By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      A pest control company employee has been charged in the theft of $8,000 worth of prescription narcotics from a Whiteville pharmacy, Columbus County Sheriff Lewis Hatcher said Friday.      Antonio Donnell Mitchell, 27, of Tart Road, Clarkton, was arrested Thursday after sheriff’s Vice/Narcotics detectives conducted a traffic stop related to the pharmacy…

Story & Photo By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Dedicating a new sanctuary is a once-in-a-lifetime event, if then, at most churches.      Members at Cherry Grove Baptist Church have a little more practice than most, with the second such dedication in six years set for this Sunday, exactly two years and one week since fire nearly leveled…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Three decades in prison was the sentence for Longs man convicted last week as a heroin dealer, Fifteenth Circuit Solicitor Jimmy Richardson said.      Abel Gause, 44, was convicted by a jury sitting in Conway last Wednesday, Circuit Court Judge Benjamin H. Culbertson handing down the sentence in the one-day trial.      Gause…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      At least two Columbus County Board of Education employees have been paid from federal grant proceeds for work they did applying for those grants, Supt. Alan Faulk confirmed Tuesday.      Neither Supt. Faulk nor members of the school board were aware of those payments until after the three-year US Department of Justice…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Liquor by the drink for Tabor City will be on the ballot for town residents this November, Town Council members agreed Tuesday.      The measure will come five years after a similar referendum failed by just one vote, and comes on the heels of an ongoing effort that could lead to Tabor…