Nashville Mayor Brenda Brown brought concerns before town council regarding the Municipal Service District tax charged to certain businesses in downtown.
The concerns were brought up during the board's regular meeting earlier this month.
Brown said she had heard concerns from citizens and businesses while she was campaigning last year.

Pictured above, family and friends show their support along the route with signs.

Communities are finding creative ways to honor the Class of 2020.
With formal graduation ceremonies canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions, schools, parents and members of the community are finding other ways to honor local graduates.
This past Saturday, members of the Southern Nash High School community honored graduates by hosting a parade.

Nashville's Town Council is making the implementation of a pay plan study a priority for the upcoming budget year.
Council members agreed at a budget work session on May 12 to include an additional $142,702 in the budget to implement the recommendations from the study.
Last year, council members gave pay increases to public safety employees, with the intention of including all other employees in the 2020-2021 budget.

The City of Rocky Mount is under scrutiny after the release of a state audit report last Friday.
The report was released by State Auditor Beth Wood and was conducted after her office received over 200 complaints of misconduct by elected officials and employees of the City of Rocky Mount.

Phase two of Governor Roy Cooper's Executive Order is expected to begin on Friday, May 22, which will allow more restaurants and other businesses to open.
Phase 1 of Cooper's order began on May 8 and included modified stay-at-home restrictions and allowed some businesses to reopen. Small outdoor gatherings were allowed though gatherings of 10 or more people was still prohibited.

What started out as simply a chapter in a book morphed into much more for local author Michael Brantley.
Brantley's second book, "Galvanized: The Odyssey of a Reluctant Carolina Confederate," was released on May 1. The book is a historical, non-fiction narrative that depicts the life of Brantley's great, great grandfather Wright Stephen Batchelor through and after the Civil War.

Nashville's Town Council and Planning Board will meet separately next week to host two public hearings.
Typically, the boards meet on the last Wednesday of the month. Public hearings are typically held with members of both boards present. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the two boards will have to meet on different days.

INCIDENTS
A speeding and open container was reported on 5/12/20 at 907 Eastern Avenue
A financial was reported on 5/11/20 at 106 Richardson Court

A possession with intent to manufacture, sell and deliver marijuana was reported on 5/11/20 at 11499 S NC 581, Bailey
A simple assault was reported on 5/11/20 at 1177 Thompson Chapel Road, Wilson
An armed robbery was reported on 5/11/20 at 1765 Red Oak Road, Nashville

Building Permit (Residential)
Marvin L Wood III; 9414 Main Street; detached accessory; $2,500
Raul Hernandez; 315 Wilders Drive; renovation/alteration; $5,000

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift from nursing student to employed nurse. Kaila Boulden, a senior in the Associate Degree Nursing program at Edgecombe Community College, is anxious to make the switch.
Like other community colleges in North Carolina and per State directive, ECC began shifting face-to-face courses to online delivery mid-March. Several exceptions included programs in public safety and public health, which were permitted to continue to respond to the pandemic.

Nash Community College has announced 47 graduates have successfully completed the requirements for graduation from the Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) program.
The Associate Degree Nursing curriculum provides students the skills necessary to integrate safety and quality into nursing care, to practice in a dynamic environment, and to meet individual needs which impact health, quality of life, and achievement of potential.

Governor Roy Cooper recently announced appointments to the Developing a Representative and Inclusive Vision for Education (DRIVE) Task Force. Established through Executive Order 113, the task force is focused on improving equity and inclusion in education and will submit a report to the Governor with recommendations to reach that goal.

Nash County residents are among those recently earning degrees from Western Governors University.
The online, nonprofit university has graduated over 178,000 students from across the country since its inception in 1997.
Nashville resident Lakesha Williams has earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree.

DON'T ADOPT if you RENT.....
unless you talk to your landlord or review your rental agreement. Every week, dogs and cats are turned in because the landlord say they had to go. Renting with pets is more difficult, but not impossible. Sometimes you have to pay an additional deposit. So now pets await their fate, which is in the hands of others.

A message from Pastor Gene Whitehouse of Peachtree Baptist Church.
There are some saying the new habit of watching church services at home will continue after the current stay-in-place orders are lifted. Others believe that Christians will miss the fellowship with other believers and will crave being with them in person.

Nash-Rocky Mount Schools has released its Honor Roll lists for the third semester of the 2019-2020 school year.
The following students at the Southern Nash Middle School made the A or A/B Honor Roll.

Nash-Rocky Mount Schools has released its Honor Roll lists for the third semester of the 2019-2020 school year.
The following students at the Southern Nash High School made the A or A/B Honor Roll.

Before I share an experience with you, let me first say that I don't expect anything else from God in return for what I do for him. I'm just grateful for salvation and the opportunities he brings my way to serve him.
I also don't believe blessings from God are handed out in relation to how much we do for him. That all comes on the other side of eternity.

Chances are we, as a society, are not focusing as much on our outward appearance these days. When the grand total of our social life equals our immediate family, we are typically more lax when it comes to how we present ourselves. Suddenly, wearing pajamas for 48 hours is not only a norm, but it's the expected way.
I wonder if this is a good thing, because perhaps, this can help us reorient how we prepare and present ourselves each and every day.

Red Oak Baptist Church and Red Oak United Methodist Church rang their church bells Sunday, May 17 in honor of all the graduates. Red Oak Baptist Church had their Graduate Recognition during their online worship service Sunday. High School graduates included Grayson Johnson, Joshua Maze, Wade Taylor, and GiGi Whitehurst. College graduates included Tallie Davis, Samantha Fisher, Paige Hill, Tyler Johnson, and Hailey Taylor. Congratulations to all graduates!

Our community churches enjoyed their last drive-in Sunday services this past week. Starting this coming Sunday, all will go back to the sanctuary at their regular times, except Kingdom International Church. Their services will be now starting at 10 am every Sunday.
At KIC last Sunday, announcements were given followed by several selections led by the Worship Team.

Maria Rojo waves while riding in the parade.

Southern Nash High School seniors showed their creativity decorating their cars for the parade Saturday.

Southern Nash High School seniors parade through Spring Hope Saturday. The parade route also included Bailey and Middlesex.

The other morning, I woke up thinking it was Wednesday.
I had my Wednesday breakfast, which is pretty exciting, because I get cereal. Then I started in on my To Do's and kept thinking, "man, I didn't get squat done yesterday, but I was busy all day."
That was what my notebook claimed.

Over 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenburg igniting what we know as the Protestant Reformation.
Two thousand years ago an innocent man was crucified outside the city on a hill called Golgotha paving the way for all of mankind to be saved.
The two most significant acts of the Christian church both occurred outside the church building. Not to mention, the Apostle Paul spent most of his ministry physically distanced from those he repeatedly expressed he longed to see.

This photo was filed in the 1954 Nashville Graphic archives of a gathering in front of the Nash County Courthouse in downtown Nashville.

I have had to play with a chip on my shoulder throughout my baseball career.
I have had to do it in order to "survive" on the field.
This past summer was nothing short of that: I worked the hardest I have ever worked in my life to reach my goal, which was to have the best senior season that I could ever have.

Where do I even begin?
High school was like a movie or at times just like "High School Musical."
There were plenty of downs and plenty of ups, but overall I made memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
My favorite part of my high school career was soccer.

When I first heard that my senior season might be ending, I was scared.
I remember Coach Bain and Coach Jac telling us that the governor was suspending all after-school activities for two weeks, but I never thought that would be my last practice ever as a Bulldog.
In the beginning, I was upset. Track was the only thing getting me through school...it was like my escape after each long day.

It all started from the beginning of senior year -- I was looking forward to springtime to play baseball.
In the fall, I played with a showcase team out of Goldsboro so that it would keep me in shape and to improve my skills in the game.
After the showcase ball ended, I went to a few camps to learn new things that way I had not been taught before, which was fun because I had friends that went with me and we had a good time.

I was really upset about the season ending early.
You never imagine anything like that happening, so there was like no preparation for it at all, which made it that much harder to accept.
You go from grinding each day and loving what you are doing to being told in the blink of an eye that it's over.
I think that's what made it so hard to accept, that it was like the rug was yanked out from under everyone.