City Ink: Remembering the great Grady Smith
Oct 25, 2018
He said he’d fallen the day before, and the hospital was running tests on him. Then, on Tuesday, after going home, he died and was buried Friday following a funeral service at Trinity on the Hill United Methodist Church that was packed to the rafters with people from all over, there to honor one of the best men I’ve ever known in politics. Actually, I can’t think of anyone better or anyone that I thought more of and could always talk to without reservation. And you know he could talk without reservation.Sometimes I’d call him, and he’d talk until I’d have to say, “Grady, I’ve got to go. My cellphone is burning my ear up.” And sometimes by the time he’d finished his stories, I’d forgotten why I’d called him.Grady was brave, too. He’d had open heart surgery, and diabetes was taking a terrible toll on him, but he didn’t quit. He came to commission meetings, first on a walker and then in a wheelchair. And I must say a good word about the kindness Commissioner Ben Hasan showed Grady in helping him into and out of his seat at the dais. He’d even turn Grady’s cellphone off for him when it rang during meetings.And Grady was forgiving. I often poked him in this column about being asleep during commission meetings, and he didn’t get mad. He’d say, and I knew it was true, that he wasn’t really sleeping.Well, mostly he wasn’t. Sometimes I asked him why he didn’t speak up on some issue, and he’d say it wouldn’t do any good for him to fight and argue with folks who had the votes to do what they’d already decided to do.“But,” I said, “at least people will know where you stand.”It just wasn’t his style. A Service of Celebration and Resurrection: After thinking, “Lord, what am I going to do without Grady?” my next thought was, “What am I going to wear to the funeral?” And I know Grady wouldn’t hold that aga...
Pitts: Hurricane Florence's heavy rains damage historic Evans church
Oct 25, 2018
But members are now grappling with historic flooding of the sanctuary from last month's Hurricane Florence. Many are seniors who have worshipped at the church for decades or all of their lives.“Seeing it damaged, it brought, really, tears,” says Dr. Charles N. Darden, who is in his second year as pastor of the church. “Because I know a lot has been put into trying to maintain it. It was a sadness, really.“We have quite a few senior members. It took a toll on them. They have a lot of memories here.”Restoration work on the church could take from a year to a year-and-a-half, Darden says.The church still has use of its education wing. The Sunday after the storm, church members held morning service at a Murchison Road funeral home. They have since been having service and other meetings at Hood Memorial AME Zion Church on Rosehill Road.Darden says he sees God’s hand at work in how the partnership between the sister churches has worked out. Hood members meet in a newer sanctuary, and the Evans members meet in the older sanctuary. No parking or other issues have arisen, says Darden.Evans’ members will celebrate Founders Day next Sunday, Oct. 14, marking when the church was chartered in 1801. Some historians believe it was established even earlier, in 1796. The current building has stood since 1893. Hood and Evans members will worship together for the service where the speaker will be the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Monroe, presiding A.M.E. bishop of the Eastern North Carolina District.“We have made a beautiful transition,” Darden says. “Everything lined up. We don’t conflict.” Worst since 1945Florence’s heavy rainwater, which fell for days, penetrated Evans’ sanctuary, causing the damage, says Darden. In addition to the sanctuary, the water heavily damaged the church’s outreach building, a wood structure just south of the building, near Cross Creek.Hurricane Matthew in 2016 caused some issues for the church, but nothing like Florence.
