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We made it!
It's finally spring.
And there is ample evidence all around as Mother Nature wakes up from a frigid winter and the doldrums are replaced by warmer weather, ample sunshine and a whole different attitude.
Officially spring began at 5:01 a.m. this morning, Thursday, March 20.

If you've read this column, paid attention to our front page or driven through downtown Youngsville in the past decade, or so, you know that congestion is a problem.
You also probably know that the town -- and the county, finally -- have been and are working on ways to expedite construction of a bypass that would take commuter traffic off Main Street and adjacent residential streets -- clearing the town's main artery for local traffic.

Dear editor:
As our county experiences unprecedented growth, the needs of our citizens are expanding just as rapidly.
Property taxes are rising, county revenues are surging, and yet, essential public facilities have not kept pace with this population boom.

Dear editor: About the time you feel that our elected Senators and Representatives are acting like children, they seem to carry their behavior to a new level.
The entire Democrat delegation that refused to stand and recognize the youngster fighting cancer or the mother and sister of the student brutally slain in Georgia by an illegal alien, or the young man whose father was a policeman and killed in the line of duty and was appointed to West Point.

PIANO TRIO TO PERFORM. The Neave Piano Trio will perform at Cherry Hill on Sunday, March 23, with a program beginning at 3 p.m. followed by a reception in the dining room and parlors of the 1858 plantation house after the performance. Formed in 2010, the Neave Trio has earned praise for its engaging performances. The word "Neave" is Gaelic for "bright" and "radiant," both of which apply to the trio's music, according to several music critics. The group consists of violinist Anna Williams, cellist Mikhail Veselov, and pianist Eri Nakamura and has performed at many prominent concert series and festivals worldwide.

Town staff and officials, from left, Carson Pridgen, Will Doerfer, Emily Hurd, Fonzie Flowers, Cat Redd, Nathan Page and Lucy Garcia in front take part in the 5-K and sesquicentennial festivities.

Above, Corey Hudgins leads a pack of runners who made their way along the 5-K course around and through Youngsville's downtown, starting and stopping at the Yacht Club.

LOUISBURG, NC -- Funeral services for Bobby King, age 81, who died on Monday, March 10, 2025, were held Tuesday, March 18, at 11 a.m. from the Richardson Funeral Home in Louisburg. Burial followed in the Cemetery on the Hill.

TEXAS -- Betty Jeanne Moore Leonard, 90, of New Braunfels, Texas entered into eternal peace with our Lord and Savior on March 14, 2025.

LOUISBURG, NC -- Albert Daylon Inscoe was born on October 27, 1943, to the late Preston and Pearl Inscoe, passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his loving family, on March 16, 2025.

Louisburg, NC -- J. Gilbert Stallings, 84, of Louisburg, a retired corporate insurance and reinsurance attorney, passed away on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. Gil was born on January 16, 1941, to William H. and Mary Egerton Stallings in Franklin County, NC.

LOUISBURG -- District Attorney Mike Waters concluded that a Franklin County sheriff's deputy acted lawfully when the officer fatally shot a man in December 2023.
Samuel Joseph Tripp III, 59, died from injuries he sustained in the confrontation inside his Cheves Road home.
State law, Waters said, imposes two common-sense tests to determine wether an officer-involved shooting is justified:

FRANKLINTON -- Franklin County commissioners and school board members completed their tour of Franklin County's public schools last week.
Last April, county commissioners agreed to establish the committee, made up of officials and staff from both the school board and county commissioners.
Late last year, both boards agreed to tour the school system's 16 public schools in an effort to better understand facility and budgeting needs.
On March 6, officials, along with school system administrators and staff visited Franklinton Elementary School and Franklinton Middle School, rounding out the facilities tour.

LOUISBURG -- Barring some last-minute adjustments, the Franklin County Board of Education will be requesting $3,960,648.86 from the Franklin County commissioners to cover various capital expenditures over the 2025-26 school year.
That request is almost double what the district requested in Cap-X funding last year but the district's upcoming current expense request of $30.5 million is what it received in this school year. Of that total, $8.5 million "flowed through" to charter schools and will again this year.

The history of the Colored Fire Company is not very well documented. However, this group of men played an important role in the history of the Louisburg Fire Department. Although lacking some of the equipment, gear, and training in the early years after the formation of the company, there was considerable interest and willingness to respond to fire alarms.
The Louisburg Hose and Reel Team was formed in 1931. (Most early fire departments were called a "Reel Team.")

The Kerr-Tar Area Agency on Aging will hold Region K Senior Games Opening Ceremonies beginning at 10 a.m. Friday, March 21.
The annual event to kick-off the local Senior Games this year will be held at the Aycock Recreation Center, 307 Carey Chapel Rd., Henderson. Opening remarks will be made by Melissa Elliott, Henderson mayor, Hassan Kingsberry, Henderson city manager, Jeremy Jones, assistant manager for Vance County and Shantel Hargrove, assistant director of Aycock Recreation Center.

LOUISBURG -- A church family who alleges they were wrongly arrested a year ago has filed a lawsuit against the county and sheriff's deputies who investigated the matter.
Franklin County sheriff's deputies took out warrants against Kenneth Neil Jones, 64, of Beasley Road, Rachel Christian Jones, 41, of Dyking Road, and Imre Briscoe Balazsi, 46, of Williamson Street, charging them with misdemeanor assault of an individual with disabilities and false imprisonment.

A number of students were saluted by the Franklin County Board of Education Monday night for being the best at their school displaying "acceptance and tolerance," the character traits the district emphasized in February.
Here are the students:

There have been a couple of strange, unusual sightings around Franklin County in recent days -- and they aren't products of the brisk, often chilly winds which have left little doubt about what month it is.
March came in like a lion with some very seasonal winds, some much-needed rainfall and temperatures that were downright chilly for a couple of days.
In other words, March 2025 is exactly like what March is supposed to be like!

I've been a reporter since the spring of 1998 and during my tenures at the New Bern Sun Journal, the Lynchburg News & Advance and your The Franklin Times, I have covered cops and courts in some form or another -- either as a nights and weekends fill in, or as the primary beat reporter.
As someone who grew up watching "L.A. Law" and "Law & Order," I quickly realized televised courtroom drama and real-life courtroom "drama" were too different things.

Louisburg police, fire crews and emergency medical staff responded to this two-vehicle wreck on Bickett Boulevard Tuesday at about 6:40 p.m. Above, a driver and passenger, including a dog, escaped serious injury while riding in a sport utility vehicle that was turned onto its side after impact from a vehicle that t-boned it on the passenger side.

LOUISBURG -- A Youngsville contractor was sentenced to just more than two years in prison for billing a Louisburg man for roof work he never did.
The Feb. 25 hearing in Franklin County Superior Court underscores a litany of similar legal troubles for Timothy Earl Sherron.
According to court records and Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Fitzgerald, in March 2023, Sherron cheated Vincent Allen Austin out of $4,100 when he collected money for roof work he never performed.