Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
WLOSers working on Thanksgiving scraped up a little news to serve us Thursday. Here’s what they had:
What it means to be thankful
With Carolyn Ryan dressed all in white and holding down the anchor desk at 5 p.m., we heard from newbie Courtney Ward, who found a former homeless person to tell us what it means to be thankful.
The woman walked Courtney to the back of a church where she used to sleep, and through Pritchard Park where she used to hang. They she took Courtney to her home, a home she’s in now thanks to some program that helps the homeless get back on their feet.
At 5:30, it was Charu Khumaria holding down the anchor desk. She turned to newbie Heather Graf, who stood outside the Western Carolina Ministries’ homeless shelter in Ashvegas to tell us that more than 30 volunteers helped fed dozens of homeless people. Starting to see a trend? A toothless woman said a warm meal is great. A volunteer said it feels great to help people like the toothless woman. Then Charu said “Thanksgiving 2008 is heading toward leftovers,” and I was like, what?
At 6 p.m., we had Frank Fraboni and Carolyn together at the anchor desk. The lead story was one by Charu, who said that despite high gas prices, Meals on Wheels volunteers delivered Thanksgiving dinners to old people. An old man said he was thankful, and a volunteer said he was happy to “give back to the community.”
There was a re-run of the homeless shelter story and an update on yesterday’s story about a brush fire in the Bethel community in Haywood County that didn’t hurt anyone and then a note about a 17-year-old who was killed on Bugger Hollow Road in Forest City after losing control of his car.
There was a note about a new soup kitchen in Canton, and then Jeremny Butterfield did the chestnut about businessman Anwer Gillani in McDowell County, who marshals a bunch of volunteers to make and deliver 1,500 Thanksgiving dinners for the needy. He’s been doing it for 12 years. He said he’s from Bangladesh, so he knows what it means to be poor and he wants to help out, and this is what his brother did in Bangladesh.
In other news…
The “Festival of Trees” is up at the Asheville Regional Airport. … And some crazy dude set up a recliner and grill and cooler at the front door of Best Buy on Airport Road to be the first in line to buy something tomorrow. We’re not sure what. He said he’s done this for three years running. … Finally, we noticed a new WLOS sports guy, Adam Kohler. Here’s a link.
I couldn’t remember his last name, but I mentioned Adam back when everyone was talking about Lisa, the new fill-in meteorologist. Kohler has taken Larry Hawley’s spot as sports reporter. Of the little bit I watched of the Oak Hill/Veritas game I saw that he was the sideline reporter.