New Bern NC High School

New Bern High School was recently mentioned in a recent Sports Illustrated Magazine as the top high school athletic program in North Carolina. After making it to the state finals for 3 out of the last 4 years New Bern finally won the state championship with a herculean effort against a team that had won 7 straight championships. Just a few weeks ago New Bern also won the state championship in track and field. This was the 3rd year in a row that the track team won the championship.In addition, the girls remained undefeated in the Coastal Conference for the 14th consecutive season. The baseball team, basketball team, and wrestling teams consistently have successful teams. No doubt,these are all worthy accomplishments.

Now that New Bern has their athletic program in high gear, I think it is time to gear up the academic programs. New Bern High lags behind the other high schools in Craven County as well as much of the state. There is no reason why academics should not be stressed as much, or more, than sports. Few if any of our athletes will ever make it to the professional level whereas almost all of our students could go to college if they apply themselves to their studies.

My top 7 reasons to retire to New Bern NC

1. History-settled in 1710 New Bern is full of history and historic buildings such as the city hall shown on the left. Check out http://www.newbern-nc.info/New-Bern-history2.html for more information on New Bern

2. Climate-mild winters allow for golf and other outdoor activities pretty much year around.

3. Water-The Trent and Neuse Rivers converge in downtown New Bern. The Atlantic Ocean and the crystal coast are only 35 minutes away.

4. Golf- Plenty of inexpensive golf courses located in and around new Bern. No waiting for tee times and most of the courses are kept in immaculate shape.

5. Boating-Sailing- The Neuse River http://www.newbern-nc.info/Neuse-River.html is the widest river in the United states and offers sailors and power boaters ample opportunity to test their skills. The intercoastal waterway is only about 20 miles from downtown New Bern.

6. Lots of things to do- Check out these links http://www.newbern-nc.info/aroundthetown.html and http://www.newbern-nc.info/New-Bern-happenings.html to see what is happenning around New Bern.

7. Home Prices- home prices are considered reasonable by most standards. There are many quality subdivisions in the New Bern area. From waterfront and golf communities to the historic downtown area you are certain to find a community to suitt your needs.

Steve Tyson is a real estate broker and a native of New Bern. He can be contacted at Tyson@Century21.com

No to sub prime bailout

Although I am in the real estate business and the sub prime loans and foreclosures are harming my industry I do not believe the federal government should get involved with either bailing out the lenders or the borrowers. It is just the wrong way to attach the problem. Let me just say that I would not have a problem with the federal government using their bully pulpit to encourage the lenders to perhaps freeze their rate increases, no one forced the lenders to loan money to those that they knew could not afford to make the payments when the rate increases kicked in. The borrowers must own up also. Not the taxpayers fault that you made a bad decision and taxes should not be used to help correct the problem. The market will take care of itself.

It's back

Te deck party that is. After a long, but not so hard winter, the Sheraton Hotel and Marina in downtown New Bern, NC is party central again on Friday afternoons. What better way to wind the weekend down than to meet your friends on the deck. Beautiful view of the Trent River, live music, food, and if you so desire adult beverages. See you there soon.

Turkeys in New Bern

Today I was showing property in Greenbriar, located in the central part of New Bern, and while my customer was checking out the back yard she cried out look across the ditch. Lo and behold there was a wild a wild turkey not 25 feet from us. First one I have ever seen. And who would have thought right in the middle of a subdivision.

Help is on the way

In about 3 weeks work will be complete on the stop lights in the James City area. For those that aren't familiar with what I am talking about, there are 4 stoplights starting at Williams Road and continuing through to Airport Road, Taberna, and Thurman Road. These lights have outdated internal electronics thus limiting the options of the DOT Engineers to time the lights in a manner that would allow for efficient traffic flow from one light to the other.

As we speak the DOT is replacing these lights with state of the art equiptment as well as making intersection improvements at Williams road that will help the gridlock that we have seen at certain times of the day. These improvements are not the cure all to our problems, but in the short term they are our best option. Let hope it works.

New Stoplights in James City

The internal electronics of the four stoplights in James City are going to be replaced within the next few months. These stoplights are located at the intersections of Williams, Airport, Taberna, and Thurman Roads.

Several months ago I met with a business owner in James City who suggested that better timing and a left turn light at Williams would really help traffic flow and reduce accidents. I relayed this information to DOT Engineer Duayne Alligood and several weeks later he emailed me and said if we could come up with $100,000 he could replace the lights at the intersections mentioned above and do some other improvements at Williams and Airport Roads to allow for easier left turns. Several weeks ago the General Assembly voted to give $77,000.00 towards the replacement cost and the DOT Division 2 Board Member Cam McRae committed to give the balance needed to complete the replacement.

Mr. Alligood told me that by replacing the internal electronics of the existing stoplights with state of the art gear will give them the ability to remotely control the traffic flow in the James City Corridor. By having the ability to remotely control the lights perhaps the timing of the lights could be changed several times a day to allow for peak traffic times. Hopefully the 4 stoplights can be timed in such a way that the residents in Taberna will not have the long wait, with no oncoming traffic, that they have to deal with now.

I would like to thank Mr. Alligood, Mr.McRae, and our legislative team for their help with this matter. There are long term solutions being worked on for helping traffic flow on Highway 70, but for now it is going to be the lower cost, common sense solutions, that we will have to utilize to help with traffic flow.
As with anything new I am sure there will be bugs that will need to be worked out after the new lights are installed. If you have any suggestions please send me an email at Tyson@Century21.com.

Fox in the Hen House or Quail House

The Craven County Board of Commission unanimously agreed tonight that we should ask our Legislative Delegation in Raleigh to pass a local bill that would allow for fox trapping from January 2nd till February 15th. They heard from area farmers, hunters, and a NC State Wildlife Biologist, and all agreed that the over population of fox in Craven County was causing problems with the decline of Quail, Turkey, and other bird and small mammals. Some were concerned that a rabies outbreak was imminent unless something was done to control the population.

Fun in downtown New Bern

Last Friday night I met my wife for our Friday night date in downtown New Bern. Our last 4 Friday night dates we have dined at Fred and Claires and have thoroughly enjoyed the dinner and the company. After eating we were both tired and just about ready to go home when I remembered that a friend of mine who plays bass guitar in a through together band was playing just down the street at the Trent River Coffee Shop. Reluctantly she agreed to go check it out.

The band was on break as we walked in so we bought a cup of coffee and found a seat. After a few minutes the band cranked back up and it was not long afterword that we both were glad that we decided to stay up past our bedtime.

City alderman Dana Outlaw was the bass player, local author Phil Bowie was on violin or at least it looked like a violin to me. City planner Bernard George played the bongos, and life time New Bernian Dan Jenkins was playing harmonica. Add two guitar players, one acoustic and one electric, and you had a somewhat weird combination of instruments that yielded quite a unique and pleasing sound that everyone seemed to enjoy. They played mainly country, southern rock music with an occasional Beetles woven in. The band's name was Cold Biscuit. Check them out. Especially if you are over 45. I'm sure they will be back downtown.

To smoke or not to smoke

Monday, at a regular schleduled Craven County Commissioners meeting we heard from the Chairman of the County Health Board on issues pertaining to second hand smoke. He handed out 3 papers on research that had been performed by the CDC, Mayo Client, and another research medical school whose name I don not remember. All 3 papers presented conclusive evidence that second hand smoke was harmful to those that are subjected to it. On a motion presented by one of the commissioners, seconded, and passed by a 4 to 3 vote a rule will be implemented in November to prohibit smoking in county owned buildings. I personally don't think it is asking to much for someone to go outside to smoke, and respect their right to do so. But the facts are the facts. Second hand smoke is bad for others.