One of N.C.’s ‘coolest’ new products is ‘Old 97 Kettlecorn’

Nominations for the “Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina,” an online contest offered by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, open Aug. 22. We’re previewing some of the likely “small business category” candidates. 

And, we’d be hard-pressed to find a more “down-home” family business in North Carolina than The Old 97 Kettlecorn Company, located in Spencer in Rowan County.

 

This newly established company was registered in 2018 and takes its name from “The Old 97,” which was the legendary Southern Railway mail train that ran off the tracks while crossing a ravine at Danville, Va., on Sept. 27, 1903. Eleven people were killed in that tragic accident.

 The engineer was under pressure, some sources say, to make up time on the leg from Monroe, Va. (near Lynchburg) to Spencer, the mid-way point on the line between Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Ga. If the mail train was late to arrive in Spencer, the Southern Railway would be subject to a penalty fine by U.S. post authorities. 

Laurie Deal-Wilson, who formed The Old 97 Kettlecorn Company, is proud to claim Spencer as her hometown. She said that throughout the years, many of her kinfolk have worked at Spencer Shops, which was the railroad’s repair and maintenance facility built in Spencer in 1896. 

(The conversion from steam locomotives to diesel locomotives caused the demise of the Spencer Shops. They were phased out by the 1970s, but the complex is now home to the acclaimed North Carolina Transportation Museum.) 

Spencer and railroading go together much like kettle corn and festivals. 

Laurie Deal-Wilson gives much credit to her daughter, Taylor Wilson, for concocting the secret kettle corn recipe. While away at college in Pennsylvania, Taylor was “converted” from salty, movie theater-style popcorn to sweet-and-salty kettle corn. Add sugar…and some flavoring, if you’d like.

 

Freelance writer Geraldine Higgins wrote: “The Wilsons set out to turn their newfound (kettle corn) passion into a business and quickly built a brand honoring their hometown’s deep-rooted connection to locomotives.” 

“The name of the company itself is a reference to the country ballad ‘The Wreck of Old 97,’” Higgins added. 

Indeed. Performed in 1924 by Vernon Dalhart, it was the first country record to sell 1 million copies. Many artists have covered the song, but the fan-favorite version is Hank Snow’s…with Johnny Cash’s rendition running a close second.

Hank Snow

 

Taylor’s brother, Coleman, took the kettle corn idea and ran with it, devoting himself fulltime to launching a legitimate business. He sought out weekend festivals in the area to promote The Old 97 Kettlecorn line. 

That was going swimmingly, even prompting an introduction of a highly popular Cheerwine flavor of kettle corn. (Cheerwine is a uniquely flavored cherry-cola soft drink that was invented in nearby Salisbury in 1917.)

 

The 2020 COVID pandemic was a game-changer for The Old 97 Kettlecorn Company. Festivals were cancelled left and right, “leaving the company without its main source of revenue,” Higgins wrote. “With no events to attend, the company was forced to reinvent itself.” 

“We became adamant about going into stores and ordering online,” Coleman said. 

Laurie said the transition has worked, because of the Wilson family’s commitment “with every batch to bring you the best-tasting kettle corn you can find.” 

“Our customers are important,” she said. “We understand the value of their dollar, so that is why we strive to provide consistency in our product” and welcome them “into our family.” 

As the N.C. Chamber says: “What’s made in North Carolina is what makes North Carolina.”

Hatteras is the ‘tall guy’ among the N.C. lighthouses

Standing an impressive 208 feet tall, the massive Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at Buxton, N.C., is the tallest brick lighthouse in the United States…and the second tallest brick lighthouse in the world, about 5 feet shorter than one in Poland that overlooks the Baltic Sea.

That’s the official word from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

 

Construction of a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras was first authorized in 1794 when the U.S. Congress recognized the dangers posed by the Diamond Shoals to ships traveling up and down the Atlantic Ocean coastline. However, construction did not begin until 1799. 

The original lighthouse was lit in October 1803. Made of sandstone, it was 90 feet tall with a lamp powered by whale oil. Sadly, it proved to be largely ineffective – it was too short, the unpainted sandstone blended in with the background and the signal was not strong enough to reach mariners. 

It took half a century, but in 1853, the U.S. Lighthouse Board, decided to add 60 feet to the height of the lighthouse, thereby, making the tower 150 feet tall. The newly extended tower was then painted “the top half red and the bottom half white,” making the lighthouse more recognizable during the day. 

Faced with the need for extensive lighthouse repairs after the Civil War, Congress decided to appropriate funds for a new and improved lighthouse at Cape Hatteras and demolish the old one. 

The new lighthouse was lit on Dec. 16, 1870. It received the famous black and white stripe daymark pattern in 1873. The Lighthouse Board assigned each lighthouse a distinctive paint pattern (daymark) and different light sequence (nightmark) to allow mariners to recognize it from all others during the day and night as they sailed along the coast.

 

Due to threatening beach erosion, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was decommissioned in 1935. The beacon was then moved temporarily to a skeletal steel tower. By 1950, Mother Nature had rebuilt the beach in front of the lighthouse, so the Coast Guard returned the beacon to the lighthouse. 

The lighthouse was absorbed by the newly established Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 1953. Discussions within the U.S. National Park Service began about ways to stabilize the beach in front of the lighthouse. 

In 1999, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was perilously close to the ocean’s edge. It was time to move to higher ground. The lighthouse traveled a distance of 2,900 feet in 23 days.

 

The enormous $11.8 million undertaking was a huge success. The ASCE selected the “relocation project” as the recipient of its annual Outstanding Civil Engineering Award of the year. The organization commented that “the huge edifice was moved atop rollers in much the same fashion it is thought the blocks for the great pyramids of Egypt were moved.” 

John M. Havel of Salvo, an Outer Banks community, is the owner of Havel Research Associates. He has studied all aspects of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse for many years. He told Jennifer Allen of the North Carolina Coastal Federation: 

“I personally know at least three locals – and there were many, many more – who would have sworn on their parents’ graves that the lighthouse was certain to break apart and crumble once they tried to lift or move it. In actual fact, the brilliant and brave men and women who planned and executed this feat had no qualms at all,” Havel said. 

“Records, instruments and photographs show that not one out of the 1,250,000 bricks was cracked or broken during the move.”

Bodie Island Lighthouse: ‘Third time is the charm’

North of Oregon Inlet on the Northern Outer Banks is Bodie Island, pronounced as “body island.” Natives never say “beau-dee island.” 

Local folklore says the name resulted from the many bodies that washed ashore from shipwrecks that occurred in the offshore waters that took the name “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” 

“Rising 156 feet and painted with black and white stripes (or bands), the venerable Bodie Island Lighthouse is actually the third attempt to illuminate the perilous stretch of coast between Currituck Beach and Cape Hatteras,” said Dr. Kraig Anderson of Lighthousefriends.com.

 

“Because of the mounting number of shipwrecks off this section of North Carolina’s Outer Banks,” Anderson said, “the U.S. Congress appropriated $5,000 in 1837 for a lighthouse to be built on Pea Island, south of Oregon Inlet. 

The 54-foot Pea Island lighthouse was completed in 1847, but the “tower began to lean within two years after completion,” reported the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) archivist. “Numerous expensive repairs failed to rectify the problem and the lighthouse had to be abandoned in 1859.” 

“A second lighthouse fared little better than its wobbly predecessor. Though funded, contracted and completed in prompt fashion at a nearby site on Pea Island in 1859, it soon succumbed to an unforeseen danger – the Civil War,” the NPS spokesperson said. 

Within days of the outbreak of the Civil War, North Carolina Gov. John Ellis ordered all coastal lighthouses in the state North Carolina’s lighthouses “to be extinguished so that the state would not aid the warships of the Union navy,” commented historian and author Kevin P. Duffus. 

“When it became apparent that simply extinguishing the lights would be insufficient as coastal defenses were weak, the entire lighting apparatus of each lighthouse was removed,” Duffus said. “Some Fresnel lenses were shipped to Raleigh, like Cape Lookout’s large first-order lens and Bodie Island Lighthouse’s smaller third-order optic.” 

The NPS spokesperson said: “Fearing that the new 80-foot tower on Pea Island would be used by Union forces, retreating Confederate troops blew it up in 1861.” 

After the war, the coast remained dark for several years while a replacement tower was considered by the U.S. Lighthouse Board. The location for the third lighthouse was moved north from Pea Island to a 15-acre site at Bodie Island. 

Construction began in 1871, and the Bodie Island light went into service on Oct. 1, 1872. The keepers’ quarters duplex was completed soon thereafter.

 

The light was electrified in 1932, phasing out the need for on-site keepers. All of the lighthouse property, except the tower, was deeded to the NPS in 1953, with the formation of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. 

The boundary of the national seashore extends from the southern portion of Bodie Island in a southerly direction and includes nearly all of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands – more than 70 miles of ocean frontage.

 

Ownership and responsibility for operation of the Bodie Island Lighthouse itself was finally transferred from the U.S. Coast Guard to the NPS in 2000.

 

The Bodie Island Lighthouse keepers’ duplex now serves as a ranger office and visitor center. If you’re planning a visit, factor in that the building is haunted. Every day at 4 p.m. on the dot, you can hear a loud knock from behind its large brick fireplace. No one knows what or who lies behind it.

 

Also, whenever a severe storm or hurricane is brewing offshore, the “Gray Ghost” appears as a misty apparition walking along the shoreline.

Wake Forest University is a college sports phenom

Wake Forest University is a lot like Switzerland – “a pretty place that no one hates.”

 

That’s the official assessment offered by sports commentator Mark Packer, who is the son of Wake’s hall of fame basketball star Billy Packer. 

It’s true – nobody hates Wake. The Demon Deacons are just sort of “neutral,” added Ed Southern, a Wake alumnus, author of a new book “Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South.”

 

The problem is: “We’re no one’s big rival, in football or basketball,” Southern said. “No one highlights the Wake game on the calendar.” 

Wake Forest is the smallest university among the NCAA’s “Power 5” conferences with 5,472 undergraduate students.

 

For the better part of four decades, Southern said he moved about wearing his Wake Forest ball cap and drove around in a car adorned with a Wake decal. Nobody cared. Nobody expressed any negativity. 

“Then I married an Alabama fan,” he said. (Apparently, a Crimson Tide decal was added to the family vehicle as well.) Since then, “I’ve been taunted…glared at in Waffle Houses…cut off and flipped off on the interstate.”

“Bama has become Death, Destroyer of World…and coach Nick Saban is the scowling face of doom.” 

Southern rationalizes: Alabama’s all about that other sport – football. 

For Southern, the Atlantic Coast Conference is “mostly about” basketball, but “the ACC has boxed itself out from any semblance” of its former unity and identity “thanks to the need for TV money.” 

He said that the league was once tight, with the loyal core institutions being Clemson, Duke, North Carolina, N.C. State, Virginia and Wake. Then came Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Syracuse and Louisville. 

What’s the likelihood of a Syracuse fan grabbing some Stamey’s barbecue on the way to catch a game at the Greensboro Coliseum? Would a Miami fan marvel at a stroll down Franklin Street in Chapel Hill? 

“I miss the unity, the community, of the old South-bound ACC,” Southern wrote. “ACC basketball just doesn’t feel the same.” 

“I know that an expanded ACC is far better than none at all,” he said. “Yet, expansion has made ACC basketball feel reduced, though, and has made Tobacco Road feel like a cul-de-sac.”

 

With college conference realignment looming, driven by the big media bucks associated with football, not basketball, more turmoil is expected. 

It’s sort of like the referee at tip-off lofting a ball filled with helium that won’t come down. The players, coaches and fans are all in a state of suspension. 

Looking ahead, Southern said he has a young daughter who is smart enough to know to wear a scarlet Roll Tide ball cap when her Alabama grandfather takes her fishing. 

Truth be told, he said, “I’d be just as happy for her to go to Alabama as Wake Forest. I’d even be happy for her to go to Carolina or Clemson. Duke on the other hand….” 

“How she’ll navigate…how she’ll draw her own borders…that’s all up to her, and I can’t wait to see what she chooses. Let her sing whatever fight song she wants, just as long as she gets to sing.”

 

Southern concluded: “I’d be happy for her not to go to college at all, so long as she’s happy and healthy and productive, self-sufficient and satisfied with her life.” 

In the end, he said, “the fight’s for what ought not to change – change over consumption, character over convenience, love over hate.” 

“Except for Duke, of course.”

ACC hoops were first televised 65 years ago

You might be a hard-core Atlantic Coast Conference basketball fan if you can sing the old jingle “Sail with the Pilot.” 

That was the little ditty that defined the image of Pilot Life, an insurance company based in Greensboro, N.C., that was the first corporate sponsor of ACC basketball games, beginning in 1957, produced by the venerable Castleman DeTolley Chesley, who went by C.D.

 

This is one of the ACC milestones featured by author Ed Southern of Winston-Salem in his new book, “Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South.”

 

What makes southern living complicated for the Southern family is that Ed is a die-hard fan of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons…but his wife, Jamie, is one of those Alabama “Roll Tide” types.

 

Ed Southern said he thinks every politician in North Carolina should be required to sing from memory “Sail with the Pilot.” It goes like this: 

Sail with the Pilot at the wheel

On a ship sturdy from its mast to its keel.

He guides through storm and wave,

Insures you while you save.

 

Sail with the Pilot o’er the seas,

He’s got plans for every growing family.

Worries are far behind you

There’s really peace of mind, too.

 

When you sail with the Pilot all the way,

So get on board the Pilot ship today!

 

Those were the good old days – 65 years ago this year. Charlie Harville, the sports anchor at WFMY-TV in Greensboro, and the legendary Jim Simpson were the first sportscasters employed. Chesley soon brought in others, including Woody Durham, Jim Thacker, Bones McKinney, Billy Packer and Jeff Mullins. 

Ed Southern claims that “sports fandom” is essential to one’s being. “I root because I feel rooted when I do. I cheer on my favorite teams in my favorite sports not just because I favor them, but also because of the connections I feel when I do, and I am not alone, not nearly.” 

Traditionally, Wake Forest University football has struggled to be competitive, Southern said, but the Deacons were pretty good when Coach Douglas “Peahead” Walker was there from 1937-50, compiling a record of 77-51-6.

 

Southern wrote that in 1948, a kid from Latrobe, Pa., arrived on Wake’s campus as a freshman. Coach Walker tried to steal Arnold Palmer away from the golf team to play football, “because he would never get anywhere in life playing golf.”

 

Southern also told about a kid from Wellsville, N.Y., who enrolled at Wake in 1958 to play basketball. He was born as Anthony William Paczkowski, but his parents subsequently changed the family’s Polish surname to Packer. 

Billy Packer heard about a guy named Cleo Hill, who was the star at Winston-Salem State, an HBCU (historically black college or university). Packer went to watch a game and stood out among the crowd. 

Winston-Salem State’s coach Horace “Big House” Gaines invited Packer to join him on the bench and meet his players. Soon thereafter, early one Sunday morning in 1959, Gaines was surprised to hear squeaking sneaker soles on the gym floor. Billy’s guys were playing a pickup game against Cleo’s guys. 

What they did was “unofficially integrate Winston-Salem,” Coach Gaines said.

Cleo Hill was a first-round pick in the 1961 National Basketball Association draft, selected eighth overall by the St. Louis Hawks. He served 24 years as head basketball coach at Essex County College in Newark, N.J. He died in 2015.

Cleo Hill Jr. played his college ball at North Carolina Central University in Durham. He’s now the head basketball coach at Winston-Salem State.

We’re looking for the ‘Coolest Thing Made in N.C.’

Mark your calendar: Aug. 22 is “opening day” for nominations in the third annual online contest to select the “Coolest Thing Made in North Carolina.” 

Organized by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, it’s a fun event for people to vote for their favorite N.C. companies that “make stuff.” 

Emmy Boyette, the marketing director at the N.C. Chamber, says: “What’s made in North Carolina is what makes North Carolina.” So true, so true.

 

Last year, Jarrett Bay Boatworks in Carteret County was one of the top 15 finalists. Also nominated was Shibumi Shade, a company that “invented itself” in Emerald Isle.

 

Crab pot Christmas trees and Harkers Island anchors should have been nominated. We can fix that.

 

Surely, there are others that are equally deserving…Frank Door Company in Newport and so forth. 

Anyone can make a nomination, and once the online voting period opens to the public, we can each vote from our computer once a day. 

There’s no reason why the “Crystal Coast community” cannot rally ‘round and support our home-grown small businesses and “bring home the gold” and add to our “trophy case.” 

The N.C. Chamber has tweaked the rules for 2022 to include a new “Small Business Category” for manufacturers with fewer than 100 employees. That’s a good thing. 

The first two winners were “big boys” – an electric school bus manufactured by Thomas Built Buses of High Point and a giant truck produced at the Cleveland (N.C.) Truck Manufacturing Plant. (Both are subsidiaries of Daimler Trucks North America.)

This may have been what prompted a change in the rules for 2022: “Products manufactured by a company that has won ‘The Coolest Thing Made in NC Contest’ within the past 3 years are ineligible. Manufacturers that are subsidiaries of parent companies that have won within the past 3 years are also ineligible.” 

Additionally, “nominated companies cannot use paid advertising” to promote itself or its product for the purposes of soliciting votes in the contest. Offenders will be disqualified. 

However, the N.C. Chamber encourages nominees “to utilize social media, press and other channels to promote their product in the contest…but they may also take a hands-off approach if they choose.” 

“There is no cost to participate in the contest. Membership with the N.C. Chamber is not required.” 

As information, Shibumi Shade has recently signed on with the Raleigh advertising agency Baldwin&, which was formed by David Baldwin. It will be interesting to see whether the company seeks to reach out to its loyal customers in a grassroots campaign. 

If so, Shibumi has the potential to “blow away” its competitors. 

Curiously, one of the bridesmaids in the past two contests has been George’s BBQ Sauce of Nashville, N.C. George’s is a really small family-owned business. The sauce was invented in 1975 by George Stallings of Rocky Mount.

 

He was fond of saying George’s is “good on everything except banana pudding.” 

The current owner is Ashley Chappell Hassel. George’s is made by hand, in small quantities by an eight-person team. “We still personally pour, package and ship every bottle of George’s by hand – just 4,500 bottles per day to be exact,” she said. 

“There’s no automation – there’s no line. It’s just people using their hands,” Ashley Hassel added.

 

Beth’s husband Brian Hassel said: “Our customers are really why we do this because, with George’s, we get invited to somebody’s kitchen table every night.”

Shibumi Shades were born in Emerald Isle, N.C.

Bright blue and teal Shibumi Shades are everywhere you look this summer along the waters of Carteret County, N.C., that sparkle like crystal. 

This distinctive, flap-in-the-wind product was invented in Emerald Isle in 2016 by three guys from Forsyth County, N.C., whose families are regular summer vacationers here.

 

With its sinfully simple design, the Shibumi has absolutely revolutionized the entire “beachgoing experience.” (It’s easy to say: “shih-BOOM-ee,” and it’s a snap to put one up.) 

Weighing just four pounds, Shibumi has “lifted the weight off our shoulders,” eliminating the need to haul out bulky beach umbrellas and hefty anchoring devices.

 

The new-fangled Shibumi wind-powered canopies are also replacing those clunky tailgate tents with their metal frames – you know, the kind that resemble a “canvas-covered carport” and require a pit crew to put up. 

The Shibumi creators are brothers Dane and Scott Barnes and their friend Alex Slater. All three graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While students, they lived off-campus in the Shibumi apartment complex. 

“Shibumi” is also a Japanese design concept that means “elegance of simplicity.”

Alex, Scott and Dane. (Photo by Our State magazine)

 

“We took a little inspiration from looking at a sheet on a clothesline just sort of flowing in the breeze,” Alex told Taylor Wanbaugh of Business North Carolina magazine. 

“And understanding that working with the wind, rather than trying to fight against the wind, seemed to be the best way to solve that problem on the beach, since wind is usually the biggest problem out there,” Alex added. 

Renee Wright, a freelance technical writer in Charlotte, N.C., said: “The design of the Shibumi Shade is unique, an arched pole that holds a panel made of ripstop parachute material that floats on the wind.” 

On assignment to test out a Shibumi, journalist Mary King of CNET, who hails from Kure Beach, N.C., told her readers that the brilliant patches of blue hues stood out “sharply against Kure’s golden sands.” 

“Look closer and the patches become identical swaths of fabric billowing in the breeze, each one sheltering small pods of beachgoers. What really sets the Shibumi apart is how it harnesses the wind,” King wrote.

 

“For most beach umbrellas and tents, the ever-present coastal breeze is a nuisance. On particularly blustery days, it can become an adversary, transforming beach gear into dangerous projectiles.” 

“But to the Shibumi’s floating fabric, the wind is a friend. It only takes about a 3 mph breeze to keep the free end of the fabric afloat and provide the shade beachgoers want.” 

“Illuminated by the afternoon sun, my Shibumi flowed triumphantly in the breeze, cloaking me in a roomy rectangle of shade,” King said. 

Four adults and plenty of kids can fit comfortably under a standard Shibumbi, which provides about 150 square feet of shade. New this year is the Mini Shibumi Shade; it offers about 75 square feet of shade and is perfect for couples and empty nesters. 

The Shibumi Shade business is based in Raleigh. The company contracts with cut-and-sew operators in three manufacturing plants in North Carolina and Virginia. Products are warehoused in Raleigh and distributed from there to retailers. Customers can also purchase products directly from Shibumi Shade through the company web site. 

“From the beginning,” the founders said, “all Shibumi Shades have come only in our signature blue and teal colors. When you see our blue and teal colors on a beach shade, you’ll know it’s a genuine Shibumi Shade. We love the way these colors complement the colors of the ocean.”