A giant 50+ foot slab just fell off of a tractor-trailer onto 277 inbound ramp between Wilkinson Blvd and I-77.
Thankfully no vehicles were hit by the slab, but the accident has completely halted traffic onto or off of the on-ramp. Police are now on the scene rerouting traffic.
CMPD just announced that they’ll be bringing in some heavy equipment to remove the slab. At this point, they aren’t sure how long it might take to remove the slab and allow traffic to return to normal.
Wilkinson Update: Tractor trailer lost concrete slab. Road will be closed inbound for several more hours. Delays are expected. pic.twitter.com/1I1ig7CWx1
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education recently announced that Dr. Clayton Wilcox will be the new superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, replacing Ann Blakeney Clark (who was just appointed last year).
Dr. Wilcox is currently serving as the Superintendent of the Washington County Public School system in Hagerstown, Maryland, currently with 22,000 students.
He’ll be taking over the top spot of the second-largest school district in North Carolina and the eighteenth-largest in the nation, a system that now has over 135,000 total students enrolled.
via wcpsmd.com
“I am drawn to Charlotte-Mecklenburg for a number of reasons, first because your core beliefs are my core beliefs – that you and your school board embrace a compelling vision that all students must receive the best education available anywhere,” Dr. Wilcox commented the letter he just released.
He’s also served as a superintendent in Pinellas County, Fla., and East Baton Rouge, La., was a senior vice president with Scholastic, and started his career as an elementary school teacher in Waterloo, Iowa (you can see his complete bio here).
Superintendent Ann Clark made the announcement this afternoon. “It has been my honor and privilege to serve on Team CMS for more than three decades. I am excited to work closely with Clayton Wilcox to ensure an exceedingly well-executed baton handoff of this amazing district and its outstanding students and staff. Our district is eager to welcome the new superintendent and I look forward to watching the continued success of CMS under his leadership.”
McPherson and Jacobson, LLC conducted the search. They chose 10 finalists out of the 51 people who successfully completed the application process.
Dr. Wilcox will begin his new position on July 1, 2017.
This coming Friday night, some of the greatest racers in the history of NASCAR will be inducted into the Hall of Fame right here in Charlotte.
Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, Mark Martin, Raymond Parks and Benny Parsons will be honored during this year’s ceremony set for Friday, January 20, 2017.
In honor of our President Obama’s last day in office, Third Rock Events will be hosting a clean-up day in Southend this coming Friday, Jan. 20th. They are asking people to meet outside Good Bottle Co. on Remount RD at 1:00 PM. Once we finish cleaning up the streets we will buy you a beer at Lenny Boy Brewing Co.. Sign up by contacting us at info@3rdrockevents.com
Several thousand Charlotteans have committed to march around Uptown Charlotte this Saturday, Jan. 21st in what could be the largest women’s march in our city’s history.
Legendary rock band Breaking Benjamin will be coming to the Queen City this weekend. They’ll be performing live at Amos’ Southend on Saturday, Jan. 21st starting at 8pm.
One of the biggest fitness events this year will be the Yelp Fit Club and Wellness Fair on January 21st. This year they’ve partnered with the Charlotte Hornets to get Charlotteans in shape and to raise money for the American Diabetes Association.
One of the nation’s largest bike shows is coming to Charlotte this year. The 2017 Easyrider Bike Show will feature hundreds of custom motorcycles and tons of merchandise this coming Saturday, Jan. 21st., from 10am-7pm.
The show will feature;
-Live music all day
-Dance performances by the Purrfect Angelz
-Live drifting demos by NTC Drift Trikes
Tim Hawkins is a family-friendly comedian and leader of the Jackwagon Crew—a of fans that have helped Tim tally more than 300 million views on his online videos.
He will be performing life at the Ovens Auditorium this Saturday, Jan. 21st at 7pm.
Uptown Charlotte’s murder-mystery dinners begin innocently enough—guests arrive to mingle amid drinks and quiet conversation. As diners munch away, a sudden death interrupts the feasting. A detective arrives to determine who the killer is, inevitably laying blame on one of the audience members. Tablemates work together to prove their innocence and find the real killer through an interactive performance full of hilarious suspects and eye-catching costumes, all the while dining on the included three-course meal and taking advantage of drink specials.
Carolina Bridal & Wedding Fair has become one of the largest and most well respected bridal events in the Carolinas. It’s all because we implement fresh ideas and pump FUN into each of our shows. Plus, we work with only the best wedding professionals around.
Walmart just announced plans to add over 10,000 U.S. jobs and provide skills-building training to about 250,000 of their employees before the end of 2017.
Many of the new positions would be in new stores, including 59 Walmart and Sam’s Club sites it is set to open, remodel or expand. The company says this level of job growth is consistent with what it has delivered over the past several years.
Wal-Mart plans on specifically adding at least 500 new jobs in North Carolina, mostly from new store openings.
“Over the next year, we plan to open at least four more stores (in North Carolina), continue to innovate our business, invest in e-commerce and continue to improve our existing stores by remodeling more than 20 locations across the state, including four in Charlotte,” commented Phillip Keene with Wal-Mart’s Southeast district.
The company will be attempting to attract and retain talent by expanding their Academies program that provides special training for store workers. This year, they’ll open about 160 new training facilities to offer various kinds of skills training (big news considering they’ve only opened 40 to-date)
The Charlotte City Council is voting tonight on whether or not to allow the development of several hundred new apartments all along the new light-rail line between Uptown Charlotte and University City.
With the new light-rail line now scheduled to open this coming summer, several developers have been scrambling to build hundreds of new apartments along the line, especially in Optimist Park, Villa Heights, and NoDa.
One of the biggest new developments was filed by the Miller-Valentine Group that would permit a five-story apartment community with 275 units and 3,500 square feet of ground-floor commercial space facing North Davidson.
At this point, Charlotte city planning staff think approval is likely for all the projects.
Meet Janet Barry, a Charlotte Magazine account executive by day, and a world-class elite Spartan racer by night.
She overcame a potentially career-ending injury during her freshman year at UNC Charlotte and pushed through the pain to run all four years of her collegiate career (2008-2012). Since graduating, she has earned an impressive number of podium finishes at some of the most competitive obstacle races in the country, including:
2016 Chicago Spartan Race: 3rd Place
2015 Alabama Spartan Race: 1st Place
2015 Spartan Sprint: 2nd Place
2015 Asheville Spartan Super: 3rd Place Female (Overall)
2015 DC Spartan Race: 5th Elite Woman
2014 Carolina’s Spartan Beast: 4th Place
I had the honor of meeting up with her at Romare Bearden Park and Uptown’s Reebok Crossfit Gym to see how she trains and to talk about her journey:
Over the past 2 years, Janet has attracted several sponsors who are helping her compete at the highest levels of her sport, including her title sponsor Healthy Cell, as well as Rim -Tec, Greenapple Sport and wellness, Yup Brands, Beet Performer, and Mudgear.
She hopes to one day see Obstacle Course Racing in the Olympics so that she can represent the United States and Charlotte on a global level.
She now sees OCR as a metaphor for overcoming the challenges in life and hopes to continue to inspire others to push through every obstacle they face.
The Charlotte region now has a new “Escape Room Challenge” up in Mooresville, right next to Lake Norman. “Escape Rooms” are a widely popular new trend that’s been spreading around the Charlotte region over the past few years. They are basically group activities that force teams to work together to solve clues and “escape” their room.
Race City Escapes has two unique “escape rooms”, and they are currently building their third. Since they are in the heart of NASCAR country, their first room is called the on the “Race Ruse room”. Each participant is part of a fictional pit crew, locked in a rival’s garage. They are given one hour to escape, or miss making the championship race.
Their second room is called the Harmonic Haze, designed to simulate a 1920s speakeasy, with a makeshift bar, poker table and stage. Participants in this room are asked to help rescue a kidnapped performer.
According to their website, “you, and up to 10 people are put in a room. Your task is to find clues, solve puzzles to ultimately figure out how to “Escape the Room”. Inside you may find various types of locks, puzzle boxes, cryptograms, cryptic clues, and other brain teasers that all must be figured out so that you can escape in time.”
Race City Escapes gives participants a total of 60 minutes to escape out of the room…or else…
Each room is fully monitored with cameras in almost every corner to monitor progress and check for cheaters. The difficulty level of each challenge is determined by how many clues each team requests. Each room at Race City Escapes has a different and intriguing solution.
Escape Room Challeges have been quickly spreading all over the Charlotte region. We now have a total of 9 escape room challenge companies, with another one popping up every few months.
Codescape Escape Room Challenge recently invited the Charlotte Stories team to experience one of their more challenging rooms…
Several thousand Charlotteans have committed to march around Uptown Charlotte this Saturday in what could be the largest women’s march in our city’s history.
On their Facebook event page alone, there are 2,700 people who said they are going, with another 4,500 maybes. Several thousand more have committed via the group’s Event Bright page and on their website.
This weekend’s march, called the Women’s March on Charlotte, it’s joining with over 200,000 people expected to march in the Women’s March on Washington. Dozens of other cities around the world are also planning their own marches.
According to their website, “The Women’s March on Charlotte is being held in alignment with the Women’s March on Washington, on January 21, 2017. Charlotte is only one of multiple cities across the nation holding local Women’s Marches, sending a clear message to our government that women’s rights are human rights.
The Women’s March on Charlotte welcomes people of all faiths, genders, ethnicities and sexual orientation; we want our voices and our message to be heard in Washington and around the world.”
Even though it’s called the Women’s March on Charlotte, organizers are now saying that at least 1,000 men and children are also expected to participate.
The two-mile march will start in First Ward, and end in Romare Bearden Park this coming Saturday.
People are going crazy on social media over a potentially record-breaking alligator captured on film this past weekend by Kim Joiner in Polk County, Florida.
It took over half-a-minute for the monster gator to cross what appears to be an 8- to 10-foot-wide path. In the background, several other people are watching, stunned, with cameras in hand.
Experts estimate this gator to be over 15 feet in length:
According to the fish and wildlife conservation commission, alligators very rarely grow to be longer than 10 feet. The largest alligator ever captured in the state was just over 14 feet long.
A few moths ago, in June of 2016, another monster gator was filmed on a golf course in Palmetto, Florida. It was also estimated to be at least 15 feet in length.
Charlotte won big in the nation-wide $1 million ‘Play Everywhere Challenge’. Three separate Queen City organizations were among the 50 winners.
The contest was primarily sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – it’s goal was to “help uncover the best replicable, scalable innovations in city redevelopment and design that will make play easy, available and fun for all kids and families”.
The Center City Partner’s winning ‘Rail Trail Symphony’ will include an installation of colorful, life-sized musical instruments that will allow residents to have spontaneous jam sessions with each other.
Kids and families will bang on drums and chimes, sing to passersby from a performance platform, scribble favorite lyrics on a chalkboard, dance on imaginative stamped concrete, and jump on creative seating.
The Konnected Foundation’s SPARK (Socialize. Play. Accommodate to Reach Kids) project will be the first of its kind in Charlotte, it will include several interactive installments near Beatties Ford and Central Ave for local families to meet, socialize, and become more active at their local bus stop and in the nearby park.
The third Charlotte winner is The City of Charlotte’s GovPorch project, with a goal of re-imagining the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center Plaza to include:
“A Playground for All”
Colorful porch swings
Platforms that cover the unused fountains that kids and visitors can sit on, climb on, and play on with themes that prompt discovery (See c. and d.)
Outdoor bean bags
An iconic custom hornets’ nest for children to play and climb on
Ping pong tables
Life size legos and cars – a mini build your own Charlotte
Shade sails so rest and play can be more comfortable
“A Library Garden”
Colorful, glow-in the dark pots and plants
Rocking chairs for adults and children
Wall fountains
A library station where kids and grown up kids can borrow books
“Accessibility and Connection to the Public”
Child-painted stepping stones that traverse a grade change that separates the space from the sidewalk
Platforms with colorful seating to provide more activity between the project and public realm
Fun, Can-Do signage
Each of the three Charlotte winners will receive a grant in the amount of $20,000 for each of their projects.
It looks like Charlotte is about to get a lot more interactive.
Walmart just announced plans to add over 10,000 U.S. jobs and provide skills-building training to about 250,000 of their employees before the end of 2017.
The Charlotte City Council is voting tonight on whether or not to allow the development of several hundred new apartments all along the new light-rail line between Uptown Charlotte and University City.
Meet Janet Barry, a Charlotte Magazine account executive by day, and a world-class elite Spartan racer by night.
Several thousand Charlotteans have committed to march around Uptown Charlotte this Saturday in what could be the largest women’s march in our city’s history.
