The work of a law enforcement officer is far broader than the view we get in our rear-view mirrors, however. And those men and women in uniform in our communities who we rely on daily often go unsung and unappreciated. This is certainly the case with those in charge. The men and women who sit at the top of the org chart of your local police department or sheriff’s office do far more than we can ever know. We all know that there is a sheriff. But what does it mean to be the sheriff?

Incidentally, the word sheriff is a throw back to feudal England. The word used to be Shire Reeve, a keeper of the peace for a small area surrounding a village or town. The Reeve worked for the Lord that owned the land and kept the peace, generally. It is, as such, an ancient role with a long and honorable history.

In an attempt to widen our perspectives, and deepen our knowledge, I’ve invited Randolph County Sheriff Greg Seabolt to discuss his work in our county, the role of a sheriff, the responsibilities, the challenges and the triumphs of his work

See you next year!

As always, we ask that you stay tuned to our social media, including Facebook and Instagram for more on coming topics and guests and please remember to subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as they hit your favorite podcast sharing platform.

If there’s a topic you want us to discuss, or if you'd like to be a guest Borrower, please email us at teenzone201@gmail.com. You can include books you’d like us to review or questions you have for us or comments about this or any episodes. Please keep them polite.

In recent history, this was what one could find, plus much more from our town's hyperlocal newspaper. 

Mainly, local newspapers provided necessary context for events of great pitch and moment that were too close-to-home for larger papers and news organizations to cover. Regardless of whether we liked what we were reading, our hometown paper gave us the information so that we could make up our minds and over the years, I made note of several events that, without that information, who can guess how we might fare?

Today, our local paper is a shadow of its former self. Purchased by a larger media company, the community content all fell off and what most of us went to the paper to read became far more regional and less relevant to us. Mainly the context that used to be provided by hard working writers and contributors has disappeared.

To the rescue came the former Editor of that paper, my guest borrower today, Ray Criscoe, who stepped into the gap and began producing the Randolph HUB, a local weekly paper that is everything the former paper isn’t.

As always, we ask that you stay tuned to our social media, including Facebook and Instagram for more on coming topics and guests and please remember to subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as they hit your favorite podcast sharing platform.

If there’s a topic you want us to discuss, or if you'd like to be a guest Borrower, please email us at teenzone201@gmail.com. You can include books you’d like us to review or questions you have for us or comments about this or any episodes. Please keep them polite.

Depictions of humans collecting honey from wild bees date to 15,000 years ago; efforts to domesticate them are shown in Egyptian art around 4,500 years ago. Jars of honey were found in the tombs of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun. From the 18th century, European understanding of the colonies and biology of bees allowed the construction of the moveable comb hive so that honey could be harvested without destroying the colony. Among Classical Era authors, beekeeping with the use of smoke is described in Aristotle's History of Animals Book 9.

Education and advocacy on behalf of these little golden beauties has increased of late, but we still have a lot to learn. Fear of bees (apiphobia), the desire to protect our harvests and crops from insects and the misunderstanding about exactly how necessary bees and other pollinators are have almost left us in dangerous territory. In recent years, pestilence affecting bees, like mites and fungi, invasive species like murder hornets and corporate disregard for environmental impact of chemicals have brought us close the to the horrible edge of knowing too late how much we depend on our little friends.

Remember that Annie Mills, Agriculture and Horticulture expert from NC State Extension will be sharing a program on wildlife management at Asheboro Library on May 10th, @6:30 p.m.

For more about beekeeping in Randolph County, check their website: and their next meeting will be about proper Epi Pen use, on May 3rd, at 7:30 p.m. at 1003 South Fayetteville Street, Asheboro, NC 27203.

Thank you, ladies and gentleman, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends for tuning in. We look forward to having you listen in on our next episode, where Dave will be back and doing a deep dive one-on-one interview with Ray Criscoe, local newspaper man, on modern news, the decline of the small town papers and what the future may hold for us. More on that coming in May!

As always, we ask that you stay tuned to our social media, including Facebook and Instagram for more on coming topics and guests and please remember to subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as they hit your favorite podcast sharing platform.

If there’s a topic you want us to discuss, or if you'd like to be a guest Borrower, please email us at teenzone201@gmail.com. You can include books you’d like us to review or questions you have for us or comments about this or any episodes. Please keep them polite.

Dave, Sam, Savvy and Lexi spend a little time opening up about the misconceptions, surprises, realities and joys of working in a library and how lucky each of us feels to work together and to labor for this mysteriously engaging career we've all chosen.

As always, we ask that you stay tuned to our social media, including Facebook and Instagram for more on coming topics and guests and please remember to subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as they hit your favorite podcast sharing platform.

If there’s a topic you want us to discuss, or if you'd like to be a guest Borrower, please email us at teenzone201@gmail.com. You can include books you’d like us to review or questions you have for us or comments about this or any episodes. Please keep them polite.

Haelee has written a book based on a journal experiment that she began keeping during the summer of 2020 and has also developed a clothing line that is based on personal empowerment for teens. 

Dedrick Moone’s book, which details the backstory to this amazing father/daughter team, and his own experience in learning how to overcome the mistakes of his parents in developing the skills to share his feelings with his daughter, but especially, in helping to deal with the overwhelming trauma he and his daughter suffered when Haelee was quite young.

Haelee and Dedrick spend their time going around to schools, businesses and talking with local news stations spreading the message of Haelee’s books and clothing line and sharing the message of empowerment.

For more about their books and products, visit The Rules of a Big Boss website.

To contact Haelee and Dedrick, follow this link: 

If there’s a topic you want us to discuss, or if you'd like to be a guest Borrower, please email us at teenzone201@gmail.com. You can include books you’d like us to review or questions you have for us or comments about this or any episodes. Please keep them polite.

Hearing these statistics, it’s likely you, someone you know or a family member who has been deeply affected by this disease is on your mind and in your heart as the year ends in family celebrations. Our goal this episode is to bring more awareness to the cause of diabetes prevention and management, and to educate you, dear borrowers about precaution and prevention. 

References:

CDC Website - https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/factsheets/diabetes-prediabetes.htm

NIDDK Website - https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/community-health-outreach/national-diabetes-monthvvvv

American Diabetes Month - https://www.diabetes.org/community/american-diabetes-month

Addressing Health Disparities for Minorities (CDC) - https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/disparities.html

VeryWell Health’s Prevention Tips - https://www.verywellhealth.com/observe-national-diabetes-awareness-month-5083359

Preventing Type 2 Diabetes in the Digital Age - https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/professionals/diabetes-discoveries-practice/preventing-type-2-diabetes-digital-age

In fact the greatest issue that exists with banning books (or, attempting to ban them) is the misguided assumption that any of us has the right to decide what can be read by others. If you don’t like a book’s contents, don’t read it. If you don’t want your children to have access to a book, tell them not to read it. Trying to get the local school board to remove the book from the school library, or trying to get the town or county council to remove a book from public libraries because of a complaint is the ethical equivalent of setting up a censor who can decide what all of us can and cannot read. We might expect there to be such a censor in a theocracy or part of the structure of a dystopian novel’s tyrannical regime, but certainly not in America in modern times.

And yet, thousands of books are challenged yearly and have been banned or have had bans attempted on them. Today, we will discuss just a handful of our favorites and we will discuss the precedent of trying to have books banned and we’ll show that in most cases, the wisdom of the American Library Association and librarians everywhere is to protect readers from bans and to make sure that all books are accessible at all times.

“The right of others to free expression is part of my own [right]. If someone’s voice is silenced, then I am deprived of the right to hear and learn. Moreover, I have not met nor heard of anybody I would trust with the job of deciding in advance what it might be permissible for me or anyone else to say or read. That freedom of expression consists of being able to tell people what they may not wish to hear and that it must extend, above all, to those who think differently is, to me, self-evident. The urge to shut out bad news or unwelcome opinions [or books] will always be a very strong one, which is why the battle to reaffirm freedom of speech needs to be refought in every generation.” -Christopher Hitchens.

If you want to know more about book banning across our nation, the American Library Association keeps detailed archives on current and past bans and challenges, which books are most likely to be banned and those that draw bans every year. We highly recommend you take some time and surf those pages here.

As always, if you have comments or questions about this or any episode, please do drop us a line at teenzone201@gmail.com 

If there’s a topic you want us to cover, if you are interested in being a guest borrower or if you want to just say hello, send us an email and we’ll consider your request. Please keep your comments polite.

We look forward to having you back with us in October for Dave's 'deep dive' discussion with Jeremy Skidmore of RhinoLeap Productions and we thank you, our dear borrowers, for sharing this time with us.  Tell your friends!

The books we're reading, so far this summer!

Sam: The Other Black Girl. by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Lexi: The Black Kids, by Christina Hammonds Reed

Savvy: Some Girls Do, by Jennifer Dugan

Dave: A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson; Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger; and Billy  Summers by Stephen King

Our TikTok is coming back, too!

Remember to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and if you like what you hear, you can tell us at teenzone201@gmail.com Please keep your comments polite.

We look forward to having you back with us in September and we thank you, our dear borrowers, for sharing this time with us. Tell your friends and look for our podcast wherever you download fine podcasts!

For public librarians, nearly the opposite is true. We don’t get a long mid-year break, like teachers and students, obviously. But, while everyone is gearing down for much-needed relaxation, we are gearing up for our much anticipated Summer Reading programs. These events, planned--in some cases since before the previous Christmas--are the highlight and focal point of our programming year; especially for those of us who work with children and teen patrons!

Public Library Reading programs are designed as a way to fend off that slide. We offer incentivized reading programs, engaging programs that focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (known as STEAM) and we provide that safe place for students to hang out, discover, interact with their peers, read, play on computers and geek out, generally.

Today, we’re talking about and sharing what our Summer Reading will be like, as well as those events and presenters from the other libraries in the Randolph County Library system and what students can look forward to this summer!

Please visit the following links to visit specific libraries and to register for Summer Reading, for events and prizes!

[Some events are virtual and some are in-person; please contact your local library to find out how to sign up for events!]

For Randolph County Public Library Summer Reading events at Asheboro, Seagrove, Archdale and Franklinville:

www.randolphlibrary.org/summer

For Randleman Library

https://randolphlibrary.libguides.com/randleman/summerreading

For Ramseur Library

https://randolphlibrary.libguides.com/c.php?g=247619&p=8012420

Please remember to follow us on Instagram, @asheborolibraryteenzone

On Facebook at: Facebook.com/randolphlibrary

And of course, our TeenZone Book Talks channel on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtcy25yrquPa6qCH602bcBg

Email us with any questions and comments you might have at teenzone201@gmail.com (please keep your comments polite!)

Dave and the Borrowers will be back in August of  2021 with another discussion for you!

Enjoy Your Summer! See you at the library!

During his early 20's, though, Phil served in Southeast Asia; in Saigon, working in the Personal Property Depot next door to the Army Mortuary, dealing with and sending home the remains of the many young infantrymen who were fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Despite our tendency to think of the Vietnam War as  young men with M-16s trudging through the jungle with the rock music of the era playing in the background, Phil's experience was very different: he never saw combat himself, but he did see the results of that combat and the lifelong memories have left him, as he puts it in his own words,  "scarred emotionally". Phil take an hour out of his day to discuss his experiences in a very open and honest conversation with Dave.

[Listener  Advisory Warning!] The following episode of Dave and the Borrowers is a candid tale that deals with death, war, post-traumatic stress and  related subjects. We ask that you listen with discretion.

During our conversation Phil refers to the movie Killers Three. This 1968 American crime drama was produced by Dick Clark and filmed almost entirely in Randolph County, North Carolina, including Ramseur and Coleridge. 

Below are a list of some of those services. For more, visit  randolphkids.org

References: DPIL is Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, Reach Out & Read provides book "prescriptions" from health care providers, Randolph Books for Babies provides babies born at Randolph Health with a free bundle of early literacy goodies, The Basics Randolph are five evidence-based parenting and caregiving principles that encompass much of what experts find is important for children from birth to age

Remember if you have questions or comments about  this or any episode of Dave and the Borrowers, or if you have ideas of topics we can discuss, books to review or if you want to be a "Borrower" send us an email at teenzone201@gmail.com.
Remember to include your name, your email and your telephone, the subject you'd like us to cover and  as always,  keep it kind, please.

Our fascinating and encouraging discussion ranges from what the Department of Public Health does regularly, to specific questions about how the pandemic has affected youth in our county and state and nation, as well as how each of us has a responsibility to each other for the betterment of our society when it comes to dealing with the pandemic. 

Susan spoke to Savvy, Sam and Dave on 10/1/2020. Since that time, the number of COVID-19 cases in Randolph County have spiked to surpass the previous record high numbers in  June and July, 2020. We were as yet unaware of this reality at the time of recording.

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For questions about novel coronavirus or COVID-19, mask wearing and social distancing: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

For more about Randolph County specific questions about COVID-19: https://www.randolphcountync.gov/Departments/Public-Health

For the Randolph County Public Health (RCPH) coronavirus website: http://www.randolphcountync.gov/Departments/Public-Health/COVID-19-Data

For the RCPH Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/RandolphCountyPublicHealth

If you're a Randolph County Resident and you have specific questions regarding the pandemic, cornonavirus and COVID-19 you may call the hotline: 336-318-6227

For questions about clusters and outbreaks in North Carolina: https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard/outbreaks-and-clusters

And finally, if you're an NC resident but don't live in Randolph County, you can find tons of information and data at the NC Department of Health and Human Services COVID-19 website: https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/

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Remember if you have questions or comments about  this or any episode of Dave and the Borrowers, or if you have ideas of topics we can discuss, books to review or if you want to be a "Borrower" send us an email at teenzone201@gmail.com.
Remember to include your name, your email and your telephone, the subject you'd like us to cover and  as always,  keep it kind, please.

As usual, please remember to obey the three w's: Wait six to ten feet between yourself and others, wear a mask at all times in public (cover your NOSE with it, too!) and wash your hands regularly.

He is also the author of the blog, "Notes on the History of Randolph County, NC", an  archived and ongoing publication that he has worked on diligently  since June of 2007. 

Cancel Culture: is an online shaming of individuals who have done or said something that angry social media users consider objectionable or offensive. 

→ Telling people to stop supporting businesses, people or brands or to stop buying from them / unfollowing them. Calling out people for their racist posts on social media and then demanding they be fired from their job. “Putting them on blast.”

• a way of demanding greater accountability from public figures who have committed or are accused of having committed some disqualifying moral transgression. “It’s an agreement not to amplify, signal boost, give money to,” Lisa Nakamura, a professor of media studies at the University of Michigan
• Credited to Black users of Twitter, cancellation has been said to share a lineage with mid century civil rights boycotts, insofar as it enables those with little political power to litigate perceived injustices in the more accessible forum of popular culture (the cancellation court of public opinion, if you will)
• People across a broad range of personal backgrounds and political beliefs have criticized the practice as an imperious tactic of imposing on everyone, including those with relatively little power, a predetermined point of view by force of public shaming instead of persuasion. The culture of cancellation, they say, violates the spirit, if not the actual laws, of free expression.
• The letter in question:
  •  warned of an “intolerant climate” for free speech. 
  • Signatories welcomed “needed reckonings” on racial and social injustice but argue that it has “intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate.” 
    • *Is free speech against human rights different?
    • *Others become fearful of defending those who have been cancelled.
  • JKR said in a tweet “I was very proud to sign this letter in defence of a foundational principle of a liberal society: open debate and freedom of thought and speech.”
• Quotes from the letter:
  • “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted,” the letter reads, condemning “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.”
  • “While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.”
    • *We are becoming more and more intolerant to opposing views but I believe it is because we are viewing these views as views that are against basic human rights. I believe people are simply defending these human rights. Ex: If you’re against gay marriage, you’re against the basic human right to marriage and maybe even love. 
  • The letter was spearheaded by the writer Thomas Chatterton Williams, who explained his motivations to The Times: “Donald Trump is the Canceler in Chief,” he said. “But the correction of Trump’s abuses cannot become an overcorrection that stifles the principles we believe in.”
• They go on to say President Donald Trump is a “real threat to democracy” but argue that “resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion.”
• What JKR Said:
  • Rowling, 54, published a blog post last month arguing that biological sex is real. It came after a tweet in which she took issue with an article referring to “people who menstruate”. “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people,” she tweeted sardonically. “Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”