Features

In Brunswick County, it’s a no-brainer: Fresh fish is better, and locally caught is best.

That’s the basis of Brunswick Catch, a group of commercial fishermen, seafood dealers and restaurant owners spawned two years ago to promote locally harvested seafood.

Looking for a cool place to enjoy a hot movie this summer?

Coastal Stadium 10 at 5200 Bridgers Road in Shallotte has just the tickets.

The air-conditioned movie theater offers daily show times of the latest 2D and 3D movies.

The Kids Summer Series continues for the next three weeks, with $1 movies for ages 1 to 100 at 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. “Night at the Museum 2” is the featured flick this Thursday.

“A canopy of moss-draped trees leading to the Intracoastal Waterway” is one way to define Gause Landing.

Or how about “George Washington slept here”? Or “Hurricane Hazel hit here”?

Jackie Stanley Varnam is among locals who grew up in the area just west of the waterway and south of Ocean Isle Beach, on Hale Beach Road running parallel to Gause Landing Road.

Fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill has hit River City, Iowa—and Wilmington—looking to con the townspeople into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys’ band.

Opera House Theatre Company is presenting its third and final week of “The Music Man” this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 23-25, on the main stage at Thalian Hall in Wilmington.

Based on Meredith Willson’s classic production, this local rendition plays at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday with a 3 p.m. matinee Sunday.

After three years of construction, St. Brendan Catholic Church on Ocean Highway in Shallotte will officially move into its new sanctuary starting with Sunday Mass at 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m.

That afternoon, at 2 p.m., the congregation and staff will dedicate the new 9,000 square-foot building, with seating for 1,100 people, with a special ceremony including a speech from Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Raleigh.

Summer fun awaits at Shallotte’s own celestial venue for convivial pursuits.

Planet Fun, at 349 Whiteville Road, is designed for fun-seekers of all ages.

Highlights in the 50,000-square-foot entertainment center, beside Lowe’s Home Improvement, include the 32-lane constellation bowling alley, four lanes of mini bowling, a two-story laser tag arena, nine-hole black-light miniature golf, a soft indoor playground, arcade, party rooms, concession stand, pro shop and a restaurant, the Starz Grille.

Where is the center of the Milky Way? If you answered right in the middle that would be correct and funny, however, I was thinking about the location of the center as judged by the stars.
What direction in the sky should you look during a humid summer night to be looking toward the center?
To find it, all you have to do is find an archer and a scorpion, and look in between them, and you are staring at the center of the Milky Way. That sounds easy enough to accomplish.

Clayton Bartizal, business development manager at resortandlodges.com, said recently various teams of writers and editors write “top 10” articles once or twice each month based on social media reviews, price ranges, the size of the units and how resorts meet customers’ needs.

“We get a lot of [website] traffic from that,” Bartizal said. “It’s a lot of great free traffic our partners get.”

While many of the sites chosen are advertising partners with resortandlodges, many are not, he said.

Ocean Isle Beach—Even as an unusual early-summer heat wave sets in, guests and employees at The Winds Resort Beach Club don’t mind at all—as long as they can hang out at the pool, enjoy drinks at the tiki bar and walk onto the strand whenever the mood strikes.