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Abby Cavenaugh
Savannah Kate Stevens, a rising seventh grader at Harrells Christian Academy, was recently crowned 2024-25 Junior Miss Princess of North Carolina at the PONC State Scholarship Pageant held at the Fuquay-Varina Arts Center.
The 12-year-old beauty queen from Wallace, not only shined with her interviewing skills winning best interview in her category, but she also won Best in Festival Wear in her category, and first place overall representing the Warsaw Veterans Day Parade with her festival attire.
Henry L. Stevens, Savannah’s dad, told Duplin Journal that Savannah chose the Warsaw Veterans Day Parade because it is very close to her heart as it was founded by her great-grandfather when he returned home to Warsaw after World War I.
Savannah’s festival attire was crafted from Battle Dress Uniforms worn by Stevens during his 30 years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps and also during his time of service in the National Guard.
Stevens shared that the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps patches adorning Savannah’s backpack honor units he served with during Desert Storm and the Iraq War, also units her grandfather served with in World War II and Korea, and units her great-grandfather served with during World War I. He added that the streamers hanging from her flag represent each of those campaigns and the Vietnam War. Stevens added that Savannah wore his American Legion Post 127 hat as a recognition that Warsaw Veterans Celebration was created by American Legion Post 127, Warsaw’s former local American Legion Post, more than 100 years ago.
“Melissa and I are proud of the way Savannah chose to represent Warsaw and Duplin County, and to honor the military service of her family and all veterans,” said Stevens.
Savannah is one of three young ladies from Harrells Christian Academy, who took home a beauty pageant state title. She competed in the state scholarship pageant along with Caroline Owens, who won the 2024-25 Overall Supreme Princess of North Carolina.
Isla Blanton, who served as Little Miss Princess of North Carolina last year, is the third young lady from Harrells, who in less than a month, won a state beauty title. Last weekend Isla was crowned Junior Miss North Carolina Poultry Jubilee in Rose Hill.
Savannah and Caroline will serve on the State Court of Princesses over the next year raising awareness and support for Victory Junction, a non-profit organization that seeks to enrich the lives of children with serious illnesses.
“[Savannah] is super excited to serve on the State Court of Princess of North Carolina with her friend Caroline Owens who is a rising eighth grader at Harrells,” said Stevens. “Savannah was inspired by her good friend Isla Blanton, also of Wallace, who served over the last year as the 2023-24 Little Miss Princess of North Carolina! Isla is the daughter of Dr. Dwayne and Mrs. Harley Blanton of Wallace.”
Reflecting on her experience Savannah wrote, “I am filled with a sense of awe and gratitude for the incredible experience and honor I had simply to be a part of it. … It is my hope that all who hear my words will join me in this worthy and heartwarming endeavor, and together, we can make a difference in the lives of these incredible children.”
ROSE HILL — The new Rose Hill Volunteer Fire Department is now fully operational.
“We have moved all our trucks to the new location and we’re responding from there,” Rose Hill Fire Chief Gary Boney told Duplin Journal.
Located on East Main Street, the new 14,000-square-foot fire house features five drive-through double bays, ample room for equipment, office space, a residential kitchen and a training room that is also used for meetings — a vast upgrade from the old fire station. The facility was funded with a USDA-Rural Development loan of approximately $3.1 million.
The non-profit volunteer organization has a tax district outside the city limits and is contracted by the town of Rose Hill to provide fire services.
According to Fire Chief Boney the Rose Hill Volunteer Fire Department is finalizing a few details for the ribbon cutting ceremony, which will be announced later.
KENANSVILLE — The Duplin County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a motion to appropriate funds to remove debris from the Northeast Cape Fear River in order to help alleviate flooding from Tropical Storm Debby and future potential flooding events. The decision was made during an emergency meeting held on Friday morning.
Commission Chair Dexter Edwards said he called the meeting, knowing that time was of the essence. “My information says that we’re going to crest Sunday about 18-plus feet, but that’s probably about the fifth highest on record, somewhere in that ballpark,” Edwards said. “What I wanted to do is get this group together and talk about what we may or may not be able to try to do help in the future.”
The river actually crested at 16.54 feet on Saturday, according to the National Water Prediction Service and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association). As of Monday afternoon, the river at Chinquapin had receded to 15.7 feet, with river levels continuing to fall through the week.
Jimmy Dixon, who represents Duplin County in the N.C. House of Representatives, said that Tropical Storm Debby had reignited concerns with the Northeast Cape Fear River and flooding.
Those concerns led him to contact Alliance Integrated Solutions of Lumberton, which is a debris removal company specializing in cleaning rivers, culverts and other waterways.
“The concept that I understand, and they can explain it better, is to begin to identify and remove any immediate stuff that might be blocking bridges, backing up on bridges and stuff like that,” Dixon said. “The big takeaway for me is this. In an emergency situation, there’s a peculiarity in that if entities are going to access pots of money, the time to do it is when the river is rising, not when the river’s falling. That’s my simple way of putting it.”
He added that the county would only need to provide a 25% match to fund the project, because federal funds are more readily available for emergency projects. “If something is going to start, it needs to start when the emergency is happening,” he explained.
Director of Emergency Management Matt Barwick shared that at the time of the meeting, 11 a.m. on Friday, the county was in minor flood stage. “We do expect some impacts in secondary roads and some of our major highways in that area, like Highway 41 and Highway 50,” Barwick said.
He said that as of Friday morning, emergency services had responded to about 100 incidents with storm-related emergencies. However, there were not any injuries or deaths thus far.
In addition, about a dozen roads were closed due to flooding.
With that in mind, Chair Edwards asked Josh Gill and Trey Winfree of Alliance to share what they can do for the county’s waterways.
Gill stated, “The biggest part is making sure that you’re clearing the debris that’s readily available on bridges and culverts and stuff of that sort.”
Alliance has specialized equipment, and crew members on standby ready to get to work removing the debris. “We’re completely ready to mobilize and assist, and start pulling this debris off before the river gets too high and starts pushing it up against your bridges,” Gill said.
“You’ve also got another storm out in the Atlantic. The last thing we would want is have a potential issue clogging up the waterways and another storm come through.”
Winfree, president of Alliance Integrated Solutions, explained Alliance’s process. “We run out, we grab the debris, we haul it out and we dispose of it in a way that it’s not going to go back and clog up the stream,” he explained. “We’re also running vac trucks in some of the smaller culverts and what happens is sediment and even trash gets stuck in these culverts and they clog it up. So we go out with the vac truck. We have a wide rage of things that we’re capable of doing. The key is that if we can get the water to the river and get it out of here, then you lessen the risk of flooding.”
Edwards said that the debris removal would need to start near the Pender County line. “If that water can move on out of here, this water that ends up doing all the damage we’ve had around Chinquapin before, there’s a greater chance of [flooding] not happening.”
Billy Ivey, soil and water interim department head, agreed. “You’ve got to have an outlet. If you don’t have an outlet on the low end, it’s gonna back up.”
Commissioner Justin Edwards stated that people in his district have told him that the river really needs to be dredged in order to prevent flooding.
Gill said dredging could be possible in the future, but added, “I think once you start pulling the debris, especially from around the bridges and anywhere that’s accessible, you’re gonna have loss of sediments and it will start pushing stuff back out. You watch the hydrology change as you do this.”
After Chair Edwards asked how quickly the work could get started, Gill responded, “We can start work within hours. We’ve got equipment that’s staged and ready.”
Gill also said that Alliance could help the county with the paperwork for federal funds, and would provide any assistance possible.
Rep. Dixon cautioned the commissioners that the work needs to not only get done, but continue after the effects of Tropical Storm Debby have died down. “This event is pretty serious, but it’s not like Fran or Floyd, which I think is a blessing, because what’s happened now is it’s reignited a discussion about this,” he said. “Past history, we’ve gotten excited, we’ve done a little bit and then we’ve forgotten about it. We’ve been thinking about it and forgetting about it since Hurricane Hazel, and that was in 1954.”
County Manager Bryan Miller said that there was $1.5 million available from a recent appropriation made by the state to Duplin County Soil and Water. After some discussion, Justin Edwards motioned to appropriate $1.25 million to Soil and Water as an emergency protective measure and additionally declare the debris and siltation in the Northeast Cape Fear River as a public emergency.
His motion passed unanimously.
“I think we’re doing the right thing,” Commissioner Elwood Garner said. “I just do want to be on the record as saying I don’t think we should stop with this. If we can identify funding through everybody’s cooperative efforts, we’ll keep marching right on up that river and get it to be what it was back when I was a child, how I remember it to be.”
The work will start after the project has gone through the bidding process, said Assistant County Manager Carrie Shields.
KENANSVILLE —Nearly 200 parents and children alike, gathered at the Duplin County Health Department in Kenansville last Thursday, Aug. 1, for a back-to-school vaccination event.
“The kids need immunizations to go back to school so we are doing this event to help with that,” said Maury Castillo, a public health educator with the Duplin County Health Department. Castillo explained that the kids need to have their immunizations up to date within 30 days after the first day going back to school.
“We do this twice a year and it has helped out a lot in the community,” Castillo told Duplin Journal, adding that the yearly event is held in the afternoon to make it easier for people in the community to come out after work.
Families patiently lined up at the entrance of the Duplin County Health Department building with their young children as they waited to be registered for the event.
Six clinic rooms were open for the public and staffed with bilingual personnel for the event.
According to Cindy Zuniga, Duplin County Health Department health educator, 79 children received vaccinations ranging from meningitis, tetanus, to HPV and more. Children who had no health insurance or were on Medicaid received free immunizations and those with private insurance who were not in-network, received a 20% discount.
After receiving their vaccines, families took their children to the conference room where they were greeted by area agencies and vendors who provided free school supplies, goodies, and informational resources.
According to Zuniga, 184 children received free bookbags.
“Blue Cross Blue Shield provided the book bags,” said Castillo, adding that they also gave away $10 gift card vouchers for families to shop at the Ripe Revival mobile unit parked outside the health department building.
Eli Moore with Ripe Revival explained that the goal of the non-profit is to fight food insecurity, and they do so through their pay-what-you-can mobile market.
“We have meat, milk, we have eggs, we have a bunch of really good fresh fruit and vegetables — most of it from North Carolina,” Moore told Duplin Journal, explaining that at the pay-what-you-can mobile market, customers can shop for their groceries and decide how much they can pay.
“We’ll tell them what it would cost at a grocery store, they can pay that, they can pay less than that … they can pay nothing — There’s no judgment,” said Moore.
Participants enjoyed cotton candy treats provided by WellCare, received school supplies, COVID test kits, and personal hygiene kits from Duplin Christian Outreach Ministries.
Sandra Mendieta and Nicoya Chestnut, both with the WIC program, provided information about the special supplemental nutrition program, which goal is to safeguard the health of low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, infants, and children under the age of five who are found to be at nutritional risk. They were also giving away baby onesies for new and expectant mothers who participated in the event.
Event goers also received educational material about safe sex and sexually transmitted diseases and received free condoms. The Duplin County Opioid Response Team was also onsite providing information about the dangers of opioids and distributing free Narcan to any families who may need it.
For more information about vaccinations, please contact the Duplin County Health Department at 910-296-2130.
WARSAW — July 29 marked a special milestone for James Sprunt Community College as approximately 100 guests including local, regional and state leadership gathered at JSCC’s WestPark Campus to celebrate the ribbon cutting ceremony of North Carolina community colleges’ first hydroponic smart farm container.
The Box-to-Bowl smart farm is the product of a partnership between Four County EMC, North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives, JSCC, and Duplin County supported by a grant from the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund.
Thanks to this joint effort pioneering sustainable agriculture and local food production, students can learn about agriculture in a 320-square-foot smart farm that brings vertical gardening and hydroponic farming under one roof.
“This innovation is a testament to our commitment to advancing North Carolina’s farming sector and stimulating the minds of agricultural students,” said Don Gatton, Four County EMC CEO.
The climate-controlled environment of the Box-to-Bowl smart farm enables students to get hands-on experience growing local produce with soluble nutrients under the leadership of Katlyn R. Foy, JSCC agricultural instructor, and smart farm manager.
Since the spring, the Box-to-Bowl smart farm has produced lettuce, collards, mustard greens, cabbage, kale, and Swiss chard to name a few. Its self-sustainable tanks recirculate the water throughout the nursery and cultivation walls using an average of five gallons of water daily and producing crops up to seven times faster than traditional farming methods.
The ribbon cutting ceremony featured speeches from Duplin County Manager Bryan Miller; Dr. Jay Carraway, JSCC president; Don Gatton, Four County EMC chief executive officer; Mark Harrell, NC Tobacco Trust Fund, NC Representative Jimmy Dixon, Senator Brent Jackson followed by closing remarks by Renee Sutton, JSCC chief of staff.
For lunch participants enjoyed lettuce harvested from the smart farm, which was used to make turkey and chicken salad wraps.
After the ribbon cutting, Foy conducted tours of the smart farm. She shared that guests from various organizations have expressed interest in getting additional tours on the books.
“A lot of them were kind of just amazed. They had a lot of questions about the operations — how it works, what we do, what we can grow, what we do with the harvest,” said Foy. “I feel like there was a little bit of a shock factor there… they were just like, wow, this is really cool.”
Foy started her second Hydroponics – Growing Without Soil class for new students this week. Hydroponics part two will be offered Sept. 3 through Sept. 19, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. “We’re doing class one and class two almost every month,” Foy told Duplin Journal, adding that the classes feature small groups of five students each.
For more information about the smart farm, call JSCC at 910-659-6007.
The Duplin County Sheriff’s Office issued a scam alert on Thursday warning residents of a new phone scam targeting local unsuspecting victims.
“An unknown subject using the phone number 910-294-4627 is contacting people in Duplin County stating that he is a Duplin County deputy. The subject is identifying himself as Sergeant MacGavin with the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office and is attempting to obtain money from individuals of the public,” wrote the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office in a public statement.
“The Duplin County Sheriff’s Office does not have a Sergeant MacGavin and this is not an official call. Do not send money over the phone or electronically or give personal information to unknown sources.”
The Duplin County Sheriff’s Office encourages residents to remain vigilant and contact local law enforcement, or the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office if they think they have been a victim of a scam.