Successful UW campaign reflects strong community
I am writing to express my appreciation to Rowan County United Way and our wonderful community. As an agency we are so happy that the recent campaign reached their fundraising goal. When all agencies were called to the stage at the final report meeting, I held my breath and prayed. We received the answer to many of our prayers that night. Thank you all.
Communities In Schools of Rowan County is a local United Way agency, and we are able to reach thousands of students annually. Students receive supportive guidance, school uniforms, supplies and services like having a mentor or tutor to work with them on academics or life issues. Most recently, students at North Middle School started receiving backpacks filled with food for the weekend and snacks for students who stay for after-school activities. The food and snacks are made possible through the Rowan Rotary Club and the Salvation Army. The backpacks are being provided by the Rowan County United Way’s Community Chest Fund.
It truly does take the entire village to help make a community strong. The United Way is a vehicle to assist in the fundraising arm of the community to make sure services and fundraising efforts are not duplicated ,and it is done in an organized fashion ensuring agencies are being good stewards of the citizens’ generosity.
Our mission is to surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. Our local United Way enables us to fulfill our mission with their support, guidance and funding. Thank you Rowan County United Way.
— Vicky Slusser
Salisbury
The beauty of the billboards
Our heartfelt congratulations must go out to the North Carolina legislature, the billboard advertising industry, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Working together, they have now virtually completed the elimination of the public’s trees near billboards on I-40 from Canton in the west to Winston-Salem in the east.
With the cutting of many large trees, billboard advertising has been safe from pesky vegetation interfering with the industry’s use of the roadways to sell advertising for decades to come. Nonconforming billboards that were supposed to come down under the provisions of the Highway Beautification Act have been given new life, particularly when combined with the non-enforcement of regulations regarding rebuilding of these old billboards.
Now that they can fully enjoy the beauty of the billboards along North Carolina highways, tourists will certain flock to our state in greater increasing numbers.
— Charles Floyd
Barber Junction

Heartache for Grimes Mill
A scrap piece of pine catches your eye. Sixty rings in the width of your thumb. You swell in awe of nature, God’s work. It’s a struggle to let it go. You want to share. Show a youngster. Talk about pristine forests, the passage of time, centuries, millennia. You know who you are. You pause to examine the power train, the intricate device devised by someone, maybe like you. Substance, extracted from the earth and wrought into a machine to help with the tasks of our existence. You wonder.
Grimes Mill was the best of our skill and ingenuity in its time and place.
Our hearts ache.
— Alfred Wilson
Salisbury
Another piece of history gone
This is yet another sad day in the history of Salisbury. It was less than a year ago a funeral parlor that had been in business for many years burned to the ground. Fortunately, no one was injured. Now we have lost another historic building due to fire. This 117-year-old mill was not only a treasure but also an important piece of Salisbury’s history, and it is now lost forever. All the items inside that told the story of the mill and the people from this very community that made their living working at that mill have been irrevocably lost. Some things you just cannot replace, and this is one of them.
— Jo Ann Rust
Salisbury