Home Care In Bixby, NC

By Mike Barnhardt

Enterprise Record

County commissioner Mark Jones knows.

Response time in a medical emergency is important.

“This group of unbelievable men and women have saved my life, and I will be forever thankful,” he said, while looking at members of the Davie EMS staff on hand for the groundbreaking of the county’s newest EMS station last week.

“Response time means something,” Jones said. “This is where the rubber meets the road.”

The new station is being built in the Bixby community, at Cornatzer and Howardtown roads. The EMS units now stationed at the Advance Fire Department will be moved there when the building is completed.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Joseph Ashburn, Davie EMS director. “It will help us provide quicker coverage for Advance, Cornatzer and Fork. We will be able to reach our citizens in a more timely manner.”

Ashburn, who was named to the job in November, said he hopes to continue the EMS excellence in Davie County set by his predecessors, who laid the foundation. Two of them – Dwayne Smith and Johnny Frye – were on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony last week.

“If it weren’t for these guys, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” Ashburn said. “I want to continue that legacy.”

The new station is being built with the EMT in mind, and EMTs were consulted in the design, Ashburn said. “This is their home every fourth day,” he said. “They eat here, sleep here, study here.”

County Manager Brian Barnett said he remembers sitting at his desk in Greenville, NC, prior to taking the job here, reading about Davie EMS.

“What a difference a year makes,” Barnett said. “We’ve come a long way in a year. My No. 1 priority is patient care – that we give top-notch care.”

Davie EMS has stations on Dr. Slate Drive in Mocksville (headquarters), on Farmington Road near NC 801, and on US 601 South near Greasy Corner. Barnett said the search is on for land for Station 5, which is likely to be in the western part of Davie County.

County commissioner Brent Shoaf said he has witnessed Davie EMS work for his family; and said it is much better than a private system, which he witnessed in another state. “This is important. We want you to be successful,” he said to the EMTs.

Commissioner Benita Finney agreed.

“Thanks for enduring temporary homes, and hope you will have a stable home now,” she said. “And I hope we start listening to your voices and give you what you need.”

“We’re thankful for the lives that will be saved by this place,” said Chris Cantrell, Hope Baptist Tabernacle pastor who said a prayer for the facility.

The youth sports tournament season has begun in the Upstate, attracting teams every weekend of the summer and delivering a total economic impact that measures in the millions.

A youth baseball tournament, the Black Bear Classic, is under way now at 17 sites across five Upstate counties and has drawn 150 teams from all over the Southeast. An estimated 7,000 people, athletes and their supporters, are staying in area hotels and eating at restaurants.

Brett Bixby of Charlotte, N.C., is in Greenville for the weekend, staying at the Clarion off Haywood Road. He has two sons playing in the Black Bear Classic and will spend hundreds of dollars on food and accommodations before the tournament finishes Sunday. He said he likes Greenville, a city he had never visited, and compared it to a "mini-Charlotte" with all the cranes downtown.

"It's a lot," Bixby said of the commitment to be here, both in terms of time and money. "It's tough when you have both parents working, and you both want to be there. We're paying for a hotel room, gas, food."

Greenville County Sports Tourism Manager Jeff Poole estimated that the Black Bear Classic alone will have an economic impact of around $2.8 million on the region. Economic impact includes direct spending on lodging, transportation, entertainment, food and shopping. It also includes indirect spending as hotel and restaurant managers boost staff to accommodate the larger crowds.

Meanwhile, Greenville County coffers have gotten a roughly $138,000 boost in terms of taxes and fees associated with the tournament. This includes a $3,750 usage fee charged to promoter Prospect Sports to use county fields at Conestee and Northwest parks.

In Easley, Sports Tourism Director Scott Price said municipal park facilities typically charge low usage fees because the real goal is to bring in big tournaments for that broader economic impact. His department is hosting Big Bear Classic games at Alice Field and the J.B. Owens Sports Complex.

"We have people from all over the country who would never visit Easley otherwise," said Price.

Greenville County's Poole said his office runs a robust marketing effort to recruit tournaments to the area. His staff chases leads, attends youth sports trade shows, bids on some tournaments and maintains a page dedicated to tournaments on its website, https://greenvillerec.com, among other things.

His department currently has 100 events on their calendar using county facilities built or renovated in the past 10 years.

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The Team Greenville swim team also is hosting a meet — the Splash and Dash — this weekend at Greenville County's Aquatic Complex. Poole said this event expects to attract 400 swimmers competing over three days. That event's economic impact: $300,000. A lacrosse tournament, dubbed the South Carolina Shootout, took place June 3 and 4 at the county's MESA Soccer Complex brought in 99 teams and had an economic impact of $1.7 million.

A 2-percent hospitality tax raised about $40 million for work on all these facilities under the county's 2007 "TRAC" plan.

"These tournaments are the fruits of that construction phase," Poole said.

Easley's Price said the J.B. Owens complex has tournaments scheduled for every weekend this summer, including the first Senior League World Series to be held at the facility. The week-long series July 29 to Aug. 5, which targets boys ages 13 to 16, has served to replace the Big League World Series, which had targeted older kids but was disbanded last year. Easley will get national exposure with the Senior League tournament: ESPN will be televising it.

"It should be in line with what we have seen in the past — $700,000 in economic impact," Price said.

For their part, families coming to the tournaments said the expenditures in terms of travel, equipment and team fees — some running into the thousands — are worth it so long as their children's hearts are still in it.

Eric Hudson Sr., whose son Eric Jr. also plays on the Next Level team, said baseball is the most expensive sport, with every player needing bats, cleats, gloves and clean uniforms for every game. He said he looks for deals on equipment from Play It Again stores.

"I've spent $250 on wood bats!" he said. Eric Jr. dug into his equipment bag, smiled and held up his black Mizuno Bamboo Elite.

Next Level Baseball kids practice three times a week and travel to tournaments almost every weekend from June to August. When they are on the road, families socialize and eat meals together. The kids, who attend schools all over Charlotte, had to try out to get on the team; they were all smiles on Thursday standing next to their dads.

"Most of these (tournaments) are our vacation," said baseball dad Andre Grier of Charlotte, N.C. His son, Next Level infielder Christian, nodded his agreement. "They've got a lot more skate rinks here," he said.

Economic impact aside, the real business of the tournament is college recruiting. Florida-based Prospect Select Baseball organized the tournament and is hosting 10 youth travel-team tournaments across the country between June and September. Of the 17 sites where the Bear Claw Classic tournament games are taking place, nine are at colleges and universities, including Clemson, Anderson University, Southern Wesleyan, Wofford College, Presbyterian and Furman University.

"That's where (the players) get the most exposure," Bixby said. "Once spring ball is over, this is when the colleges can send their guys out to look at players."

Scouts were on site Thursday at Conestee Park with radar guns measuring pitch speeds. Bixby's oldest son, Michael, is 6 feet 4 inches tall; he pitches but also plays outfield and the occasional infield position. Kids like Michael, who are big and still growing have what scouts call "projectability," Bixby said.

"You've got 70 to 100 scouts looking at players on 150 teams," he said. "That's more than 1,500 players and about 600 games. The numbers are pretty staggering."

Britt Eckerstrom saw plenty of minutes last year for the Portland Thorns. Entering the NWSL Challenge Cup, many NWSL fans thought she would be the starter for Portland, with Adrianna Franch out. However, Bella Bixby surprised everyone, taking the starting reins during the group stage.

Eckerstrom waited for her chance, and she got it during the Challenge Cup quarterfinals. An injury to Bixby put Eckerstrom under center, in between the sticks. She made a stunning eight saves, denying the North Carolina Courage’s dominant attack to give Portland a 1-0 victory, majorly upsetting the Courage.

DREAMWEAVER! #BAONPDX pic.twitter.com/hIspsFMFNo

— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) July 17, 2020

Scoring her first professional goal was Morgan Weaver, the rookie out of Washington State University. However, all eyes were on Costa Rican midfielder Raquel “Rocky” Rodriguez, who sneaked a stellar assist through the Courage defense.

North Carolina tried for an opportunity to score, to potentially send the game to penalty kicks. In the knockout rounds, if the score is tied at the end of the match, then there’s no extra time. The match would go straight into penalty kicks.

However, North Carolina couldn’t muster up a strong enough attack to pass Eckerstrom.

BRITT ECKERSTROM, WE ARE NOT WORTHY!!#NCvPOR | 0-1 | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/sQjQruRi7h

— The Equalizer (@EqualizerSoccer) July 17, 2020

Eckerstrom finished the match with eight saves, denying the likes of Lynn Williams, Debinha and Kristen Hamilton. In fact, Eckerstrom denied Debinha a total of five times throughout the match.

Now, the Thorns will take on the winner of the Houston Dash vs. Utah Royals FC match in the semifinals on Wednesday. The semifinals will be held at Rio Tinto Stadium, home of the Royals.

TULSA – One of Tulsa’s landmark furniture families has officially passed into its third and fourth generations with the $1.6 million sale of North Carolina Furniture Mart to Kristi and Christopher Johnson.

Tulsa County Courthouse records indicate that C2K LLC of Bixby, led by the Johnsons, bought the 26,000-square-foot store at 12109 S. Memorial Dr. in Bixby from N.C.F.M. LLC, managed by Jeri L. Bomer.

That marks the last surviving store in a chain that once operated across three states. But the Johnsons see a great deal of opportunity for their 12-employee shop, which sits on 2.5 acres along one of south Tulsa’s busiest retail corridors.

“The economy was bad for a while,” said Christopher Johnson. “People were hanging on to their money. But we have seen a turn to the way up, so we’re excited about it. The future’s looking very promising for us.”

Furniture marks one of the curious retail sectors where small shops actually thrive in the shadow of Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Mathis Brothers. James Russell, chairman of the Oral Roberts University Undergraduate College of Business, said that could signal a different level of customer satisfaction and service. University of Oklahoma retail economist James Kenderdine also noted potential advantages in convenience and no-pressure sales.

But this family store has a history of taking on the big boys. The origin of North Carolina Furniture Mart dates back to the Horn Brothers Furniture store, a pioneering Tulsa television icon of the 1960s. M. Arthur Eichhorn, who went by “Ike Horn,” pitched furniture from his 129th Street and Admiral store through the Horn Brothers Show, a country-and-western television show he hosted featuring local and traveling talent.

Such half-hour, locally produced shows proved much more common in the early age of TV, and often at the direction of furniture sellers. The Bob Mills and the Jude and Jody furniture stores produced similar programs in Oklahoma City at that time, mimicking national variety shows that often drew strong audiences.

These shows faded into folklore at the end of the decade as CBS led the so-called big three networks into more urban programming.

“They wanted to get away from the feeling of projecting that we were cowboy or rural hicks,” said Kenderdine, professor emeritus of marketing and supply chain management at OU’s Price College of Business. “I think it had to do with being as sophisticated as the coasts.”

In the early 1990s, Horn Brothers transformed into the North Carolina Furniture Mart, which would grow to five locations in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. The company also passed to Arthur’s son and daughter, Bomer and Bob Eichhorn, along with granddaughter Kristi Johnson and her two cousins, Jesse and Luke Bomer.

“We’ve just slowly but surely brought them down to this one store,” said Christopher Johnson.

He attributed this sale to the retirement of his wife’s father and aunt.

The Johnsons plan no changes to the business, which sells everything from futons to credenzas. They also foresee no improvements to the property, which Tulsa County assessor records said was built in 1994. Johnson said the building was last renovated in about 2005.

Courthouse records indicate that the new owners took a pair of mortgages from Regent Bank with this sale, a $640,000 note due this September, and a $810,616 mortgage due June 24, 2023.

Under their guidance the business has advanced to its fourth generation.

“My wife has worked here since she was 19,” said Christopher Johnson. “She’s currently 36. And my daughter Kylee, she’s 13, and she’s already working here, answering the phones, doing drops and helping customers.”

The superintendent of a school district in Oklahoma resigned Tuesday amid allegations that a 16-year-old football player was sexually assaulted with a pool stick by his teammates during an event at the superintendent’s home, officials said.

The teenager was attending a team function in Bixby, Oklahoma, in September at the home of Robert Kyle Wood, the superintendent of Bixby Public Schools, when three teammates held the student down and a fourth teammate used a pool stick to sexually assault him, which caused “significant pain” and bleeding, according to an affidavit prepared by an investigator with the local district attorney’s office. A fifth teammate recorded video of the attack on his cellphone while other teammates watched and laughed, the affidavit said.

Investigators said it was unclear when the school system learned about the episode or when it was reported to authorities, “but it was certainly delayed for days,” according to the affidavit. It states that in October, the teenager confided in the athletic director, Jay Bittle, who had been tipped off by another student that a hazing incident had taken place.

Bittle did not immediately respond to an email request for comment Wednesday.

The teenager also said that a similar episode happened at the superintendent’s home during the 2016 football season, according to the affidavit. It did not elaborate on that instance.

The Bixby school board has been conducting its own investigation of the matter. In a statement this week, it expressed “profound disappointment” in the affidavit filed by the district attorney’s office, saying it “contains multiple false and untrue assertions,” including when school officials reported the alleged episode to law enforcement officials and when the parents of the teenager were notified of the details of the alleged assault.

Matt Ballard, the district attorney of Rogers, Mayes and Craig counties, said in a statement Wednesday that he had “full confidence” in the investigators. Ballard was assigned the case after the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office recused itself.

“From the very beginning of the case, it has been frustratingly difficult to get pertinent information from the school district,” Ballard said in a statement. “As soon as the attorney general assigned my office to pursue the case, I released a public statement urging anyone with relevant information to reach out to investigators. That obviously included members of the Bixby School Board and I will welcome their call.”

A spokesperson for Wood, the superintendent, said on Tuesday in a statement provided to News on 6, a television station in Tulsa, that Wood was resigning and retiring.

“In light of recent events, Dr. Wood decided it was in the best interests of the Bixby School District, the Bixby community, and his family to step away at this time,'’ the statement said. “Although this has been a challenging time for Dr. Wood and the Bixby School District, recent events cannot erase Dr. Wood’s many accomplishments as a life-long Oklahoma educator, including his successful 11-year tenure as Bixby’s Superintendent.”

The statement also said: “Dr. Wood did not violate any law regarding reporting of child abuse; nor has he violated any District rule or policy. Because of the pending investigation, Dr. Wood will not litigate this case in the press.”

Efforts to reach Wood by phone and email Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Several Bixby High School football players were benched or kicked off the team for the remainder of the season, according to Tulsa World. No charges have been filed.

In his statement, Ballard, the district attorney, said, “This is a complex investigation and I am committed to uncovering all relevant facts and only at the conclusion of a thorough investigation will I be able to make charging decisions regarding any potential crimes as I deem appropriate and in the best interest of justice.”