Dannye Romine Powell

Stanly County native Eleanor Ross Taylor was a "Protestant Flannery O'Connor," according to literary critic Randall Jarrell. Both had a genius for making art from the characters of their own Southern soil.

Not long ago, former Country Day High School football player and honors student Matt Lester, a quadriplegic since he was 18, served on a panel with three other quad rugby players.

The word "stealthy" leaps to mind when I think of how I felt - and still feel - each year at mammogram time. Get in. Get out. Hold your breath until your card arrives in the mail saying you're good to go for another year.

Maybe she couldn't save the whole world. But she could make it a healthier, greener place. Not just for her children. But for her children's children.

May Davidson, the sixth great-granddaughter of Maj. John Davidson of Revolutionary War fame, joined the illustrious first families of Mecklenburg County when she was buried Monday at Rural Hill, with a spray of white orchids on her casket.

Say the name Emma Gupton to me and I see a red-headed nurse striding toward me, arms outstretched, a smile swaddling me in comfort. We couldn't have survived without her.

Let's turn the tables. Let's say that one of Barack and Michelle Obama's girls is now magically a 17-year-old. Unmarried and five months pregnant.

Let's turn the tables.

Silence is a thief.

Phifer Avenue, once the center of an elaborate 4,000-acre estate, went the last 100 or so years barely making a peep.