicated, but I didn't know what it was going to be, but you show up every day and do the best that you can.' See more from Oakley in this Saved By the Bell edition of The Buckley Report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Western North Carolina man struggles to rebuild inn
MARION, N.C. (WGHP) — Most people will never have to deal with what Carter Francois is dealing with. Overnight, he lost his livelihood. His business, The Alpine Inn, washed down the side of a mountain during Hurricane Helene. Since then, he's been dealing with bureaucracy and trying to rebuild. His insurance company says they won't pay out on his $2.5 million policy because it was flooding that did it and not wind, which he had coverage for. Months after Helene, western North Carolina still rebuilding So Carter is trying to find ways to pay for rebuilding the inn. If there is any bright spot in all of this, it's that what washed down the mountain was the lobby and common spaces of the inn. Most of the rooms are still standing. But they need to be completely overhauled, which is Carter's daily project. 'The six rooms that if we can stay almost 100% booked. I know it's only six rooms, but I think it'll keep me afloat,' Carter said. He has 12 rooms in total and plans to get to them all over time. The problem is that he has no income, so it's hard to pay for everything even if he does it by himself. The Small Business Administration is there doing what they do, but what the SBA does isn't providing the cash Carter and so many other businesses need. As of February, the SBA reported these numbers: Official loan application count: 3,954 Offers made to the public: 589 Loans dispersed: 431 Offers made in dollars: $29,203,100 Loans dispersed in dollars: $12,208,613 Insurance companies struggle amid western North Carolina cleanup Carter feels as if he can't take on more debt right now even at the excellent, by comparison to the private sector, rate that the SBA offers. He's heard about all the money raised in private-sector fundraisers and wonders where it's all gone. 'You do turn the news on, and you hear millions upon millions of dollars from the federal government being sent here and there,' Carter said. 'And all these fundraisers, too … My question is, 'Where is it going?' Because it's not here … Up here in this mountain, it's people helping people.' See more in the series Mountain of Trouble in this edition of The Buckley Report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
