Region Briefs
HE WANTS HIS $ 1 MILLION
New Hanover man in hot seat
Television viewers will have a chance to see a Carolina Beach resident spend his last night in the hot seat on the popular ABC show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Kevin McSwain appeared on the show on Sunday night. Contestants have a chance to answer multiple-choice questions and earn up to $ 1 million. He won $ 64,000.
He will take his shot at winning $ 1 million tonight. The show is scheduled to air at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Mr. McSwain is a teaching assistant at Bellamy Elementary School.
JOYCE FERNANDO NAMED
Top activist is from Wilmington
Joyce Fernando of Wilmington has been named Activist of the Year by Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative political group.
Ms. Fernando is an organizer of the group’s Cape Fear chapter, CSE’s largest in North Carolina. CSE favors smaller government and lower taxes and claims more than 200,000 members nationwide.
The award, named for activist Richard Fink, was presented at CSE’s Washington, D.C., headquarters on Monday.
On the Web: www.cse.org
MATERNITY OUTREACH
Grant allows 2 to be hired
The New Hanover County Partnership for Children received a $ 50,000 grant from the Cape Fear Memorial Foundation to establish a maternity outreach program through the health department.
The health department will hire two people to work with high-risk pregnant women to reduce the number of infant deaths and to help them become better parents.
Pregnant women will be encouraged to seek medical care early in their pregnancies and to follow through with health care appointments before they give birth.
The project will encourage mothers to keep health care appointments for their children, increase the length of time between pregnancies and eliminate unplanned pregnancies. Eligible clients would be encouraged to enroll in federal programs aimed at helping the poor, such as Medicaid.
Partnership for Children administers the state Smart Start program, an early childhood project .
$ 10,000 FOR WEB SITE
Coastal Land Trust gets grant
The CP&L Foundation has awarded a grant to an environmental group, which will use the funds to develop a Web site.
The $ 10,000 grant is the second the Carolina Power & Light Co. has presented to the Coastal Land Trust, a group which has protected more than 12,000 acres of wetlands, floodplains, historic plantations and open space in the coastal plain of North Carolina.
The first grant of $ 5,000 was presented in 1995 to match state funds that paid for a survey to document biological diversity in Brunswick County.
DEC. 18 DRIVE
Your blood is needed now
The American Red Cross will hold a blood drive from 1 to 6 p.m. on Dec. 18 at Brunswick Community Hospital to replenish dwindling supplies during the holiday season. In the Carolinas Blood Services Region of the Red Cross, which includes the Cape Fear chapter, the agencies must collect a minimum of 1,500 units of blood daily to meet the demand, according to a press release from the hospital.
For more information and to make an appointment, call Tricia Smietana at 755-1244.
Briefly . . .
* North Topsail Beach Town Clerk Loraine M. Carbone has been designated a certified municipal clerk from the International Institute of Municipal Clerks. The designation is achieved after more than 100 hours of courses.
Ms. Carbone has been employed by the town since July 1998.
