Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1160522
AUGUST 28-SEPTEMBER 3, 2019 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Hope Mills News & Views NEWS Roundtable aims to get Hope Mills citizens' input by EARL VAUGHAN JR. Elected leaders are welcome but politics will not be the focus of a Hope Mills Community Roundtable sponsored by the Hope Mills Chamber of Commerce and Up & Coming Weekly. The event is scheduled at Harmony at Hope Mills, 7051 Rockfish Road, on Thursday. A meet and greet time is scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m., followed by the roundtable at 7 p.m. "We are glad to be hosting it with Up & Coming (Weekly) and Harmony of Hope Mills,'' said Jan Spell, president of the Hope Mills Chamber of Commerce. Spell called Harmony a wonderful facility that has been good to the chamber. "Now they're wanting to be good to the residents of our com- munity as well,'' she said. "We hope that they'll come out and express their voices so they can be heard, do a little learning and let us learn from them as well.'' The roundtable will begin with brief presen- tations by local government leaders and town staff. While all citizens and elected officials are welcome to attend, Spell stressed this is not a political rally and should not be confused with a campaign event on the part of anyone running for office. "There may be candidates there that the resi- dents want to speak with,'' she said. "Everyone is welcome to attend. This is an open forum for everyone, not just citywide but countywide too. "Mostly we're looking for our citizens to come and join us.'' In addition to Spell, scheduled speakers include Cumberland County Commissioner Michael Boose and Hope Mills town finance director Drew Holland. Up & Coming Weekly publisher Bill Bowman said his publication is sponsoring the event to give the people of Hope Mills a chance to learn what the Chamber of Commerce is doing in the community and to bring people up to date on the wonderful things that are going on in Hope Mills. "The best way to do that is to get everybody together on an informal basis, to have an infor- mal conversation about what they would like to see, what they like about Hope Mills and to meet the movers and shakers of the county and Hope Mills so they can identify people and start developing relationships with the town,'' he said. Like Spell, Bowman stressed the event is not political in nature. "This is for the people,'' he said. "No political agenda associated with it.'' Bowman said the response to this first meet- ing will be gauged, and if it's successful, future meetings could be held as frequently as quar- terly each year. "We want to get people used to them,'' he said. "It should be a lot of fun.'' When Hurricane Florence blew through Hope Mills last fall, one of the many casualties of the storm was the Miss Cotton Pageant. Florence became a perfect storm to wreck the pageant as the town's Parks and Recreation Building was damaged and uninhabitable for months, forcing the recreation staff to take temporary headquarters in Town Hall. All that upheaval made the task of putting on the pageant too big a chal- lenge. But barring the intervention of weather again this fall, the Miss Cotton Pageant will return, scheduled Friday and Saturday, Sept. 27-28, in the audi- torium at Jack Britt High School. Paulette Hobbs of the recreation department is overseeing this year's pageant. The original plan was to hold it at South View High School, but the school couldn't guarantee the dates the town was seeking, so it was moved to the auditorium at Jack Britt. Applications to enter the pageant are available at the recreation center on Rockfish Road or online at www. townofhopemills.com. The entry fee is $50 per contestant and the entry deadline is Friday, Sept. 13. Separate age categories of the com- petition will be held on each of the two nights of the pageant. Sept. 27 is for the 3- to 9-year-old contestants. Sept. 28 is for the 10- to 22-year-old contestants. Both evenings the competition will begin at 6:30 p.m. Two important events will be held prior to the actual pageant. On Saturday, Sept. 21 at 11 a.m. at the Parks and Recreation Building there will be a meeting with all parents of pageant contestants. Thursday, Sept. 26, from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m., a dress rehearsal for all contestants will take place in the auditorium at Jack Britt High School. For any questions or concerns about the pageant, contact Hobbs at the Parks and Recreation offices at 910-426-4109. Miss Cotton Pageant returns after year's absence by EARL VAUGHAN JR.