Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

Waterfowl memories are woven throughout Ocracoke native Eddie O’Neal’s life.

He recalls redheads, pintails, teal and great flocks of geese on the Pamlico Sound and winter days in sink boxes with old-timers like Thurston Gaskill.

Because of that history and his skill of turning a block of wood into a work of art, he was named featured carver for this year’s Ocracoke Island Waterfowl Festival from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Ocracoke School gym.

O’Neal chose the Canada goose as his signature piece, honoring both the bird and the generations of island hunters and carvers who came before him.

“A Canada goose was a real trophy back then,” he said. “Something you showed off with pride and often shared with older neighbors who couldn’t get out to hunt themselves.”

O’Neal graduated from Ocracoke School in 1978 alongside classmates Vince O’Neal and the late John Simpson, two of the founders of the Ocracoke Decoy Carver’s Guild in 2018.

As a boy, O’Neal was constantly on the water.

Like many island youth, by age 12 he was already hunting and fishing around Springer’s Point and on his father’s nearby property.

He fished commercially with his father, Carson, who served in the Coast Guard, and brothers Andy and Albert, working pound nets and gigging flounder.

During his 23 years working for the state of North Carolina, he held a variety of positions: on a dredge crew, building spillways and working heavy equipment from Southport to Knotts Island.

Included in his working career, he also built golf courses, was a truck driver and worked on road paving crews for an asphalt company out of Norfolk, Virginia.

He and his wife Pam also ran the Island Galley restaurant on Ocracoke until damage from Hurricane Isabel (2003) forced them to close.

Although he appreciated decoys, he didn’t start carving as a hobby until around 2008 while living in Virginia Beach. Over time, that hobby “morphed into a full-time job.”

Among his fond memories are watching Wilbur and Clinton Gaskill, older Ocracoke carvers, who turned out small geese flyers and decoys at an astonishing pace. Wilbur could make 15 to 20 decoys a day and sell every one of them on a summer day when the island was far quieter than it is now.

His second cousin, Dave O’Neal, a retired Coast Guard man and renowned carver, has been an important influence offering tips on the techniques and tools of the craft.

Preferring to focus on his own carvings, O’Neal doesn’t collect or trade in other people’s decoys.

When he and Pam retired several years ago, they moved back to Ocracoke, and his carving became a daily practice.

Today, O’Neal does most of his carvings for the Island Ragpicker shop, run by his siblings Stephanie and Albert.

Not just decoys — he crafts shore birds, small flyers, fish, and a variety of decorative pieces that keep the shelves full and his hands busy.

Carving is his “therapy room” — something that keeps him grounded in retirement and balances time with his grandchildren Carter, Kyler, Amaya, Johnny and Angel.

He rarely sells pieces directly, except at some island events.

He prefers to stock the shop or donate carvings to local fundraisers like the Ocracoke Firemen’s Ball auction where his works have helped raise significant financial support over the years.

For materials, O’Neal favors northern white cedar, which he hauls back from a sawmill near Egg Harbor, New Jersey.

He also uses tupelo, sourced from a Mennonite mill near Pink Hill, and some pine.

Large decoys are almost always cedar, while smaller items, like flyers, often come from scrap wood he picks up from around the island, such as from the school that was torn down.

He appreciates cedar’s similarity to local juniper and its fine, aromatic grain. O’Neal shapes his birds with an angle grinder for the rough form, then refines them with a Dremel and extensive sanding, especially on the delicate heads and bills of shore birds.

He draws most of his own patterns by hand and also enjoys building furniture, having made tables and household pieces for family members from barn oak and other reclaimed woods.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke Island. Coastal Review partners with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

The Coastal Environmental Educators Network will again host its annual Earth Fair OBX at Jockey’s Ridge State Park later this month.

The fair taking place from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 25, will be an opportunity to hear from organizations working to preserve the delicate ecosystems of the Outer Banks.

“Share your love for the natural world and check out our fun and informative exhibits and activities for kids. Walk around and explore the exhibitors, state of the art Visitors Center and other features of the State Park,” organizers said.

Kitty Hawk Kites and Dare Arts Council teamed up to create the Outer Banks Sweep the Beach Trash Art Contest. Artists were asked to create and submit work from the trash they have collected from Outer Banks beaches now on display along the “TrART Walk” at Jockey’s Ridge Crossing. Work will be judged on April 20 and winners will be announced at the Kitty Hawk Kites booth during the event.  

Film is the most significant art form of the last century. I don’t think a lot of people would argue that point. There might be a couple people who might say that literature is still tops. But how many people have seen “The Lord of the Rings” movies versus how many have read the books? (many times each for me).

It stands to reason that we anglers have films that stand out to us as great expressions of our favorite activity. Now, we’re not talking about documentaries or short films, although there are many worth your time, but rather feature films that received major studio releases.

There are a couple that are warmly remembered, a couple that have won awards, and there are even some that stand out as innovative pieces of art in their own right — films that actually changed film itself. Fishing and angling have had that effect on us.

“Grumpy Old Men” is a 1993 film that is remembered fondly for many reasons. Burgess Meredith straight up stealing the whole movie with perfect comedic timing (the sequel was his last film), Ann Margret looking transcendent, 30 years after her starring role in “Bye Bye Birdie”, the great chemistry between the stars Walter Matthau and Tony Curtis that hadn’t changed since “The Odd Couple” in 1968.

But in the interplay between legends, we see what fishing can mean to us. The main characters fight over lucky ice fishing poles, fishing spots, and try to take each other out with frozen walleyes. This resonates because not only is it funny, it’s also true. These are the real reasons people bicker about fishing, both on the water and off. Hopefully, you won’t actually try to kill somebody with a frozen fish, but the joke makes the point. The little love story with Ann Margret is almost an afterthought.

“The Perfect Storm” is not precisely a fishing movie, but it’s close. On the surface, the 2000 film is about a storm that swept the East Coast — one in which I was stuck in a third-floor apartment while my neighbors jumped off the balcony into snow piles. But beyond that it’s a “Moby Dick”-style tale of compulsion and ego that takes the lives of our handsome protagonists, including Mark Wahlberg, George Clooney, and William Fichtner. What makes it worse was that the guys could have turned back in time but instead pushed on to the Flemish Cap to fish untouched waters.

That is something that most anglers can associate with.

Ernest Hemingway wrote “The Old Man and The Sea” during winter 1953 as a tribute to those who make their living from the sea. He chose to weave in religious references that solidify the connection between his main character, Santiago, to a saintly figure. While Hemingway himself had problems with the 1958 film starring Spencer Tracy – issues mainly stemming from Hemingway being unable to suffuse his ego and having arguments with Tracy himself, he was pleased with the film overall.

Tracy got an Oscar nomination for best actor and Dimitri Tiomkin won for best original score. The first time I saw this as a kid, I was amazed by the shots of Santiago fighting the marlin, then I felt his pain as the sharks tore it apart, thus showing the futility of struggling against … whatever … anything. The ending is unclear. I always assumed the Old Man passed in his sleep after returning home, but maybe not.

He loves the sea and he loves the fish, feelings that many of us anglers can relate to. He loves it so much that even though he knows he needs to kill it; it breaks his heart to do so and his spirit when the sharks come. Tracy is a literal master of the craft of acting and he was the perfect choice. In my mind, this film holds up even after so long.

A film that literally changed the way movies were produced and marketed, “Jaws” was the first summer blockbuster. When it came out June 20, 1975, it was the first movie released to hundreds of screens nationwide simultaneously, something we take for granted now. Steven Spielberg became known as the genius we know today. Young actors such as Richard Dreyfus and Roy Scheider would build huge careers. Robert Shaw figuratively put a crown on his head as the finest actor of his generation (we can fight about it if you want).

Oscars were awarded for best sound, best editing, and of course, best score to the legendary John Williams. I bet you are playing the “Jaws” theme in your head right now.

The big gamefishing scenes are the best ever put on film. The amazing monologue from Quint about the USS Indianapolis gives me chills every time, and I watch every year to celebrate Fourth of July (I’m serious). When Quint first sets the hook and Hooper argues with him about what he thinks they really have on, I feel the tension. Of course, when the line breaks, well, who here has not experienced that disappointment?

The idea that somewhere “out there” is a fish bigger than anything else and we can conquer it, this is what makes us dream.

In my mind, “A River Runs Through It,” both the 1976 book and the 1992 adaptation, creates the perfect bridge between film and literature as artforms. The soundtrack by Mark Isham, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, is beautiful. It’s masterfully shot, winning a best cinematography Oscar for auteur Philippe Rousselot. The acting is outstanding with Brad Pitt in the role that would make him a household name, as well as Tom Skerrit, Craig Sheffer and many others in vastly underrated performances.

Robert Redford produced and directed the film, for which he was a Golden Globe nominee, and provided the voice of the story in his narration. In many cases, Redford spoke the precise words of author Norman Maclean.

While actually a story of how we truly try to help those we love, it’s also about how all will ultimately choose whichever path we end up on. Author Norman Maclean’s father was a Presbyterian minister. In the film, the Rev. Maclean gives a sermon during a church service, which the audience is led to believe happens as he’s near the end of his days:

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true, we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so, it is those we live with and should know best who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love completely without complete understanding.”

This is the finest film about fishing ever. If you can sit through Redford’s final narration without getting emotional, I’m not sure we can be friends.

So, you’ve probably figured out I love movies. Good ones. Great ones. Sometimes even bad ones. I love a tornado full of sharks. But the closer they get to the things I live for, the more I can feel them.

Join the debut of Earth & Arts OBX, a celebration of Earth Day and the official opening of Nags Head’s new soundside boardwalk on April 22.

The event, hosted by the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau, is scheduled to kick off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. at the Soundside Event Site, 6800 S. Croatan Highway.

There will be live music by Brooke & Nick and HotSauce, a curated marketplace featuring environmentally conscious artists and makers, hands-on children’s activities, and opportunities to interact with local nonprofits that focus on conservation and sustainability.

“We’re excited to share this incredible new gathering spot with the community,” Outer Banks Visitors Bureau Executive Director Lee Nettles stated in a release. “This event is an opportunity to experience the new Soundside Boardwalk while connecting with the people and organizations dedicated to preserving the character and environment of this special place for generations to come. The views from the boardwalk are spectacular and give us all yet another way to experience the natural beauty of the Outer Banks.”

The event will wrap up at sunset.

Professional and self-taught artists with a passion for native plants have until March 30 to submit their handcrafted or handmade work to a nationwide, community art contest celebrating the often overlooked wildlife.

In its third year, PlantArte Native Plant Art Contest and Exhibit is a partnership of Arte Sana and GreenLatinos, two Latino-led nonprofits based in Texas, with the goal to use art to help prevent plant-awareness disparity, which is the human tendency to overlook or ignore plants that leads to less support for conservation

The contest “celebrates native plants through botanical art to: build awareness of the importance of native plants; promote native plant advocacy by empowering diverse communities to support conservation and restoration efforts; and honor the ancestral roots and shared ecoregions that connect plants and people,” organizers said.

Pay online via Arte Sana’s PayPal donation account or mail a check to be received before March 30 to Arte Sana, P.O. Box 1334, Dripping Springs, TX 78620.

A contest fee waiver is available for teen students or anyone who may need it to participate. Contact Laura Zárate, Arte Sana director and PlantArte coordinator, at plant.gente@gmail.com.

Handmade refers to items that are crafted entirely by hand, using no machinery or automation in the production process, and handcrafted items are made by hand using some tools or machinery. Organizers gave as examples a wood burner or a tattoo machine used to replicate an original design drawn by hand. Only hand embroidery is acceptable.

Judges will score the work on the quality, design, creativity, originality and overall clarity of the art submitted under the following contest categories:

• Endangered plants — Focus on either threatened or endangered plants.
• Wildflowers.
• Resilience — Focus on freeze and drought-resistant native plants.
• Plants & critters — Focus on native plants benefitting pollinators and wildlife.
• Plants of my people — Focus on native plants/herbs with personal or historical significance.
• Plants beyond borders — Transboundary native plants of neighboring lands.

The online art exhibit featuring the highest-rated submissions is to debut during National Native Plant Month in April.

Arte Sana (art heals) is a national Latina-led nonprofit based in Texas originally founded in 2001 to help bridge the gaps in victim assistance for Spanish speaking survivors of sexual violence. Arte Sana launched the Plants & People, or Plantas y Gente, initiative in 2022, and held the first art contest in 2024 in collaboration with local, state, and national native plant and environmental groups.

The first year of the Texas-born contest saw work from artists in Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma. In 2025, 60% of the art submissions came from Texas and the rest from states like Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. Visit the 2025 PlantArte exhibit launched April 22, Earth Day, to see last year’s submissions.

This year’s contest is a partnership of Arte Sana and GreenLatinos, a national nonprofit of Latino leaders confronting environmental issues in the Latino community. Additional support is provided by Native Plant Society of Texas, Latino Outdoors, Hill Country Conservancy, Biodiversity Works, Defenders of Wildlife, and Native American Seed.

A musical performance by the Raleigh Civic Symphony set for this weekend will share what organizers call a musical vision of conservation for the American red wolf and other threatened species.

Composer Stephanie Ann Boyd’s “Carnival of the Nearly Extinct Animals and other works focused on our relationship to the natural world” is at 4 p.m. Sunday in the North Carolina State University’s Stewart Theatre at 2610 Cates Ave. in Raleigh.

The performance is part of the university’s NC State LIVE season.

The concert, conducted by Peter Askim, will feature the world premiere of a new movement in “Carnival” honoring the endangered eastern red wolf population in northeastern North Carolina.

The performance will feature images of the remaining red wolves in North Carolina by wildlife photographer Aspen Stalls.

Organizers call the work, “a kaleidoscopic, aural presentation celebrating a menagerie of animals (including coral) faced with the dismaying possibility of being the very last of their kind; some have already ceased to exist except in memory. Leading with a powerful message, the work will also serve to delight, educate, and empower the audiences who meet it.”

Boyd said she had already chosen the animals to be features when Askim advised her that an important addition was needed.

“He said, ‘Well, Stephanie, we really need to talk about the red wolf.’ And he told me about it, and we, I don’t know. I mean, I spent most of the summer working on this piece and just crying because the subject matter is so difficult to parse through,” Boyd told Coastal Review Wednesday.

She said that telling difficult stories is a big part of what activism is in a way that connects, rather than other tactics that may not.

“There’s a lot of shaming and anger, and I understand that, but for me, the thing that I’m here to do is bring love and inspiration, because those are the highest sort of vibrations we can have in emotion, in our emotions.”

Boyd said that in working with NC State LIVE on a new, extra movement for the red wolves meant that she got to spend more time exploring bluegrass and other musical traditions important to North Carolina.

“And I’m just gobsmacked that this is all just actually happening,” said Boyd.

A preshow “info fair” is scheduled for 3 p.m. in the theatre lobby with students and organizations presenting about their work in wildlife conservation and sustainability.

After the performance, audiences are invited to stay for a conversation with composers Boyd and Ryan Lindveit, wildlife researcher Dr. Roland Kays and researchers exploring how creative expression can deepen public engagement with conservation and climate awareness. NC State Senior Vice Provost for University Interdisciplinary Programs Dr. Rob Dunn will moderate the discussion.

Tickets are $25-30, $10 for NC State students and $25 for faculty and staff and are available online or at the box office, the only authorized source. “Tickets obtained from unauthorized online sources may be stolen, counterfeit and/or extremely overpriced,” university officials warn.

Wilmington is seeking proposals for the design, fabrication and installation of a permanent public artwork commemorating the historic city’s significant role in the American Revolution.

The city invites professional artists or artist teams to submit proposals between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31.

Submittals should reflect the historical importance of the city’s revolutionary past, recognizing the stories, people, and spirit that helped shape the birth of this nation, “while creating a meaningful and lasting landmark for the city,” according to a city notice.

The artwork will be installed in downtown on public property.

The artist or artist team whose proposal is selected will be awarded a $25,000, all-inclusive budget related to design, materials, fabrication, transportation, installation and any necessary permits or insurance.

Eligible artists or artist teams must be at least 18 and authorized to work in the United States. Experience with public art is preferred.

Proposals will be evaluated on artistic merit and originality, relevance and connection to Wilmington’s Revolutionary War history, feasibility and durability of materials in an outdoor, public setting, ability to meet the project timeline and budget, and community impact and site integration.

Submittals should include an artist statement and resume, a one- or two-page concept description explaining the applicant’s vision, historical relevance, materials and fabrication methods, a preliminary visual rendering or concept sketches, a budget breakdown, a timeline for project completion, certificate of liability insurance, and three to five images of past works, particularly public art.

Artists also have the option to submit letters of support or references.

Submittals may be emailed as a single PDF to andrea.talley@wilmingtonnc.gov with the subject line “Revolutionary Wilmington Art Proposal – (Name of artist)” or mailed to City of Wilmington, Attention: Andrea Talley, Parks and Recreation, P.O. Box 1810, Wilmington, NC 28402.

For questions, email Talley.

Editor’s note: Coastal Review regularly features the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski, who writes about the history, culture and politics of the state’s coast. More of his work can be found on his personal website.

Today I would like to introduce a series of photo-essays that I will be publishing here over the next few weeks. Each of the photo-essays — some very brief, some longer — will focus on the working lives of people in eastern North Carolina just before, during, and after the Second World War.

The longest of the photo-essays features 22 historical photographs. In the shortest ones, though, I will try to build a story around a much smaller group of photographs, and sometimes only a single picture.

In all cases, I have based my stories on photographs that are part of the North Carolina Department of Conservation and Development Collection at the State Archives in Raleigh.

Between 1937 and 1951, the department photographers created a collective portrait of the state’s farms, industries, and working people. Some of the photographs were used in state publications or shared with magazines and newspapers. The vast majority, though, have not appeared in print.

Few of the photographs have the kind of artistic qualities that we see in the classic tradition of American documentary photography. For example, in the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, photographs of life in America during the Great Depression.

Nonetheless, I find something extremely compelling about them. Perhaps above all, I am drawn to the way that the photographs take us into fields and factories that are rarely if ever included in the stories that we historians tell about the history of North Carolina.

They are not romanticized images of working people. They are more matter of fact, more hard nosed and grittier.

These are images from down by the railroad tracks. From the warehouse district. From the engine room.

From the fields. From the lumberyards. From the textile mills. In one case, even from an actor’s makeup room.

In many of them, you can feel how hot it was, or how cold, the strain of the long days, the dangers that the people in them stood up to, all for the sake of making a living and looking after their families.

In some, you can see the pride that the people in these photographs took in their toil and craftsmanship. In others, you look at the people’s faces and wonder how they kept going.

The photographs that I am featuring are only a very small portion of the historical photographs in the Department of Conservation and Development Collection.

I have chosen to sort them into nearly 20 photo-essays featuring a total of 100 photographs in all.

The photographs that I have chosen were all taken in eastern North Carolina, basically east of I-95 today. Some were taken quite close to where I grew up on the North Carolina coast, a few even look at a sweet potato harvest on my great-uncle’s farm in Carteret County.

Others take us into different fields and factories, mills and migrant camps, remote fishing camps and distant seas.

My choice of photographs may seem eclectic at times. But I picked each photograph, or group of photographs, because I thought that they offered a special window into some important aspect of the history of eastern North Carolina, and because I thought that they led us to interesting stories.

I hope you enjoy all of the photo-essays. I will begin the series sometime in the next few days with the longest, which focuses on photographs of threshers in peanut fields near Edenton, at the end of the Great Depression and in the days just before the Second World War.

Even in that very provincial sounding subject — threshers on a peanut farm — I think you may be surprised where the story leads.

As I worked my way through the photographs from that long ago peanut farm, I was introduced to a host of unexpected stories and working people. Just in those few handfuls of photographs, you will meet Bahamian migrant laborers, POWs from North Africa, a pioneering black inventor from Southampton County, Virginia, and Mr. Peanut, among others.

You may also learn, at least I hope you will, a surprising amount about peanuts, the history of peanut farming, the evolution of farm labor and farm machinery, and the national security crisis that led to the dramatic expansion of peanut farming during the Second World War.

To say nothing of plenty of fun facts about the invention of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Baby Ruths.

Above all, and all kidding aside, I hope that these stories will help you to look at these men and women, and sometimes mere children, with a sense of kinship, a feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood.

Next in the series: “In the Peanut Fields of Edenton, 1937-41”

A traveling photography exhibit that helps consumers visualize the work that goes into the state’s growing oyster industry will be on display in the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s Wrightsville Beach office during August.

A collaborative project of North Carolina Sea Grant and the NC Oyster Trail, the exhibit, “Advancing Shellfish Mariculture Literacy in North Carolina,” features the work of Raleigh-based photographer Justin Kase Conder.

An opening reception is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13. Light refreshments and beverages will be provided. Though not required, organizers ask those who plan to attend to RSVP online.

“This inspiring exhibit highlights the hardworking individuals behind North Carolina’s growing oyster industry and honors the ecological, cultural, and economic value of oysters to our coast,” organizers said.

Conder has more than 27 years of experience as a photographer, traveling to more than 40 countries where he honed his skills.

“To be able to go out on the water, experience wild and farmed oyster harvest, and document the process in a way that helps other North Carolinians understand what goes into getting these oysters to their plate—that was not only an incredible experience for me personally, it was deeply rewarding,” Conder said in a release.

During the reception, Conder will share behind-the-scenes stories from his time photographing oyster farmers, harvesters, entrepreneurs and chefs across the state.

Dr. Jane Harrison, coastal economics specialist with North Carolina Sea Grant and coordinator of the NC Oyster Trail, and Mandy Uticone, owner of Carolina Beach Oyster Co. will join Conder at the exhibit opening.

Harrison will discuss the vital role oysters play in North Carolina’s coastal economies and share insights into the NC Oyster Trail’s efforts to promote sustainable seafood tourism and support the state’s shellfish industry.

Uticone will share her firsthand experiences as an oyster grower, talk about the realities of working on the water, and answer oyster-related questions.

Contact Harrison at jane_harrison@ncsu.edu for information or to host the exhibit.

Before composing over two dozen volumes of poetry, before becoming a professor at the prestigious Cornell University in upstate New York, and long before winning any of his numerous national literary awards, Archibald Randolph Ammons was a poor boy working on his father’s Columbus County farm during the Great Depression.

Ammons would eventually achieve fame under the byline “A.R. Ammons,” a heralded poet noted for his beautiful but also scientifically precise descriptions of nature. However, with those who knew him personally, including those who knew him during his formative years in coastal Carolina, he went by the less precise but more identifiable name “Archie.”

‘Alluvial country’

Archie Ammons was born in his family’s farmhouse just outside of Whiteville on Feb. 18, 1926. The fields he helped his father plow during his youth were 6 short miles from Lake Waccamaw and only 35 miles from the Brunswick County beach communities his family would travel to for the occasional fish fry or oyster roast. Ammons spent these hardscrabble years mostly behind hitched mules, furrowing the soil in which he and his father grew corn, tobacco, peanuts and other cash crops so typical of eastern North Carolina agricultural districts.

Though he would not begin writing poetry until some years later, his experiences on the farm and in what he called the “alluvial country” of the coastal plains impressed him deeply and would eventually find voice in his writing.  

For instance, in the poem “Silver,” about a mule his family owned during his childhood, Ammons remembers how he and Silver would “fall soon again into the slow requirements of our dreams / how we turned at the ends of rows without sense to new furrows and went back / flicked by / cornblades and hearing the circling in / the cornblades of horseflies in pursuit.”

In the poem “I’m the Type,” Ammons would look back at his early life on the farm in light of his later career as a famous writer and note how he “misses the mules and cows / hogs and chickens, misses / the rain making little / rivers, well-figured with / tributaries through the / sand yard.” Ammons learned in his childhood to be attentive to the living world around him, including not only the plants and animals but also the physical forces that shape living things. They entered his imagination as a boy and stayed with him the rest of his life.

From the South Pacific to the Outer Banks   

According to Roger Gilbert, a professor of English literature at Cornell University who is writing a biography of his former colleague, the Ammons family farm was not particularly successful, so a young Ammons sought employment in the largest nearby city.

“He had been working in the shipyards in Wilmington after high school and one day he came home and the farm had been sold,” Gilbert said in a recent interview. “That farm had been his world growing up. So when that was gone, when it was no longer a place that belonged to him, I think he felt he’d lost that sense of having a home.”

This bitter loss began a whirlwind period in Ammons’s life. American involvement in the Pacific theater of World War II was ramping up just as he graduated high school. With no more family farm to tend, Ammons enlisted in the Navy. He was deployed as a sonar operator aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Gunason, on which he sailed through the South Pacific, listening for the pings of reverberating soundwaves that could signal the underwater presence of enemy vessels or weapons.

It was also during this time, on the long voyages at sea, that Archie began writing his first poems. He was training the precision of his ear in more ways than one.  

When the war ended, the poor country boy from Whiteville took advantage of the GI Bill to attend Wake Forest College. Ammons graduated in 1949 and left town with a Bachelor of Science and, more importantly, a courtship with his future wife, Phyllis.

He moved almost immediately to the Outer Banks village of Hatteras, where he would spend the 1949-50 academic year as principal of tiny Hatteras Elementary School — and where Phyllis would join him after their wedding during Thanksgiving break.

Though he was only on the Dare County island for a year, the dramatic seascapes of the Outer Banks entered his poetic imagination just as the sandy farmland of Whiteville had. In an unpublished poem written during his first summer on Hatteras, and kindly provided by Professor Gilbert out of the Ammons archive at Cornell University, Archie tried to capture in words the strange magic of the Banks at night: “Night has come to this small island, / Drowsing on the golden dunes cool-mist opiates. / Far out at sea, a ship’s sea-lantern sways / And a lost gull screams.”

Gilbert noted that Ammons, by this point, had not yet found his unique poetic voice. But “the Hatteras landscape stayed with him and influenced some of those early poems,” he said.

A Second Vision of Land and Sea

By “those early poems,” Gilbert was referring to Ammons’s first collection of poetry, “Ommateum,” which he self-published in 1955. By this point, Ammons was living in New Jersey and working at his father-in-law’s manufacturing firm, which made glassware for laboratories.

In “Ommateum,” Ammons began to dabble in the scientific specificity and abstraction that would later become a hallmark of his style. More central to his first book, however, is one of Ammons’s mainstay themes: the transience of nature and human life.

In fact, the very first poem in “Ommateum” draws on the windswept ecology of Cape Hatteras to show us a narrator, Ezra, seeking his voice amid a powerful vortex of natural forces. Reworking many of the specific images and themes of his unpublished poem from his year in Hatteras, Ammons describes how Ezra speaks his name to the sea, “but there were no echoes from the waves / The words were swallowed up / in the voice of the surf.” The protagonist has to turn away “from the wind / that ripped sheets of sand / from the beach and threw them / like seamists across the dunes.”

Finally realizing the futility of fighting the wind, Ezra decides instead to adapt to and even become part of the landscape. “So I Ezra went out into the night,” the poem ends, “like a drift of sand / and splashed among the windy oats / that clutch the dunes / of unremembered seas.”

The poem sets the tone for the rest of the volume and, in a way, for the rest of Ammons’s career. It is somehow fitting that a poet from coastal North Carolina would begin his first book looking for meaning in a sea squall.  

According to Alex Albright, a retired professor of creative writing at East Carolina University and the editor of the indispensable Ammons volume “The North Carolina Poems,” “There’s a journal entry from when (Ammons was) in the Navy that provides a controlling metaphor for his life.”

“He sees off in the distance the fine line of the horizon,” Albright said in a telephone interview, “and as he gets closer and closer to it, it’s not really a straight line. It’s that second vision that he brings to a lot of his landscapes.”

Becoming a classic

“Ommateum” sold barely any copies when it first appeared. But little by little, Ammons began making inroads into the professional poetry establishment. Individual poems started getting picked up by journals and magazines here and there throughout the 1950s, and in 1964 he was hired to teach poetry writing at Cornell University, where he would later become a full professor and befriend Roger Gilbert.

The same year also saw the publication of his second collection, “Expressions of Sea Level,” this time by a major university press. From that point on until his death in 2001, Ammons would never go more than four years without releasing a new volume.

From the 1970s through the end of the 1990s, Ammons’s star rose without cease. He won the National Book Award for one collection of poetry in 1973, then the prestigious Bollingen Prize for Poetry for a different collection in 1975. It was around this time that the influential literary critic Harold Bloom said that “No contemporary poet, in America, is likelier to become a classic than A.R. Ammons.”

As if to prove Bloom’s point, Ammons released a volume in 1981 that received the National Book Critics Circle Award, and another volume 12 years later that won him his second National Book Award.  In October 2000, just five months before his death at age 75, he was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.

Albright, who knew Ammons personally through their work together at the North Carolina Literary Review, pointed out that the shy, affable farm boy from Whiteville was aware he had a gift.

“He knew that he was in a rare class,” Albright said. “He had a Southern way of deflecting praise, but there were very few poets that he imagined were as good as he was.”

Not Deep down but across

Ammons is by no means omnipresent in Whiteville today, but neither is he or the world of his childhood totally forgotten. His family home was torn down years ago, but Whiteville High School has a couple of old buildings he would have sat in as a student in the 1930s, and the Pentecostal church he attended with his parents still stands out by Spring Branch. There is no plaque for him in town, but the Reuben Brown House, a historic preservation group in Columbus County, runs an annual poetry contest in his honor.

The fields and swamps he roamed as a boy are in a similar state of in-between. “Until very recently he would have recognized the Columbus County landscape,” Albright said. “The bridges are a little better, but it’s still swampy. There’s still bugs, it’s still quiet, and you’re still really close to the coast out there.”

According to Albright, even the Brunswick County beaches of Ammons’s youth have not yet been totally transformed.

“There’s a little place when you go to the right on Ocean Isle, that’s where they went for their oyster roasts,” he said, “and on the back end, you can sort of forget that the high-rise bridge is going over to Ocean Isle, and it can feel very isolated.”

Still, Ammons was powerfully attentive to and protective of the natural world. The poet would likely have some strong opinions about the lack of care taken for the soil, water, trees and animals of southeastern North Carolina if he saw it today.

“He could be looked at as an early environmentalist,” Albright said of his old friend. “His feel for the land was just something. And part of what he would see would be heartbreaking. The factory tree farming, especially.”

In “Making Fields,” one of his most moving poems about his North Carolina roots, Ammons describes the give and take between the land and his ancestors who worked that land going back to his father’s father.

The life he presents to readers in this poem is a hard one, and it unfolds overtop a thin coastal soil stratum that doesn’t always offer bounty and wealth. But at the end of the poem, Ammons can still clearly see and hear his connection to the place of his birth.

“… the land is not deep down but across, as into time” he writes. “the runs, the / ditch banks, the underbrush, the open fields with a persimmon tree / or wild cherry call, they call me.” 

The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center is making this year’s Fourth of July shrimp fry set for Saturday “A Time to Honor our Community Leaders From Carteret County to western NC.”

The nonprofit holds the dinner annually to honor active military, veterans, frontline workers, teachers, school staff, health care professionals, power company line workers and all those who make the community safer and healthier with a complimentary plate, which can be reserved on the website.

This year, organizers have invited the Crystal Coast Water Rescue Team who responded to Black Mountain after Hurricane Helene hit in late September 2024, and Black Member Mountain Fire Department.

“We will be honoring the Crystal Coast Water Rescue Team that courageously traveled to Black Mountain during the Helene response last fall. Part of this recognition is to welcome members of the Black Mountain Fire Department who called on Carteret County for help,” organizers said, adding that the team would be there “to enjoy a much-needed rest from their continuing struggle/recovery and to host them at our event on July 5.”

Throughout the evening, attendees will have be able to enjoy “mountain music” in honor of Black Mountain with area bluegrass bands, Mac McRoy and The South Point Band and the Asher Brinson Band.

Preordered plates will be served from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., at 1785 Island Road on Harkers Island. Others can preorder theirs for $20 online, at 806 Arendell St., Morehead City, the heritage center on Harkers Island, or by phone at 252-728-1500. Organizers “strongly encourage” getting tickets ahead of time.

“Pretty much all my paintings tell a story,” said Rik Freeman.       

“When I was growing up, my grandmother used to say I would eavesdrop on grown folks’ conversations because they were just always so colorful and talking. I would see images in my head of what they were talking about and everything said,” the Washington, D.C., artist told Coastal Review.

For the last few years, Freeman’s art has been telling the story about African American beach communities during the Jim Crow era.

His series, “Black Beaches During Segregation,” features several vibrant paintings representing different historically Black beaches on the Atlantic, including Ocean City on Topsail Island, and goes on display in Onslow County starting Saturday.

The exhibit is part of the 15^th annual Ocean City Jazz Festival set for July 4-6 in North Topsail Beach. The theme of the three-day music festival is “Celebrating History Through the Language of Jazz and Unity.” A full schedule and ticket information can be found on the website.

The festival was first held in 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary of Ocean City’s establishment. Now a part of North Topsail Beach, Ocean City was established in 1949 “as an African-American-owned community 15 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Ocean City was a unique community as it was the first residential beach community with Black home ownership in the state,” according to the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission, which is sponsoring the exhibit with Ocean City Jazz Festival.

Opening reception for Freeman’s show is at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at the Jacksonville-Onslow Council for the Arts, 826 New Bridge St. in Jacksonville. Freeman is scheduled to give an artist’s talk at 3 p.m. and there will be time afterward to view the exhibit. Register online to attend.

Freeman, who spent his youth in Athens, Georgia, said he began drawing as a young child but really got into murals in his 20s, after college. He moved to Washington, D.C., in 1985 when he landed a job at the airport while he was visiting family for Thanksgiving.

He returned to art a few years later at 32. “It was in ’88. My father died — this is about to sound like an old blues song — my father died. I got fired from my job. My girlfriend left me, so I started working back with my art again,” he said.

The D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities posted in the newspaper an ad looking for artists willing to work with children during a summer program painting murals. Freeman applied and was accepted. “It started from there,” making a living off painting murals.

The idea for the “Black Beaches During Segregation” series was sparked when he learned that a Black-owned beach in California, which was taken from the family owners in the 1920s, had been returned to the descendants.

“I thought about that and that couldn’t have been the only one,” Freeman said, so he began researching. He came across Chicken Bone Beach, an African American beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He asked Honfleur Gallery owner Duane Gautier, who is from the Garden State, if he knew about the beach, but hadn’t heard of it. “And so I started telling them about others.” Freeman’s work is shown at Honfleur Gallery in Washington.

Gautier was interested and told Freeman to write a proposal for the gallery’s Artist in Residence Program.  This was in 2022.

He started with six beaches along the Atlantic Seaboard to research and paint, including Ocean City. He’s up to 14 or 15 beaches now, and he wants to represent at least one beach in every state south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

During his visit to Ocean City, Freeman met with people of the community, including Ocean City Jazz Festival co-chairs Carla and Craig Torrey.

Carla Torrey, originally from Fayetteville but now residing in Durham, is a second-generation homeowner in Ocean City. Her father was the principal builder when the community first started.

When she and others met Freeman in person, Torrey said that he explained how his series “uses art to visually document and celebrate the historical and cultural importance of places like the Ocean City Beach community, which played a crucial role in providing spaces for leisure and community for African Americans during a time of systemic racial discrimination. We are a perfect match.”

The exhibit features two paintings honoring Ocean City. One is based on a photo Torrey gave Freeman of herself as a young girl walking with her father on the pier with Ocean City Terrace in the background. Built in 1953 from an abandoned Navy missile observation tower, the restaurant is no longer standing.

“It’s so special to me, because my father really loved this community,” Torrey said. “I’m very grateful to Rik for doing that.”

She said that after talking to Freeman, the jazz festival organizers felt the series should be brought to the county, “so that they could see the other communities that he had visited and that existed and learn a bit about their legacy in history.”

The other painting features two men playing instruments with a modern-day interpretation of the Ocean City Terrace in the background. Freeman said he thinks they eventually want to get restaurant rebuilt, so he took artistic license when painting the building.

The piece on St. Augustine Beach in Florida, Freeman said, is the only piece that directly confronts the racism of the era.

“Because in June ’64 in St. Augustine, they had, instead of sit-ins, it was a wade-in because you’re wading into either a pool or a segregated beach, and a riot broke out, and a lot of people got injured. It was on the news,” Freeman explained. Around the same time, a motel owner threw sulfuric acid in a pool where high school kids were swimming because they wouldn’t get out of the water.

“Those two incidents led (President Lyndon Johnson) to sign the Civil Rights bill less than a month later. So, I figured I wanted to do at least one piece that did show that out-and-out racism, but most of the pieces are based on showing the joy, the camaraderie, you’re in a safe place, and people just having a good time,” he said.

“But the underlying thing is,” Freeman continued, is that when somebody’s looking at the work and they “say, ‘why is it just all these Black folks at the beach?’ Is this somewhere in the Caribbean, or is it Brazil, Africa?’ No, this is United States of America, and the beaches were segregated.”

In his painting depicting Atlantic Beach in South Carolina, “you can barely see it. You have to look for it. There’s a little orange rope that goes out into the water. And a lady down there was telling me that rope was basically the color line, and she just kind of laughed. She said, ‘What did they think that the water that touched us wasn’t going to come and touch them?’”

Ultimately, Freeman wants people who see the exhibit to see the camaraderie and look at the histories of these beaches.

“I want people to kind of look and see as it’s very commendable what people were able to do to be able to create those beaches and safe places. And you know, some of them had a little bit of trouble and everything, but by and large, they were safe,” he said.

Torrey said that the Ocean City Jazz Festival “provides the perfect historical setting and audience for Rik Freeman’s impactful art, while the NC African American Heritage Commission brings its expertise and mandate for preserving and promoting the rich, often untold, stories of African American heritage in North Carolina.”

North Carolina African American Heritage Commission Director Adrienne Nirdé has been with the state commission since 2020, acting as director for the last two years.

The commission has sponsored the Ocean City Jazz Festival for several years now, which Nirdé said is important for the division within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

“When talking about segregation and Civil Rights, that’s often associated with lunch counters and schools, and that’s a big part of the history that people learn about, if they learn about it at all, but when you dive into deeper, in a place like North Carolina, this was something that touched every aspect of life,” Nirdé said. “People were recreating. They wanted to go on vacation, they wanted to go to the beach. They wanted to golf and experience swimming pools and all of these different types of spaces. This is just really an important way to share the other layer of this story.”

Council For the Arts of Jacksonville Onslow County Executive Director Kandyce Quintero said she and the council’s executive board “are extremely excited to have this exhibit be the kick-start to the festival this year.”

During Freeman’s talk on Saturday, he said he will discuss the work he curated for this exhibit.

“I really want the visitors to understand how important these paintings are. The stories behind each one and how generations have been affected even in today’s world,” she said.

An afternoon of environmental education and activities are planned for Wilmington’s 35th annual Earth Day Festival set for noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at Long Leaf Park.

Hosted by Wilmington Earth Day Alliance, there is no charge to attend the festival themed “Our Power, Our Planet.”

“It’s a fun-filled afternoon of live music, good food, environmental information and activities for the whole family,” organizers said. “More than 50 environmentally-minded exhibitors and vendors will be there, explaining issues that affect our environment and illustrating how you can get involved.”

Attendees can enjoy live entertainment by “old school” rock band, Au Naturales at noon, indie rock band, Tercel at 2 p.m. and reggae band, the Righteous Roots at 4 p.m.

The “Rapping Red Oak” will lead the children’s Nature Brigade Parade at 1:30 p.m. and perform children’s songs.

Anyone is welcome to join the community drummers and dancers drum circle at 3:30 p.m.

Food trucks expected to be on-site are Johnny Cheesehead, A&M’s Red Food Truck, all-vegan food trucks Well Fed Ed and Arabelle Cookin’ and chocolatier, Chocolate and S’more. Fermental Beer & Wine, Good Hops Brewing, Wilmington Brewing Co, Bill’s Brewing Co. Noni Bacca Winery and Panacea Brewing Co. will be selling beverages.

Culligan Water will provide drinking water, and guests are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles.

Great Outdoor Provision Co. donated a Hurricane-brand kayak that will be raffled off.

There is no charge to park on-site, or at the New Hanover County Senior Resource Center to take a shuttle to the festival.

Leashed pets are welcome in the grassy areas but not inside the tents or in the food area. Only trained service animals may accompany their humans on the WAVE Transit bus.

Ocracoke is celebrating the planet April 11-13 with its family friendly Earth Day Weekend Celebration.

In its second year, organizers said there will be a variety of indoor and outdoor activities designed for all ages, including nature walks, history talks, nature crafts, live music, stargazing, a beach cleanup, stargazing, music and storytelling, a fish house tour and a traditional square dance.

Attendees can listen in on discussions about fireflies, dark skies designation, composting and organic farming, trash survey, invasive plants, and climate change.

The event will conclude with a community beach bonfire at Ocracoke’s lifeguard beach.

The full, detailed schedule for the festival is online.

The Ocracoke Earth Day Weekend Celebration is sponsored by Ocracoke Alive, with financial support from Ocracoke occupancy tax revenues, the North Carolina Art Council, Pony Island Inn, and John and Sarah Saunders, longtime supporters from the Charlotte area.

​Dozens of carvers, collectors and exhibitors from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware are planning to make the journey later this month to Ocracoke Island for a two-day celebration of waterfowl carving heritage.

Hosted by the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild, the Ocracoke Island Waterfowl Festival is scheduled for 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 11, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 12, in the Ocracoke School gym.

In addition to perusing the about 30 booths expected to be set up in the gym, festivalgoers will have the opportunity to bid on silent auction items, purchase locally baked goods, including Ocracoke fig cake, and buy raffle tickets for the canvasback decoy made by the 2025 featured carver, the late Mark Justice of Ocracoke.

The guild was founded in 2018 to “preserve, promote and carry on our waterfowl carving heritage which has been an important part of our island culture. It is our goal to continue the craft of hand carving decoys so our future generations may enjoy the same and that it will not be lost.”

Trudy Austin, founding board member and Ocracoke resident, said that the support the guild has received from the carving community “has been amazing” and that “there is something for every decoy enthusiast” at the festival.

Every year, the board votes on a carver from the community, and selected Justice in April 2024, Austin explained. Justice, who carved for more than three decades, finished the canvasback decoy before his death in October 2024.

Austin said the guild plans to honor Justice and his family, who donated the decoy after his death to be raffled at the festival.

Founding member Vince O’Neal said during an interview that festivalgoers will have an opportunity to learn about the carving traditions that are “a very important part of our history and still is today” and see different types of decoys.

“As we carry this on, this tradition of making decoys, we’re concentrating on the actual art of making the decoys. So we just encourage everybody to come (to the festival) and have a good time,” he said.

O’Neal has been carving for more than 30 years and prefers carving the traditional, working-style hunting decoys, though there are all types of decoys, and every region has its own style.

O’Neal describes Ocracoke decoys as “somewhat primitive, but stylish, and not a whole lot of detail.”

The decoys were rugged, versatile and practical because of the quantity needed for open waters. “You needed a big rig of them to attract the waterfowl as they were flying by,” he said.

He explained that when the country was growing, “bursting at the seams from late 1800s on, waterfowl was on the menu in practically any restaurant you went to — Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, all the cities” and was important for subsistence, a way for locals to put food on the table.

“There weren’t any Food Lions around, right? You had to eat. You ate what was around and the fowl were abundant,” O’Neal said, reiterating that waterfowl was important to the economy and for subsistence, to live.

Long in the works

Established in 2018, the idea to form the guild had been brewing for decades.

“In high school, John Simpson, Vince O’Neal and Scotty Robinson always talked about starting a decoy guild and festival to honor Ocracoke’s decoy heritage. Ocracoke has had many carvers over the years,” Austin said.

O’Neal said that when the guild started seven years ago, a bunch of local carvers and watermen got together and “we decided we needed to celebrate and preserve the history of and carry on the tradition of waterfowling and hunting, mainly, making the decoys for the hunting,” he said. “We wanted to educate the public on the history, how important carving was and still is today. We didn’t want to lose the art of making decoys.”

Simpson, who died November 2024, was president of the guild and the board is adjusting to the loss.

“He was one of our founding members,” O’Neal said. “He was very instrumental in getting (the guild) going. We talked about it for years, and then we decided, well, you know what, we’re going to do it. So we did, and glad we did so it will carry on. John was big in promoting it, and definitely our leader, but he left us in good shape.”

Hunting has been a big part of Ocracoke tradition, Austin said. “Like some of our board members, I am also a ninth-generation descendant. I collected decoys for years. Being part of the guild and serving on the board was very important to me. Preserving the heritage of decoys is our main goal.”

Donations, details

Donations are being accepted for the silent action and should be related to waterfowl and hunting, as well as baked goods. Contact O’Neal at beachbirds@embarqmail.com to find out more about the silent auction. Baked goods donations should be delivered to the gym by 9 a.m. April 12.

The fish fry to benefit Ocracoke Seafood Co. is to begin at 11 a.m. April 12, followed at 1 p.m. by a decoy head carving competition.

Because of limited parking, a shuttle will be available to transport visitors between Ocracoke School and the National Park Service parking lot by the ferry terminal.

The Outer Banks Community Foundation announced this week that it had awarded $71,992 in Community Enrichment Grants to 10 nonprofits, funding projects that support youth, preserve history and bring arts and culture to communities across the Outer Banks.

The total was for the first grant cycle of the year, according to the Manteo-based foundation committed to fostering philanthropy and supporting local causes.

“Our Community Enrichment Grants are all about investing in the nonprofits that strengthen and serve our community every day,” said Chief Operating Officer Nandy Stuart. “This cycle reflects our commitment to uplifting the organizations doing innovative and meaningful work right here at home.”

The Don and Catharine Bryan Cultural Series received funding to host Ghana’s Saakumu Dance Troupe for a weeklong residency in partnership with Dare Arts, Children & Youth Partnership, and Dare County Schools.

“This vibrant celebration of Ghanaian music and dance will enrich our schools, festivals, and community spaces, bringing cultural diversity and global perspectives to residents and students across Dare County,” said Bryan Cultural Series President Bob Muller.

The Secotan Alliance received a grant for In the Spirit of Wingina 2: Our Women… Our Words… Our Water, a two-day event in May highlighting indigenous history through lectures, panels, music, and poetry.

Newer nonprofits Hatteras Island Community Strings and Hatteras Island Futbol Club were awarded grants to expand youth music and soccer programs.

“This upcoming spring and summer season would not be possible without the support of OBCF,” said Futbol Club President Ian O’Neal.

Water’s Edge Village School in Corolla will use its grant to install essential computer network infrastructure in its new school building, opening this fall.

OBX Go Far received support to celebrate its 15th anniversary with a youth-focused event at the Pioneer Theater following their annual 5K race and fun run.

Grants to Pea Island Preservation Society Inc., Outer Banks Lighthouse Society and First Flight Society will fund educational programming and community events ranging from historic storytelling to lighthouse education and aviation celebrations.

The North Carolina Aquarium Society received funding for a special bilingual night at the aquarium this fall, featuring guided tours and animal encounters in English and Spanish.

Nonprofits interested in applying for funding are encouraged to explore the new Focus Grants, which provide up to $50,000 for initiatives addressing healthcare access, affordable housing, and child care. Applications are due April 25, 2025.

For more details, visit obcf.org/grants or call 252-423-3003.

North Carolina Department of Transportation officials have organized an art contest to give students a chance to illustrate how women from all walks of life have made their mark in the air.

The 2025 theme, “Women with Wings,” celebrates the pioneering women who were trailblazers in aviation, such as pilots, skydivers or women who built and maintained aircraft, organizers said.

Students born between Jan. 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2018, are eligible to submit entries in one of three age groups: junior for ages 6-9, intermediate for ages 10-13, and senior for ages 14-17. Contest entries must be received by Jan. 17. Visit the NCDOT Aviation Art Contest page for eligibility and submission details.

“This year’s theme, Women with Wings, gives students the perfect opportunity to explore both history and imagination,” said Becca Gallas, Director of NCDOT Division of Aviation. “We encourage all students to join in, get creative and honor the inspiring women who have taken flight in aviation’s storied history.”

The North Carolina Airports Association is providing cash prizes to be awarded to the top three students in each age group and their schools. The artwork of the three North Carolina winners in each age group will advance to the national competition, hosted by the National Association of State Aviation Officials in Washington, D.C.

National winners are submitted to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale’s headquarters in Switzerland for the international contest.

Contact the state’s contest coordinator, Corbi Bulluck, at cbulluck@ncdot.gov or 919-814-0550 for more questions.

Tickets are available for the Outer Banks Environmental Film Festival set for Nov. 1-3 at various locations in Dare County.

Organizers say the festival brings the work of passionate filmmakers invited to share their creativity, perspective and environmental awareness.

Screenings and events are planned for Dare Arts, 300 Queen Elizabeth Ave., Manteo, on Friday, Nov. 1, and the College of the Albemarle, Saturday, Nov. 2. There will also be an opening reception at 6 p.m. Nov. 1 on the rooftop deck at the Pearl Hotel, 100 Old Tom Ave. in Manteo.

The festival is presented by the Peace Garden Project, a nonprofit that seeks to address food insecurity as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as inadequate access to sufficient, affordable and nutritious food. The gardening and food justice initiative based in Manteo also works to educate people about the importance of caring for the environment.

“Our mission is to increase the accessibility of fresh food in local communities, while engaging the social and economic barriers that often prevent people from getting the food they need,” according to the Peace Garden Project’s website.

A schedule of events with run times and locations is available on the website.

It’ll be a swell time next week in Nags Head during the annual Surfalorus Film Festival.

In its 13th year, the three-day festival showcasing films on surfing and surfers is scheduled for Monday through Wednesday at the North Carolina Aquariums Jennette’s Pier.

The festival is held during the Eastern Surfing Association’s annual, year-end competition. North Carolina Aquariums in partnership between Cucalorus Film Foundation and Dare Arts are presenting the festival.

There will be 13 films screened plus a special presentation at 6 p.m. Tuesday with the NC Oyster Trail, a tourism initiative to promote the state’s oyster industry.

An all-access pass is $25. Ticket information is available on the website.

The festival begins at 6 p.m. Monday with live music from festival director Zach Hanner and the original southern fried Hawaiian band, CarolinAloha. “Cigarette Surfboard” documentary and Q&A with filmmaker Ben Judkins is to follow at 7 p.m., both at the pier.

The documentary “Walkabout: The Songlines of Surfing” about the friendship of Australian pro surfer Robbie Page and surfing legend Arnaud Mestelan is set for 4:30 p.m.

Several short films are scheduled to be screened Tuesday evening and Wednesday afternoon. Social hour and awards are to take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday before the 7 p.m. showing of “Channel Man — Col’s Story.” The documentary looks at underground surfing legend Colin Smith from Redhead, New South Whales.

“The Surfalorus Film Festival is so happy to be back with our ohana in Nags Head and the Outer Banks,” Hanner said in a release. “Last year’s festival saw many attendees that had no connection with surfing but were still able to enjoy our screenings as cultural events. You really don’t need to surf or be a surfer to have fun at our festival. But if you have any connection to the culture, you’ll love what we’ve put together,”

Live music, a vintage surfing contest, environmental education and an “Oysterpalooza” are highlights of Ocean Fest in Surf City scheduled for later this month.

Taking place at Soundside Park, the oyster event is to take place 4-10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20, and the music festival 3-10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21.

Tickets range from $25 to $70 per person, depending on the event, and can be bought online.

The $25 ticket for Oysterpalooza includes live music, and a kids zone with Sturgeon City Environmental Education Center based in Jacksonville. The $50 ticket comes with a dozen local oysters. Food trucks, drinks and exhibitors will be on site.

The surfing contest has participants riding vintage mid-length surfboards from the 1960s and 1970s. Before each heat, contestants are to be randomly assigned a board from a curated collection of more than a dozen retro surfboards. Open heat registration is on the website.

The music festival is to feature eight performances, educational exhibits and vendors. The lineup as of late August includes Blue Footed Boobies, Of Good Nature, Will Overman, The Midatlantic, Oceanic, Tyler Mckaig, Justin Cody Fox, The Fontanelles, and Beht Manning.

Children under 10 are free with ticketed adults. Children attending Oysterpalooza without a ticket do not receive oyster tokens.

Three Surf City surfers founded Ocean Fest in 2019 to share their “love for the ocean, celebrate the pure joy of surfing, and, most importantly, give something meaningful back to Mother Ocean,” according to the website. “With that in mind, Ocean Fest strives to educate the community about ecological threats to our precious marine environments and teach how we can better protect those environments.”

The 14^th annual Ocean City Jazz Festival is set for July 6-7 in North Topsail Beach.

Digital tickets are available for the rain-or-shine event, which is held under a pavilion tent across from 2649 Island Drive, at the corner of Island Drive and Carver Street.

As it has in previous years, the festival boasts an incredible lineup of talent that caters to both jazz purist and lovers of contemporary jazz, organizers said.

The lineup this year includes James “PJ” Spraggins, Phylicia Rae, the Braxton Brothers, Kim Waters, Fred Wesley, Lin Rountree, Gerald Albright and Nnenna Freelon.

Free parking will be available at Onslow County Beach Access No. 2 at 2950 Island Drive. Shuttle services start at 4 p.m. daily.  The Jazz Fest Express Shuttle provides continuous round-trip transportation between the parking lot on the bath house side and the festival site.

Organizers have made Americans with Disability Act accommodations, including an ADA restroom and a golf cart available for assistance. Beach mats are to be placed on the festival lot to provide a stable walking surface for attendees with mobility issues. The festival program will be online for those with visually impaired.

The Ocean City Community was founded in 1949, 15 years before the Civil Rights Act, as the only place African Americans could purchase coastal property in North Carolina. The annual festival is a celebration of the community’s music, food, art and cultural heritage.

Today, the Ocean City Community is designated as an official African American historic site in Onslow County and is part of the North Carolina Civil Rights Trail.

The nonprofit Ocean City Beach Citizens Council is the host of the festival. Proceeds go to preserve the historic community, promotion of the history of the Ocean City Community and its significance to the state.

The festival will celebrate the community’s 75th anniversary with a White Attire Party on Friday, July 5. North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green is to read a commemorative poem for the occasion.

For more information and tickets, visit oceancityjazzfest.com.

Hey, buddy, have you heard the news? “King Mackerel & the Blues are Running” to Morehead City later this month.

The Coastal Cohorts — Don Dixon, Bland Simpson, and Jim Wann — are getting back together for a special reunion tour they’re calling “39 and Holding” of their show that celebrates life on the Carolina coast.

Shows are scheduled for 7 p.m. May 23-25 and at 2 p.m. May 26 in Carteret Community College’s Joslyn Hall.

Proceeds benefit both the North Carolina Coastal Federation and the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island. Tickets, $30 for members of both nonprofit organizations and $35 for nonmembers, are available at nccoast.org/kingmackerel.

“King Mackerel & the Blues are Running” brings to the stage tall tales, ballads and stories about the one that got away — both first loves and catches.

The group first performed the show in 1985 and has toured the East Coast, including performing in New York City that the late Clive Barnes, New York Post theater critic, called “a pure salt watered delight.”

This is far from the first show the trio has performed in Carteret County.

“This is the best — doing ‘King Mackerel’ again with our longtime Core Sound friends, right where we first teamed up in Joslyn Hall,” guitarist Jim Wann, who is the lead composer of the Tony-nominee and international musical hit “Pump Boys & Dinettes” said in a release.

“We love our audiences at Joslyn Hall,” said pianist Bland Simpson, who is Kenan Professor of English & Creative Writing at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. “And it always feels like a family reunion when we do this show.”

Bassist Don Dixon, renowned record producer of such acts as REM, James McMurtry, and The Red Clay Ramblers agrees. “I love doing this show in the Sound Country,” he said. “Joslyn Hall is one of my favorite places to sing.”

North Carolina Maritime Museum officials and staff are set to welcome visitors to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras for the first time in two years.

Also in the coming month, officials with the museum system’s are planning to welcome back watercraft enthusiasts for its 48th annual Wooden Boat Show May 4 in Beaufort; and at the Southport museum, staff are preparing to launch a new program May 29.

The Hatteras facility has been closed since 2022 for a complete renovation. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. Monday, May 20, when the overhauled facility reopens to the public.

First opened in 2002, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum is named after the thousands of shipwrecks off the state’s coast.

Public information officer Cyndi Brown told Coastal Review that the Hatteras museum has undergone a “major transformation, with a completely redesigned lobby and a new gallery space with state-of-the-art features and interactive elements that bring our coastal history to life.”

Exhibits cover from precolonial times to the present and offer a comprehensive journey through the region’s history.

Inside, visitors will find interactive experiences, from touch screens to holographic video displays, “providing visitors with engaging ways to delve into the region’s maritime heritage,” Brown said. She added that children, in particular, can enjoy scavenger hunts and programs designed to both educate and entertain.

There is a Monomoy-class life-saving surfboat, a first-order Fresnel lens from Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and displays showing shipwrecks off the coast, Brown added.

Special programs and activities are scheduled for the week the museum opens, Brown said.

Following the museum opening at 10 a.m. Monday, May 20, there will be a program at 11 a.m. on the “U.S. Life Saving Service Operations along the North Carolina Coast” with Beaufort museum’s Education Curator Benjamin Wunderly. He will share the history of U.S. Life-Saving Service operations, the precursor to the Coast Guard.

“The History of the Oldest NC State Law Enforcement — 200 Years of Service (1822-2022)” is at 1 p.m. May 20 with N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries Marine Patrol Capt. Christopher Lee. Visitors can hear about the state’s longest-serving law enforcement agency, which can trace its roots back to 1822 when the North Carolina General Assembly enacted legislation to impose gear restrictions on oyster harvest.

“Brigadier General Billy Mitchell: Father of the U.S. Air Force and Hatteras Hero” is scheduled for 2 p.m. May 20 with area historian Danny Couch. Mitchell is often regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force. Aviation experts often question why Mitchell chose to conduct his historic strategic bombing experiments at Hatteras, and the answer is simple: He liked to fish, according to the museum.

“North Carolina Whales: Diversity, Distribution and Conservation” will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday, May 21. Beaufort museum Associate Education Curator and Bonehenge Whale Center Director Keith Rittmaster will talk about the whales most commonly spotted off the coast and show related display items.

Learn about “John Rollinson: Hero of Hatteras Island” 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, with Couch. Rollinson (1827-1906), was Hatteras’ first paid schoolteacher, collector of the Port of Hatteras and reluctant Civil War outlaw.

“Women in Whaling” is at 11 a.m. Friday, May 22, with Beaufort museum’s Associate Education Curator Christine Brin.

A talk on the “Lost Colony” is at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 23, with Hatteras native Scott Dawson. Hear Dawson’s take on the English who attempted to colonize the New World in 1587 and the mystery surrounding their disappearance.

North Carolina Aquariums’ Aquatic Wildlife Inhabiting Shipwrecks will take place May 20 to May 24. Staff with the Roanoke facility will be on site with this hands-on activities.

The museum will operate on a new schedule after reopening. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday and will be closed Saturdays and Sundays.

There is no admission but donations are appreciated and directly support museum operations, Brown said.

48th annual Wooden Boat Show in Beaufort

The Beaufort museum has set aside one Saturday a year for almost 50 years for enthusiasts to celebrate traditional wooden boatbuilding.

The 48th annual Wooden Boat Show scheduled for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 4, will again bring to the coastal town dozens of wooden vessels, ranging from classic, vintage sailboats to modern power boats.

Grant Caraway, director of the wooden boat show, told Coastal Review that the annual show has been a mainstay for those in the antique and wooden boat community.

There will be many attractions this year, including dozens of classic restored boats and motors, a pirate encampment, and kid’s activities like face painting and toy boatbuilding, Caraway continued.

Plus, Caraway said, there will be public sailboat rides offered from 1-3 p.m.

In addition to the wooden boats, for the second year there will be miniature vintage outboards on display.

“We’ll have outboards on both sides of the street,” Caraway said in a statement. “These miniature outboard motors are really cool. While most people think they’re toys, they were actually used by manufacturers as a marketing tool.”

Brown said Monday morning that though online registration closes Tuesday, boats can register up until the day of the show by calling 252-504-7758. “We will always make room for more boats,” she said. “Right now we have 35 registered.”

Registration for a first vessel is $30 and includes an event T-shirt. Additional boats are $5 each. Register on the website by April 30 or by phone at 252-504-7758 until the day before the show.

Also on the grounds will be knot-tying demonstrations, a book sale, vendors, maritime art, boating skills virtual trainer, sailboat races and more, all offered at no charge.

While most activities are at the museum, the in-water boat show will be a few blocks away at the Beaufort Docks.

“We award 16 different categories with handmade wooden awards made here at the Maritime Museum,” Caraway said for the judge’s selections.

Attendees will be able to choose their favorite by voting for the People’s Choice winner and for the model expo.

An opening reception with refreshments and entertainment is set for 5-7 p.m. Friday, May 3, at the museum’s Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center across the street. There is no charge to attend. The kickoff is being held at the same time as the museum’s Spring First Friday, which celebrates featured artists at the museum’s Port of Call Museum Store.

‘Anchors Aweigh’ in Southport

The North Carolina Maritime Museum at Southport is launching its new program,
“Anchors Aweigh,” on May 29.

The drop-in style program offered from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day its scheduled features hands-on activities that focus on a specific part of Lower Cape Fear and North Carolina history.

The debut activity is “Anchors Aweigh: Got the Blues?” an indigo-dying program from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Several “Anchors Aweigh” events are scheduled throughout the summer, as well.

The program June 12 will be on map reading and orienteering, on June 26, declaring independence, July 10 “Wash it up! Laundry in the Age of Sail,” July 10, flags in history July 24, and cyphers and codes Aug. 14.

More Maritime Museum events

Beaufort museum

The Cape Lookout Lighthouse — 11 a.m. May 2 will focus on the history of the Carteret County landmark. The presentation will cover both the destroyed 1812 tower, and the still-standing 1859 tower, as well as some lesser-known facts about the “Diamond” tower. No charge to attend the Maritime Heritage Series program.

Kids’ Cove — 9-11 a.m. May 8 and again 11 a.m.-1 p.m. May 12. This free-play program is designed for children up to 5 years and their caregivers. There is a different maritime-themed craft and wiggle activity each month. This is screen-free program begins an hour before the museum opens to the public. To register, call 252-504-7758 or visit the website.

Kayak the Salt Marsh — 9 a.m.-noon May 9. A member of the education team will give a basic kayak instruction and safety lessons on shore then lead a 1.5-mile paddle through the salt marsh. The program is recommended for ages 12 and up, though anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Participants must know how to swim; some kayak experience is recommended. Cost is $35 or $30 if you bring your own kayak. Register online by noon May 8 at 252-504-7758 or on the website.

Museum’s Most Wanted: Conservation Basics-Identifying and Dealing with Museum Pests — 11 a.m. May 9. Museum conservator Michelle Crepeau will identify common museum pests, their impact on collections, and both historical and modern methods of mitigation and prevention. The program offered at no charge is part of the Maritime Heritage Series.

Exploring Coastal Habitats on the Rachel Carson Reserve — 9 a.m.-noon May 15. The guided hike will take visitors through the different habitats and the sandy, muddy, and wet terrain found on Town Marsh and Bird Shoal in the Beaufort area. The program is recommended for ages 12 and up, but all participants under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Cost is $25. Register online or by calling 252-504-7758 by noon May 14.

Behind the scenes at the Whale Center — 10 a.m. May 17. The 40-minute, behind-the-scenes look shows how marine mammal skeletons are prepared for educational display and the mammals found in area waters. The Bonehenge Whale Center operates as a partnership between the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Carolina Cay Maritime Foundation. Register online or by calling 252-504-7758 by noon May 16.

Sea Turtles in North Carolina — 11 a.m. May 23. Program for World Turtle Day will focus on different species of sea turtles and the trials they face before they even emerge from their sandy nest. No charge for the program through the Maritime Heritage Series.

Southport museum

Skippers Crew: Mullet Over — 10 a.m.- 3p.m. May 4. Designed for all ages, but specifically geared toward younger patrons, this activity features hands-on activities and crafts focusing on combining arts and history. Lights will be dimmed and interactives muted during the first two hours to provide a calmer environment for those with sensory sensitivities. No charge to participate.

Deep Dive into History — drop-in series 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 18. Madline Spencer of the state’s Underwater Archaeology Branch based at Fort Fisher State Historic Site will explain the tools of the trade of an archaeologist, how they preserve what they find, and how they help us understand the past during the program, “Digging for the Past.” Designed for all ages, the series gives visitors a deeper understanding of our shared past through costumed interpreters and artifacts. Being offered at no charge, registration is not required.

Third Tuesday: “Silent Sentinels” — noon May 21 with the North Carolina Military History Society. Part of the museum’s Third Tuesday lecture series held at the Southport Community Building, 223 E. Bay St. Lectures are geared for ages 16 years and older. No charge to attend, but registration is requested because seating is limited. Call -910-477-5151 or visit the website.

Living on the Outer Banks “requires you to be very much in touch with weather and Mother Nature,” says commercial fisherman Vince O’Neal.

The lifelong Ocracoke resident and owner of the Pony Island Restaurant told Coastal Review recently that his family has been on the barrier island, which is only accessible by boat or plane, for generations.

Many of the first settlers on the coast were watermen and what they did that day “depended on the weather and the hand they were dealt.” The velocity and the direction of the wind and tides determined if you were going on the water or if you were going to spend the day working on nets, boats, gear, or your hunting rig of decoys.

“Waterfowling was a big part of life on the Outer Banks as a way of income and for food on the table,” O’Neal said, as much as hand carving was in a waterfowler’s life.

“Growing up on Ocracoke Island as a kid, you were exposed to the natives making decoys all around the island,” O’Neal said, with some working in their backyard sheds and others carving or whittling while hanging out at the local stores or other gathering places.

“By the time that I came along,” O’Neal added, many of the old-time carvers were making decoys for the tourist trade versus using them as working decoys.

To keep the village’s decoy carving traditions alive, he and a group of other carvers formed the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild in January 2018 with the goal to “preserve, promote and carry on” the village’s waterfowl carving heritage, according to its Facebook.

That year, the guild hosted its first Waterfowl Festival and are carrying on that success. The organization is readying for its sixth festival, which has been expanded to two days this year, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 20, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, April 21, in the Ocracoke School gym.

There is no charge to attend the festival that will feature dozens of booths featuring carvers, collectors, exhibitors and demonstrations from North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

New this year will be a fish fry hosted by Ocracoke Seafood Co. starting at 11 a.m. Saturday, April 20, and a bake sale with baked goodies and treats, including Ocracoke fig cake. Saturday events include a decoy head carving competition at 1 p.m. and a silent auction that ends at 3 p.m.

O’Neal, who is this year’s featured carver for the festival, explained that the methods of carving have been passed down through the generations and continue today.

“It is important that crafts such as this be preserved and taught to the younger islanders as it is part of their heritage, history and livelihoods,” he said.

Guild President John Simpson, who also grew up on the island, told Coastal Review that the festival is for all ages. Last year they had around 800 visitors attend.

As of Monday, Simpson said there were 27 different carvers, vendors and other artisans signed up to have a booth at the festival. Simpson is asking anyone who wants to be a vendor to let him know by April 14 for logistical purposes. Vendors can secure a table at $75 for both days.

He mentioned that in addition to the bake sale, there will be merchandise like T-shirts and sweatshirts, and a raffle on Saturday.

First place for the raffle is the decoy featured on the poster and shirts. O’Neal created that decoy in his role as the festival’s featured carver.

Recent organization, old tradition

Simpson said that the movement behind establishing a guild began several years ago. The carving tradition can be found generations deep in Outer Banks communities and especially in Ocracoke.

“There’s a lot of decoy makers,” Simpson explained, adding that one of his distant family members, Gary Bragg, who was alive 1881 to 1954, was a well-known carver on the island who “got a little bit of notoriety.”

Simpson said that he and some of his former classmates had been talking for a while about holding a festival like the Core Sound Decoy Carvers Guild’s festival held the first weekend of December on Harkers Island, a Down East Carteret County community.

So, Simpson, Vince O’Neal, his brother Dave O’Neal, and Scotty Robinson met in a friend’s living room in December 2017 and formed the Ocracoke Island Decoy Carvers Guild. “The first meeting we ever had was in January of 2018,” and the group continues to meet the first Thursday of the month.

Simpson said they started the guild to promote Ocracoke’s heritage and the tradition of decoy carving as art.

“We all enjoy it, all of us that are on board,” Simpson said. “We all love it. We’re trying to promote it, and especially get the younger folks involved because it is a dying art. As much as I hate to say it, it is a dying art.”

“We made it simple. Anybody could join,” Simpson said of the guild.

When the group was establishing guidelines, they also decided to have a festival. “We scrambled around and did our first festival that year, 2018, on the third weekend in April,” Simpson said, and the group has tried to keep it that same weekend.

In April 2018 and 2019, the festival was at the school, and in 2020, they had to cancel the festival because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because Hurricane Dorian in late 2019 destroyed the school, the festival was held at Berkley Barn outdoor pavilion in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Simpson said the festival is returning to the school now that it has reopened because the event is for the students and the school. The guild offers scholarships to graduating students from Ocracoke School.

Simpson urged those who want to attend to go ahead and line up their lodging, which fills up quickly, and make sure to reserve a spot on the North Carolina Department of Transportation ferry to Ocracoke from either Cedar Island or Swan Quarter.

With parking being limited at Ocracoke School, there will be a shuttle to transport visitors from the National Park Service parking lot by the ferry terminal to the school during show hours.

It may be hard to overstate the influence, creativity and genius of Max Roach.

The famous coastal North Carolina native’s instrument was the drums, but calling him a drummer is roughly akin to comparing the Atlantic Ocean to a pond.

The subject of a PBS documentary that premiered in October 2023, Max Roach was born in 1924 in Newland Township, about 12 or 13 miles north of Elizabeth City. It might be a stretch, though, to claim Roach as a product of North Carolina. His family moved to New York when he was just 4.

If he didn’t grow up in North Carolina, it does appear as though he maintained his connection to the area.

“He wasn’t raised here. He wasn’t educated here. But he has cousins that are still here, and my understanding is that he would come back every once in a while, and they’d have a big family party out in Newland,” said Douglas Jackson, professor of music at Elizabeth City State University.

Jackson was keynote speaker at the centennial celebration of Roach’s birthday Jan. 10 at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City. Jackson, who plays trumpet, was aware of Roach, but as he went deeper into researching him, his appreciation grew.

“I started listening to more of his recordings and what people were writing and saying about … the influence on how he maintained tempo, his cymbal technique, where he’s he’s feathering the cymbal, and it’s so fast and it’s always so consistent,” Jackson said. “People were referring to him as a lyrical drummer. He used all of the different pieces of the drum set to complement the musicians, but he never got in the way.”

Roach died in 2007 at his home in Manhattan, but during his lifetime, he received a number of accolades. These include a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1988, Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 1989 and the International Percussive Art Society’s Hall of Fame and the DownBeat Hall of Fame. In 2009 he was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

Roach was a musical prodigy. In an interview recorded in 1984 at Howard University, he described growing up in Brooklyn and his earliest musical experiences.

“When I was about 8 years old, I joined the marching band in Concord Baptist Church,” he said. “My first instrument in that band was a bugle. And I had a problem with that and later switched to the marching drum.”

Roach had an aunt who taught him to play piano and read music, but his love was always the drums, and by the time he graduated from high school in 1942, he was already in demand when a drummer was needed in New York City.

At age 17 he sat in with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, perhaps one of the most accomplished jazz orchestras of its day. Ellington’s regular drummer, Sonny Greer, was sick and a substitute was needed.

But, as he told NPR’s Terry Gross, host of “Fresh Air,” in a 1987 interview, Greer played by ear and by watching what was happening around him.

“I couldn’t play by ear at that time. I was about 17,” Roach said. “So Mr. Ellington, before the curtain came up, he looked at me and saw the fright of fear in my face and said keep one eye on me and one eye on the acts on the stage. And I made it through.”

That night, in spite of the fear, was also a defining moment for Roach.

“I made up my mind I wanted to be in this area of music because Duke had (it) all, the theater and the drama and the pageantry was just surrounding him when he presented a show. And that’s when I really decided that was what I wanted to do,” he told Gross.

The big-band era was coming to an end, however. There were a number of factors that led to that, but a World War II tax in particular may have been the death knell as Roach recounted in his Howard University interview.

“The Second World War, we had an extra 20% cabaret taxes,” he explained, pointing to already existing federal, state and city taxes. “On top of that (a club owner) had to pay a 20% government tax called entertainment tax. If he had a singer, if he had public dancing or dancing on a stage or a comedian, this really heralded the demise of big bands during that time.”

What did not face the cabaret tax, however, were small improvisational groups. It was a time when some of the finest jazz musicians in the world were gravitating to New York, and Roach was in the middle of it.

“Right after high school, of course, I went into New York and started working with people like Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet) and (saxophonists) Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins,” he recalled in his Howard University interview.

The improvisational sound of the small groups had challenges, Roach told Terry Gross.

“When you played in a small band, more was required of you because there were less people. It was like playing in a string quartet is vis-a-vis symphony orchestras,” he said. “You heard more drums, you heard more piano, you heard more this then that and the other to fill it out.”

He was 18 and 19 when he first began playing with Gillespie and Hawkins and sometimes Parker. From those sessions a new form of jazz music emerged that continues to influence how jazz is performed.

“What we hear in clubs today is a manifestation that came out of the whole bebop period, when small bands took the place of big bands and people came into these smaller clubs, sat down and listened to instrumentalists perform,” he said in his Howard university interview.

One of the most distinctive features of bebop is how the cymbal is used to keep time instead of the kick drum — it was a technique the Roach pioneered. In his first recordings in the late 1940s and 50s, there is almost no bass drum at all, but in an article written for the Percussive Arts Society, Roach is quoted from an interview published in the 1998 book “The Drummer’s Time” in which he clarified why the bass drum wasn’t heard.

“We played the bass drum, but the engineers would cover it up because it would cause distortion due to the technology at the time. There were never any mics near our feet; they would have one mic above the drum set, and that was all,” he said.

Over his career Roach went far beyond the sounds of bebop.

“The creative mind is always turning and Max had a creative mind and he kept it turning,” Jackson said, and that creative mind led to some intriguing and compelling use of percussion instruments. His 1980 album, “M’Boom,” features only percussion instruments — no stringed instruments, brass or woodwinds. The sound is complex, haunting and at times surprisingly melodic.

Music does not exist in a vacuum, Roach commented in a number of interviews, and he specifically saw jazz as an expression of the Black experience in America, and that experience is very much a part of the fabric of life in this country.

“When I look around and listen to most anybody… they have been touched by, and I mean profoundly touched, by what came out of the Black community culturally. That’s what America is,” he told his Howard University interviewer. “It reflects the whole democratic aspect, improvisation. Collective improvisation is democratic.”

He was also a powerful advocate for civil rights and African American equality. In 1960 he released “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite” featuring his wife Abby Lincoln as vocalist and Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax, with lyrics by Oscar Brown. In 2022 the album was selected into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry.

Writing about the album for the Library of Congress, writer Christa Gammage noted the album was not widely praised when it debuted.

“The album received mixed reviews; some critics claimed the album displayed a ‘bitter mood’ and felt it was ‘new-frontier club stuff and most likely a little too far out in uncut timber for most tastes,’” Gammage wrote.

Asked by Gross in the NPR interview if the album was a result of the growing Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Roach drew attention to the music Black artists had already been performing.

“I go back to Bessie Smith with “Black Mountain Blues” and then to Duke Ellington with his “Black, Brown And Beige.” It’s always been there,” he said.

He went on to tell Gross that the inspiration for his activism was what the future would hold for his children.

“You’re always thinking about … their future as well,” he said. “If they’re going to come up and be responsible human beings, they have to have education and the things like everyone else has. And the society has to accommodate that.”

Reprinted from Ocracoke Observer

Dare Arts is seeking entries for the 46th annual Frank Stick Memorial Art Show, which will open in early February in the downtown Manteo gallery.

Artists wishing to participate in the show organized by the nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the arts in Dare County through advocacy, enrichment and opportunity can find the prospectus and sign up online for a time to drop off their work .

The opening reception will be held at no charge from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 2. The show will be on display from Feb. 3-24.

The Frank Stick Memorial Art Show is the longest-running visual arts exhibit in Dare County and is held in memory of Frank Stick. His influence on the Outer Banks as a preservationist and artist cemented his legacy as one of the most important figures of the 20th century in the county, organizers said.

Artist and educator Eric Burris, a practicing metalsmith for 25 years and is currently the metals studio coordinator at Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft, will judge the show.

He has an master’s degree in metals and jewelry from Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University. He focuses on a Japanese technique called Mokume Gane or “wood grain metal.”

“I’m honored to be the juror for the longest-running art exhibit in Dare County,” Burris said in a statement. “I’m new to the area and excited to see the creative and thoughtful work made by my fellow artists.”

Artists are encouraged to enter their most innovative work for the possibility of winning the Eure Best in Show Award.

Businesses or individuals interested in sponsoring the show or awards should contact Dare Arts Executive Director Jessica Sands at DareArtsInfo@gmail.com. For more information visit the website or call 252-473-5558.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

The Coastal Cohorts will breeze into homes beginning Wednesday when they stream a recorded Public Broadcasting System version of their timeless-as-the-tide, beloved, down-by-the-sea musical, “King Mackerel and the Blues are Running” to raise money  for area environmental and coastal culture organizations.

Although anyone can stream the music live for free, the Cohorts are urging folks to buy the music or video online, and the proceeds will benefit the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island Wednesday; the Wilmington- and New Bern-based North Carolina Coastal Land Trust Thursday; the Durham-based North Carolina Nature Conservancy Friday; and Coastal Review Online publisher the North Carolina Coastal Federation, based in Ocean near Newport Saturday.

It’s the 35^th anniversary of the first performance of “King Mack,” which writers Jim Wann and Bland Simpson debuted with Don Dixon in Rhythm Alley in Chapel Hill in 1985.

They first performed the musical in Carteret County as a fundraiser for the Coastal Federation in June 1986 and it has since been performed live on Broadway and in the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., among countless other locales up and down the East Coast.

Numerous Carteret County performances have sold out over the years at Carteret Community College as fundraisers for the federation, for which Simpson has been a board member.

Dixon, who’s also known as a solo rock artist, producer and as one half of a performing duo with his wife, Marti Jones, grew up in South Carolina, near Charlotte.

As a producer, Dixon crafted REM’s early records as well as others in the booming college rock genre in the 1980s and ’90s. He grew up visiting and reveling along the North Carolina coast, and preserving its natural environment remains dear to his heart, despite his now longtime Ohio residency.

He spent summers at an aunt’s house in Bath on Pamlico Sound, and soaked in the feel of the Outer Banks and the inland waterways, as well as the nearby ocean.

“It still means a lot to me,” Dixon said of the coast, “and so does the show,” which is near and dear to the hearts of many coastal residents who’ve seen and heard it.

“Jim had success with Broadway musicals (including the Tony-nominated ‘Pump Boys and Dinettes’),” Dixon said. But none of the three expected “King Mack” to catch fire and become a cultural touchstone.

Dixon understands why. It celebrates coastal values and preservation, he said, “and it’s just fun,” with songs in a variety of styles, ranging from rockers to sentimental, heart-wrenching love ballads and crazy tales to which many can relate.

It’s rollicking and roots-ish, with a screen behind the trio showing footage of hurricanes and other things familiar to coastal denizens. The show features songs about fishing trips that turned into disasters, devastating hurricanes, ghosts, lost loves, wild ponies, bad-outcome joyrides on the beach in “borrowed” cars and life “on the soundside.”

A recorded version isn’t the same as being there, but Dixon, whose musical career dates back to the seminal Chapel Hill-based band Arrogance, is happy new folks will get to see it, and especially happy to help raise money for worthy coastal groups.

Simpson, a northeast North Carolina native, long a member of the famous Red Clay Ramblers and a UNC professor of creative writing, recalled its accidental origins.

A lawyer who represented the beach music band the Embers had seen Wann’s “Pump Boys” show and wanted to see if Wann and Simpson could write something beachy that his clients could turn into a show.

“So,” Simpson said, we just started making a list of coastal things, like pier fishing, night fires on the beach, things that were kind of universal experiences at the coast. Then it turned out the Embers couldn’t do it, so Jim and I kept going anyway.”

After the debut in Chapel Hill, UNC graduate Todd Miller, founder and executive director of the Coastal Federation and a fan of the show, called and asked the Cohorts to perform it live as a fundraiser in Carteret County in 1986.

That was the start of its climb to cultural phenomenon status on the coast.

The Cohorts performed it numerous times through about 1988, but Wann and Dixon moved out of the state. It kind of died.

But Miller, Simpson remembers, wouldn’t let it remain buried.

Finally, in spring 1994, Miller called and asked them to perform the show at then-Gov. Jim Hunt’s “Year of the Coast” convention in Wilmington.

“King Mack” was reborn, Simpson said, and he’s happy it was.

“We love each other and we love doing it,” he said.

It was amazing, he said, to play it for more than a month in the Kennedy Center, where the show’s lighting director lived on a houseboat and arrived for shows on a 14-foot boat after a long run down two rivers to the famed theater in Washington, D.C.

“It was so “Cohort-ish,” Simpson said. “That’s an adjective we use a lot.”

The last live performance was in January 2019 on Tybee Island, Georgia.

Simpson said that for the show’s 35^th anniversary, they wanted to raise money for their usual good causes. But with the coronavirus pandemic raging, staging “King Mack” live and touring as planned weren’t feasible.

Streaming the classic PBS show at no charge gives everyone a chance to see it again, and the Cohorts hope folks will net some copies to bring the organizations some cash at the end of the year, a traditional time of charitable giving.

The show’s plot is that a hurricane blew down Miss Mattie Jewell’s pier and guest house at North Carolina’s Corncake Inlet, which hasn’t existed in decades. The Cohorts set out to save the business so she wouldn’t have to sell to the “Greedhead” developers.

The show opens with the rousing theme song, “King Mackerel and the Blues are Running,” which features Simpson talk-singing the weather forecast.

“I thought that would be fun,” Simpson said. “It was. But it was hard to do it at speed, over chord changes. I think I probably rehearsed it a thousand times before I got it.”

From there the show unfolds with more songs and tales, spoken and acted.

Wann attributes “King Mack’s” continuing appeal to the lure and beauty of the coast — and to timing.

“When we started writing it, I guess in ’83 or ’84, there really hadn’t been any major hurricanes to hit the Carolinas coast in a long time,” he said. “Then there was Hugo, and after that, they started picking up.”

That’s still the case, and coupled with concerns about climate change and its impact on the coast, the theme remains relevant.

And, of course, there’s the timeless, universal nature of the songs about things people have always done along the shore.

People care about the coast, Wann said, because of those memories, but also because it’s always beautiful and always changing.

As for the Cohorts, Wann said music brought them together as friends in the early 1970s, and it keeps them together.

“In the beginning,” he said, “the music made the friendship, but now the friendship makes the music. It’s been a great way to walk through life.”

Wann also cherishes the connections they’ve made to people through the Coastal Federation, the Core Sound Museum and other organizations “King Mack” has helped support.

He hears from fans.

“People will tell me they lost their cassette tape of the original recording and ask if we can send them another one,” he said.

They obviously can’t do that, but “King Mack” lives on CDs and increasingly in digital form for download.

But it’s great, he said, that people who first had the music on a cassette tape still love it and want it.

It’s been remarkable,” he said of “King Mack’s” longevity, but also of his friendship with Dixon and Simpson and the connection to the state’s coast and its culture.

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

WANCHESE — The Coastal Studies Institute will host a temporary exhibit, “RISING,” beginning Wednesday.

The event will kick off with a 5 p.m. public reception followed at 6 p.m. with a community panel discussion as part of the “Science on the Sound” lecture series, which is held monthly to highlight research on coastal topics and issues in northeast North Carolina and features researchers, scientists, engineers, and educators from the Coastal Studies Institute and other partner institutions.

“RISING: Perspectives of Change along the North Carolina Coast” is a collaborative, multidisciplinary exhibit and research project that combines oral history and photography to address the natural, cultural, and economic consequences of change long experienced by North Carolina’s coastal communities.

The panel discussion will include members of the community as well as the exhibit’s creators, Baxter Miller and Ryan Stancil.

The exhibit and event are co-hosted by CSI and the UNC Institute for the Environment Outer Banks Field Site, or OBXFS.

OBXFS is a place-based, interdisciplinary semester program in which students are immersed in the coastal environment and community by taking a range of courses, traveling for field experiences, completing individual internships with local organizations, and working together on a Capstone research project that addresses a real-world problem.

For this year’s capstone research project, OBXFS students are working with Nags Head to examine residents’ perspectives on wastewater challenges and sea level rise, looking specifically at how these perspectives shape where and how they live.

“RISING with its amazing photographs and engaging oral histories, offers our UNC students a profoundly rooted opportunity to deepen their burgeoning connections to a place defined by change by illuminating how its inhabitants have, and continue to, perceive, experience, live with, and adapt to those changes,” Linda D’Anna, UNC faculty member with OBXFS, said.

“It is a wonderful complement to the students’ study of how changing conditions can affect individual, business, and public decisions. Getting to hear the voices of residents and see images that reflect critical changes is great for our program, but also for the larger OBX community,” she added. “We look forward to having many people come share this exceptional exhibition with us.”

The exhibit aims to confront specific aspects of changes to which local residents and communities are required to adapt—as they have for centuries—while incorporating sea level rise and the human dimension into the dialogue.

The exhibit continue through January. The RISING project is funded by the Community Collaborative Research Grant, a program of North Carolina Sea Grant, in partnership with the William R. Kenan Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science.

This panel discussion will be streamed live and the online viewing audience will be able to ask the panel questions via an online chatroom.

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

MANTEO — The photography, the interviews, the editing, the theme, everything about Logan Marshall’s second film, “Outer,” shows the touch of a filmmaker who is mastering his craft. The film had its premier July 15 at the Pioneer Theater, with a second showing at the Outer Banks Boarding Co. July 17.

For Marshall, who will be a senior at Manteo High School next year, “Outer“ is his second film. His first, “Limitless,” premiered at the Dare County Arts Council’s Surfalorous last September.

“Limitless“ was a 22-minute short that was very well made. “Outer“ takes on some of those same themes and expands it to an hour-long film.

In “Limitless“ and now in “Outer,” Marshall examines an evolving culture in the surf community, but the new film emphasizes the present and how the Outer Banks has become an important East Coast surf destination.

Interviews with Lynn Shell, the founder and owner of Outer Banks Boarding Co., and Jesse Hines, perhaps the most successful professional surfer from the Outer Banks, help to frame the story.

Shell and Hines are focused and knowledgeable about why there is almost always something to surf on the Outer Banks. They discuss the nature of the seabed, with no headlands or permanent reefs, so that conditions are constantly changing. Hines points out that a sandbar with great conditions for two days may not even exist a week later.

It makes finding good waves a challenge, but it also means there is almost always something to ride.

Because of that, there is a native-born surf culture on the Outer Banks with a belief that the best of the local surfers can make it on the pro circuit.

It wasn’t always that way. Shell talks about the conditions that made it possible for a Noah Snyder or Jessie Hines to turn pro. The interviews with Hines especially, talking about what it took to be successful, including overcoming an ill-conceived corrective surgery for a badly broken leg when he was 14, makes the path to what is happening today a fascinating story.

“They were the first pros on the Outer Banks. The younger guys that are my age and younger than me, their entire life they knew you could be a pro surfer here,” Marshall said. “Now it’s a thing. And they’re working toward it.”

“Outer“ is organized as a series of vignettes. An interview or interviews will set up an action sequence.

“I figured with this one I thought it would be kind of cool to spread it out. This way the people who don’t know much about it can get the story line part and then they can watch the surfing. I wanted people who don’t see surfing every day to be able to follow it,” Marshall said.

The action sequences really make this movie soar. The interviews are very good, and they help to create a coherent theme, but the combination of great camera work, excellent editing and wonderful music selection, make the story pop off the screen.

What sets “Outer” apart from so many other surf films is how well the music is synchronized with the cinematography. From the first driving beat of Portland, Oregon composer, Graham Barton’s “Only You Can Save Me,” the music matches the action. Shot on a day of rough surf, the opening sequence has a number of wipeouts; as the heavy, metallic beat of the drum rings through, a surfer goes down.

The action sequences, though, are much more than a documentation of wipeouts.

Some of the scenes are riveting. The segment shot during the March storm of this year are remarkable. Shell mentions the waves look to have at least a 12- tp 15-foot face and watching a body on a surf board shoot down the face of one of those waves, there’s a thought that maybe some were bigger than that.

One of the most riveting sequences filmed that day was Hines on Hatteras Island catching a wave, then disappearing behind a wave closer to shore that filled the screen. Then a head appears, then Jesse, still riding his wave.

And that is what much of “Outer“ highlights — the amazing skill of local surfers.

If Jesse Hines represents the first wave of Outer Banks pro surfers, coming up next are Quentin Turko, who spoke of always dreaming of riding the biggest waves and how it makes him feel. Or Bo Raynor, who may be the next Jesse Hines or Noah Snyder riding out of the Outer Banks.

Raynor’s interview was interesting. Clearly uncomfortable talking about his sport, he was eloquent and funny and reflective. He was especially effective remembering Zander Venezia, a friend and competitor on the junior circuit, who died riding swells from Hurricane Irma. Raynor was effective, if uncomfortable talking about his friend’s death.

On the water he is fascinating to watch. There is power and elegance to his style, a subtle difference that makes him stand out, a difference that Hines noted in one of his interviews.

“Outer“ is certainly a surf film, but it manages to occupy a space that is more than that. Ultimately it is about a way of life and an evolving culture.

The next scheduled showing on the Outer Banks will be during the Dare County Arts Council’s Surfalorous, which begins on Sept. 20.

Learn More

• “Outer”

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

PINE KNOLL SHORES — The Art Gallery of the Bogue Banks Public Library will feature this month the night time photos of coastal photographer and surfer Doug Waters, a regular contributor to Coastal Review Online.

A reception will be in the library’s art gallery from 3 to 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13.

When asked what first inspired him to become a photographer, Waters, a New Bern native, started contributing to the surf magazines in the late 1970s. He moved to Florida in the early 1980s and was hired as a staff photographer at Surfing magazine. By the mid 1990s, he was a senior staff photographer. In 2009, Waters moved to New Bern to become a full-time caregiver for his parents. He now resides in Morehead City, and photographs nature, night sky and the ocean.

The display cases will feature the handcrafted jewelry by Pam Valente. Valente creates jewelry in her studios in Beaufort and Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Her pieces incorporate metal etching, enamel, thread work, gemstones, wire work, crystals and eclectic mediums that capture the essence of coastal and mountain living.

The exhibit is open during regular library hours, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. The Bogue Banks Public Library is at 320 Salter Path Road in Pine Knoll Shores.

Learn More

• Doug Waters Fotos

OCEAN — Warning: May cause toe tapping.

A coastal high school jazz band is joining the ranks of a group of internationally acclaimed, award-winning musicians for a concert that is sure to be an audience pleaser.

North Carolina’s own legendary The Red Clay Ramblers are making a special appearance with the Croatan High School Band jazz ensemble Saturday, March 17, at the school in Carteret County.

“The idea of being able to get involved in such a community-oriented performance on our fortieth anniversary is exciting,” said Bland Simpson, the Rambler pianist and a member of the N.C. Coastal Federation’s board of directors.

This is a rare collaboration for the Tony Award-winning string group, hailed for incorporating theatrical elements in their music.

“We don’t have a long history of performing with high schools,” Simpson said. “This is really exciting. This is something we’d like to do more of around the state. Since we haven’t done a lot of performing that involves high school performers we truly appreciate the effort the high school has given and we are really looking forward to putting on a good show.”

Last spring, the Ramblers played a series of numbers with Chapel Hill High School’s string ensemble, a concert Simpson said was, “a ton of fun.”

“This will be a little bit more elaborate than what we did with the string ensemble,” he said.

The family-oriented event will include a lot of novelty tunes offering a “pretty good variety show,” he said.

Audience members will enjoy a short-set performance by the jazz band – about 25 minutes long – followed by a short intermission. The Ramblers will then perform a long set between 75 and 90 minutes long, Simpson said.

“Sometime in there, we’ll bring the [high school] chorus up,” he said. “We’ve got a pretty strong variety of instrumentation. It’s a very strong but very simple blue grass tune we do as a finale.”

The Ramblers include Simpson; Jack Herrick on bass, trumpet, guitar, bouzouki and whistles; Clay Buckner on fiddle, mandolin and harmonica; Chris Frank on guitar, accordion, tuba, trombone and ukulele; and Rick Good on banjo. Good plays clawhammer style, a highly rhythmic style where the musician picks downward as opposed to upward, which is the traditional picking method.

They will be paired with the eight-member jazz band for the first time on the day of the concert following a performance at N.C. Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount the night prior.

Simpson said the group has sent some arrangements it performed with the North Carolina Symphony in 2009 to the jazz band, which has been preparing for the performance, said band director David Parker.

“We’re just honored to be a part of this performance,” he said.

Since forming in 1972, the Ramblers have entertained audiences across the country and Europe with their eclectic style that incorporates old-time mountain music, bluegrass, country, rock, gospel and Zydeco music. They’ve entertained audiences on Broadway and made several national television appearances, including Jay Leno’s “Tonight” show, CBS-TV’s “This Morning” and ABC’s Candice Bergen(cqtt) “AM-America.”

The band’s latest CD, Old North State, was released in 2009.

Their numerous accolades include composing and performing scores for two ballets with the Atlanta Ballet in 2003 and North Carolina Ballet in 2004 and 2008.

Such performances aside, the March 17 concert will be a first for the Ramblers. They’ve never played with a high school jazz band.

“I have a long and strong and very deep relationship with the [federation] and the other fellas in the band know that and they’re coastal types too,” said Simpson, who joined the board of directors in 2001 and is a professor in the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Simpson said the band is looking forward to the opportunity, adding that he’s pleased to help promote the N.C. Coastal Federation.

The March 17 concert will be one of numerous fundraisers and benefits the Ramblers have enjoyed performing over the years. Simpson is also affiliated with another band, the Coastal Cohorts, which has performed the musical King Mackerel and the Blues are Running several times in the coastal region to benefit the federation.

“The fund raising aspect and performing with the school band, these are things that are meaningful,” he said.

Concert proceeds will be used to support the school’s band booster program. Ticket prices begin at $15 for rows A-H. Open seating is $10 and $7 for students in grades K-12.

The Federation, which is co-sponsoring the event, will sell raffle tickets and offer discounted rates on membership. Membership applications will be on the back of tickets. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the high school’s auditorium, 3355 N.C. 24 in Ocean.

Tickets may be purchased by calling 252-393-8185 or by visiting clicking here.