Area News

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Ten people, including five children, escaped injury when gunfire struck a Clay Estates Drive home near Tabor City early Tuesday, a Columbus County Sheriff’s Office report said.      Deputies were called to the home about 4:40 a.m. after residents reported hearing gunfire that woke them from their sleep, sheriff’s spokeswoman Michelle Tatum…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Help is coming “soon” to hundreds of Fair Bluff area residents displaced by Hurricane Matthew nearly two years ago, Gov. Roy Cooper said during a visit to the town Monday.      Pressed repeatedly to be more specific during a news conference held inside a disaster recovery center opened just recently downtown, Gov.…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com Thursday afternoon update A section of NC 905 south of Nakina, closed following a gasoline tanker truck crash and fiery explosion Wednesday night, will not re-open until sometime Friday. NC Department of Transportation Engineer Kenneth L. Clark, in a memo to the DOT’s Public Information office, said the environmental clean-up at…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Chadbourn Middle School is closing, its students to attend Evergreen Elementary School in the academic year that begins Aug. 27, the Columbus County Board of Education agreed Monday.      Board member Worley Edwards made the motion, Monte Herring offering a second, both saying their decision came “with a heavy heart.”      Board member…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      A June break-in at Evergreen Elementary School left investigators with good surveillance images of a suspect, but they have not yet been able to identify the man.      That man entered the building on June 23, left after midnight on the 24th, taking a taxi to the Chester Street area in Myrtle…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Two large-scale drug operations have been shut down following intensive Columbus County Sheriff’s Office Vice-Narcotics investigations in the Beaverdam and Iron Hill areas of Columbus County, Sheriff Lewis Hatcher said this week.      Two people were arrested in the Iron Hill investigation, with a third in custody on unrelated warrants. Two more…

     Can it be too messy for Mess Fest?      Mother Nature has apparently said yes, the deluge this week coupled with more rain in the forecast for Saturday has prompted Mess Fest organizers in Loris to postpone the inaugural event to Aug. 18, weather permitting and fingers crossed.      Geared for children infants to age 12, Mess…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      Felony warrants for soliciting a child by computer and disseminating obscene materials to a minor were served by state agents on a Cerro Gordo man Tuesday, Columbus County Detention Center records show.      Kelton Grant Ford, 28, of Bullard Lane, Cerro Gordo, was charged with two counts of soliciting a child by…

Tuesday update      Hannah Campbell “has been located and is safe,” Columbus County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Michelle Tatum said Tuesday afternoon.      Campbell had not been seen by family since late Saturday night. Investigators now know that her boyfriend “dropped her off at a friend’s residence to stay the night,” Tatum said in a news…

By DEUCE NIVEN tribdeuce@tabor-loris.com      A marijuana growing operation was found Friday on the property of an area man on probation for previous drug offenses, Columbus County Sheriff Lewis Hatcher said.      Byron Scott Stevens, 43, was arrested after state Adult Probation and Parole Officers were joined by sheriff’s Vice/Narcotics detectives executing a search warrant at Stevens’…