Senior Book Club to host trek to NC Literary Festival

The Asheboro Public Library’s Senior Book Club will take a day trip to the North Carolina Literary Festival at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Saturday, September 12, 2009.

The trip is free and open to the public, but registration is required by Friday, September 4. The group will leave the Asheboro library at 8 a.m. and return by approximately 5:30 p.m.

For more information, or to register, please call Amy Keith Barney or Jessica Gibson at 318-6803.

The festival, which runs September 10-13, will feature 102 authors reading and signing their work, as well as exhibits, performances, sales and children’s activities. The theme is “A Celebration of Reading and Writing.”

Authors scheduled to appear at the festival on Saturday, September 12, include John Hart, P.T. Deutermann, Lee Smith, Michael Malone, Jill McCorkle, Paul Cuadros, R.L. Stine, Rick Bragg and more.

The libraries of UNC and Duke University, with additional support from North Carolina Central University, organize and sponsor the free festival.

The Senior Book Club meets on the second Thursday of each month at the Senior Adults Center in Asheboro. The September 10 meeting will take place as usual, with a discussion of John Grisham’s The Appeal.

A near-death experience sends Bertram Pincus to Ghost Town in the Asheboro Public Library’s Movie Monday for adults, 2 p.m. August 17.

The almost-fatal mishap puts Pincus, played by Greg Kinnear, in touch with a nether world of ghosts – all of whom want him to do something for them in the real world. One of the favors places Pincus in the middle of an after-life love triangle in this romantic comedy.

The film also stars Ricky Gervais and Tea Leoni.

The movie is free and the public is invited; refreshments will be served. Find our more at www.randolphlibrary.org/asheboromovies.html, or call 318-6824.

Watch the downtown Asheboro mural ribbon cutting

Downtown Asheboro mural to get formal unveiling

The ribbon will be cut on downtown Asheboro’s new mural at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, August 13, at the mural site near the intersection of Church and Academy streets.

The Asheboro/Randolph Chamber of Commerce will host the event, which will feature comments from local elected officials and mural project organizers. Children, teens and adults who worked on the mural will be recognized.

The ribbon cutting is free and the public is invited.

Designed by painter and art teacher Cori Cagle, the mural depicts a dawn-to-dusk vision of Asheboro landmarks such as the library, the municipal building, the old courthouse, the Sunset Theatre, Acme McCrary and more on the 220-foot arced retaining wall.

A core group of more than 30 children and teens worked on the mural each morning for two weeks in July, under the supervision of Cagle and Randolph County Public Library Teen Services Librarian Amy Keith Barney. Teens volunteering through the library and members of the Central Boys and Girls Clubs provided the bulk of the painters.

Adults were invited to paint on two evenings during the period.

The project was part of “Express Yourself @ Your Library,” the library’s Teen Summer Reading Program. It was funded by Trees Asheboro via a Grassroots Arts Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council through the Randolph Arts Guild. The Asheboro City Council approved the project June 4 on a recommendation from the Asheboro Appearance Commission.