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Al Roker, the popular weatherman on NBC's Today Show, will be in Charlotte on Friday to give away a Penske truckload of goods to the Community School of the Arts as part of Roker's “Lend a Hand” charity series.
This is the eighth year the series has traveled across America to help community charities. In Charlotte, he is donating the goods to Charlotte's Community School of the Arts at uptown's Spirit Square, where the school is based.
Roker kicked off his goodwill road trip in Los Angeles Monday and will make stops in Portland, Ore., Galveston, Tex., and Little Rock, Ark., before arriving in Charlotte.
The Today Show is aired on the Observer's news partner, WCNC-TV. Larry Sprinkle, a WCNC weatherman, will appear with Roker during the broadcast at Spirit Square. -- David Perlmutt
Meck briefs
Charlotte
The Kristen Foundation for missing adults is hosting a remembrance ceremony at Frazier Park tonight for people who have disappeared.
The foundation will lay memorial bricks for missing people who've made national headlines in recent months – Natalee Holloway, a teenager who disappeared in Aruba in May 2005 while on a graduation trip; Jamie Fraley, a 22-year-old from Gaston County missing since April 2008, and Carla Vicentini, a 26-year-old missing from New Jersey since 2006, according to Joan Petruski, who started the foundation.
The candlelight ceremony will also include a tribute to Nikki McPhatter, who was missing for weeks before her burned body was located in South Carolina. The Kristen Foundation offered a reward for information about McPhatter's disappearance shortly before her body was found.
Petruski started The Kristen Foundation in 1999 after Kristen Modafferi, a Charlotte woman who disappeared a decade ago while working and studying in San Francisco. The organization raises money to help families pay for the costs of searching for missing adults. -- Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia headlined a fundraiser for fellow Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte Monday.
Cantor, considered a rising GOP force in the House, called Myrick “a moral compass for the Congress.”
Cantor said despite President Obama's popularity, Republicans are finding allies among moderate Democrats concerned about the cost of health care and other programs.
The fundraiser at Charlotte's Westin Hotel kicked off Myrick's 2010 campaign for a ninth term.
“There's lots of unfinished business,” said Myrick, 67. -- Jim Morrill
Regional briefs
Union County
Wesley Chapel
A portion of New Town Road in western Union County is closed for three months, while crews rebuild a bridge.
The road is closed in the Wesley Chapel area, near Potters Road. Work began Monday and is scheduled for completion about Sept. 22. A detour has been posted, taking motorists on Chambwood Road and Potters Road, back to New Town Road. -- Steve Lyttle
North Carolina
Hatteras
Divers plan to survey the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor off the N.C. coast this week with high-definition cameras to look for deterioration in the nearly 150-year-old underwater wreckage.
Expedition organizers are hoping for good weather so divers can make maximum dives into the 230-foot-deep waters some 16 miles off Cape Hatteras, Jeff Johnston of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary said Monday.
Johnston said it will be the first time the ship will be examined using high-definition images, which make it easier to study the wreckage. -- Associated Press
Police digest
Chester County, S.C.
At least two people are still wanted in connection with a large marijuana field discovered in Chester County on Monday. Two men were arrested during the early morning bust, but two others escaped.
Chester County Sheriff Richard Smith said his department received information about the plants and his deputies watched the area for several days. When the men returned to the field Monday, deputies and other law enforcement officials swooped in.
The plants are scattered among several fields, and Smith said he won't know how many plants are in the field until they begin cutting them down today. Each plant is worth $2,000, he said.
Victor Villa, 23, and Ulver Hernandez, 39, were arrested in connection with the pot field, according to jail records. -- Tonya Jameson
