News
Email
Print
Regional Briefs: MerleFest 2009 tickets on sale today
Journal File Photo
More than 90 acts are scheduled for MerleFest 2009, including Emmylou Harris, Donna the Buffalo and Ollabelle.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: November 11, 2008
WILKESBORO -- MerleFest 2009 tickets go on sale at 2 p.m. today. Doc Watson will be the host of the festival at Wilkes Community College that honors his late son. This is the 22nd MerleFest and will take place April 23-26.
More than 90 acts are scheduled, including Emmylou Harris, Travis Tritt, BeauSoleil, Great Big Sea, Wayne Henderson, Donna the Buffalo, The Duhks and Ollabelle.
For a full list of confirmed performers, as well as ticket prices, visit www.merlefest.org. Ticket prices are the same as last year.
Easley designates counties disaster areas after drought
More than half of North Carolina's 100 counties were declared disaster areas because of crop losses caused by the drought, Gov. Mike Easley said yesterday.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has granted his request to designate 59 counties disaster areas. Included in the list were Davie, Davidson, Alleghany, Ashe, Surry, Watauga, Wilkes and Yadkin counties. Another 37 counties were also included in the disaster declaration. Forsyth was one of those counties.
Farmers in disaster areas can get low-interest emergency loans and other assistance from the U.S. Farm Service Agency.
Easley asked for the disaster declaration Oct. 3 after significant losses on corn, soybeans, hay and pasture and other forage crops, officials said.
The U.S. Drought Monitor shows four Western North Carolina counties -- Clay, Jackson, Macon and Transylvania -- in exceptional drought, the worst level of the four drought categories.
Ten more counties are listed in extreme drought, 13 in severe drought and 29 in moderate drought. Seventeen counties are abnormally dry and the remaining 27 show no drought problems.
Driver hits girl, 8, getting off bus and does not stop
An 8-year-old girl was taken to the hospital Sunday after being hit by a truck after she got off a church bus, police said.
Sara Diana Koontz was hit about 2:30 p.m. in the 1000 block of Betty Drive, Winston-Salem police said.
Police said that the girl was crossing the street when she was hit with enough force to send her airborne.
The driver of the truck did not stop, continuing south on Betty Drive before turning west on Nancy Lane, police said.
Koontz was taken to Wake Forest University Medical Center, police said. She was listed in stable condition yesterday, WGHP/FOX8 said.
Witnesses described the truck as a Nissan Titan extended-cab pickup, dark blue or black, with chrome Nissan emblems on the side panels and a blue and green front license plate.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 727-2800.
WFU gets four-year grant focused on geriatric care
Wake Forest University School of Medicine is one of 10 academic medical schools to get a four-year grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation focused on geriatric medicine and medical training.
Wake Forest will get nearly $2 million from the foundation. It is one of three academic medical schools in the Southeast to get the grant.
The foundation, based in Las Vegas, said that the grants will support geriatric projects in academic health centers that are training medical students, residents and practicing physicians. The foundation has provided nearly $80 million toward the Aging and Quality of Life program.
Wake Forest will use the grant to help medical students and residents in internal and family medicine learn how to treat elderly patients and to improve primary care for residents in retirement communities.
Email
Print
