Mountain Island - Carolina Weekly Newspapers

Educational forest
(continued from page 1)
– and the general public – because of a
lack of funding.
The only structure on the property today
is a maintenance facility. Before the
forest can open to the public, it needs, at
a minimum, a public restroom. With the
state in recession, Shidal is looking for
grants. She recently got a fire prevention
grant to purchase signs and two Smokey
the Bear statues.
Her job was originally funded with a
grant. That was a stressful time because
she had to prove her worth to state officials,
who had to budget a full-time position.
When she first started, she immediately
faced “huge erosion issues” and
problems with trespassers.
“We have not been given a lot of operating
money, either,” Shidal said. “So
we have to do a lot with what we’ve been
given.”
For instance, instead of hiring someone
to build administrative offices within
the maintenance facility, she and other
staff hung the drywall, which is still unfinished.
Shidal also used money in the
forest’s budget to build fences and hang
gates. Unfortunately, for the first five
years, trespassers cut through the fences
and broke the gates.
Since that tough beginning, however,
Shidal and CSX railroad police have
handed out warning tickets to trespassers,
fined some of them or – when caught
riding on the railroad track that runs the
length of the property –confiscated some
of their vehicles.
It is a federal offense to ride a vehicle
on the rail lines, Shidal said, because
they can cause damage that might derail
a train.
CSX’s line through the forest is only used
to haul coal to Duke Energy’s Riverbend
Steam Station, an 80-year-old coal plant on
the edge of Mountain Island Lake.
While millions of dollars are needed to
finish what the N.C. Forest Service started,
Shidal hopes to prove the forest can
generate money, too. A quarter of the forest
is planted with loblolly pines that will
eventually be harvested and sold. In doing
so, Shidal hopes to show landowners
how their land can work for them, too.
The trees “are our only natural resource
that is renewable, recyclable and
biodegradable,” she said. “If we manage
the forest well, we can have it for a long
time and use it to our advantage.” q
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Angels of ‘97
(continued from page 10)
Lake Norman June 10, 2008, is one of
the newest members of the Angels ministry.
“Julie has been very faithful coming
to our support group and has said many
times that she doesn’t know what she
would do without us,” Bolton said.
Stacie Overcash-Ingle, a 1996 graduate
of North Meck, has assisted Bolton
for the past decade. She had personal
ties with some of the youth who’ve died,
including junior high school friends
Joey Tesh, Leslie Walker and Jeanne
Sarver, who were killed in a bus accident
at Alexander Middle School on
May 17, 1991.
The day of the accident, Overcash-
Ingle and Tesh made a clay pot together
in their social studies class. “I’ve held on
to that vase since the seventh grade,” she
said.
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News
Community connections
Even in the recession, local businesses
continue to support the Angels. Presenting
sponsor for this year’s golf tournament is
McIntosh Law Firm.
Volunteers like Avis Lewis and Luanne Giragosian
said they stay involved because Bolton
and Harkey inspire them. “This is an organization
that does more for me than I do for
it,” Lewis said. “It makes me a better person. I
can’t imagine my life without them.”
Said Giragosian, “Jane Bolton and Sherry
Harkey have lost the most precious gift you
could lose, and yet their focus is on helping
others. They come with smiles on their
faces and I think, ‘Oh, my goodness, what
took me so long’ ”
Bolton says she has only God and the
community to thank – and perhaps some
angels.
“I think that our angels are smiling down
at us, and saying, ‘Way to go. Way to go,’”
she said q
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www.mountainislandweekly.com Mountain Island Weekly • Sept. 18-24, 2009 • Page 13