The man was found using marijuana and in possession of a loaded gun
A Mount Olive man who is on probation was arrested on June 20, for illegal possession of a gun and using controlled substances. He was placed in the Duplin County Detention Center under a $42,500 secured bond.
According to the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office, while they were assisting probation officers conduct a search at 1289 Bennetts Bridge Road, Cesar Jacob Fernandez-Chigin, was found in possession of a loaded .38 caliber revolver. He was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; simple possession of a schedule VI-controlled substance, possession of marijuana paraphernalia; and probation violations.
Law enforcement conducting the arrest found the man was carrying a concealed weapon
LAST WEEK Phillip Marshall Thompson, of Goldsboro, was arrested by the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Division, at a traffic stop on US Highway 117 near Calypso.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, on June 25, deputies conducting the traffic stop located a 9mm handgun, approximately 17 dosage units of Ecstasy pills, multiple bags containing marijuana, and a large digital scale in the vehicle Thompson was driving.
Thompson was charged with felony possession of a concealed weapon, possession with intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver a schedule II controlled substance, possession with intent to manufacture, sell, or deliver a schedule VI controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. Thompson received a $20,000 secured bond and is in the Duplin County Detention Center. He is scheduled to appear in court on July 12.
Madeline Chandler (right) presents Renee Sutton, James Sprunt Community College chief of staff, with the Honorary State FFA Degree on June 25 at the State FFA Convention in Raleigh. Photo Courtesy James Sprunt Community College
Renee Sutton, James Sprunt Community College chief of staff, was awarded the Honorary State FFA Degree at the State FFA Convention in Raleigh on June 25.
This is the highest honorary degree awarded by the North Carolina FFA Association, bestowed to volunteers for their exceptional contributions to agricultural education and FFA programs in the state.
Sutton was recognized for her dedication to the FFA Association and contributing to the growth of agricultural programs at James Sprunt Community College.
“I was just very honored to be nominated and given that award,” said Sutton, who has been involved in the FFA programs since 1987, when she married her husband. “I think that I got adopted into the FFA when my husband was teaching agriculture… When he retired, two of our children started teaching agriculture in public schools in North Carolina. So it’s been an organization that our whole family has poured into as far as volunteering and trying to help students realize their leadership development opportunities in agriculture.”
Father and son team up to reignite family farm, join HappyDirt
WARSAW — Located in the small town of Warsaw, a stone’s throw away from Interstate 40, is the Moore Family Farm, where owners Robert and Dakota Moore are building their dreams one seed at a time, planting the seeds they hope will reignite their family farm.
After graduating from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University last May, Dakota returned home with a degree in agriculture and environmental science and a decision to bring back the thriving business his ancestors once enjoyed in the very same land they stand today.
The father and son duo recently joined the HappyDirt family and they are excited for what the future has in store. HappyDirt, formerly known as Eastern Carolina Organics, is an organic produce distributor, broker and marketer based in North Carolina championing farmer-owners and farmers from NC with 67% of the produce they purchase being from the state.
Dakota learned about them through an assistant professor at NC State University while doing an internship through the Center for Environmental Farming Systems.
“She knew that my father and I were trying to farm. I was roughly a sophomore in college trying to figure out what direction I wanted to go into, and I met HappyDirt. They were helping farmers,” said Dakota.
HappyDirt understands challenges such as an aging farmer population and the need for young farmers like Dakota who can transition from the current generation to the new generation of farmers.
“Our family has been farming for hundreds and hundreds of years. My great-grandfather began this same farm in around 1830 and his sons farmed, and my granddaddy farmed, and all the brothers farmed. They had a thriving business in the 1970s, that carried on until approximately the 1990s,” said Robert.“This farm has been able to produce doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, professionals, military, educators, all that kind of stuff, but didn’t produce any more farmers.”
“My ancestors were heavy into education,” Robert told Duplin Journal. “They were pushing building a culture that their children would go to college or go to the military, you know, get professional jobs, and it really worked well, but everybody left the farm.”
According to Robert, his family began to lease out their land to industrial farmers in the ‘90s, but after he retired and Dakota returned from college, they decided to use their resources and farm their land.
Growing up Dakota remembers noticing that many of his friends’ parents who were doing well, were farmers.
“They’re eating nice and they’re buying boats, and houses at the beach,” said Dakota. “I was like well we have land — my family lived for generations farming — why can’t we do this? I just never realized nobody in the family went to school for agriculture.”
It was then when Dakota’s initial interest in agriculture was born.
He wanted to learn and decided to start growing watermelons in a small area behind his barn.
“We used a hoe to clean the land. No heavy machinery, nothing,” said Dakota, adding they wanted to see if they could grow anything.
Later on, he decided to pursue a career in agriculture and fell in love with it while working at the university’s farm. Currently Dakota is building their second greenhouse.
Today, the Moores are farming 15 acres of land with their 1957 Farmall and with equipment they rent. Robert shared that while the Farmall does not run 100% of the time, it has been a tremendous help. “It has enabled us to grow because you can do but only so much with the garden hoe.”
Robert Moore and his son Dakota pose for a photo on their 1957 Farmall truck. Photo by Ena Sellers / Duplin Journal
When asked what the top item on their wish list would be, the Moores said a Kubota tractor, because with a modern hitch they might be able to find someone who could loan them a disc.
“All of our equipment now is single hitch,” said Dakota. “So, nobody’s equipment would even align with anything that we have.”
Despite the challenge of not having modern equipment to help alleviate some of the most labor-intensive tasks at the farm, the Moores are excited about the possibilities for the future. Now with a promising partnership that would put their produce on the market.
“This year we’re trying to make a really big step — to sell at the grocery stores,” said Robert, adding that now the next step for them is to get GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certified and also obtain their organic certification.
“To be GAP certified you have to have inspectors come and [watch] while we’re harvesting to see how we’re harvesting and that we’re following the food safety procedures — $1,500. Then organic has to follow the same path, another $1,500 and everything has to be logged and recorded. You have to keep extensive records,” said Robert, explaining that everything is documented so that it can be traced back to where it came from and when it was harvested.
“If we pick a watermelon from row one, of plot one. We have to document what day we picked it,” said Robert.
Dakota explained that with organic farming they work with nature, and they use cover crops to add nutrients back to the soil. He emphasized the importance of soil testing and adding nutrients back to the soil, so it doesn’t completely deplete the nutrients over time.
“A cover crop is really a crop that you grow to add amendments to the soil, which is nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus — those are the main nutrients in your soil when you’re growing things,” said Dakota. “A cover crop changes your whole soil quality… You can grow different things just to add those nutrients back to it. … We started with a cover crop mix and that mix actually changed our whole soil microorganisms.”
Robert shared that in addition to farming, they are doing community outreach. They teach their interns about organic farming and environmental stewardship. Robert told Duplin Journal they are hoping to spread the word about the different career opportunities in the agriculture field.
“We’re not the only black people who were farmers back in the day that have now leased out their land, there are a lot of those around,” said Robert.
“That’s why we are trying to get younger people into farming. Because a lot of these younger people’s grandfathers are farming…And the ones who are not farming still have the land, they are just leasing it out.”
He explained that families who lease land are getting paid just enough to pay the land’s taxes when they could be farming it and making a living from it.
Dakota echoed his dad’s sentiment, comparing how much a person could earn working their land versus working in a processing plant for example. “In three months, you could make your yearly salary. Every season, you can make your salary. That is the difference — That puts you in a different mindset,” said Dakota.
The father and son team are looking forward to this next chapter for Moore Family Farms and their new partnership with HappyDirt.
Moore Family Farm carries seven different varieties of watermelons, which vary in size, color and sweetness. According to Dakota some of their sugar babies watermelons peaked at 12-14 % in the Brinx meter last year. Photo by Ena Sellers / Duplin Journal
The Wallace Town Council updated its system development fees at a continued meeting on Tuesday night, June 25, reducing water fees, while increasing sewer fees for new developments coming in to town.
The fees are charged for any new connection to the system, and are required to be updated every five years, Town Manager Rob Taylor explained.
The prior water fee started at $1,462 for a three-quarter-inch line, and increased as the line sizes increased. The newly adopted fee will be $553 for a three-quarter-inch line, a reduction of $909.
A one-inch line will now cost $923, while a two-inch line is $2,946, four-inch is $11,607, six-inch is $23,949, and an eight-inch line is $51,584.
As for sewer rates, the base fee for a three-quarter-inch line increased by $20 to $2,069. The sewer rates also increase as the line gets bigger, with the following costs for connection to sewer: one-inch line, $3,454; two-inch line, $11,025; four-inch line, $43,439; six-inch line, $89,629; and eight-inch line, $193,054.
“You can see how those rates really start to increase for sewer as the line gets bigger,” Taylor told the council. “We’ve just got way more cost in our sewer system plant than we do with water. … We have a lot of projects getting ready to start that will require a lot of capital, and these system development fees are made to help us cover some of that infrastructure that we have to put in.”
Mayor Jason Wells questioned how many customers use the eight-inch lines, which are the most expensive. Taylor said that there were no current customers using that size water or sewer line.
“When you get up to that size, you’re working with municipalities like Teachey, Greenevers, and we already have interlocal agreements with those folks, but this would be for some huge industry using a lot of water,” Taylor explained.
The new fees were available on the town’s website for public comment for 45 days, which is why the item was not ready for action at the council’s regular meeting on June 13. No public feedback was received, Taylor said.
The council voted unanimously to approve the new system development fees.
Also at the continued meeting last Tuesday night, the council unanimously approved a contract with Duplin County Schools to provide SROs (school resource officers) in the coming school year. Police Chief Jimmy Crayton was not present at the meeting, but Taylor reported that both Crayton and Town Attorney Anna Herring had reviewed the contract and recommended approval.
In one more item of business, the council had approved the sale of a piece of property at the corner of North Norwood Street and East Murphy Street at its April meeting. The property was advertised on GovDeals.com, with Mount Calvary Leadership Development Corporation bidding $25,000 to purchase the property.
The council voted unanimously to authorize the sale, and then the meeting adjourned.
The Wallace Town Council will next meet on Thursday, July 11, at 6 p.m. at Town Hall.
The Duplin County Board of Education honored two newly national board certified teachers at the regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, June 18.
“National board certification is offered by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards,” explained Daren Tyndall, assistant superintendent for human resources. “It’s a way to recognize the accomplished teaching that is occurring in North Carolina classrooms. The certification process is based on high and rigorous standards that evaluate teaching practice through performance-based assessments.”
The ultimate goal of having national board certified teachers is to improve the performance and achievement for students, Tyndall added.
The two newly national board certified teachers are Kristen Kane, STEAMA beginning teacher coordinator, and Nicole Lane, family and consumer sciences teacher at East Duplin High School.
“It’s an honor well deserved,” Tyndall said.
The board also approved an interim budget resolution for the 2024-25 fiscal year as part of its consent agenda.
“The interim budget resolution, which was approved in the consent agenda, is an interim appropriation of an amount equal to the prior year’s budget,” explained Christy Johnson, executive director of public relations for Duplin County Schools. “This is necessary until the state approves a budget to allow us to continue operating.”
During a joint meeting with the county commissioners and school board in May, Duplin County Schools Chief Finance Officer Dawn George reported that the school system has requested a 10.66% increase in its budget this year, to $11,066,000. “What that represents is the increases to our recurring costs, which includes the state-mandated increase in salaries of about 3%,” George explained. “Retirement will go up approximately 1% and health insurance will go up about 7%.”
“The information shared at the joint meeting was planning information that will be used to build our budget, which will be based on how much we will actually receive from state and local entities,” Johnson said.
Since it was part of the consent agenda, the budget resolution was approved with no public discussion.
Also at the June 18 meeting, the school board approved service contracts for the upcoming school year. Most of the contracts were approved as part of the consent agenda, save for the contract with Edwards and Associates Physical Therapy, Inc. for a maximum of $80,000. This contract was voted on separately so that Board Member Pam Edwards could recuse herself from the vote, since her family members run Edwards and Associates Physical Therapy.
The other contracts that were approved included:
Compass Speech, PLLC (maximum of $155,000);
Invision Services (maximum value of $125,900);
Jennifer Carter (maximum value $95,000);
ProCare — interpreter (maximum of $116,500);
ProCare — teacher of deaf/hard of hearing (maximum $45,000);
John E. Sexton & Associates (maximum $35,000);
Psychological and School Services of Eastern Carolina (maximum $150,000);
IntelliChoice Home Care (maximum $90,000);
Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services (maximum $14,628).
There were also several memorandums of understanding approved as part of the consent agenda, including the MATCH Wellness program, the Duplin County Health Department, Communities in Schools of North Carolina Services Group, LLC, the Jobs for North Carolina Graduates program at Wallace-Rose Hill High School, and James Sprunt Community College for the continuation of the Duplin Agribusiness Academy.
After an executive session, the board voted to approve Superintendent Dr. Austin Obasohan’s personnel recommendations, with the exception of Chairman Brent Davis, who recused himself from the vote.
During his report to the board, Dr. Obasohan thanked all of the staff and students who helped the county’s Pre-K students graduate. “To go send them out into their new world prepared is key, so kudos to all the staff who work with these kids and will continue to work with them,” he said.
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