Press Releases

The North Carolina Arts Council will offer three regional writing workshops this spring in Cary, Asheville and Wilmington that will be taught exclusively by North Carolina Arts Council literary Fellowship recipients.

When most people think of the first landing of a man on the moon, they don’t think of a behind the scenes bureaucrat, but there was James E. Webb. Born in Tally Ho, in Granville County, raised and educated in Oxford, N.C., Webb was picked by President John Kennedy to take control of the fledgling National Aeronautics and Space Administration in early 1961. Four months later he charged Webb and NASA to land a man on the moon within a decade and safely return him. He did.

Gaston County has been awarded a 2018 federal Historic Preservation Fund grant administered by the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office (HPO). The grant award is $6,000 and is matched by the Town of Dallas for a total project budget of $10,000. The funds will be used to resurvey historic properties within the National Register of Historic Places Historic District in Dallas, and to conduct a new survey of historic buildings outside the district.

History buffs, community leaders and preservationists will aid in the preservation of Civil War sites in North Carolina this spring. Historic Edenton holds its Park Day Saturday, March 30. Three other venues will have Park Day events Saturday, April 6 and one will be held Saturday, April 13. Thousands of volunteers across the country participate in the American Battlefield Trust organized event.   

The State Archives of North Carolina is excited to announce the establishment of an Oral History Unit within its Special Collections Section. The unit is headed by oral historian Ellen Brooks, a graduate of the Oral History Master of Arts program at Columbia University. She was previously the oral historian at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. 

Join Town Creek Indian Mound and the Montgomery County Public Library in Troy in celebration with the North Carolina Science Festival’s Statewide Star Party April 13! “The Moon and Beyond” is the theme for 2019 in commemoration of the Apollo moon landing and the “giant leap” that left the first human footprints on the moon.

Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the popular “Outlander” book series, will visit two N.C. Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources attractions for ticketed events April 26-28.  

The world of computer games was an uninviting one for Phaedra Boinodiris and her sister, so they invented womengamers.com to create a space that spoke to and reflected them.

The discovery of a 17-pound gold nugget by Conrad Reed in 1799 is America’s first documented gold discovery. His discovery and his father John’s development of the mine are celebrated. Little notice is given to his mother, Sarah Kiser Reed, or other women during the gold rush period.

Before the other colonies followed suit in July, the North Carolina Provincial Congress issued the Halifax Resolves on April 12, 1776, voting to separate from the British Crown. The approaching Halifax Resolves Day observance at Historic Halifax, April 12, will begin a free two-day celebration to commemorate North Carolina's stand as the first colony to call for independence!