Happy Spring!

The signs are everywhere… trees are budding out, the azaleas are preparing to bloom, visitors are walking the streets, restaurants are opening… spring has sprung on Ocracoke!

After a long winter of limited options, islanders and visitors now have a complete menu of dining opportunities. Howard’s Pub, Pony Island, Flying Melon, and the Café Atlantic are all back in business for the season. For dining al fresco on these beautiful spring days there’s Smacnally’s or the Creekside Café. Thai Moon carry-out is open, and so is Ocracoke Pizza Company. Jason’s, which served the island well in January and February, then closed for a month for some R and R, re-opened April 10th. The Back Porch will open as soon as they complete their recent renovations – the addition of a new façade and more indoor seating. Ocracoke Coffee Company is brewing up the caffeine each morning at 7am, and the new kid in town, Riley’s (in the former Mango Loco), is open seven days a week.

Ocracoke’s wonderful and unique shops are stocking the shelves with new merchandise and opening their doors for another season.

Ocracoke’s Newest Shop Recycles Old Stuff for a Good Cause



Everyone is excited about the newest shopping opportunity on the island – Village Thrift! The thrift shop, which shares its space with Blue Door Antiques (an old favorite that is back and better than ever!), will support the Ocracoke Youth Center by selling donated items, t-shirts and sweatshirts, and homemade bags.

Village Thrift is the brainchild of Paula Schramel, owner of the Blue Door and a member of the OYC board. (She’s also the mastermind behind the Ocrafolk Festival Silent Auction!) Paula and the rest of the OYC board hope the thrift shop will provide an ongoing source of income for the Youth Center and bring in money for the non-profit organization from visitors as well as residents.

The two shops occupy the retail space attached to Ocracoke Coffee Company that formerly housed Java Books. (Ocracoke still has a wonderful independent bookstore – Books to Be Red.) The Blue Door gets 2/3 of the space and Village Thrift takes 1/3; Paula manages both with no cost to OYC. The shops are open 8am to 4pm, seven days a week. Paula will work five days a week and volunteers will fill in on her days off. With low overhead costs, Village Thrift should bring in a steady income.

Paula says that local response to the thrift store has been tremendous. She has already accepted many items, including some generous donations of furniture.

“The timing is right in this economy for a thrift store,” she said. “And we want to be ecological and encourage recycling and reuse. People won’t have to take stuff to the dump to get rid of it.”

The idea of creative reuse isn’t new on Ocracoke. Many residents fondly remember Cork’s Closet thrift store, which thrived for years. Most locals have a good story about finding just what they needed at the dump – affectionately known as Ocracoke’s Wal-mart, or “Jail-mart,” since it’s next door to the jail. And in the old days, islanders found uses for shipwrecked lumber and the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beach.

“Villagers’ use of salvaged materials goes back almost 300 years,” Paula said.

She’s also happy to find a new home for The Blue Door. Originally opened in 2001 in an old house on Lighthouse Road, The Blue Door was a popular antique and gift shop for six years. Paula closed her shop so she and her husband Michael (co-owner of The Flying Melon restaurant) could start a complete historic renovation on the old house, where they now live.

The new Blue Door will carry a selection of antique china, pottery, quilts, jewelry, paintings and more. There will also be some affordable used and antique furniture. Paula will consider taking big-ticket items on consignment if she has available space in the small shop.

The Outer Banks Community Foundation (www.obcf.org) recently awarded a grant to OYC for start-up costs for the Village Thrift. The grant monies are paying for custom-built shelving and storage units, three exterior and one interior sign, a donation box for inside the store, advertising in local papers (which OYC is getting at a discount), and Village Thrift t-shirts and hooded sweatshirts to be sold in the shop.

The OBCF grant also pays for bright green stickers for the Village Thrift items.

“We don’t want any confusion about inventory, between what’s the Blue Door’s and what’s the thrift store’s,” Paula said. “Everything that’s donated will go to the Youth Center and have a Village Thrift sticker.”

Paula expects that traffic flow from the coffee shop, which has upwards of 500 customers a day in the summer, will be good, and that locals will stop in regularly to see what’s new.

“Our inventory will change daily,” she said. “You never know what we might have.”



Spring Cleaning Fever!

Ocracokers have been mightily busy preparing cottages and businesses for the new season. Ocracoke’s Junior Girl Scout trop decided to pitch in and do their share of spring cleaning. They recently completed their Community Clean-up badge with a service project at Ocracoke Child Care. The Girl Scouts washed the center's windows and screens, and scrubbed all the classroom chairs.

This was the fourth clean-up project for the Junior Girl Scout troop. They participated in the Big Sweep beach clean-up and the Beta Club village litter pick-up last fall, and spent a day in January cleaning all the toys and furniture in the Methodist Church nursery.


Sydney Austin and Karla Perez scrub the chairs from OCC


Bricia Moreno, Caroline Temple, and Mattie Rose work on cleaning some outside toys.

Armchair Travel at Ocracoke Library

Ocracokers who didn’t get off the island this winter could at least live vicariously through some of our friends and neighbors who represented us in the big, wide world. To promote the library as a place to explore the unknown without leaving the comfort of your own home, Ocracoke Friends of the Library had a Travel theme for their March 31st annual membership meeting.



Emma Lovejoy was one of three presenters who shared stories of their world travels. Emma spent 11 months over 2007-2008 in Denmark as an exchange student with the Youth for Understanding program. She's pictured here with maps, photos and souvenirs of her trip. Riggs Ellis gave a talk about her travels in Peru with her daughter Kate Plyer. Linda Austin came down from Hatteras (where she’s the secondary school’s librarian) to share stories about traveling to Europe and Guatemala, and biking the Allegheny trail from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C.

Ocracoke Friends of the Library is a non-profit organization that supports and promotes literacy and the love of reading. Membership is $5 a year for individuals and $10 a year for families. Membership forms are available at the library.

Island Kids Go to Washington!


The students

Not everyone was an armchair traveler this year. Ocracoke High School’s entire student body and most of the faculty took a fantastic weeklong trip to Washington, D.C. this spring. The kids toured the Presidential Monuments and the Capitol Building, and visited the Smithsonian Institution, Holocaust Memorial Museum, National Zoological Park, and Ford's Theater. They also attended an NBA game between the Washington Wizards and the Chicago Bulls.

The big news of the week was when three students, Aaron Caswell, D.J. Lukefahr and Samantha Vander Myde, were accidentally left behind at a Metro stop when the rest of the group boarded the train. It wasn't long before they were all reunited, but it made for good adventure story.



OPS Museum Opens for Another Season



The OPS staff worked hard to get the museum ready to open this year. The building’s interior was painted over the winter, several maintenance projects were tackled, and some of favorite exhibits have been spruced up a bit. The OPS Gift Shop offers a nice selection of local books and, of course, music by Soundside Records musicians! The beautiful new quilt, donated by the Ocracoke Needle and Thread Club is on the bed and raffle tickets are available!

Admission to the Museum is free. It’s open Monday – Saturday, 10am- 4pm, and closed on Sundays. Quilt raffle tickets are $1 each or six for $5. The drawing will be held at the Fall Membership Meeting in November.

Stay tuned…

The Ocrafolks just got together and gave a wonderful performance at the annual Spring Festival Fundraiser – we’ll have pictures and details in the next blog post…

In the meantime, enjoy the nice spring weather and don’t forget to plan ahead for the 2009 Ocrafolk Festival June 5-7.

Happy New Year from all of us here at Soundside Records!

Excuse us while we thaw out our frozen fingers so we can type some more… At the end of January, Ocracoke experienced one honest-to-goodness cold snap, keeping us all hunkered down next to our inadequate heat sources. We don’t expect much sympathy from folks in the frozen north, but we have had a very cold January so far, with many days and nights dipping below freezing, even down into the 20s. Brrr!



We even had an Ocracoke Blizzard! Ocracoke snow is usually nothing more than a few teasing flurries, but this time the snow fell and stuck! On Tuesday, January 20th, while two million people braved freezing weather to gather on the National Mall and witness the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, here on the island a winter storm blew in bringing overcast skies, bitter cold winds and about 1.5 inches of snow. Wednesday morning was bright and clear and the sunshine melted too much of it, but shaded spots stayed white until Thursday, when temperatures in the 40s melted all the rest. It was pretty while it lasted!



So, how do we stay warm when the bitter winds blow? Here are a few of our island secrets:

Pickin' and Singin' at the Community Store…



We gather around the toasty fire in the old potbellied stove at the Community Store, which has been luring islanders in from the cold since 1918. Proprietors Susan and James Paul have been hosting musical gatherings on Friday nights this winter at 6pm. Everyone is welcome to join in the fun ¬– so if you’re on the island, come on out and bring an instrument, or just help with the singing. Bringing your own chair is a good idea, too, unless you want to sit on a milk crate! You’ll see lots of familiar faces from the Soundside Record family, and other musical friends from on and off the island.



Catching Up on All the Movies We Haven’t Seen…



Susan and James have also opened a second business down on the harborfront, in the old cedar-shake house adjacent to the Community Store. Fantastic Flix opened at Thanksgiving, just in time to provide DVD and video game rentals to help us survive the long winter.

Fantastic Flix also rents DVD players and Wii, Xbox and PS 2 video game consoles. They sell camera supplies, small electronics, film, memory sticks, batteries, universal remotes, digital cameras, telephones, and alarm clocks – and candy! What would a movie-watching experience be without Dots or Junior Mints?

Improving Our Minds with the Help of Great Literature…



Ocracoke Friends of the Library is sponsoring a series of Book Talks this winter in an effort to expose us to some culture – and it seems to be working!

Over thirty eager readers gathered in our little library on January 15th to discuss Madame Bovary with scholar and librarian Willie Nelms. Willie traveled from Greenville, NC, where he is the director of a library, and more importantly, plays bass with the Tar River Boys bluegrass band. Our sources also discovered that he’s a Molasses Creek fan, too, so we gave him a warm welcome to the island.

Willie gave an engaging and learned talk about Madame Bovary, focusing on the life of author Gustave Flaubert, and then opened the discussion to the group. A lively debate ensued about the book, with strong opinions offered about the characters of Emma Bovary, her husband and lovers, and the writing style of Flaubert.

(For those who wished they had the Cliff notes, Ocracoke librarians Ingeborg Frye and Ann Borland snuck in a showing of the 1949 film version of Madame Bovary the night before the Book Talk. Deepwater Theater was the venue, and they plan to show movies to go with the books in the series, when available.)

The Book Talk series is provided by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, the NC Center for the Book, and by matching funds from Ocracoke Friends of the Library. For each book, a different scholar will visit our library and lead the discussion. Copies of the books are available now at the library, so if you’re on the island and need a little culture, you can join the Book Talk fun.

February 5th 6:30pm The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles.
February 26th 6:30pm End of the Affair by Graham Greene.
March 19th 6:30pm Morgan’s Passing by Ann Tyler.
April 9th 6:30pm A Mother and Two Daughters by Gail Godwin.
For more information contact Ingeborg Frye at 928-4436.

Rehearsing for an Old Time Ocracoke Variety Show…


On Saturday, February 28th, extroverted islanders will take to the Community Center stage to entertain their friends and help to raise money for renovations on the Methodist Church Rec Hall. The show will start at 7pm and there will also be a bake sale, with all proceeds benefiting the Rec Hall building fund.



The show is open to all types of local acts: songs, stories, dancing, poetry, skits – whatever they can come up with. Organizers Marcy Brenner and Lou Castro (a.k.a. Coyote) are hoping to revive the old Ocracoke-style variety shows from years past, which had the reputation of always including some O’cockers in drag. In any case, you’ll be sure to see some familiar Soundside Records and Ocrafolk Opry faces at the show: Martin Garrish, Jamie Tunnell, Sundae Horn, Rob Temple, and, of course, Marcy and Lou, are among those who’ve already signed up.



The Rec Hall building was originally part of the WWII Naval Base on Ocracoke, and was moved to the church property on School Road in the late 1940’s.

It has served the community in many capacities over the years. As well as being used by the Methodist Church, the Rec Hall has also been a temporary classroom for the school, a meeting place for community organizations, and a place of worship for the Catholic community. The Rec Hall is rented out to the public for showers, birthday parties, wedding receptions, etc., and was the venue for a delicious Thai Moon-catered dinner during the 2nd annual Ocrafolk School. The Rec Hall recently got a new roof, and funds being raised now will go toward a new foundation for this historic and much-loved building.

Soundside Records Unveils its New Website!



Fiddler Dave has been telling his wife Amy, "It's almost ready. . . I think I'm almost done now!" since the end of December. Last weekend, the small dream came true when he uploaded the fancy new Soundside Records website. Check it out at www.soundsiderecords.com.

Ocrafolk School Announces 2009 Classes
The 2009 Ocrafolk School is now accepting registrations for our next session Oct. 25-30, 2009 here on Ocracoke Island. This year's classes include

Island Photography ~ Ann Ehringhaus
Exploring Songwriting: Finding the Voice of Your Heart ~ Marcy Brenner
Island Cooking ~ Debbie Wells
Ocrafolk Sampler: Ocracoke’s History, Seafaring Traditions ~ Philip Howard & Capt' Rob Temple
Vision in Clay: Pottery ~ Rhonda Bates and Wes Lassiter

You can take a look at www.ocrafolkschool.org for more information and registration, or contact Gary Mitchell at gary@ocrafolkschool.org if you have specific questions that are not answered on the website. As the Ocrafolk School becomes more well known each year, it becomes more important to register as early as possible!

Ocrafolk Festival Now Accepting Artisan Applications for 2009
The 2009 Ocrafolk Festival is now accepting artisan applications. All interested parties can visit www.ocrafolkfestival.org for information and a listing of last year's artisans.
***

Whew! December was a blur of fun, festivities and food! Some highlights were… well, just about everything!!


Kids gather for a community Xmas party


An Ocrafolk Christmas Concert


The Ocracoke School Christmas Program




Santa arrives at the day care on the Fire Truck


Ocracoke Library Cookie Swap & Concert








Ocracoke Preservations Society's Wassail Party




Decorations around the village




Ocracoke Methodist Church Pageant


An Oyster Roast Fundraiser at for the Working Waterman's Association


Baby Dee and Free Moustache









Ocracoke is such a fun place to be for any holiday that’s it’s hard to imagine folks having as much good cheer anywhere else. But we know that First Night in Williamsburg, VA must be a great place to be because our own Molasses Creek was there! Gary, Kitty, Fiddler Dave, and Lou Castro were joined by Marcy Brenner and Gerald Hampton for three packed houses at the Phi Beta Kappa Hall and a midnight show at the grand finale in the football stadium (temperature was 27 degrees. Whew!) Molasses Creek will return to Williamsburg on August 22, 2009 for a special Rotary Club fundraising concert at the Kimball Theater.

We have a bunch of new projects to tell you about in the upcoming posts!

Meanwhile, wherever you are, try to stay warm and remember, if you're lonesome for Ocracoke, listening to some music from Soundside Records can help banish the winter blues!

Upcoming Molasses Creek performances
Saturday, March 7, 7:30pm
Molasses Creek at ~ Music Across the Sound
Mattamuskeet High School, Swan Quarter, NC
Molasses Creek will partake in a variety show featuring performers from Ocracoke Island and mainland Hyde County.

Saturday, April 4
8:00pm Molasses Creek with Carolina Still and the Barnraisers
Turnage Theater, Washington, NC

Saturday, April 11
7:30pm Molasses Creek at ~ Ocrafolk Festival Easter Fundraising Concert
Ocracoke Community Center, Ocracoke Island, NC
Fundraising Concert with a host of Ocracoke Performers!

A Month Worth Waiting For . . .

One of Ocracoke’s best-kept secrets is that October is the prettiest time of year. It’s the sweet payoff for all those hectic summer days. As the season is winding down and the relative humidity drops to a reasonable degree, Ocracokers find themselves really enjoying their island home – or at least they would if it wasn’t for those darn mosquitoes!

October brings cooler nights, sunny days and a chance to slow down a bit and smell the salty fresh air. October also brings quiet – fewer people, less traffic and a break from the drone of air conditioners. Ocracokers are having a bit of a much-deserved rest – and preparing themselves for later in the month when wild Halloween revelry takes over the island. (Mark your calendar for the Ocracoke School Halloween Carnival on October 24th and check back in two weeks for details on Halloween happenings.)

One way we celebrate fall is to dedicate a day to appreciate the island’s many and diverse artists during the annual Art Walk. This year’s Art Walk events started last Friday with a reception at the Ocracoke Community Center (which was looking quite spiffy with its new paint job!). Baby Dee and the Free Moustache Rides Again got the place rockin’, and there was free beer and munchies, too!



Baby Dee and the Free Moustache Rides Again Rock the Ocracoke Community Center

Baby Dee and the Free Moustache Rides Again also played at the Ocrafolk Festival in June, at several island fundraising events over the summer, and are regulars at Ocracoke’s Creekside Café.

Art Walk coordinators Nancy Leach, Ann Ehringhaus and Debbie Wells presented a check to Kitty Mitchell to support the Ocracoke School Arts Program. The $1300 donation will help pay for next spring’s Arts Week, in which visual and performing artists visit Ocracoke School to do hands-on projects and workshops with the students from Kindergarten through high school.


Local potter Sarah Fiore in her Bella Fiore pottery shop

Saturday’s Art Walk was a fun way to meet local artists and ask them about their work. Every picture tells a story, and Art Walk artists are willing to share their inspirations and insights.


Barbara Adams showcasing many of her wonderful paintings at her studio


William Nathan Spencer with a host of original decoys

Community Matters

Ocracoke is a small community, and our geographical isolation requires us to rely on each other when something needs to get done. The independent community spirit is alive and well, and the island supports several non-profit organizations. We have a day care center, and a volunteer fire department, and a civic association and a preservation society and a library and a youth center and several scout troops and a burial society and a fish house and two churches and a festival – and they all thrive on the dedication of countless volunteers along with generous donations from local businesses.


A new sampler quilt created by the Ocracoke quilters as a raffle fundraiser for the Ocracoke Working Waterman's Association

In this blogpost we’re highlighting two of those organizations and the ways they’re giving and receiving community support.

Ocracoke Child Care

Ocracoke Child Care is the island’s only day care center, and maintains a 4-star rating, while always striving for the highest score of five stars. The center is rated on compliance with state childcare center regulations, staff education and program standards. Many of the teachers are taking classes toward various certifications in early childhood education. The entire staff will be participating in upcoming workshops related to the new curriculum, The Creative Curriculum, to continue to enhance the quality of care at OCC.

“The staff works hard to provide high quality, loving care to all wonderful children,” says interim director Paige Bennett.

OCC also depends on community volunteers, from the board of directors to classroom helpers to playground clean-up crews.

“OCC is very thankful to be a part of such a supportive and nurturing community,” says Bennett. “Thank you everyone!”

The children at Ocracoke Child Care recently enjoyed a week’s worth of visits from the Ocracoke Volunteer Fire Department, Ocracoke Emergency Medical Services and the Sheriff’s Department during Community Week.



Firemen Albert O’Neal and Ernest Doshier talked to the children about how the fire department serves the community, and then the kids got to climb all over the fire truck.


Missy Warren from Ocracoke EMS showed the children the inside of an ambulance.



The kids got to try on handcuffs with Deputy Jason Daniels and see his police vehicle.


"Now if the time out chair doesn't work. . ."

The Community Week activities are a good example of the fun and creative projects that go on at OCC.

OCC is holding its annual membership drive. All are welcome to become a member of OCC – you can drop off your membership donation at the center, or mail it to PO Box 284, Ocracoke, NC 27960.

Friends of the Library

A public library is a good measure of a community. Public libraries represent the best in our society: freedom of expression, democracy, equality, wisdom and knowledge. Ocracoke Library has been serving the island well since the days when it was contained within an 8x10 foot building and was open for six hours a week.

The new library building was completed in 1997 and it operates as both the school and community library, funded in part by Hyde County Schools and the Regional Library System for Beaufort, Hyde and Martin counties. Fall library hours are Monday through Friday 2– 6, and Saturdays 9 – 1.

Ocracoke Library may be small, but like all good libraries it provides a welcoming and comfortable space to browse, research, or check e-mail. There's a well-stocked children's room and a North Carolina Room that features writing about the island including wonderful old Ocracoke scrapbooks and newspapers. There’s s a well-used shelf of "honor system" books, videos and DVDs for visitors (young and old) to borrow. Internet access is available for everyone.

Founded in 1997, Ocracoke Friends of the Library is a non-profit organization that supports the Ocracoke School and Community Library and promotes literacy on the island. They purchase software programs, videos, magazine subscriptions and hundreds of books for our library. They even pay part of the librarians’ salaries during the summer months in order to keep the library open all year long. Over the past few years, FOL has provided funds for new bookshelves for the adult and children’s rooms in the library, purchased new carpet for the library, and paid for carpet cleaning and custodial services during the summer months.

This year, Ocracoke Friends of the Library is providing grants and matching funds to each classroom at Ocracoke School. Every teacher will receive an initial grant of $100 to spend on books for the classroom. The classrooms are also eligible to receive up to $100 more in matching funds if they hold a fundraiser for books.

Over the past few years, FOL has chosen an Ocracoke classroom to support with money for books. This year, they’ve decided to offer their help to all the school’s classrooms at once.

“We’ve had very successful used book sales the past few years,” said FOL president Scott Bradley. “Having donated to some of the younger grades, the group felt it was appropriate, now that we have the money, to put books in every classroom.”

FOL holds an annual used book sale during the week of July 4th – this year’s sale has taken in over $1500 so far. They also raise money through membership dues and donations. Membership forms are available at the library, and everyone is encouraged to join.

Ocracoke First Grades Raise Money for Classroom Books

The students in Mary Ellen Piland’s first grade class raised $108.87 for books by asking parents and friends to donate their spare change. They put out a donation jar with the sign: “Let us use your change for a change in our classroom.”

The students needed $100 in matching funds to receive a donation from Ocracoke Friends of the Library. At the beginning of the school year, FOL offered each Ocracoke School teacher a grant of $100 to purchase classroom books, and the opportunity to receive $100 more in matching funds if the teacher held a fundraiser. Their classroom was the first in the school to take advantage of the FOL offer, and they now have $308.87 to spend!

“In this political time we thought focusing on ‘change’ would be good for us, as it seems to be working for Democrats and Republicans alike,” said Piland.

It worked for the first graders, too, as the money came pouring in.

“Each day we counted what we collected and made a graph,” Piland said. “The money added up fast!”

They raised $27.35 on the day one, and surpassed their goal of $100 in just five days!



The children sorted and counted the coins and put them in piles to be rolled. Piland and classroom assistant Lou Ann Gaskins rolled the coins, and then it was time to take their loot to East Carolina Bank. The students turned in their rolled coins at the bank, and in exchange they received a very impressive hundred-dollar bill, and an extra eight dollars.



The students plan to send their money on science picture books, and will be ordering them from Books to Be Red.

Piland wishes to thank everyone who helped the first graders reach their goal, and adds that donations to the book fund are “still being accepted.”



Soundside Records performer highlights ~ John Golden



John Golden of Wilmington, NC is a frequent visitor to Ocracoke Island and also to Gary Mitchell's Soundside Studio. John's interest and knowledge of coastal Carolina history goes all the way back to the Lost Colony, the pirates Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard, up to the colonial times and the Civil War blockade runners and pilots. He has written songs about Virginia Dare, pirates, the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and has published many recordings of folk songs and stories. Current Cds available include Shipwrecks & Sea Songs, Volume 1 & 2, A Home for your Heart, & Hatteras Memories.









He always has a new album in the works, and his Cds can be found throughout the gift shops on Ocracoke island and of course online at http://www.soundsiderecords.com/ where you can listen to samples from the recordings.

John's wife Mary Ellen is a well known North Carolina watercolor artist.



Recently featured in “Our State” magazine, watercolorist Mary Ellen Golden lives in Wilmington, NC and operates a studio gallery downtown in The Cotton Exchange. Her work appears in numerous corporate collections, including General Electric, Boddie Noell, Bank of America, Japan Nuclear Fuel, IBM, First Citizens Bank, BB&T, DuPont, and Corning, and may be found in private collections throughout the world. At this year's Ocrafolk School Mary Ellen will demonstrate watercolor techniques and assist students as they paint their own Ocracoke watercolors. There are just a few spaces left, so don't miss this opportunity to join her class October 26-31. For more information visit http://www.ocrafolkschool.org/.