Features

LITTLE RIVER, S.C.—Get ready for crabs, crafters and crooners.

The 31st Annual Blue Crab Festival is set for this weekend just south of the border in Little River, S.C.

Scheduled 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, the festival traditionally showcases all-day entertainment and an array of food and arts-and-crafts booths lining the Little River waterfront the weekend after Mother’s Day.

Other events at the “biker-friendly festival” include a children’s area and activities.

Middle-school-aged students interested in art have several camps to choose from this summer.

Organized by the Brunswick Arts Council, the camps include one being offered at the Buddhist Temple on Midway Road in Bolivia, if enough students sign up.

Four summer art camps are planned June 20 through June 23,

The camps will enable students to work with local, professional artists to create an art project in three days that will be shown to parents and friends on the fourth day, a Saturday.

A fifth summer art camp will be offered June 28-July 1.

OCEAN ISLE BEACH—If you’ve seen a periwinkle-colored bracelet with the words “Heartburn can cause cancer,” or “Nobody Fights Alone” you may have met an Ocean Isle Beach couple working to educate others about the dangers of esophageal cancer.

Last September, Jay and Diane Middleton celebrated their grandson’s first birthday during Labor Day weekend. That weekend, Jay ate a deviled egg and immediately felt pain. Plagued by acid reflux issues and sleep apnea for years, he tried to ignore it.

SHALLOTTE—Fresh fruits and vegetables are on their way to market in Shallotte.

With warmer weather and the arrival of spring, flowers are blooming and it’s time to re-open Buddy Kelly’s Farmers Market in Shallotte.

The first day of the 2012 season will be 8 a.m.-noon Saturday, April 28. Organizers are ready to open the market for its sixth season and hope to draw in larger crowds and more vendors than ever before.

“We are looking for new vendors,” said Loretta Nauta with the Shallotte enhancement and events committee.

CALABASH—Zumba Gold teacher Sara McGrail has Calabash VFW Post 7288 dancing these days.

McGrail, who teaches the popular Latin-style exercise classes on Monday and Wednesdays nights and once-a-week yoga at the Post on Carter Drive, recently orchestrated a fundraiser to bring in more than $5,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project.

McGrail organized silent and Chinese auctions April 15, raising $5,203 at last count to donate to Wounded Warriors through the Calabash VFW.

Nantucket Band, a longtime rock group formed in Jacksonville in 1969, will perform live in an outdoor concert 2-4 p.m. Saturday, April 28, in Holden Beach.

The concert, Holden Beach Grassroots Presents Nantucket Live at Holden Beach, will take place in a field at 1305 Cedar Landing Road near Provision Company Restaurant on the mainland side of Holden Beach.

Concert host Jabin Norris describes the event as a big concert that’s the same weekend as the two-day Days at the Docks at Holden Beach.

Dinah E. Gore Fitness & Aquatics Center at Brunswick Community College has scheduled several fitness marathons next week to benefit Relay for Life.

Those who are up for the fitness challenge are invited to participate. They just need to sign up ahead of time and pay varying registration fees that will be donated to Relay for Life.

The events are every year right before Relay for Life, said Neil Smeigh, fitness specialist at the fitness & aquatics center.

Swim, run, walk

CALABASH—The Saltaire Quilters are at it again.

Last week, the creative seamstresses once again presented worthy recipients with their latest array of handmade, colorful quilts.

The quilts were given to representatives with Brunswick Novant Medical Center and Hope Harbor Home.

Deborah Rochelle, guest services and volunteer manager at Brunswick Novant Medical Center, and Lynn Carlson, executive director of Hope Harbor Home, took turns choosing from among 22 hand-sewn quilts.

In early spring, a long snake slithers its way across the sky. It rises just before sundown and pops up from the horizon much like the first earthly snakes of spring that rise from holes in the ground after a long winter’s nap.
The snake in the sky takes six hours to climb fully above the horizon. On this snake’s back, a person can find some notable star groups. However, if snakes don’t do it for you, then check out the long trail of planets across the sky.