Letter To The Editor

The Columbus Community Band will have their 4th annual Spring Concert on Sunday, May 19th at 3pm in First Baptist Church Whiteville. This is a FREE event for the public. Donations to this 501c3 nonprofit organization are appreciated. The band will be directed by Richard Tyndall of SCHS and Wayne Linton of Central Middle School.

Band members range from middle school age through retirement age, and everything in between. We have several professional musicians and music educators within the group. We also have members who took decades off from playing and have picked it back up since joining in the last few years.

This concert will feature lots of traditional concert pieces and two well known hymns, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and “Nearer My God to Thee.” The band agrees that their most challenging piece this season has been a tune entitled “Emperata Overture.”
Please join the band on Sunday, May 19th and support the arts in Columbus County! We hope you enjoy the show!

Please contact band president Dr. Anna Elkins Smyth with questions at ColumbusCommunityBand@Gmail.com

While working on another story over the weekend in Downtown Whiteville, our team ran into in a family preparing to celebrate a recent law school graduation. Please take an opportunity to read a letter she submitted to us, to share with her hometown.

I have no cliché story about a childhood desire to be an attorney. God placed NCCU School of Law on my heart near the end of my undergrad journey at Fayetteville State University. Nervous of my ability to excel, I constantly reminded God that I would fail without his help. As always, he exceeded my prayer requests and expectations.

Placing in the top 10% at the conclusion of my first-year of law school vested me with confidence that the legal profession is where I belong. Throughout my law school education, I ranged within the top 10% and 20% of my class. Law school was an extremely rigorous process. Despite this, I am grateful to announce that I have graduated from NCCU School of Law within the top 15% of my class as Magna Cum Laude and employed as a Family Law Attorney.

As a first-generation law school graduate, I could not have accomplished any of this without the support of my village and the grace and guidance of God. My husband, family, church family, and closets friends all prayed for and supported me to be here today. I owe all of who am and all of what I have accomplished to my God!

-Janeé Patterson

Below are a few snapshots from Janeé’s ‘drop in’ celebration in #DowntownWhiteville:

Category: Letter To The Editor

Columbus Community Band Spring Concert 2024

Whiteville Native, Janeé Patterson, Graduates NCCU Law.