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Article source: http://www.citizen-times.com/usatoday/article/5211427 If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

Tonight, the Buncombe County Commissioners had a varied agenda, their chambers bustling with groups of citizens there to make their feelings heard on matters ranging from heritage to economic growth.

The major item was the approval of the joint city-county African-American Heritage Commission. Asheville City Council gave their endorsement last month.

Marvin Chambers, one of the leaders of the effort and an activist in Asheville’s civil rights struggles, pointed out that many don’t know of the history of the area’s African-American community, a history he said is “beyond reproach” compared to any city in the state. Many stories, he emphasized, were passed down through families that were scattered in the “urban renewal” of the 1970s, making it more important than ever to protect that history for future generations.

Many other members of the effort and supporters from the public spoke, and organizations like the YMI, the NAACP, and the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources have all given their endorsements. The commission aims to help coordinate and support efforts to preserve and celebrate the area’s heritage. Other benefits the supporters mentioned included improved economic development, especially through

Article source: http://www.mountainx.com/article/56057/Commissioners-approve-African-American-Heritage-Commission-water-for-CTS-residents If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

EDITOR’S NOTE: BP Ledger carries items for reader information each week from various Southern Baptist-related entities, and news releases of interest from other sources. The items are published as received.

Today’s BP Ledger contains items from:
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Samford University
WORLD News Service
Morning Star News
Association of Christian Schools International

Mohler begins QA podcast:
‘Ask Anything: Weekend Edition’

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) — “Ask Anything: Weekend Edition,” a new weekly segment of R. Albert Mohler Jr.’s “The Briefing” podcast, launched Saturday, Feb. 1, bringing back a popular feature of the former “The Albert Mohler Program” radio show that allowed listeners to pose questions to the theologian, author and broadcaster.

“Ever since the end of the Albert Mohler program, I’ve received many requests for a return to something like ‘Ask Anything Wednesday,'” said Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The “Ask Anything Wednesday” feature was held each week during Mohler’s former daily, live radio show, which aired nationally 2004-10 over the Salem Radio Network. He discontinued the radio show to begin in 2010 “The Briefing” podcast, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview perspective.

Mohler noted the callers’ questions on “Ask Anything Wednesday” were wide-ranging

Article source: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=41953 If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

When Elise Okrend creates pastel paintings, she experiences “a freeing of my mind,” she said, and feels connected to her true self.

Okrend hopes that her pastel landscapes, paired with mindful passages from her husband, Phil, will help other people “get into that space.”

The Asheville couple’s new coffee table book — “Messages to the Heart: Reflections of Beauty and Truth” — is designed to be a tool “that readers can use again and again to pull themselves through life’s challenges,” said Phil, who is a writer and professional coach.

The hardcover book features 37 of Elise’s paintings of the area’s natural beauty, such as the Blue Ridge Mountains, Lake Fontana and the Great Smokies.

The Okrends will make two local appearances in the next couple weeks to promote the book, which is available for $29.95 at The Kress Emporium, Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe, The Asheville Museum of Art Store, The Asheville Visitors Center Gift Shop and online at their www.messagestothe heart.com website and major book retailers.

Malaprop’s will host an author reading and book signing Sunday. Hotel Indigo will host a Valentine’s Day themed reception, book

Article source: http://www.blackmountainnews.com/article/20140202/LIVING/302030020/A-meaningful-MATCH If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

This little book went on to become a best seller and was adapted first as a movie (starring Olivia de Havilland) and, much later, as a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.

Spencer, who moved to Chapel Hill in the 1980s, wrote much more than “Piazza,” of course, and she kept writing – well into an age when most of her contemporaries have retired to the Barcalounger.

At 92, Spencer has brought forth a collection of nine luminous short stories, all published within the past decade. While not exactly avant-garde, her fiction is tight and gem-like, and it shows an author at the height of her considerable powers.

Spencer writes about the new, suburbanized South. Most of her characters are white, middle-aged (often, with children in college) and fairly middle-class. One is a medical researcher, another is a congressional aide but most seem to gravitate toward insurance.

Their religious preferences gravitate toward Presbyterian or Episcopalian – “the sort of religion that went with the wine and the candlelight.”

In most of their pasts, though, lies a family Big House where they spent riotous summers in their youth or childhood, and where elderly female relatives still reside amid stately decay. And, off in the woods, there still are

Article source: http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20140202/ARTICLES/140209982/1018/letters?Title=Review-92-year-old-s-book-explores-the-suburban-South If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com