Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
WLOSers were kinda all over the place with the news on Thursday, although it was mostly dominated by Bele Chere. Here goes:
Bele Chere’s here
Russ “Beefacke” Bowen told us that Bele Chere, the big city festival that will bring an estimated 375,000 people downtown over three days, is good for some businesses and bad for others.
The restaurant Table, for example, is closing for the fest because the owners don’t think they’ll get much business. But the Enviro Depot toy store is excited about the festival and thinks they’ll get lots of action.
That was the extent of Bowen’s little story. O, Diva Darcel asked him where the shuttles would be running from, and Russ told her – from the Ashvegas mall and from the Kmart shopping center on Patton.
In other Bele Chere news, Cherub Charu talked to the crew doing all the construction on City-County Plaza to find out if the situation would be safe for festival-goers. The construction dude said sure, as long as you don’t cross the orange construction mesh. You’ll be breaking the law if you do cross into the work zone.
Haynes donates to Habitat
Rocker Warren Haynes of Ashvegas gave the local Habitat for Humanity $100,000 Thursday. Haynes and his band Gov’t Mule are in town for Bele Chere. He plays Friday night.
Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan interviewed Haynes, who said he just wants to give back to the community. “To be able to take music and turn it into houses is really special,” he said. No doubt.
The check presentation was made at Habitat’s biggest development yet, Enka Hills, where they’re building 55 homes. One of the strees in the development is named “Warren Haynes Ave.”
Cops get Segways
Ashvegas cops unveiled two Segways that they’ll use at Bele Chere to get around. Police Chief Bill Hogan said the unique vehicles, which can motor up to 12 mph, are a lot less intimidatiing than a cop car. That approachability is key, Hogan said. “We want to build a relationship with you,” is the message he said he wants to send. Ok, easy there, guy.
As you might guess, Jon “Punnyman” Le did the story by clowning around on one of the Segways.
Trapped in Lebannon
Two Polk County missionaries and another from Spartanburg County down in South Kackalacky were in Beirut when fighting broke out between Lebannon and Israel, so Sheraldo showed us some of the home video they brought back. It wasn’t as good as what CNN is getting. The U.S. Embassy flew them out eventually, and at least one of the missionaries got a cool embassy T-shirt out of the whole thing.
Sex offender update
Sex offender reporter Michelle Boudin said the state is passing a law that will ban a convicted sex offender from buying a home with 1,000 feet of a school or day care. Thanks for the update, Michelle.
Not making the grade
Terrie Foster in Haywood County said that parents will have the option of sending their kids to a school other than Waynesville Middle School because the school didn’t make the grade when it comes to federal testing standards.
The school system was all pissy about it, saying that kids with disabilities dragged down their test scores. They said that this happened last year, and they spent about $12,000 just to bus two or three kids to different schools. They said they also had to spend $167,000 on teacher re-training, money that could have gone to tutors for students.
WLOS rescue
Carolyn “Little Red” Ryan provided the story of the day by telling us that she and her photographer were responsible for rescuing a family of missing tubers in Transylvania County.
Carolyn explained that she and her photog got the call on the story and were heading out on dark and windy roads when, lo and behold, they came across a dad and his three kids walking along. It was the missing family! Carolyn said rescuers had been looking for them for hours and could never find them, but she did. Hurray! She even showed us what the family had to deal with by ordering her photographer to turn off the camera light – dark. Is that what dark looks like? Let me show you what dark looks like when we turn teevee box off, Carolyn.
Here’s the other tidbit: WLOSers reported this as a breaking story at 11 on Wednesday night. People missing. Crew on the scene. No more updates.
Turns out the family was found at 10 p.m. So they were not missing at 11. Carolyn apparently didn’t bother to phone in an update.
Breaking news
A truck carrying a load of cotten caught on fire Thursday night, causing emergency workers to close part of I-40. That was about all the useful information we got out of that.
Olympic Park bombing anniversary
WLOSers took five seconds to note that today is the 10th anniversary of the Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta. As we all know, native son Eric Robert Rudolph eventually came out of the woods, was arrested and then convicted of that bombing, as well as a string of others.
Landis controversy
The cycling team of American Floyd Landis on Thursday said that Landis had tested positive for extremely high levels of testosterone in his system. The Diva really couldn’t pronounce testosterone, but that didn’t stop her from delivering this fancy line: the news spread “faster than a downhill racer” through the Ashvegas cycling community. Wow, that’s good, Diva. Did you write that all by yourself?
That family was found around 11:20, according to the person who found them!