Home Care In Silver Valley, NC

PINEHURST, Idaho — A 6-year-old boy from Silver Valley was the winner of the National Anthem contest and will be preforming at this years National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas!

Christopher Sverdsten made it to the top eight of the competition and was competing against people all across the nation.

Voting closed on Oct. 5, it was announced today that Britnee Kellogg and Christopher Sverdsten were the top two winners!

Both winners get to perform the National Anthem at the 2023 Wrangler NFR, airfare to and from Las Vegas, two-night hotel accommodations and two NFR tickets on the night of their performance.

6-year-old Christopher will be performing on either Dec. 12 or Dec. 15! To see the full National Anthem lineup and learn more about the National Finals Rodeo, use this link!

FOX28 Spokane©

For anyone seeking a promising career option with plenty of opportunity in the next few decades, becoming an electrician would be a good choice.

Electricians can enter the field without four-year degrees and can instead opt for a less expensive trade school education or an apprenticeship that allows them to earn while they hone their skills. Demand for electricians’ services is already strong, but the field also has bright prospects given recent technology and policy shifts. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, job opportunities in the field will grow significantly faster than the overall job growth rate as more of the nation’s energy infrastructure transitions to renewable sources. And like professionals in many other trades, electricians are well-compensated for their work, bringing in a median annual wage of more than $60,240 as of 2022.

Despite the growth opportunities moving forward, one downside to a career as an electrician is that employment in the profession is tightly correlated to larger economic trends. When the economy is booming, the demand for electricians rises with increased activity in industry and especially construction. But when the economy struggles, jobs in the field disappear. Recent history shows this trend: the Great Recession set off massive declines in employment for electricians, but from a low point in 2011, the field grew by over 50% to surpass pre-Great Recession levels in 2019. Similarly, electrician employment dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic, but has since shown signs of recovering.

The strength of the electrician profession is not consistent across demographics, and the biggest gap in this regard is by gender. Women consistently represent roughly 3% or less of the profession, and the share took a hit during the pandemic. But this pattern is not unusual among building trades: recent BLS data shows that women account for 5% or less of carpenters, plumbers, roofers, and masons.

Location is also a significant factor in the job and earning prospects for electricians. In general, Midwestern states have some of the best wages for electricians after adjusting for cost of living, led by Illinois at an adjusted median annual wage of $87,633. This is partially attributable to cost differences, as many Midwestern states are less expensive to live in than their coastal counterparts, but these differences do not tell the whole story.

Instead, factors like industry mix and union strength may be the key factors that drive electricians’ wages. For instance, the fourth best-paying state for electricians, Alaska, has one of the nation’s highest unionization rates, along with a large oil and gas extraction industry that requires highly skilled electricians to keep equipment running safely and efficiently. Top-paying states in the Midwest similarly have stronger unions and manufacturing-driven economies that rely on skilled industrial electricians. Meanwhile, lower-paying states in the South have much weaker labor unions and economies more likely to be driven by agriculture or other industries where electricians’ services are less critical. Among the 15 worst-paying states for electricians, about half are in the South.

The same factors are at play at the metro level, and accordingly, locations in Florida and Texas are overrepresented among the lowest-paying metropolitan areas for electricians, even when factoring in the states’ lower living costs. On the other hand, locations in Illinois—like Chicago, Peoria, Decatur, and Champaign—stand out as offering some of the best compensation for the nation’s electricians.

Below is a complete breakdown of cost-of-living-adjusted electrician pay across more than 300 metropolitan areas (grouped by size) and all 50 states. The analysis was conducted by researchers at Construction Coverage, a website that provides construction software and insurance reviews, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. For more information, refer to the methodology section.

Here are the best-paying U.S. metropolitan areas for electricians.

Best-Paying Large Metros for Electricians

Photo Credit: ESB Professional / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Sirichai netthong / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Victor Moussa / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Sean Pavone / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Andrey Bayda / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Darlene Munro / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Kenny Tong / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Travellaggio / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: S.Borisov / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Checubus / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Dave Riewe / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Uladzik Kryhin / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Dave H. Fine / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Andrew Zarivny / Shutterstock

Photo Credit: Oleg Podzorov / Shutterstock

Methodology & Detailed Findings

To determine the best-paying metros for electricians, researchers at Construction Coverage analyzed the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s 2022 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’ 2021 Regional Price Parities. The researchers ranked metropolitan areas according to the cost-of-living adjusted median annual wage for electricians. In the event of a tie, the location with the larger unadjusted median annual wage for electricians was ranked higher.

Only metropolitan areas with available data and with at least 100,000 people were included in the analysis. The cost of living for New England City and Town Areas (NECTAs) was calculated using data for equivalent Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), where applicable. Additionally, metro areas were grouped into the following cohorts based on population size:

Fore complete results, see The Best-Paying U.S. Cities for Electricians on Construction Coverage.

FOX28 Spokane©

A site that was originally planned for a Silver Valley school is moving toward residential development.

On Tuesday, city council reviewed a staff report recommending the property at 23103 136th Ave. be rezoned to allow for 20 residential lots.

The site was originally to be part of a “civic heart” of Blaney Hamlet, planning director Chuck Goddard told council, with a school and park. However, the plan for a school was dropped when School District 42 said it has no need to locate a facility there, and no funding from the Education Ministry to do so. That decision was relayed to the city in 2012.

The result was a citizen petition to save the school site, and the formation of a group called Action Silver Valley.

READ ALSO: Petition started to save Silver Valley school site

In the 2020 election campaign, the BC NDP promised to buy land for a new elementary school in the Silver Valley neighbourhood. The school district estimates an additional 1,420 students will move to the area over the next 10 years.

READ ALSO: BCNDP promises new high school in Pitt Meadows

Goddard said the school district is considering sites closer to Fern Crescent and 232nd Street for a school to serve Silver Valley students.

The city owns property north of the proposed residential development, which will be become a park – a plan which has the support of area residents, he told council.

Coun. Ahmed Yousef asked if the site could have some commercial development.

Goddard answered there is a commercial area planned on nearby Fern Crescent, but so far it has not been developed. There was a small commercial node designated for Blaney Hamlet, and it was leased to a child care. He said the site in question is not appropriate for commercial use.

Coun. Gordy Robson noted the applicant, Joel Lycan, has been held up for a decade from developing the site because of its potential use for a school.

However, he said the city is getting mail from Silver Valley residents about “lack of commercial, and lack of a heart.”

“We are now taking out one of the hearts,” he said. “The whole concept when we went in there was there were going to be neighbourhoods, and there was going to be schools, and everybody was going to walk. This is a long way from 232nd and 132nd, so it’s going to be quite a hike.

“I’m concerned that what we’ve planned, and what we’ve told the people for 20 years, is not happening,” added Robson.

The rezoning was forwarded to a regular council meeting, where the bylaw will be considered for first reading.

Have a story tip? Email: [email protected]Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

How is it possible that ordinary people can be willing, as a matter of corporate policy, to contaminate workers and poison children, kill rivers, destroy entire forests, and then walk away from the ruin and the shame? This is a question that goes to the heart of the past — and the future — of the American West.

A new book by Michael C. Mix tackles the issue head-on. Leaded: The Poisoning of Idaho’s Silver Valley meticulously reconstructs the story of how — and why — the Bunker Hill Mining Company released enormous quantities of lead over decades in northern Idaho, creating, with little moral or legal constraint, the nation’s worst-ever lead-poisoning epidemic and a dead zone that extended for miles.

Leaded is a profoundly important book about the place of radically extractive industries in the American West and the responsibility of government to protect human and ecological health. Published as it is at a hinge point in history, it is likely to become a crucial case study of environmental injustice — a classic of environmental and cultural history.

An expert in pollutant contamination of shellfish, Mix taught biology for decades at Oregon State University. No surprise, then, that he sorts evidence with the integrity and openness of a scientist and follows leads with the tenacity of a detective, narrating this complex story with the skill of an experienced teacher. Because he loves the ruined valley close to his childhood home, he could be forgiven some white-hot anger at its destruction. But Mix carefully avoids polemics, offering instead something much better — a true and well-told story.

And the story is chilling. In 1843, a pioneer botanist described the Silver Valley as “sublime … as complete a picture of pristine nature as can be held under a northern sky.” Forty years later, mines producing lead, zinc, silver, copper and gold had begun disgorging wastes into the rivers and spewing toxins into the air. By 1903, farmers were suing to stop industry from poisoning their horses, cattle, dogs and chickens. They lost, Mix writes, because of an “ancient legal premise dating back to Roman times: mining exploration and development took preference over all other uses of the land because they represent the ‘highest economic use.’ ” Over the years, the smelters’ smokestacks released tons of lead that were trapped in deadly inversions until the valley “look(ed) like a caricature of a graveyard … a poisoned, dead, or dying landscape,” and people began to fall sick.

After a 1974 fire destroyed the major pollution-control system of the Bunker Hill smelter, the company hired public-relations consultants and began to release its deadly smoke only at night. Children in a downwind elementary school showed high, sometimes catastrophic, levels of lead in their blood. In response, Bunker Hill accused their mothers of being slovenly housekeepers. And so the story goes — carefully told, fully documented, and devastating.

The lead-poisoning epidemic in children, the dead mountainsides and rivers weren’t the unforeseen result of unusual circumstances, or of the failure of moral judgment in some rogue CEO. Instead, Mix concludes, the Bunker Hill catastrophe should be seen as part of the legacy of Westward expansion, when the goal of government was to empower corporations to extract the riches of the West.

The strategies were unremarkable — and familiar. Create towns where every person depends on the industry for a job; make sure that the state depends on income from the industry, too. Over-work and under-protect workers; destroy unions. Sell out to a distant corporation, a cash-starved parent company that requires managers to bring in profits no matter what. Stonewall and/or lie to fledgling federal agencies that might restrict corporate freedom to pollute. Hire scientists to perform bogus studies “which invariably produced results favorable to the industry,” as Mix shows. Insist that pollution controls would bankrupt the company; at any interference, threaten to close up shop. Blame the workers and families for their health problems. Extract billions of dollars. Repeat endlessly.

But is it structurally inevitable that the Bunker Hill story will play itself out, again and again? The citizenry of the West has to decide that question, and soon. Leaded raises hard questions for our time: How much are we willing to pay, in the currency of our health and the health of our communities and ecosystems, for the products of violent and dirty extractive industries — once lead smelting, and now fracking, offshore oil drilling, coal and uranium mining? Is there a limit to the costs we can justly impose on others, present and future? As we struggle to find ways to use the land without wrecking it, this book will provide historical perspective, cogent thinking, a clear warning, and maybe even the courage to take a stand.

Leaded: The Poisoning of Idaho’s Silver ValleyMichael C. Mix280 pages, paperback: $29.95.Oregon State University Press, 2016.

Kathleen Dean Moore writes from a cabin on an Alaskan island during the summer. In the winters, she lives in Corvallis, Oregon, across the street from her former Oregon State University colleague, Michael Mix.

SILVER VALLEY, N.C. — Short-staffed establishments have become new victims of the coronavirus pandemic. Sir Pizza in Silver Valley is just one of the many places experiencing backlash from this outbreak.

What You Need To Know

Rebekah Amos is the great-granddaughter of the first Sir Pizza franchise owner in North Carolina

Sir Pizza in Silver Valley and Thomasville have had to close locations in the middle of the day sometimes due to staffing shortage

Former employees, family and friends have all had to pitch in and work when they can to keep the restaurant going

Rebekah Amos grew up working at Sir Pizza and now serves as a temporary shift manager to help out where she is needed.

“We’ve had to close about a dozen times this summer. We’ve had to close about two times a week, our slowest days, Mondays and Tuesdays for the past several weeks, because we simply don't have employment," Amos said.

Amos is the great-granddaughter of the first Sir Pizza franchise owner in North Carolina.

“Whenever Phil’s father, Phil Sr., came to North Carolina and started this franchise here, you know we have a bunch of customers here who turned into family, and that’s not something we want to undeliver on,” Amos said.

Disappointing family, even those not related by blood, is never an easy task.

“It’s definitely a difficult decision to have to close the stores, but one you don't want to compromise your quality of service and your product,” she said.“It’s definitely a difficult decision to have to close the stores, but one you don't want to compromise your quality of service and your product,” she said.

To protect that quality, they have had to close in the middle of the day due to lack of staffing for other shifts.

“No one ever really calls out. That’s not the issue. We’re trying to make it work and trying not to overwork the current staff that we have,” Amos said.

As most families do, they slice out time in their busy schedules to lend a helping hand when needed. Amos works an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift Monday through Friday on top of picking up two to three shifts at Sir Pizza per week.

“On a busy night, weekend night, we have about 10 staff members at each location. Here lately we’ve been operating about five to six or seven on a good night whenever some of our older employees or family friends who worked in the stores before part-time. They’re able to come in the stores and work a shift,” Amos said.

The hunt for help has been an ongoing issue since reopening the dining room in May 2020.

“I've had so many applications in past years trying to get employees and were able to be super selective, but unfortunately now we only have very minimal applicants and whenever we do get them in. Last week, we had three interviews and one showed up for the interview and got the job but then didn't come in for their first day,” Amos said.

Sir Pizza has and continues to live up to the expectation Amos' great-grandfather built his franchise on, despite this fork in the road.

“It’s definitely tough, but it’s what is in the best interest for your employees and your customers,” Amos said.

Courtesy of Saundra Rowland

It is no secret that grief has touched many in our valley over the years in various ways. Chances are, if you yourself aren’t grieving, you probably know someone who is. That was the case for Saundra Rowland, a member of Real Life Silver Valley Church who recently became a GriefShare leader. Rowland said her heart was broken as she noticed the mounting number of people around her that were experiencing loss, with no resource to turn to.

“I have a friend in church who right around January, had her dad pass away. She went out seeking grief counseling for her mom, and there just isn't anything. Even in the Coeur d’Alene area, she couldn't get in anywhere for six months.”

GriefShare is a worldwide organization that provides training to equip community-led grief support groups. For the past 13 weeks, Rowland and six others from Real Life Silver Valley have been traveling to the Real Life Post Falls campus to participate in GriefShare training courses with the goal of bringing classes to Shoshone County.

In addition to taking part in the training, Rowland and her group have also brought friends with them to simply participate in the class.

“We are going through the training and they are going for the class and they just have had wonderful things to say about it, and I am so glad!”

Rowland says anyone who is experiencing grief is welcome to come join the GriefShare events at Real Life Silver Valley and that she can't imagine anybody, especially in this day and age, who wouldn't have experience with grief, whether it's the loss of a spouse, a friend or relative.

Guests will be welcomed into an environment that is comfortable and safe, while learning to walk through grief with people who are also going through it.

"The feedback that we're getting from people who have taken the class, is that real support has come from each other," she said.

Each session is “self-contained” with new topics every week, meaning attendees are welcome to come to as many classes as they are available to attend.

“There are things that everyone experiences with grief, but maybe not in the same way and time,” Rowland said. “You may experience anger first, and I may experience it sixth or seventh, so each week we direct a different aspect of grief.”

She envisions GriefShare to not just be a one-time experience, but an ongoing source of support for those in the Silver Valley and hopes other churches will get involved.

GriefShare events at Real Life Ministries, located at 708 N. Division St. in Pinehurst, will be open to the public. A one-time seminar will be held on Saturday, Oct. 9 from 9 to 11 a.m. Weekly classes will begin Monday, Oct. 18 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.. They will also hold a "Surviving the Holidays" conference on Saturday, Nov. 13, from 9 to 11 a.m.

For more information on GriefShare or if you would be interested in hosting an event at your church, you can find resources at griefshare.org.