We say goodbye to ham biscuits, cruise on a zip line and examine Green Party’s ballot fight

Part 4 of a five-part project revisiting the 2022 stories that had an impact on The N&O’s staff.

A Princeville elementary school exemplifies resilience

The Town of Princeville knows how to get through hard times. Tucked into a curve of the Tar River, the nation’s oldest town founded by freed slaves has flooded at least nine times since it was chartered in 1885.

When I set out to write about the spirit of this place, I headed to its elementary school, a building that was rebuilt to withstand any future floods. There, I found teachers and students rehearsing a play celebrating the town’s history, ready to face whatever comes next.

Adam Wagner is a climate change and environmental reporter.

The changing healthcare landscape post-Roe v. Wade

In September, we broke the story that Walmart sent out a memo instructing its NC pharmacists to confirm a common miscarriage drug was not ordered for an abortion. Doctors said the policy stigmatized women who were trying to access a legal and common medication.

Several patients told doctors that pharmacists wouldn’t fill their prescription until they “talked to a doctor more about it”.

Legal experts told us that the policy was based on a misinterpretation of state law.

It was one of the first glimpses of how the healthcare landscape would quietly change in a post-Roe era— despite no abortion laws changing in North Carolina. Our reporting ultimately garnered congressional interest and led to Walmart rescinding its policy.

Teddy Rosenbluth is the life sciences reporter.

We’re all starting to feel like gun violence victims

I was living in Colorado for Columbine, and what was so shocking about that horrible day was how unusual it seemed.

What was so shocking about Hedingham, another mass shooting in my own backyard, was how ordinary and commonplace it seemed. Perhaps that’s what moved me to write about my own experience as a victim of a violent crime, or perhaps it was because some of the victims were out enjoying a community trail, which is where I was attacked.

Either way, with each and every spasm of gun-fueled violence perpetrated against innocents, some closer to home than others, we’re all starting to feel like victims.

Luke DeCock is a sports columnist.

Missing ham biscuits at the NC State Fair

This may sound trivial to some, but ham biscuits at the NC State Fair are serious business. When I found out this summer that after more than 100 years, the Cary Methodist Church booth serving the best ham biscuits at the fair (fight me) was ceasing operation, it was a personal blow — but also a great news story. I talked to leaders at both churches running the booth to confirm my tip and learn the reasons behind the decision (in a word: staffing) and wrote the story. It not only impacted me (and my belly) but judging by the feedback, our readers were devastated as well. The State Fair will always but great, but it won’t be the same.

Brooke Cain is the service journalism editor and media and TV reporter.

Examining North Carolina’s animal shelter woes

There will always be unwanted animals in North Carolina, and there won’t always be room to shelter all of them. Some interventions to keep stray animals from being euthanized in animal shelters start with careful research by pet owners. Some have a delayed impact, like shelter remodeling and spay/neuter laws.

To make a real difference, though, it’s crucial to understand how different players in the shelter and rescue world work together, dividing and conquering their respective resources.

My investigation this summer into rising intake and euthanasia rates across North Carolina’s animal shelters provided that bigger picture, while raising awareness for adoptable animals.

Ilana Arougheti was a metro intern this past summer.

The thin line between home and homelessness

The cost of housing is extreme for all, especially single mothers. The image below by visual journalist Kaitlin McKeown captures the stress and the thin line between home and homelessness.

Scott Sharpe is the visuals editor.

The challenge of writing about people fatally shot by police

When I began covering breaking news in the fall of 2021, I quickly learned this meant writing about people getting shot, nearly every day.

It also meant writing about law enforcement shootings. In January alone, there were four across Raleigh and Durham.

It has been challenging, and a lesson in reporting quickly, accurately and carefully.

The Latino community in Raleigh is small; I had friends and acquaintances in common with Daniel Turcios, who was fatally shot by Raleigh police after a Jan. 11 accident on the Raleigh Beltline. He was shot when he would not drop a knife.

Covering the shooting of Turcios required a lot of work for my team and me. Interviewing Turcios’ family in Spanish, our native language, was emotionally difficult.

Aaron Sánchez-Guerra is a breaking news reporter.

Inequities between HBCUs, ACC athletic programs

Andrew Carter’s story detailing how Historically Black Colleges and Universities are navigating the changing sports landscape was a powerful and poignant piece that shined a light on the smaller schools in the Triangle.

HBCUs are left out of the discussion, but the sports landscape’s evolution affects them in significant ways. HBCUs, historically, have been at a financial disadvantage and Carter did a great job of detailing how large the athletic budget gaps are between Division 1 colleges in the Atlantic Coast Conference and HBCUs. As the Big Ten agreed on a TV rights deal that’ll generate a billion dollars, N.C. Central is working with a budget of around $13 million.

Kyle Williams was a sports intern this past summer.

Giving a voice to moms’ stories of struggle and hope

The federal definition of poverty hasn’t changed much since 1950, when my grandmother was widowed with eight children.

They all got jobs — grave digging, mill work, picking tobacco. My mom, age 5, earned 15 to 20 cents an hour to buy shoes and school supplies. Her mom made their clothes and ate the scraps after her children were fed.

The single moms in our “Women and Children First?” project also fight tirelessly for their children. Government aid helps, but it’s never enough.

The N.C. Budget & Tax Center says a mom with two children can just make ends meet at $60,000 a year. But she only qualifies for food stamps if she earns less than $30,000 a year and a federal housing voucher if she earns less than $22,400 — or up to $14.42 an hour.

I know that’s why this work to let moms tell their own stories and explore the programs making a difference is so important.

Tammy Grubb covers Chapel Hill and Orange County.

The Green Party fighting its way onto the ballot

This summer, I reported that the national and state Democratic Party had entered into a massive legal battle with the North Carolina Green Party to try to keep them off the midterm ballot. I thought, “Why, in the face of an extremely competitive Senate race would the Democrats spend so much time and money trying to fight a party that has no chance of winning?” I never thought the Greens would mobilize so hard to fight back.

In the end, the Greens got on the ballot. Even if all their votes had gone to Democrat Cheri Beasley, Republican Ted Budd still would’ve won as North Carolina’s next senator.

Kyle Ingram was a politics intern this past summer and later worked on The News & Observer’s Project 170, a massive voter guide.

Sounding the alarm on monkeypox

My name once appeared on a newspaper’s contributors list with writer Larry Kramer, the gay firebrand who was ostracized for his strident warnings in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

Truth is I was just a grad student freelancing for The New York Native, when Kramer wrote “1,112 and counting,” the essay that helped make him a pariah. The first line went, “If this article doesn’t scare the (expletive) out of you, we’re in real trouble.”

So when Laura Brache wrote about North Carolina’s public health messaging on monkeypox this year, I was hoping for a nuanced story. She delivered, including an interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley, who is gay.

Did reporting that monkeypox was primarily affecting men who have sex with men stigmatize the gay community? Did it warn those whom statistics were showing were in the group most at risk? Maybe both?

I don’t know. Newly single this year, I got my shots. So did a lot of gay men. And this fall the CDC reported cases were trending downward.

I think articles like Laura’s helped.

Mark Schultz is the deputy metro editor.

A dream assignment traveling the state

After nearly 20 years at the N&O, I got my dream assignment.

The Old Reliable paid me to spend six weeks driving North Carolina’s back roads, where I was tasked with making photographs and videos that took me from beachside lighthouses to a screaming quarter-mile-long zip line over a mountain valley canopy.

Instead of chain hotels, I slept in a tent in the sand dunes and a hammock above a mountain stream at a backcountry campsite. Along the way, I met dozens of welcoming and gracious strangers and found time to rekindle a childhood friendship.

Most of all, I came away with a greater appreciation for our state and had the opportunity to experience some of its marvelous hidden nooks and crannies.

Travis Long is a photojournalist.

Read the rest of the series:

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Five