Randolph library Friends to host golfing great Jim Dodson

Jim Dodson

ASHEBORO – Popular sportswriter Jim Dodson will talk about his newest book, The Range Bucket List, in “An Evening with Golfing Great Jim Dodson” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 10, at Pinewood Country Club.

Tickets for Dodson’s appearance, which is sponsored by the Friends of the Randolph County Public Library, are $35 per person and can be purchased at the Asheboro Public Library, 201 Worth Street. Heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served and there will be a cash bar.

In his 40-year career as a journalist, Dodson has gained international renown for his books on golfing. The Range Bucket List, published in 2017, is a funny, intimate, nostalgic journey of self and sport in which this legendary author completes his golf “bucket list.”

Dodson’s previous books include Final Rounds; Ben Hogan: An American Life; American Triumverate: Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and the Age of Modern Golf, which won the U.S. Golf Association’s Herbert Warren Wind Award in 2012; A Golfer’s Life with Arnold Palmer; and A Son of the Game, which was named Top Golf Book of the Year by the International Network of Golf.

In 2011, Dodson won the prestigious Donald Ross Award, given annually by the American Society of Golf Course Architects — only one of two golf writers to receive the award. He is also a recipient of North Carolina’s highest honor, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

Dodson and his wife Wendy live in Greensboro.

For further information, call the Asheboro Public Library at 336-318-6801.

Historian Kevin Duffus returns to Asheboro library with tales of Outer Banks shipwrecks

Kevin P. Duffus

ASHEBORO – For more than 450 years, shipwrecks shaped the destiny of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Researcher Kevin Duffus will return to the Asheboro Public Library at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, to explore how these incidents created one of the most intriguing histories and cultures in America. His talk is free and the public is invited.

Duffus, author of the 2007 book Shipwrecks of the Outer Banks: An Illustrated Guide, will present a wide-ranging discussion of shipwrecks and their legacies, including lifesaving, rumors of wreckers, and hundreds of forgotten shipwreck victims buried among the dunes.

He will explain the various causes of wrecks, why there is a “Graveyard of the Atlantic” in the first place, what it was like for passengers and crews when ships crashed into the breakers along the banks, and the true stories of some of the most incredible rescues.

Duffus will share the memories of the last living lighthouse keeper on the Outer Banks, the descendants of lifesavers, and residents who played on the decks of a wrecked vessel as children  — and one historian who danced there.

He also will point audience members to the best places to see remains of the derelict ships.

Duffus is an award-winning author, researcher, historian and filmmaker who has made significant discoveries about North Carolina history. His books include The Lost Light: A Civil War Mystery, about his recovery of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse’s missing lens; War Zone: World War II off the North Carolina Coast; and The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate, in which he dispels myths about the notorious buccaneer and uncovers the nature of Black Beard’s treasure.

His appearance is made possible by funding from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Friends of the Library.

The library is located at 201 Worth Street. For further information, call 336-318-6803.

Abby the Spoon Lady to bring street performance to Asheboro’s Sunset Theatre

Abby the Spoon Lady by John Gellman

ASHEBORO – Asheville street performer Abby the Spoon Lady, and her one-man-band friend Chris Rodrigues, will bring their unique mix of music and storytelling to downtown Asheboro’s Sunset Theatre at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 17.

The performance is free and the public is invited. It is part of the Friends of the Library Sunset Signature Series, sponsored by the Heart of North Carolina Visitors Bureau, the City of Asheboro and the Friends of the Randolph County Public Library.

“I fell into both street performance and spoon playing when I started backpacking across the United States,” Abby says. “I became obsessed with folk rhythm and culture, and the stories surrounding.”

She found a rich street performance scene in Asheville and established herself there. She shares the street with Chris Rodrigues, who plays guitar and harmonica while stomping on a suitcase with one foot and tapping on a license plate with the other. The two became best friends and performing partners. They began touring more conventional venues, to often sell-out crowds.

Abby hosts the Busker Broadcast radio show on Asheville FM 101.3.  She also serves as acting president of the Asheville Buskers Collective, founded in 2014 to ensure that street performance remains legal.

The Sunset Theatre is located at 234 Sunset Avenue. For further information about Abby’s appearance, call the Heart of North Carolina Visitors Bureau, 800-626-2672.

Following Abby, the series will include two more events.

Asheboro native Holly George-Warren will take the stage at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 3. One of the country’s foremost music journalists, George-Warren is most recently author of the biographies A Man Called Destruction: The Life of Alex Chilton, from Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man, and Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry. She is currently working on a biography of Janis Joplin.

Her husband, author and musician Robert Burke Warren, will play music as a soundtrack for her talk.

Journalist Kevin Maurer, who has been embedded with various U.S. military forces since the beginning of the war in Iraq, will appear at 7 p.m. Thursday, September 13. He is author of No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden, which was the top-selling hardcover book of 2012.