Opinion

It’s heartbreaking news to digest anytime we get word a Brunswick County resident has died suddenly or in a tragic way.
It’s especially devastating news when it’s a young person.
This week, people throughout the county are mourning the loss of 17-year-old Ryan Dilworth, the son of a Holden Beach police officer and 911 telecommunications operator.
Ryan was a junior at West Brunswick High School and was a member of the JROTC. He worked at Main Street Restaurant and Boomer’s Rentals of Holden Beach.

Concerned business owners along N.C. 130 did the right thing.
Worried their businesses were going to suffer because of a change in traffic flow near their locations, merchants rallied together and went before the Shallotte Board of Aldermen.
The road project at the heart of this controversy had been many years in the planning and work stages. When it was finished, it redirected the main flow of traffic away from the Main Street and N.C. 130 intersection near Walmart behind Shallotte Commons Shopping Center and back onto Main Street and Smith Avenue.

At the next Brunswick County Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, April 3, officials will make a final determination about what time classes will start for the 2012-2013 school year.
This year, the district adopted a staggered-start schedule, beginning and ending classes at various times depending on whether students are in elementary, middle or high school.
Superintendent Edward Pruden says the change has taken a number of school buses off the road and has essentially saved the district about $500,000 of an ever-decreasing, tighter budget.

Skies turned dark and winds picked up suddenly Monday afternoon in Shallotte. The familiar clicking of tiny hail stones bouncing off the ground soon joined sounds of heavy rain. The storm popped up quickly and after a drenching rain it was gone, leaving clear skies.
Sudden, drastic changes in the weather like this help note the importance of Severe Weather Awareness Month, which spans throughout March.

Brunswick County School Board members did the right thing Tuesday night when they voted to approve the calendar for the 2012-2013 school year.
There were three draft calendars before the board for consideration. Two of those got a nod Tuesday night.
Both of the approved drafts are viable under current state legislation. One has 185 days of student instruction included. The other, which needs a waiver from the state’s department of public instruction, has 180 student instruction days.
Both would have students going back to school on Aug. 27.

Finally.
And as far as we’re concerned, it wasn’t soon enough.
Monday night the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners had a hearing to determine if there was just cause to remove fellow commissioner Charles Warren from the DSS board where he has been causing havoc as its chairman.
Warren refused to leave the DSS board even after commissioners passed a code of ethics calling for commissioners to step down from such posts.
He didn’t think that was “just cause” to remove him.

We’ve said before how much we love our very own Brunswick Community College—and now people around the globe are finding out why.
The college’s Center for Aquaculture & Biotechnology is drawing attention from students right here at home and across the world. This semester a continuing education course about fish farming has students enrolled from North Carolina as well as Great Britain, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Nigeria.
How’s that for making a splash on an international scale?

Who would have believed when it first opened a small, rural community’s airport would grow as fast as Oak Island’s Cape Fear Regional Jetport has?
Who would have believed  it would be one of the few area businesses robustly growing during an economic time when others are closing or struggling to stay afloat?
Who would have believed that not only are locals and visitors using its services today but also international residents and businesspeople have grown to appreciate the quality of services provided there.

Local entrepreneur Lloyd Milliken is looking at ways to create some new jobs here in Brunswick County.
If all goes as planned, 25 new jobs could be created as Milliken makes changes to business operations at his oyster house on Village Point Road. Milliken hopes to successfully rework his oyster house into a new scallops-processing business.
In an area where new jobs are desperately needed, and after feeling the effects of the dwindling seafood and related markets over the past several years, it’s good to see a new approach getting under way.