Opinion

THORNS & ROSES: Facebook rumors, local beauty, history

By Bill Moss, Published: July 17, 2014

Good news, bad news:

Thorn — To the people who spread false rumors about a rainout last month of the Special Needs Baseball games. A Facebook rumor that ricocheted around town blamed the Henderson County Recreation Department and Board of Commissioners for calling off a game after heavy rains. "He was blaming everybody in the county, anything to do with the county government — commissioners, parks and recreation — blaming everyone for canceling the ballgame for the special needs kids on June 14th," the league's founder, Donnie Jones, told the commissioners on June 25. "As I told everybody I talked to then, I'm the one that canceled those games," Jones said. "I know the conditions, I know what kids I've got going out there, and what they can do and what conditions they can handle." It takes a lack of class, and a dazzling display of ignorance, to spread false information over a baseball game for handicapped kids and adults. As Jones so aptly said it: "The information came from the wrong end of the horse." Those who were fooled should heed a lesson too. Don't rely on news from social media.

Rose — To Hendersonville's America In Bloom Committee, which spent months organizing for a first-ever visit from national judges to evaluate the community in a landscaping and gardening beauty contest. The judges gave the community the highest marks for overall impression and historic preservation. Participating were Henderson County, Hendersonville, Flat Rock, Laurel Park and Mills River. Special roses go to committee chair Mia Freeman and Land O' Sky Garden Club member Carol Elliot, who initiated the effort. Other committee members were Agriculture Extension Director Marvin Owings Jr., extension agent Kerry Roach, Hendersonville Mayor Barbara Volk, Tourism Development Authority Director Beth Carden, Wendy Beville and Bonnie See.

Rose — Speaking of historic preservation, to Historic Flat Rock Inc., which put four private homes and St. John in the Wilderness on a tour on Saturday. In the first tour of homes it has organized in six years, Historic Flat Rock is offering tours of the Dunroy estate and garden (c1862), McCullough cottage (c1837), Apple Acres (c1848) and the Hopewood estate and formal gardens (c1878-1938) and St. John in the Wilderness and its history-rich churchyard. At Hopewood, tourgoers will enjoy a celebration of the estate's owners in the 1950s. Thanks goes, too, to the homeowners who have done the work to restore the homes and have generously agreed to let the public enjoy them. Proceeds go to Historic Flat Rock Inc., which is expected to close this week on the Mountain Lodge, perhaps the most endangered historic home in all of Flat Rock. The organization plans to clean it up, stabilize it and sell it.