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Leftover chili for tax tweakers?
Emerging Issues ForumGOP confronts Medicare drug plan's problems
Andrew TaylorLabor Is Top Post-Buyout Concern For NC Tobacco Growers
Blake BrownBusiness group visits Kannapolis
Kannapolis Biotechnology CenterHow much is enough?
Mike WaldenWaiting Game: New self-financing bonds are meant to boost development, but so far, there are few takers
Michael WaldenNCSA hopes gift lures more students
Kenan Charitable Trust gift, scholarship programs, tuitionNCSU Hosts Summer Science Courses for High-Schoolers
College of Agriculture and Life Science, Summer College in Biotechnology and Life SciencesCharlotte has much to learn about Asian Americans
Diversity, asian populationWriters Notebook
Brenda Smart Award for Short FictionOne-stop education guide
Graduate studies programNCCU site of Hip-Hop Summit
Hip-Hop Summit28th annual Quiz Bowl challenges high school minds with trivia
28th annual Public Library Quiz Bowl to be held at NCSUDance Marathon Raises Money For Children's Hospital
Fundraiser for North Carolina Children’s HospitalLawmen searching for woman who robbed bank
Bank robber wearing NC State baseball cap
EDITORIAL:
Reconsidering Taxes: N.C. State Forum Suggests State, Local Revenue
Options
Emergency Issues Forum
William
Ivey Long Keeps His Clothes On
College of Textiles, College of Design
Monsanto
proposes natural refuge for Bollgard II cotton
JR Bradley, entomology
Drug
combo may ease asthma
Kenneth Adler
Georgia
Tech, Oak Ridge team up
Renaissance Computing Institute
Golden
LEAF Scholarships Available for Students Attending N.C. Public Universities
Golden LEAF Scholars Program
Claire
Howell Joins MMI Associates, Inc.
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Bocce
boom
Jim Valvano
Montagnard:
Efforts in Vietnam Win Award
Former producer in broadcast services at NCSU (Kay Reibold)
NCSU Hosts Summer Science Courses for High-Schoolers
Feb. 5, 2006
Southern Pines Pilot
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
North Carolina State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is accepting applications for a hands-on laboratory summer program for high school students that focuses on biotechnology.
NCSU’s Summer College in Biotechnology and Life Sciences allows high school students to take college-level courses. The program runs from July 10 through Aug. 4. It is designed for students who wish to experience a university environment and explore biotechnology laboratory techniques and careers. The program offers residential and non-residential options.
Students must have at least a 3.5 weighted GPA and have completed basic high school biology and/or chemistry to enroll. Some scholarship funding is available.
Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis until courses reach enrollment capacity. Students will earn college credit for course work. The course work features hands-on experience with cutting-edge scientific techniques. Students will interact with undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scientists and faculty at NCSU.
Application and more information about the program are located at http://www.cifr.ncsu.edu/ scibls/ or by calling (919) 513-7762. Questions may also be e-mailed to summer_college@ncsu.edu.
Feb. 4, 2006
Kinston Free Press
By MICHAEL ABERNETHY
© Copyright 2006
If today’s Super Bowl teams are as closely matched as those in the 28th annual
Public Library Quiz Bowl held Saturday, football fans are in for a treat.
During a nail-biting final round between teams from Arendell Parrott Academy and South Lenoir High School, members of both teams were sweating bullets over questions about Anne Rice, atoms and anatomy.
In the end, Parrott Academy inched away with the win by 10 points and one question, edging out South Lenoir’s team 130 points to 120 points. The academy’s team will advance to the March 25 District Quiz Bowl in Rocky Mount.
Teams from six high schools in Lenoir and Greene counties participated. Along with Parrott Academy and South Lenoir, Bethel Christian Academy, Greene Central High, Kinston High and North Lenoir all competed for the chance to win the first-place trophy and $100 savings bonds for its team members.
South Lenoir’s seven team members walked away with a trophy and $50 savings bonds.
The competition ended months of preparations by each school’s teams and advisers. Parrott Academy began training for the Quiz Bowl in August, as soon as school began.
“We have a whole box filled with notebooks and question sheets,” said Vicki Hallberg, Arendell Parrott Academy adviser. “I inherited a notebook from the late 1980s from a teacher who used to be an adviser. That’s how long this has been going on.”
But some schools got a later start than others. Greene Central High School almost weren’t able to compete for lack of participation, but three members of the team soldiered on to bring the school a fourth place finish — its highest in more than three years.
“This is the best our team has done in three years,” said Megan Potter, adviser to the Greene Central’s team. “We just got enough to compete last week. But they couldn’t be here because they had other things going on.”
The Greene Central team handled the setback with ease. They looked cool as cucumbers under fire with questions about Lucretia Mott.
“There’s no point in getting nervous,” said team member Amber Harper.
But other teams weren’t quite as laid back.
South Lenoir contestant Michelle Skinner’s face read like an open book of nerves and worries during the final rounds. You could see the focus and falling hopes in her eyes as her team was served obscure questions about American history and foreign dictators.
“I thought the individual questions about history were hardest,” Skinner said. “You could rely on your team for answers in the other rounds.”
It’s not easy to read those questions, either. Just ask Kate Etheredge, who read questions about topics ranging from molecular science to obscure authors and artists. Rarely did her tongue twist, but she took some slips of the lips with grace.
“I’m glad you pronounced that,” she said to South Lenoir’s captain Eric Loftin, “because I sure didn’t want to.”
Mike Parker, president of the Friends of the Library, congratulated the teams for their grasp of history as he presented Parrott Academy’s team with the winning trophy.
“We adults look back sometimes and wonder how kids can’t know some of the things in our history,” Parker said. “A lot of these questions seemed like current events to me. I think it’s a lot easier when you lived through it.”
The competition was sponsored by the Friends of the Library, Bojangles’ and The Free Press, who provided the money for the two teams’ 14 savings bonds.
Parrott’s team will compete next in mid-March against 10 other state teams in the Red and White Bowl at North Carolina State University before heading to the district Quiz Bowl competition on March 25.
The Quiz Bowl began in 1978 with 12 counties participating. More than 85 counties in North Carolina now compete in the competition, which is organized by libraries across the state.
The State Finals will be held in the Research Triangle Park on April 22.
Lenoir County has a rich recent history in the state Quiz Bowl. In 1995, Parrott Academy’s team was state Quiz Bowl champion. Kinston High School’s team placed second in the state in 1997’s Quiz Bowl finals.
Michael Abernethy can be reached at (252)
527-3191, Ext. 273, or at
mabernethy@freedomenc.com.
2006 Public Library Quiz Bowl Winning Team
Arendell Parrott Academy
N Team:
Bryan Brooks, captain
Elizabeth Falls
Ashley Wetherington
Robin Young
N Alternates:
Hye Jin Cho
Monica Palmeira
Annie Weneke
Charlotte Goins (absent)
N Advisers:
Vicki Hallberg
Betsy Barrow
Dance Marathon Raises Money For Children's Hospital
Feb. 4, 2006
NBC-17, News 14 Carolina
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina State University students boogied down Saturday in a 24-hour dance marathon to raise money for a good cause.
It all started at 7 p.m. on Friday, and they did not rest their feet until 7 p.m. Saturday.
In its fourth year, more than 200 students took part in the dance marathon to raise money for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital.
Each dancer raised at least $40 dollars for the hospital.
Labor Is Top Post-Buyout Concern For NC Tobacco Growers
Feb. 3, 2006
WSOCtv.com, News 14 Charlotte, News 14 Charlotte, abc11tv.com, WCNC, Winston-Salem Journal, Charlotte Observer, WKYT (KY), Kentucky.com (KY), WVEC.com (VA), Myrtle Beach Sun News (SC)
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The increasing cost for immigrant field workers was the top concern of tobacco growers attending an otherwise upbeat annual meeting of the state's tobacco growers Friday.
"The death of tobacco in North Carolina has been greatly exaggerated," state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, himself a Guilford County tobacco grower, told a few hundred people attending the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina.
The topic of the trade group's annual meeting was survival in a post-buyout tobacco market, but the prevailing attitude was that the worst had come and better days were ahead.
Banks and financial planners pitched their services to growers flush with new income streams, while tobacco seed salesmen said their sales suggested a big jump in production this year.
Some growers have taken payments from cigarette makers and a federal buyout, paid off debts, and retired. Others have seen opportunity and expanded.
"Fewer growers will be around, but they will grow more pounds on more acreage," said Sam Crews, the group's outgoing president, who farms about 150 acres of tobacco near Oxford in Granville County.
North Carolina tobacco farmers last fall divided nearly $400 million in the first of 10 annual installments from the federal government's $9.6 billion buyout ending the Depression-era system of tobacco price supports and quotas.
Starting last year, farmers were allowed to sell as much of the leaf as they could grow at whatever price they could fetch to whomever would buy it.
The average price for flue-cured tobacco -- the type which makes North Carolina the country's largest producer -- was a better-than-expected $1.55 to $1.60 a pound under contracts with cigarette makers, North Carolina State University agricultural economist Blake Brown said. Production is expected to increase by about a third this year, he said.
Also easing the economic turbulence of the year was a North Carolina court decision requiring cigarette companies to pay farmers $152 million. The payments were part of a deal stemming from the 1998 settlement between the four major U.S. tobacco companies and 46 states over smoking-related health claims.
Since 1999, North Carolina farmers and quota holders have received more than $837 million from the Phase II fund, according to Gov. Mike Easley.
But the cost of legally employing immigrant guest workers, mostly Mexican, is climbing, growers said. The fee to process visas and transport workers is nearly doubling to $900 for each worker, and the hourly wage is kicking up 30 cents to $8.58, said Faylene Whitaker, whose family grows about 140 acres of tobacco near Climax in Guilford County.
The association's top resolutions included asking Congress to revise the H2-A guest worker program to make temporary visas for laborers easier and cheaper. Tobacco farmers should be paying closer to $6.50 an hour for hard labor, Crews said.
"The cost of workers on the farm is too high," Crews said. "We must stick together and make key improvements to the guest worker program or it will put us out of business faster than any hail storm or hurricane."
Growers said labor is their greatest cost in producing tobacco, nearly twice as costly as machinery or fuel for curing the leaf. But they know that work in tobacco fields is so hot, dirty and long that they couldn't produce a crop without immigrant labor.
The main fear for the future is that immigration limits sought by some political conservatives would choke off the industry's labor supply.
"If they limit that labor source, there's nobody to replace them," said David Hinnant, who is expanding his Wilson County acreage in tobacco by 50 percent over last year to 180 acres.
Business group visits Kannapolis
Feb. 5, 2006
Charlotte Observer
By Adam Bell
© Copyright 2006
The N.C. Citizens for Business and Industry organization has its eye on Kannapolis and the billion-dollar biotech hub coming there.
The group serves as the state chamber of commerce and state manufacturing association. About 45 to 50 people attended a meeting at the Cannon Village visitors center with the agency's economic development committee.
" We feel this (N.C. Research Campus) is a great opportunity for Kannapolis and North Carolina," said Elizabeth Dalton, director of governmental affairs for the business group. "We wanted to come here so we could spread the word more in our organization."
City Manager Mike Legg updated the group on various projects going on in
the city. Campus Project Manager Lynne Scott Safrit detailed progress
on the biotech
plans.
Billionaire David Murdock is developing the campus through his Castle & Cooke
Inc.
UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University are among the institutions that will have significant operations there. The universities are looking for $41 million in funding from the General Assembly for the project's first year, and $25 million annually after that.
" The NCCBI looks forward to partnering with Castle & Cooke in helping them move the North Carolina Research Campus forward," Dalton said. "They certainly have our ear."
NCSA hopes gift lures more students
Feb. 3, 2006
Winston-Salem Journal
By Laura Giovanelli
© Copyright 2006
The number of full scholarships available to students attending the N.C. School of the Arts will jump from one to 20 within the next four years, school officials announced yesterday.
The William J. Kenan Jr. Institute Charitable Trust of Chapel Hill has donated $1 million to the scholarship program. The money will establish the most generous scholarships in the school's 40-year history.
The scholarships are called the William R. Kenan Excellence Awards, and the first five will be awarded next year and renewed every year up to four years. The awards will be based on merit.
The School of the Arts announced the scholarships at a meeting of the board of trustees. The scholarships mark a major gift to the school. Officials at the School of the Arts, a state-supported school, have long complained that they can't compete for students who get scholarship offers from other arts schools with larger endowments, particularly private schools.
NCSA also has to persuade aspiring professional actors, dancers, filmmakers and theater designers to come to Winston-Salem instead of going to New York, Los Angeles and other large cities.
The gift is a prelude to the school's capital campaign, which has been put off as the school looks for a new chancellor.
"This is sort of to get people to think about that priority," said Tom Kenan, an honorary member of NCSA's board of trustees. "If there are five fabulous dancers who have been accepted to Juilliard, there's nothing that says they can't come here."
Tom Kenan is a great-nephew of William R. Kenan.
The school currently has just one full scholarship, restricted to top seniors, and covers tuition, room, board, fees and a stipend for both in-state and out-of-state students.
Colleges and universities use full scholarships to attract top students. Based on this year's in-state tuition and room-and- board rates, a full ride at NCSA can be $13,300 a year.
This year, NCSA's tuition is the third highest of the 16-campus University of North Carolina system, behind UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University.
The General Assembly passed a law last year that lets out-of-state students who receive a full scholarship to be considered state residents. That lowers the tuition amount that a full scholarship must cover, often a difference of $10,000 or more a year.
• Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com
GOP confronts Medicare drug plan's problems
Feb.36, 2006
Charlotte Observer
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
TIM FUNKtfunk@charlotteobserver.comWASHINGTON - A new Medicare prescription drug plan that Republicans had hoped would bring them elderly voters in November is instead giving the GOP a giant political headache.
Now a month old, Medicare Part D has sparked confusion, worry and anger -- from seniors and from many druggists and doctors.
Thursday, even Republicans who have strongly backed the plan as a way to redefine their party were acknowledging the problems -- and calling on Medicare administrator Mark McClellan to fix them.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., said during a hearing of the Senate's committee on aging that some of the neediest N.C. seniors are having trouble adapting to the plan.
" This is simply unacceptable and clearly not what was intended."
Why the fury?
Families, pharmacists and doctors answer with a list of complaints about the plan. Among them: Its dizzying array of options, larger-than-expected co-payments and deductibles, names missing from data banks used by drugstores, and delays when calling Medicare or insurance companies.
Eddie Hemingway, a pharmacist in Williamston, about 270 miles northeast of Charlotte, even gives his older customers a list of phone numbers for President Bush, Dole and fellow Republican Sen. Richard Burr.
Next to the numbers, Hemingway's handwritten note: "Call these people. They have made a bad situation worse."
Washington is listening.
At Thursday's Senate hearing, Medicare officials said they were dealing with the problems. Next week, the Senate Finance Committee has its turn.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a top contender for the Democrats' 2008 presidential nomination -- told McClellan she wants to "scrap this and start over."
The plan -- designed to offer drug subsidies through private insurance companies -- debuted Jan. 1. Since then, members of Congress from the Carolinas have received heavy calls from the elderly and disabled.
" These people aren't just mad or opposed to something," says Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C. "These people are anxious about their health and welfare."
Rep. Walter Jones of Farmville, one of only 25 House Republicans to vote against the plan, got an urgent call from a doctor in Eastern North Carolina. She told Jones that insurance companies were suddenly denying life-saving prescriptions to some of her patients -- including one who'd had a kidney transplant.
" She was beside herself," Jones said. "She said, `I'm a Republican, but I cannot believe this is getting off to such a poor start.' "
Dole, who voted for the plan, told reporters last week that the rollout of any federal benefit affecting 42 million people is bound "to have a few hiccups that have to be squared away."
By Thursday's hearing, Dole's tone had changed to one of concern.
Still, Dole and the GOP are hopeful about November. Once seniors' complaints are addressed, they say, many elderly voters could end up rewarding Republicans for ending the days when some had to chose between medicine or groceries.
" Think how many years Democrats have talked about adding a prescription drug benefit," Dole told reporters last week. "But we (Republicans) got it done."
Dole is invested in the success of the Medicare plan. Her husband, ex-Sen. Bob Dole, is promoting Part D on a speaking tour largely paid for by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company.
And, as head of the National Republican
Senatorial Committee, her job is to elect
enough GOP
candidates this fall to
keep the Senate
in Republican
control.
That could be tough if seniors, always
reliable voters, go Democratic in a big
way.
Political scientist Andrew Taylor of N.C. State University says this battle for senior votes led Republicans to pass the drug plan. And it's now leading Democrats to make political hay of the problems.
" Seniors have traditionally been a Democratic constituency because of Social Security and Medicare (both pushed by Democratic presidents)," Taylor says. "But in the last 10 years, they've been up for grabs."
Beth Fox, 68, a retired oncology nurse in Charlotte, calls herself a moderate who's voted for some Republicans.
But this year, she's angry with the GOP-controlled federal government, the Republican-allied insurance companies and AARP, the senior group that helped Republicans pass Part D. She blames them all for the "inflated (drug) prices" she's now paying.
" I wasn't too enthusiastic about (Part D) at first, but thought I'd at least end up even," she says. "But -- pardon my French -- I've been screwed."
Lawmen searching for woman who robbed bank
Feb. 4, 2006
Fayetteville Online
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
DUNN — Investigators are looking for a woman who robbed the BB&T bank on West Cumberland Street on Thursday.
Dunn police detective S.R. Epperson said the woman handed a note to a teller and took an undisclosed amount of money. The robbery was reported to police at 1:40 p.m. The bank is at 724 West Cumberland St.
The woman was described as white, about 5 feet, 2 inches, 120 pounds with brown hair and eyes. She has a small frame and was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and an N.C. State University baseball cap.
Epperson said investigators are looking into whether she is the same person who has robbed banks in Benson and Wilmington. He said the woman who robbed the Dunn bank fit the description of the suspect in the other robberies.
“The method also appeared to be the similar,” he said.
Anyone with information in the case is asked to call the Dunn Police Department at (910) 892-2399.
Charlotte has much to learn about Asian Americans
Feb. 4, 2006
Charlotte Observer
By GILLIAN MAY-LIAN WEE
© Copyright 2006
I have never been more conscious about my ethnicity than in Charlotte.
At bars, men frequently approach me and my Asian American friends and say they love Asian women. Sources I interview ask me if I am "oriental," which, as readers of Edward Said know, isn't complimentary.
Colleagues assume I love sushi and can translate Vietnamese, even though I am ethnically Chinese.
Maybe it feels awkward, or at times unwelcome, to be Asian in Charlotte because there are so few of us, even though our numbers are growing. Or maybe it's because whites and blacks, with their own old and existing tensions, don't know how to perceive the newest entrants: Asians and Hispanics, the nation's fastest growing races.
Asians are seen through so many lenses: the model student in math and science; the coy, submissive woman who will cater to your every whim; the kinky, fetishized dragon lady; the teen who embraces hip-hop culture; the martial arts specialist.
Some people still think that all Asians look alike, speak one another's languages and act the same way.
Or maybe these same people aren't thinking enough.
A group of young, educated Asian Americans claim they were turned away from an uptown club, the Forum, late last year because of their race. A bouncer had allegedly told them he didn't want any trouble because a few nights before, a group of Asians were involved in a nearby shooting after leaving the club.
Joseph Wind, 24, e-mailed the club to complain. He said that night was the first time he had felt being Asian restricted his movement. The club's management has said it sent an e-mail apologizing for any "perceived impropriety," but it hasn't admitted any wrongdoing.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Wind and his sister were adopted by white Americans two decades ago. Growing up between Rochester, N.Y., and North Carolina, he hated the fact that he looked different. People bullied him for having "slanty eyes" and black hair, he said. He began to embrace being Asian only in college, at N.C. State University, where he met other Asians.
" My Asian friends know their parents have sacrificed for them; they owe them and respect them," said Wind, a credit manager at a bank in Charlotte. "With my white friends, that's still the case but it's not as evident in the way they treat their parents."
Wind e-mailed his friends about the incident, and that note has been forwarded around Charlotte. He's now in the process of filing a complaint against the uptown club through the city's community relations committee. His aim: to create awareness and defeat stereotypes.
His friend, Hien Tran, 26, was also there that night. Tran, who recently moved to Charlotte from Raleigh, said he wasn't really that surprised. Growing up, he thinks, he was picked on because people around him weren't used to Asians. Tran said he realized during college at Chapel Hill that some educated people appeared to be more unlikely to make racial slurs.
" You have ignorant people trying to mimic our languages, saying gibberish and laughing to us," said Tran of the discrimination he's felt throughout his life. "You can't blame people for being ignorant; I don't take it personally anymore."
Tran, the son of Vietnamese immigrants, wants to be seen as American, not just singled out as Asian. He thinks that if minorities start playing non-stereotypical roles in the movies, that will help erode stereotypes.
Painful as they are, such incidents might help each individual define and develop his or her own beliefs -- by deciding to identify solely with Chinese, Vietnamese, Asian, Asian American, or American cultures, or a number at once.
The underlying issue of race is growing more fragmented and complex, as international migration increases. Newer ethnic groups and those around them might not immediately think about asserting or understanding cultural differences.
Since I moved to the South, I felt a need to preserve my own heritage, one I never felt I had to cling to while living in London and bigger U.S. cities, where people seemed more open. About a year ago, I started using my other first name "May Lian," (pronounced may-lee-yan), which means beautiful lotus in Mandarin. My parents and grandparents gave me that name. It reminds me of my roots.
If Charlotte truly wants to sell itself as a diverse cosmopolitan city, we need to learn more about different cultures, and be more sensitive. Minorities have long grappled with bridging different worlds and cultures, but now, more than ever, there needs to be an acceleration in thought.
We live in a global age, where such countries as China and India are quickly emerging as superpowers. How will ignorance and discrimination help us then?
Feb.4, 2006
Wiinston-Salem Journal
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
Amy Knox Brown, Ginger Hendricks and Darby Sanders will read from their works at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Salem Fine Arts Center of Salem College. They are on the faculty of the Salem College Center for Women Writers, which is sponsoring the free readings.
Brown is the 2005 recipient of the Brenda Smart Award for Short Fiction from N.C. State University. Her short stories have been published in Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee University Review, The Missouri Review and other journals.
Hendricks is the recipient of the 2000 Rondthaler Award in Fiction. Her work has appeared in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley and Paterson Literary Review. She is the director of the Salem College Center for Women Writers and coordinator of cultural events at the school.
Sanders is the first-prize winner of the Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers. His works have been in Colorado Review, West Branch and other journals.
For more information, call 721-2739.
Feb. 4, 2006
Durham Herald-Sun
By PAUL BONNER
© Copyright 2006
DURHAM -- Charlene Best and Chantal Lerebours had decided the time was right to go back to college for an advanced degree.
On Saturday, they were among dozens of prospective graduate students in N.C. Central University's One Stop Registration, exploring master's degree programs in a variety of professional, scientific and humanities fields.
"We can tell you if you meet the minimum threshold standards to be admitted to a graduate program," said Percy Murray, dean of the school of graduate studies, who oversaw the session. Throughout NCCU's School of Education building, faculty members were stationed to answer questions.
The two women sat in a hallway, holding thick packets of information including applications for a master's of education degree. Both middle-school social studies teachers at Research Triangle Academy, a charter school, they said they were thinking of getting specialized training.
Best said she was interested in NCCU's educational technology track, and Lerebours is considering a program in curriculum and instruction.
"If you want to be a good teacher, you have to keep learning," Lerebours said. "By getting your advanced degree, you're not only developing your credentials as a teacher, you're improving your knowledge and skills."
At age 46, Best said she had some concern about juggling studies and family obligations, especially having been out of school for many years, but both women said they planned to enroll.
"I always wanted to go back to graduate school, but this is a career change for me, too," said Best, who earned her undergraduate degree at NCCU. "This is something they encourage you to do, is to have an advanced degree."
This is the second year NCCU's School of Graduate Studies has held the sessions which, like the programs they present, cater to working professionals like Best and Lerebours. Consequently, most class schedules are between 4 and 10 p.m.
"The value we provide to our clientele is convenience, with an evening program for working people looking for an upgrade in their skills as professionals," Murray said.
The school also has taken registration on the road, to the Greensboro-High Point area and Rocky Mount.
"What we've done is taken advantage of our alumni groups," as well as working with school systems and local government. For the latter field, NCCU offers a master's in public administration and, new this year, an executive MPA program taught on Fridays and weekends.
The program is ideal for people who already have experience in management in the public sector or nonprofit organizations, said Ron Penny, chairman of the department of public administration.
Officials are hoping to start it this summer with between 15 and 20 students. Penny said he didn't think there was another such program in North Carolina.
"We've had some interest," he said of Saturday's session.
A master's of science degree at NCCU affords students more individual time with professors than at many other universities, said chemistry professor Wendell Wilkerson.
Also, he said, NCCU's Bridge to Doctorate Program, which allows students to go on to receive Ph.D.s at UNC, N.C. State University and Wake Forest University, offers the advantage of receiving pay for a research fellowship while at NCCU.
Feb. 4, 2006
Durham Herald-Sun
By staff report
© Copyright 2006
NCCU site of Hip-Hop Summit
Students from area universities can learn more about the hip-hop music industry in a Hip-Hop Summit sponsored by Atlantic Records Wednesday at N.C. Central University.
The all-day schedule of seminars and meetings will cover such topics as fashion, hip-hop's impact on popular culture, the exploitation of women in hip-hop, music production and getting signed by a record label.
Organized by Atlantic Records promoter and NCCU alumna Sherice Malachi, the sessions will include a talk by the group Little Brother. The group's members, Phonte Coleman, Thomas "Big Pooh" Jones and Pat "9th Wonder" Douthit, also are NCCU alumni. Their latest album, "The Minstrel Show," is on Atlantic, following up their 2003 release on BB Records, "The Listening."
Tickets are $5 for students and $10 general admission. The summit is open to a limited number of students from NCCU, Duke University, N.C. State University, St. Augustine's College, Shaw University and UNC.
For more information, call (919) 530-6295.
Students get education guide
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions at N.C. Central University will host its annual Middle School "Jump Off" from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday in the B.N. Duke Auditorium. The program is designed to prepare middle school students for high school and college.
Activities for the day include an informational session, a campus tour, a parent session on how to finance a child's education and entertainment.
For more information and to reserve a space, contact Ronnie Chalmers at (919) 530-7654.
Feb. 6, 2006
Fayetteville Online
By Claire Parker
© Copyright 2006
Workers are for it.
Companies are against it.
And for the past nine years, the debate over minimum wage has continued as neither the state nor the federal government has approved an increase since 1997.
Politicians, workers’ advocates and think tanks are fervently pitching a wage hike to bring low-paying jobs up to provide a basic standard of living.
Business advocates, business owners and some economists say a minimum wage increase will only hurt the work force in the long run by forcing companies to downsize their payrolls and raise prices to pay for the increase.
Minimum wage in North Carolina is $5.15 an hour, the same as the federal rate. The wage was last adjusted in 1997, when it was upped from $4.75.
Last year, the General Assembly shot down two attempts to raise the rate, and the U.S. Senate defeated a bill to raise the federal rate to $6.25.
According to the N.C. Justice Center, there are about 100,000 workers in the state who would be directly affected if the state’s minimum wage was increased to $6. That’s about 3 percent of the state’s work force.
This year, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards and state Treasurer Richard Moore are campaigning for an increase to the wage. Edwards wants $7.50, and Moore wants $6.15.
The two Democrats have been pegged as possible candidates in the 2008 election, Edwards for president and Moore for governor.
Regardless of their political ambitions, questions about raising the minimum wage are circulating, and eyes are turning to the other states in the country that are raising their rates.
Most recently, Maryland raised its rate to $6.15 and became the 18th state to raise the wage floor above the federal level.
Similar efforts have been squashed in “business-friendly” states such as Virginia. A bill to increase Virginia’s minimum wage to $6.15 and a dollar each year until 2008 was defeated Monday.
Tim Holverson, executive vice president of business development at the Cumberland County Business Council, said minimum wage increases at face value sound like a positive step.
“But it’s a tough pill to swallow,” Holverson said. “We do want to see wages go up, but we want that to be based on merit.”
He said wage increases driven by market forces improve the economy by making companies more competitive. A mandated increase does not.
The state treasurer disagrees.
Moore has said raising the minimum wage is a pro-business policy.
“Study after study has shown that in the periods after a minimum wage increase, the labor market shows few negative effects,” Moore said.
He suggests that businesses do better when the low-income labor market gets a boost because consumers have more money to spend.
Slower hiring
An economist at N.C. State University disagrees with the treasurer.
“Over time (an increase in wages) will depress the hiring of minimum wage workers. That is what a great number of economic studies find,” Mike Walden said.
The economist argues that a $1 increase for businesses, especially small businesses, will drive them to adjust their work force to save the bottom line.
Companies could substitute people with machines or automation, hire higher-paid workers who bring better skills and more productivity or go offshore to reduce increased labor costs, Walden said.
“It would cause some who keep their jobs to have a better standard of living, but it is not going to universally help anyone,” Walden said.
He noted North Carolina’s dilemma is the move of workers from the declining manufacturing and textile industries to the expanding service industry.
The service industry contains the majority of minimum wage workers, according to Walden and the Employment Security Commission.
“So, the concern would be what would we do if the service sector reacts by saying it’s not worth it to our bottom line (to pay workers higher wage),” he said.
Anti-poverty advocates say that is not the issue.
“Are you going to automate a cashier at a convenience store? In some ways the debate we are really talking about is industries that are dependent on the lowest end sales jobs and service jobs,” said John Quinterno, a research associate at the N.C. Justice Center.
“If someone is willing to work full time and hard at their job, shouldn’t they earn a decent enough wage to not have to live in poverty or rely on public assistance?” Quinterno asked.
Business advocates say the cost to the business community is not worth a mandated wage.
Fran E. Preston, president and chief executive officer of the N.C. Retail Merchants Association, said more than 80 percent of the industry’s jobs are part time and would be affected by a wage increase.
She said the association opposes an increase because the majority of those retail workers are not supporting a family. They are students or people with a second job, she said.
She said she fears lawmakers are not considering the ramifications a wage increase will have on payrolls.
“What we pay for in workers’ compensation, sick leave and pensions are all taken as a percentage of salary or hourly wages,” Preston said. “When you ratchet up one, you ratchet up others as well.”
Retailers are free traders, she said. Therefore, market forces should determine competitive prices and wages.
“In any given area, when we have to pay above, we do. We should price goods competitively and pay workers the fairest prices,” Preston said.
There are also not enough minimum wage workers to justify the mandate, according to the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
“Most chambers have been opposed to unnecessary wages because there are very few people that pay minimum wage,” Tom Donohue said.
The chamber would be willing to discuss wage increases if a mandate was the logical way to go about it, Donohue said.
But, in his opinion, they aren’t at that point.
Staff writer Claire Parker can be reached at parkerc@fayettevillenc.com or 486-3582.
Waiting Game: New self-financing bonds are meant to boost development, but so far, there are few takers
Feb. 5, 2006
Winston-Salem Journal
By Richard Craver
© Copyright 2006
All's quiet on the Amendment One front, just 15 months after an intense, well-financed campaign succeeded in providing North Carolina with another financial tool for economic development.
A who's who of the state's civic, corporate and political leaders persuaded residents to approve self-financing bonds by a margin of 51 percent to 49 percent in November 2004 after similar amendments were rejected overwhelmingly in 1982 and 1993.
The bonds were marketed as pivotal to economic-development and job-creation efforts as the state was enduring waves of manufacturing layoffs. At the time, only North Carolina and Arizona couldn't use self-financing bonds.
But there's been little public activity since, in the Triad or statewide.
The project that most economic developers are focusing on for the first test of self-financing bonds is the planned 750-acre Carolina Crossroads Music and Entertainment district in Roanoke Rapids involving Randy Parton, the brother of singer Dolly Parton.
Another possibility is the $1 billion biotechnology center being planned for Kannapolis by David Murdock, the owner of Dole Food Co. Inc.
"As much money as was spent on the campaign, and the urgency of getting former governors Hunt and Holshouser involved in its passage, you would have thought at least one or two projects would have used it by now," said Bob Orr, a former justice of the state Supreme Court who heads the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law.
"I guess nobody wants to be the guinea pig," Orr said.
Self-financing bonds, also known as tax-increment financing, give local governments another way of paying for projects that can encourage local development and job creation.
The increase in property value from the development district, which could be a downtown-revitalization effort or a closed manufacturing plant, would go to paying off the bonds.
The key factor for self-financing bonds is that they don't require taxpayer approval.
"That kind of flexibility makes North Carolina communities much more competitive for projects that can't wait months for a referendum," Leslie Bevacqua Coman, the steering-committee chairwoman of North Carolinians for Jobs & Progress, said during the 2004 campaign.
That kind of talk led to the perception that communities were lining up with projects.
But the key hurdle is having a private developer ready to supply the bulk of the financing necessary for the project. Opponents of the self-financing bonds said that because it removes a layer of taxpayer oversight from municipal finance, it could force local governments to take a hit if a project fails.
The N.C. Local Government Commission, a nonpartisan board, must approve use of the bonds. The board has not been formally presented with a request, according to Tim Romocki, the acting director of the state and local finance division of the N.C. Treasury Department.
"We have had some initial discussions from perhaps a half-dozen localities," Romocki said.
"There wasn't, at least from our perspective, an expectation of a flood of these requests once Amendment One passed. But I am a little surprised that there hasn't been more activity."
Michael Joyce, a member of the Cary Town Council and an outspoken opponent of self-financing bonds, said he expects the Local Government Commission "to comb over this first application closely, and I actually trust them very much."
Economic officials with the city of Winston-Salem and the Piedmont Triad Partnership said last week that they are not aware of any projects prepared to go forward with self-financing bonds.
"We've had several folks come to us and have conversations with us, such as the Goler Heights project, Piedmont Triad Research Park, folks doing the (downtown) civic plaza, about self-financing bonds," said Derwick Paige, the assistant city manager of Winston-Salem for economic development.
"But nothing has progressed beyond talking," he said. "We want them to describe their project to us, and then we'll determine the right financing tool for them."
Governments can borrow money in several ways. Most bonds need to be approved by voters. Local governments also can issue so-called two-thirds bonds. These don't require voter approval, but can be for only two-thirds of the amount of debt retired in the previous year.
Paige said that the main reason why the local talks haven't proceeded is because city officials believe that other financial strategies offer lower interest rates than self-financing bonds. "Our CFO, Denise Bell, is not convinced that self-financing bonds will be a viable tool for us as this point," he said.
The campaign "probably was a bit oversold" on the potential for self-financing bonds being used frequently, said Don Donadio, the managing member of the Raleigh office for Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC.
"The bonds can have a valuable place as an economic-development tool, but it's not an end-all," Donadio said. "At the heart of it, there has to be a viable project and a committed tenant or developer to generate the revenue for the payback."
Donadio said that the practical concern about the bonds is not so much one of community liability, but what it could do to the community's image if a project failed.
Tony Plath, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said that "tepid public support for Amendment One would make all but the bravest politicians a little reticent to pull that financing trigger unless they were really motivated by some sort of project."
"It takes a while to form the districts necessary to implement them, and then sell them to local property owners who ultimately pay the financing cost in the form of higher incremental property taxes."
Supporters of the self-financing bonds said that many communities are waiting for a "slam dunk" project. The proposed Parton music and entertainment center in Roanoke Rapids could be that project.
Randy Parton is organizing the $257 million project, which is expected to create more than 12,000 jobs for an economically disadvantaged part of North Carolina. The first phase, the Randy Parton Theater, would provide beach, country, gospel and pop music, and is scheduled to open in April 2007.
"We're working with the Local Government Commission on the viability of the bonds for this project and could have a proposal in place by their March meeting," said Rick Benton, the city manager of Roanoke Rapids.
Benton estimated that the public-financing part of the project would be about $15 million.
"We're not going to become Branson East, but we feel confidant having the passionate participation of the Parton family in this project," Benton said. Branson, Mo., serves as country music's version of the Las Vegas Strip when it comes to year-round entertainment theaters.
Michael Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University, said that the Parton project has its pros and cons.
"It certainly has the track record of Branson going for it," Walden said. "Aging baby boomers will presumably have more time and money to spend on such amusement outlets. The fact that there's nothing like it on the East Coast bodes well for prospects.
"But the fact that there's nothing like it on the East Coast also raises questions. Is there too much competition on the East Coast for the leisure dollar from Disney, Kings Island, South of the Border, golf, the beach, fishing?
"Will national visitors be willing to fly into Norfolk, Richmond, or Raleigh-Durham and drive to the site?" Walden said. "All this raises questions, especially when public money is involved and private investors don't bear all the risk."
Plath said he predicts that there will be "a lot of really creative attempts" to justify tax-increment financing bonds on the basis of economic development.
"Especially in cases where local governments need money quickly - like building new schools when you don't have enough money from recent bond referenda approvals to finance all the building you need to do," Plath said.
"Or local governments want something that's likely to be perceived by voters as frivolous, and a public referendum on the issuance of new bonds doesn't stand a chance of gaining voter approval."
• Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com
Leftover chili for tax tweakers?
Feb. 4, 2006
News & Observer
By Steve Ford
© Copyright 2006
Eat, drink and be merry, many high-powered and well-connected North Carolinians are telling themselves on this Super Bowl Sunday, for tomorrow they...get to wrestle with one of North Carolina's thorniest problems: how to fix a tax code grown so rusty you can see daylight through the floorboards.
That is the well-ballyhooed focus of this year's version of the Emerging Issues Forum, a wonkfest extraordinaire conducted at N.C. State University under the guiding hand of former Gov. Jim Hunt in his role as the closest thing North Carolina has to a civic pope.
Tax reform is a subject that's easy to put off, like it's easy to find excuses not to sit your pre-teen down for a chat about hormones.
That's because when taxes are fiddled with, some people almost always come out ahead and others take a hit. Not only do those taking the hit dislike having to pay more, but they're jealous of those who get to pay less.
What this typically adds up to is stalemate -- or a situation where the tax code is tweaked only out of desperation. It's not a game plan to take to the Super Bowl of public policy. Just ask Governor Easley, who took a stab at tax modernization, only to have to settle for some nibbling around the edges. The major tax decisions made on Easley's watch have generally been in response to a dire budget squeeze brought on by the recession of recent and unlamented memory.
Deciding how the state raises its revenue of course has to occur in tandem with deciding how much revenue is needed.
But if we assume for argument's sake that the chicken begat the egg that begat the chicken, then it's not much of a stretch to say that North Carolina's tax system begat the funds, which begat the investment, which begat the workforce, which begat the taxes.
In other words, one way to gauge whether the state's revenue structure is adequate is by how well the state is able educate its younger generations to take their place as productive citizens. In today's hyper-competitive economy, with not only other states but other countries angling to chow down on the collective Tar Heel lunch, the investment needed to make sure our young people can hold their own can't be expected to shrink.
Pressure to spend more money on education, at all levels, is a principal reason why the state budget in recent years has been under such strain. At the same time, it's been widely noted that the sales tax, a big dog among revenue sources, is becoming less efficient in an economy where people's spending habits have shifted toward the purchase of services and away from the purchase of actual products. Service transactions aren't taxed.
Should they be? And if so, which ones? That's a familiar question bound to crop up at the Emerging Issues event. It would be simple enough to say, well, tax 'em all -- but some powerful interests would just as soon be left off the list. And once the exemptions start to flow, who gets left holding the bag? Probably those service businesses that cater to ordinary folks -- barber shops, beauty salons, dry cleaners, car repair places. Great.
Yes, fairness in raising the money needed to carry out our shared public responsibilities is at the core of the tax reform debate. And that fairness factor is reason to shudder when some Emerging Issues brainstormers float the idea of cutting or even wiping out the corporate income tax.
The tax on corporate profits now is pegged at 6.9 percent, which critics complain is high compared with rates in other Southeastern states. But when various deductions, credits and loopholes are figured in, the "effective" tax rate is thought to be considerably lower. The N.C. Budget & Tax Center, a non-profit policy group, points to a national study that found North Carolina's business tax burden actually to be the lowest in the Southeast by four different measures.
In a 2004 report, the center acknowledged that the state's business taxes needed reform. But it warned that rate cuts could "put money into the hands of the wealthy without any guarantees that the money will be reinvested in any meaningful way that will help North Carolina's struggling working families."
This is a state with an unusually large number of working families whose incomes fall toward the bottom of the scale. A tax system that has gone many years without an overhaul places a disproportionate burden on them. And that system has difficulty generating the revenue needed to help people lift themselves out of poverty. Let those who would bring reform to Tar Heel taxation pay more attention to the needs of folks who struggle to meet basic expenses than to the desires of those who want to pad their companies' bottom lines.
William Ivey Long Keeps His Clothes On
Feb. 6, 2006
NY Times
By ALEX WITCHEL
© Copyright 2006
January 29, 2006 -- On the night that the movie "The Producers" had its premiere at the Ziegfeld in New York, William Ivey Long, costume designer for both it and the hit Broadway show, sidestepped the red carpet and went quickly inside. Not that he could hide. A showgirl in a sleeveless gold lamé dress immediately embraced him.
"The smallest waist in three counties!" he cried, turning her side to side from her hips. "You're not wearing any underwear."
"You're telling me," she said, laughing, arms covered with goose pimples. It must have been 20 degrees outside. Turning to greet someone else, Long accidentally knocked the cap off the actor Ernie Sabella's head. "It's only apparel," Sabella said graciously, picking it up.
Only? Apparel has been at the center of Long's universe since he made his first costume at age 6 - an Elizabethan ruff that he sewed around his dog's neck. That was followed by a bonnet he whipped up from a pattern he traced around his hand. You would expect no less from a designer whose wit and inventiveness have consistently bolstered the standards of musical-theater glitz. In the recent Lincoln Center production of Stephen Sondheim's "Frogs," for instance, Long gave the chorus girls in Hell headdresses that flamed up like cigarette lighters.
Long has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards and won 4 ("The Producers," "Hairspray," "Crazy for You," "Nine"), and this week he will be inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame. To be eligible for that honor, a theater artist must have at least five significant Broadway credits in 25 years of work. At 58, Long has done 50 Broadway shows, a milestone he celebrated last spring with a party for 400 at the Boathouse in Central Park, given by Susan Stroman, the director of "The Producers," Wendy Wasserstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright ("The Heidi Chronicles") and a friend from Long's days at the Yale School of Drama, and Paul Rudnick, the playwright and screenwriter ("In and Out"), who once worked as Long's assistant. The invitation bore a quote from the critic John Simon's review of "The Lady and the Clarinet," an Off Broadway play from 1983. "William Ivey Long's costumes hover between taste and travesty," he wrote. So of course, Long invited him. And he came.
At the Ziegfeld, Long was stopped continually on the way to his seat, and he spent a good 20 minutes kissing everyone - gay women, straight men - smack on the lips. When people saw Long, it was if they were seeing dessert - eyes widened, mouths opened, then they grabbed. He reciprocated in kind. "Oh, goddess!" was a frequent greeting, and not only to the women.
But when he finally sat down, his tension was palpable. He hadn't yet seen the movie, which required 7,000 costumes (the show has 497 by comparison), and he didn't know what to expect. Though "The Producers" is only his fourth film, he has often ventured beyond Broadway. Until the tiger intervened, he costumed Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage in Las Vegas, where "Hairspray" will open at the Luxor next month; he has designed operas for Leonard Bernstein and ballets for Peter Martins, Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp at New York City Ballet. He dressed Mick Jagger for the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels U.S. tour in 1989 and made the paper dresses in Bruce Weber's video of the Pet Shop Boys' "I Get Along." Although the fashion line he tried to establish in 2003 failed, he continues to design for private clients, including Halle Berry, who wore one of his gowns to the 2002 Screen Actors Guild awards.
Throughout the movie, Long sat at ramrod attention with his hands on his knees, and as soon as the lights came up, he bounded over three rows of seats to get to Stroman. They hugged as he congratulated her before leaving separately for the party at the Metropolitan Club. So? What did he think? He looked worried. "I always want to redo something," he said. "I saw every bra strap in captivity, or not in captivity, more to the point."
At the party, Long ignored the sumptuous buffet tables. "I'm not here to eat; I'm here to say hello to people," he said. "Let's go look in that fancy room." He first greeted Stroman's extended family, then Neil Simon, whose last four plays Long has designed costumes for, then producers of the show and of the movie "The Producers." His campy exuberance was muted here. When it came to the grown-ups - the people who could hire him - Long dispensed a more burnished version of his Southern charm. That was, until he ran into Nathan Lane, holding court in a circle of admirers.
"Run!" Lane shouted to Long when he saw me standing beside him, notebook in hand. "When she wrote about me, I was the clown who cried, and you'll be the costumer who cried. 'Oh, poor William! Fourteen houses and no boyfriend!"'+
No one laughed louder than Long, though the joke had its sting. When I asked him about it later, he shrugged. "Nathan's talking about what he wants, not me," he said. It is indeed true that Long has never had a partner. The 14 houses are 12 houses; Long restores houses the way other people knit. There are two houses in the Berkshires, a brownstone in Chelsea, a farm in Pennsylvania and the rest in North Carolina: five houses in Seaboard, the tiny town where the Long family settled in 1676 and where Long is undertaking an elaborate program of what Rudnick calls "rural renewal"; a historic house in coastal Rose Bay and another two in Manteo, on the Outer Banks, where Long is the production designer for "The Lost Colony," an annual summer pageant about the first American settlers.
So, if not a boyfriend, what does he want? For starters, his appetite for work is insatiable. He converted an abandoned school in the Berkshires into a research archive for his own costumes as well as the historical clothing he collects (he lends these clothes to Off Broadway shows that could never afford to make them); he founded the nonprofit Eastern Seaboard Trust to encourage economic development there and has just completed a feasibility study with a grant from the state of North Carolina on how to create jobs. And most of his shows either preview out of town, sprout touring companies or both. "Chicago" alone has kept Long busy on Broadway and on the road for the last 10 years.
Highly caffeinated and in constant motion, he is rarely by himself. To enter the floating treehouse of Long's life, the tight camaraderie of his five-person staff, one of whom always travels with him, is a curious exercise. His flow of ideas is continuous - when he speaks, someone always takes notes - and his attention to detail is both meticulous and obsessive, whether it is finding the right trim for a dress or insisting that Seaboard fund-raising thank-you notes be postmarked only in Seaboard. Despite a certain amount of eye-rolling, the staff clearly adores him; most of them have been with him for years.
Long is also actively enamored of his family's exquisite 18th- and 19th-century furniture, much of which he has spent years restoring, and it fills his houses. (That's family the Southern way; every June, Long gives a Long family party, and 600 people attend.) Whenever a cousin doesn't want something, Long drives a truck down to rescue it. So no matter what city they are in, his houses feel vaguely the same.
That's all on the inside. To see Long race through a day on the outside, with his very big brain and even bigger personality, is to see someone for whom the world has clearly not been an easy place. No matter the activity - whether professional or one of his endless good deeds - he is there, then he's gone, like a comet, barely establishing a welcome he could possibly overstay. He seems mindful, always, to administer himself like a very strong spice, in dashes and sprinkles, only. The race ends back home, any home, surrounded by his books, his projects, his things, safe!
He has a line that gets him laughs, though it is also apparently a lesson he learned early. "Beauty is skin-deep," he likes to say. "But ugly is to the bone."
It was Long's first day of work on the Las Vegas production of "Hairspray," and his New York studio was packed with people. They filled the ground floor of his 1864 brownstone, and at the very back, he sat in the room he calls his sanctum. It is anchored by a drafting table of 18th-century American pine that he will only say was "given by a dear friend." Long has friendships with scores of celebrities and prides himself on never mentioning their names in print. (I will instead: he was an usher at Caroline Kennedy's wedding to Edwin Schlossberg, and the table was a gift from the bride's mother.)
Long showed me his "bible" for "Hairspray," an enormous notebook packed with photos of the show's 350 costumes, including shoes, bags, hats and earrings, and measurements of the cast. The undergarments that Harvey Fierstein wore on Broadway and will wear again in Vegas have the breasts and buttocks built into them.
Though the contracts had not yet been signed, Long had already started researching "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial," which will open on Broadway in May. Jerry Zaks, for whom Long has designed 24 productions, will direct, and David Schwimmer will star. Long often represents himself in business negotiations and drives a notoriously hard bargain for his services, with reason. Traditionally, men have been the set designers in the theater - think architecture - while women designed the clothes and were, unsurprisingly, paid less. The standard minimum fee for a show, Long says, is determined by the number of characters and costumes, whether it is a musical or a play and whether it requires contemporary or period dress. Most costume designers get the fee plus a flat payment for each week of a run. Long often gets the fee and a percentage of the weekly gross, both on Broadway and on the road.
One producer who has worked with Long calls him "brilliant and fastidious" though said he is still smarting from the cost. But André Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, which produced "The Frogs" and a number of other Long-designed shows, said: "Most great designers I know are expensive. And William really gets in the trenches with the hems and the pins. It's not like all the assistants do it and he's standing off to the side wearing a beret."
Certainly in the last decade or so, Long's singular flair for color and good-natured glamour has jibed with the increased amount of spectacle on Broadway. But Zaks, whose work with Long includes both the 1992 Tony-Award-winning revival of "Guys and Dolls" and the 1991 Tony-Award-winning play "Six Degrees of Separation," said: "William always makes the play the most important thing. He never allows his style to upstage the material. And whether he's got a dollar to work with or unlimited funds, he's tirelessly inventive."
Leaving the bustle of the studio, Long led the way to the top floor of the house; the walls of his bedroom are covered in brocade, and he sleeps in his great-great-great grandparents' canopied mahogany bed, circa 1835. Across the hall is another sanctum with his great-grandmother's Chippendale chairs and walls of books organized by topic: fashion, men and uniforms, oversize folios, interiors, decorative arts and his favorite, architecture. When he can't sleep, he comes here, though when he's designing he gets inspiration from all over. One costume in "Hairspray" began its life as a pink plastic shower curtain in a discount store on 14th Street; another as a bedspread in the Garnet Hill catalog.
Long, who saves his flights of fancy for his actors and their characters, has worn the same outfit for some 30 years now: navy blazer, white shirt, striped tie, khakis, black lace-up shoes. "I have to wear a uniform," he said. "If I were wearing something people commented on, it would be distracting. Everyone knows I am focused only on them."
He took a seat facing his four Tony Awards, displayed on the mantel of the fireplace. "Let other people keep them in the bathroom," he said. "I'm proud as hell." He will be inducted into the Hall of Fame by Stroman, and from the breathless way Long talks about her, you would think he was a starstruck fan; they've done nine Broadway shows together, including the musical "Contact." But he takes nothing for granted, especially his friendships. And in the theater, where egos blaze at the most inopportune moments, he usually manages to remain above the fray. In 2003, when Mary Tyler Moore quit the Neil Simon play "Rose's Dilemma" late in previews after Simon criticized her performance, she stormed out of her dressing room as Long stood outside. What ever did he do?
"I made sure the understudy had clothes," he said evenly. "The trick about the theater is at the end of the day you cannot take any of it personally. At the level at which I work with people, their great talent is paired with great insecurity. Self-doubt is literally the twin of self-confidence. And I have to be there for both."
Well, who's there for him when his twin takes over? "With friends like mine, who needs a significant other?" he said. "I'm a bachelor in the old sense of the word, meaning I flirt, I have very many close relationships, but then I come home and like to read my book. In fact, I have escaped many complete breakdowns by calling up Paul Rudnick and making him listen. We both laugh because neither of us believes in shrinks. That's what friends are for. I guess I've lost some along the way, but since they're not here, I don't notice."
Long said he was "a manic child" who would fight with anyone, the "toughest sissy on the block" in Rock Hill, S.C. "My mind still runs too fast," he said. "If we get the wrong fabric or something is stitched the wrong way, I get so angry and so flummoxed that I start spelling my words, just to slow myself down. The kids downstairs know that's code for 'William's really nervous, nothing is personal.' My parents' favorite comment was: 'Billy, calm down and be yourself.' Which insulted me to the core because I was being myself. I have never stopped being myself. 'Billy, calm down and be someone else' is what they were trying to say."
At the very least, it would seem, he was theatrical from the start, living the first three years of his life in the stage-left dressing room of the amphitheater at the Raleigh Little Theater, where his father, William Ivey Long Sr., was the technical director (he later wrote plays) and his mother, Mary, acted and designed costumes. "It was like a circus family," he said. "I often say my parents left the farm to join the circus."
The Longs moved to a house after their second son, Robert, was born. (He is a theater architect based in Chapel Hill.) Their daughter, Laura, who still lives in Rock Hill, works with the Merry Pranksters, a theater company for the mentally challenged, which her mother helped found.
Long assumed he would become a professor like his father and graduated from the College of William and Mary before taking a teaching fellowship at his parents' alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He spent three years there pursuing a Ph.D. in Renaissance art history. During that time he befriended Betty Smith, the author of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," who had come South to teach playwriting. "She saw me struggling with art history, and she could see that my heart wasn't in it," he said. Smith had studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and encouraged Long to apply as a designer. But when he was accepted, he was the only one who celebrated; his parents regarded his career change as quitting.
"It was so traumatic," he recalled. "My father was a full professor at Winthrop University in South Carolina, where he founded the drama department, and my mother taught high-school drama for 21 years. They were very disappointed in me."
By the time Long graduated from Yale in 1975, he had been in college and graduate school for 10 years and had no idea how to look for a job. He moved into the Chelsea Hotel to be near one of his idols, the couturier Charles James, who lived there and for whom Long worked, unpaid, until James died in 1978. But he couldn't find work in the theater and had what he calls "breakdowns" for two years. "When I came to New York, I was so scared that I would eat one banana and one yogurt a day, and I weighed 135 pounds," he said. "So I arrived with the least amount of energy you could possibly have. I can only imagine now that here was this scarecrow person, lacking the kick and drive and the clawing that I have shown is the center of my work ethic ever since."
Long supported himself by designing dolls that Wasserstein and Rudnick sold for him. Finally, in 1978, the set designer Karen Schulz, his good friend from Yale, was hired to do "The Inspector General" on Broadway and recommended him to design costumes. He hasn't stopped since. In fact, one rap against him in the business - especially among costume designers in search of work - is that Long takes on too much.
"That is totally true," he said. "When I'm excited about a project, I'll take it even if I shouldn't. It's an addiction. Because when you turn jobs down, it's the worst. A great percentage of the time, the person who offered it to you will never offer you another job again. I'll sign that in blood. I have a real spiritual spook about it. You know how you relive things? I relive all those, and I'm still designing several shows I already designed because I don't think I got them right. Everyone liked 'Guys and Dolls,' but was it really right?" (He won a Drama Desk Award for it.) "I'm not saying I thought it was bad. But because it had so many possibilities, I'm constantly redesigning it."
Wow. Those must have been some parents.
"They died in 1998, six weeks apart after being married for 52 years," Long said. "It wasn't a great marriage, but they stayed together because, at the end of the day, they were best friends."
Was his being gay difficult for them? His expression was blank. "It was never mentioned," he said. "Though on her deathbed, we were in the hospice with the morphine pump, and my mother was answering questions to 'Jeopardy,' getting them right. And in between guessing the correct answer and the morphine pump, she would say, 'Oh, I still hope you find some nice girl and settle down and have children, because children are the greatest happiness in anyone's life.' Pump, pump. Not that this seared itself into my soul or anything. But there you have it."
As Long spoke, his eyes turned red and filled with tears while the rest of his face pretended not to notice. So the moment passed quickly. "I'm guilty because I haven't made everyone happy and everything perfect," he said wearily. "It's the same old story."
Maybe that's why he likes being with his family's furniture more than he liked being with his family. He smiled. "No, actually I liked being with them. I'm just telling you there was some torture along the way. I think it's encouraging to have their things around. I have a great sense of history, which I learned from them. I think that's why in the South, you hold onto things. Because they remind you."
Seaboard, located in the northeastern corner of North Carolina, was originally called Concord, a farming community founded in the 17th century. The town was incorporated in 1877 and renamed Seaboard after the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Its current population is 674.
"What it really is, is ordinary," Long said during the 90-minute drive to Seaboard from Raleigh. "For me the magic is it's where I'm from, therefore it's extraordinary." He moved here in 1997 (growing up he and his family spent holidays here), and in addition to restoring houses, he bought a building through the Seaboard Trust, where a health clinic opened last summer. On this trip, the trust was buying another building to house a pharmacy.
But show business is never far away. In nearby Roanoke Rapids, Randy Parton, brother of Dolly, is among the partners planning to open Carolina Crossroads, an entertainment district, in April 2007. An aspiring Branson, Mo., it is to have live-performance theaters, movie theaters, restaurants, hotels and shops. Long arranged for the trust to buy the Seaboard School (formerly Grades 1-12, it closed for lack of students) and he is turning it into the Seaboard School of Fashion and Costume, with the help of the North Carolina State College of Textiles and College of Design. The school will make costumes for the new theaters and the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh. Long also plans to start a laundry and dry-cleaning facility in Seaboard to service the costumes and uniforms at Carolina Crossroads. These projects, he says, will bring 50 jobs to Seaboard to start.
As he talked about his plan, he was so excited he could barely stay in his seat. "North Carolina State has one of the most advanced textile programs in the country," he said. "By having this market here, we will be unique as a training facility."
When we arrived at the Long family house, we got our sleeping assignments: I would stay there, Long would stay in his own house next door, the yellow house (pronounced "YELL-uh"), and Brian Mear, who handles his finances, would stay in the staff house across the street.
Not so fast. Long may be creating his own personal sequel to "The Last Picture Show," but to me, this setup was "In Cold Blood." Alone in a five-bedroom house in the middle of nowhere?
O.K. Mear would stay with me. The notion of inviting me to stay at his house never seemed to occur to Long, nor did he volunteer to stay with me. And by the way, with his love of history and tradition, why doesn't he live in the family house?
Long, who was racing through the yellow house showing me his tiger maple furniture when I asked that question, stopped still. "I've never slept there," he said, as if he hadn't realized it before. "Maybe I don't want to give in and have a family."
Forget about avoiding intimacy - he won't even share plumbing. Later, Paul Rudnick tried to give some context. "I think to a certain extent that the world is William's significant other," he said. "That's why the projects keep expanding. You wonder if there's a sadness or a lack there, but it's hard to imagine him being satisfied with one person, one Tony Award, one town. But he's not that old, so you never know. I would love to see who that match might be - but they're probably buried at Westminster Abbey."
I ran around with Long for the rest of the afternoon, to the farm and all the houses. At the yellow house, he made coffee and stood still long enough to listen to the 17 messages on his answering machine. One was from a 98-year-old aunt, who said she wasn't up to seeing him during Christmas.
Long shook his head. "She's just feeling, that's all," he said, as if it were akin to the flu. "That happens."
He cut camellias from the yard, arranged them in crystal vases, presided over a glorious buffet dinner at which the guests talked about the neighbors and actually said things like "I'm not sure who his people were." After they left, a train whistled mournfully in the deadly silent night, and Mear or no Mear, I hardly slept a wink. I kept recalling a moment that afternoon when we returned from a spin through the local cemetery and Long mentioned that his mother was not buried there with his father.
"Mother was buried at Manteo, where she was the queen," Long said. It turns out that for 10 years, Mary Long played Queen Elizabeth there in "The Lost Colony," and that is where she preferred to spend eternity.
"Her opening line was 'Unto my people, greetings,"' her son said. "That's what's on the tombstone."
Well, that explains a lot.
The following week, back in New York, Robin Givens came to Long's house for her fitting. She was preparing to join the Broadway cast of "Chicago" this month, and six costumes needed to be made.
Seeing Long again after our trip to Seaboard was unexpectedly reassuring. His clothes were the same, the furniture felt like North Carolina and Mear and company were present and accounted for. The Long family treehouse at work.
Givens is the first African-American to play Roxie, and since the clothes are variations on black negligees, Long had to make adjustments. "It's all a game of playing peekaboo with the sheer and the lace, and the black is so dense," he said. "The Roxies we've had never even had a suntan."
The original Roxie was Ann Reinking, on whom the clothes were built, a process Long says is all about defining the character. "I try to come to the first meeting knowing just the written word," he said. "Hopefully there's not a previous production or a movie, a previously owned vehicle, as I say, because I don't need to know that someone was wearing the red dress. Until the director shows me what way we're going, I don't need to start thinking, which is one of the hardest things, because how can you not start seeing the production as you're reading it? At the second meeting I can bring ideas, start my thumbnails and collages. By the third meeting the designs are almost ready, and I have a give-and-take with the actors."
Givens appeared first in a tiny dress with a plunging neckline, looking like a million bucks. Long, on his knees, reached up and pushed her breasts closer together before starting to pin. He touched her like a collector handling a vintage doll, with a sense of both worship and play.
The next costume was a dress that cut straight across her neck. "You wear this dress in the opening scene when we don't know Roxie yet, so it makes sense to be covered up," Long told her. "Later, in your solo, it should be totally revealing." That's where the plunging neckline comes in.
When the fitting was over, Long and I returned to his upstairs sanctum. Even with the door closed, the sound of people on the stairs was loud and clear. With the boss out of commission all morning, the staff was growing frantic. But ever the gentleman, Long made a final go at trying to identify what makes him run.
"I tried being a New Yorker," he said, "but in New York it's not a challenge to be accepted. I wanted to go someplace where they could be critical and I could say: 'Too bad, I belong here. I don't have to apologize for being strange because I'm from a long line of strange people who were here from the beginning of time and that's it.' And that's very comforting to me."
It also meant a great deal, he said, that his father lived long enough to see the family's roots re-established in Seaboard.
"I felt my dad did not achieve his potential," Long said. "He was a sensitive soul stuck in his time and place. He made this incredible leap from farm boy to playwright, though he was never able to make the leap to professional theater. That's one of the reasons I use his name. I learned my work ethic from both my parents. My God, did they work! That's why I think 'dilettante' is the word I fear most. It's why I try to be so thorough, why I work so hard. Whatever I do, I want it to be serious."
The footsteps were on the stairs again, and Long knew he had to go. He closed an oversize architecture book that lay on the table - he had picked it out in the dark the night before when he couldn't sleep, an insomniac's game. "I look at the pictures," he said, "and of course, I read it too, and at the end, I start again. You learn by going over it." He seemed to hesitate as he brought it back to the shelf, as if he might stay. But he slid it into place, returned the Chippendale chairs to their usual station, side by side against the wall, and once he showed me out, closed the door softly, even tenderly, behind him.
Alex Witchel is a staff writer for the magazine
Monsanto proposes natural refuge for Bollgard II cotton
Feb. 6, 2006
Delta Farm Press (NE)
By Forrest Laws
© Copyright 2006
Monsanto has petitioned EPA to eliminate the structured non-Bt refuge requirement for farmers in Texas, the Mid-South and the Southeast when they grow the company’s Bollgard II cotton technology.
Currently, growers have two refuge options when they plant transgenic Bt (Bollgard or Bollgard II) cotton: Option 1 requires a 20 percent or greater refuge of non-Bt cotton and Option 2 calls for a 5 percent non-Bt refuge that cannot be treated with insecticides for bollworm or tobacco budworm. (If the 5 percent refuge is embedded, it can only be treated if the associated Bt cotton is treated at the same time.)
Both options were designed to provide a source of susceptible bollworm/tobacco moths that can mate with moths that might become resistant to the single Bt gene in Bollgard cotton.
The requirements were suggested by a scientific advisory panel convened by EPA in the mid-1990s to develop strategies to prevent the development of resistance in bollworm and tobacco budworm to the technology.
But Monsanto researchers and some university scientists are saying that the non-Bt cotton refuge acres required to prevent target pests from developing resistance over time are not necessary in the two-gene system of the Bollgard II technology.
The issue, researchers say, is not that they don’t need susceptible insects; it’s that susceptible insects may come from a large number of alternate crop and native host plants. Scientists have known bollworms can complete larval development on a number of plants, including corn, soybeans and grain sorghum. But they thought the number of hosts for tobacco budworm was limited — until now.
“We have good data from North Carolina and Georgia that show tobacco budworm can be found living on a number of crops and other plants,” says J.R. Bradley, professor of entomology at North Carolina State University. “I’ve even found them on my wife’s petunias in my backyard here in Raleigh.”
North Carolina and Georgia are two of the six cotton-producing states where Monsanto and cooperating university scientists conducted studies over the last four years to determine the host range for bollworm and tobacco budworm. The tests, which used carbon isotope (C-3/C-4 assays) and gossypol analyses to determine the insects’ larval food sources, were expanded to include southeast Texas in 2005.
“We’ve done two years of studies with bollworm, and we pretty well understand that bollworms (a) have a lot of hosts throughout the season and (b) they’re flying significant distances all season long so there is significant mixing from these alternate hosts,” said Walt Mullins, Monsanto’s technical manager for Bollgard and Bollgard II.
“We have solid reasons to believe there will be contributions on the bollworm side from hosts such as soybeans, peanuts, weedy hosts, corn, sorghum. All are contributing to the overall population, and we’ve been able to measure that, primarily with C-3/C-4 analyses.”
The missing piece of the puzzle has been the tobacco budworm. Most scientists have assumed tobacco budworms would be mostly found in cotton and tobacco, especially during July, August and September when susceptible insects are needed to mate with resistant individuals to prevent resistance development.
But the tests in North Carolina and Georgia showed that minimally 80 to 90 percent of the tobacco budworms found in those states were “non-cotton” moths; that is, they had fed as larvae on plants other than cotton.
“We found significant numbers of tobacco budworm moths in the study, but they were largely non-cotton moths all season long,” said Mullins. “We anticipated a certain degree of that based on tobacco as a host. But peanuts are also a fairly good host for tobacco budworms along with soybeans and the diversity of other, weedy hosts for that area.
“But what we were really amazed at was how much the cotton’s contribution to moth production was getting drowned out by everything else that was going on. We knew there would be some non-cotton produced tobacco budworms, but we were really surprised at the magnitude of that number.”
In the Mid-South and southeast Texas, where growers tend to plant fewer crops besides cotton, the percentages of non-cotton tobacco budworm moths weren’t as high. Monsanto conducted the tests in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee in 2004 and added southeast Texas in 2005.
“Southeast Texas is where we saw some of the first pyrethroid resistance in tobacco budworm, and we decided we should include that region in the sampling as well,” said Mullins.
In what he called the “worst-case scenario,” university and Monsanto researchers saw no less than 10 percent of the moths that were non-cotton moths in any location all season long. The lowest numbers were found in southeast Texas and the lower Delta states.
“That means if you have 100 moths in the comparison at least 10 of those moths came from some other host than cotton,” said Mullins, “and, more typically, in Mississippi and northeast Arkansas it would be closer to 40 to 50 percent.”
Applying statistical analysis to those numbers means that you could be dealing with numbers of non-cotton moths as high as 10 percent or as low as 1 percent — if you want to be conservative, says Mullins.
From the time Bt cotton was introduced in 1996, entomologists have been using computer models to try to predict how soon and under what conditions tobacco budworms or bollworms could theoretically develop resistance to the single Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt gene contained in Bollgard cotton.
The primary motivation for dev