The Wyndham Championship golf tournament will be here before you know it. Everything kicks off on Monday, August 15 and the first round of the tournament begins on Thursday, August 18.
The Wyndham is continuing to beef up its pro-am events, with the Kevin Harvick Foundation Pro-Am on Monday and the Louis DeJoy and Aldona Z. Wos Family Foundation Pro Am on Wednesday. It’s a great opportunity to watch the pros in a more relaxed environment, as well as see some celebrities.
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The Carroll Companies and Bee Safe Storage & Wine Cellar are partnering with the Wyndham Championship to provide free Wyndham tickets for first responders. Free tickets will be provided to those who provide identification certifying they are indeed a first responder at will-call or on the course. Look for more information about this in the Rhino Times next week.
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Thursday, July 28 from 6 to 8, enjoy networking, hors d’oeuvres and wine and beer at the Rhino Times Schmoozefest while seeing the latest home trends and getting renovation ideas at the design showroom of BMC (formerly Stock Building Supply and before that Guilford Builders Supply)at 1621 Battleground Ave. The event is free to business professionals who sign in and wear a name tag.
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Deep Roots Market on Eugene Street has discovered the “if you build it they will come” theory doesn’t work with grocery stores. They are looking for ways to increase business. Here’s a simple one: Use a business plan similar to Scuppernong Books. Put a long bar near the front of the store and make it a gathering place. There is a lot more profit in selling alcohol than there is in selling organic hydroponic arugula, or whatever. Scuppernong Books seems to be doing pretty well and there are a lot of similarities. Scuppernong doesn’t have room for a wide selection of books, but it appears they work at providing what their clientele want in stocking their shelves.
Deep Roots wants to just sell a select set of items, which means if you’re going to the grocery store and go to Deep Roots, most people have to make two stops, which some people are willing to do, but it will always limit their appeal.
Deep Roots should at least consider adding a large bar and a small kitchen. With Preyer Brewing Company and Joymongers in the same area, it would fit right in.
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Jeff “Grits” Gauger is the new executive editor of The Times in Shreveport, Louisiana. Grits earned his nickname by writing repeatedly about grits after moving to North Carolina from Ohio. I imagine he’s gotten that out of his system, but Gumbo Gauger has a nice ring to it.
The Times is a Gannet newspaper, and in 2014, the last year in which I could find circulation figures for both newspapers, had a daily circulation of 37,000 while the News & Record’s circulation was 49,000.
When I was assured that Gauger had resigned of his own accord, I assumed he had a chance to get out of the newspaper business and jumped at it, but it seems that wasn’t the case. Now Gauger will be right back in the crunch of putting out a newspaper 365 days a year, except for leap years, and then it’s 366.
We wish him luck.
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I hate to admit it but I’ve watched more of the Democratic National Convention than I did of the Republican National Convention. The Republican convention was kind of boring. Sen. Ted Cruz becoming a caricature of himself was interesting, and the Trump family was great, but the Democratic convention has controversy every night, and if things get boring inside, the folks outside appear to be at near riot stage.
And we were told this was going to be the calm, boring convention.
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It’s difficult not to write something about the heat, so I’m not going to resist the temptation. I spent the weekend outdoors and couldn’t help but wonder what some of my ancestors were thinking when they moved to North Carolina in the 1700s when there not only wasn’t any air conditioning, there weren’t any fans and they cooked on wood stoves. I think in that case I would have just eaten food straight out of the refrigerator, or at most used the microwave to heat stuff up.
But then when I think about it, I grew up in a house without central air conditioning, and the schools I attended weren’t air conditioned. When I went to Page High School, one classroom wing was air conditioned, and I don’t remember complaining much more about the heat then than now.
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I deal with the written word all the time, but there is some cog in my head that is missing a couple of teeth. This week I discovered I couldn’t spell sovereign close enough for spell check to recognize what word I was trying to use. I know the word sovereign and use it not infrequently but had no idea how to spell it, except that I knew it wasn’t spelled how it sounds, which is not that unusual for words in English. I’m hoping that now that I have typed sovereign a few times, if my brain doesn’t remember, my fingers will. I don’t expect to get it right, just close enough for spell check to take over. After I conquer sovereign I’m going to take on lieutenant.
