A woman forgotten in life and death

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Saturday, October 24, 2009

She was missing for at least a year, but nobody seemed to notice. Even in February, after a prison work crew found the skeletal remains of a small-framed female in a thicket near U.S. 64, no one stepped forward to claim the body.

Eight months later on Oct. 12, when authorities finally identified the remains, the medical examiner concluded the 33-year-old Rocky Mount woman had been dead at least a year, maybe longer.

Elizabeth Jane Smallwood — a woman seemingly without a family, without a history, without a home — was never reported missing.

Rocky Mount one of America’s 10 poorest cities

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Monday, October 19, 2009

City leaders expressed both disappointment and skepticism Monday after reading a recent report in Forbes Magazine declaring Rocky Mount one of America’s 10 most impoverished cities. At least one city leader read the report published last week as a call to action.

The poverty report drew on a number of economic indicators from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey released last month to determine which U.S. communities have been hardest hit during the recession.

Rocky Mount joined notoriously slumping cities such as Flint, Mich.; Macon, Ga.; and El Centro, Calif., on the list.

Larger-than-life ballplayer honered after death

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Published Nov. 30, 2007

At first glance, nothing was at all extraordinary about the stoic black man, born of a lower-class family in a Southern mill town on the banks of the Tar River. He was a simple soul who wore simple clothes and lived a modest life — never too vocal, never too proud.

At 5-foot-6 and less than 200 pounds, he certainly was not a huge man.

In Rocky Mount, though, there is no bigger.

Walter “Buck” Leonard is a certifiable icon for the city that continues to recognize him as a baseball legend and one of the greatest civic leaders in local history.

Governor for east, west or all?

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Published November 1, 2008

RALEIGH — The contest to replace Gov. Mike Easley has at times been reduced to a verbal battle of regions in its final weeks, with each candidate drawing lines in the dirt between rural and urban North Carolina and pointing to the other for blame.

Republican Pat McCrory, a big-city mayor from the west, says he wants to break up the “good ole boy network of power elites” in Raleigh.

Democrat Bev Perdue, a small-town politician from the east, says her 20 years of experience in the state capital make her the most qualified candidate to lead North Carolina.

Both candidates agree the economy is the top issue this election cycle, but the race seems to have veered off topic.

Expectations run high for new president

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Published Jan. 21, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Barack Obama began the work today of “remaking America,” a tall order for a 47-year-old first-term president, given the dismal state of the economy and with wars waging in the Middle East.

But perhaps even more challenging for Obama will be balancing soaring public expectations for his presidency with sobering reality.

Obama wins North Carolina, a changing state

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Published Nov. 6, 2008

President-elect Barack Obama didn’t need North Carolina to become the first black man elected to the White House, but earning a majority of the votes here was a symbolic triumph in a state with a history mired by segregation and slavery.

Obama was declared the winner of North Carolina on Thursday, two days after state election officials announced the race too close to call. His win here was the first for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976.

A generation ago, few Rocky Mount residents would have guessed a black man would carry the state in a presidential contest. But on Thursday, local residents began discussing the implications of Obama’s victory in the Tar Heel State.

Green advocates see potential post-election

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Published Nov. 12, 2008

Even as results were trickling in last week, North Carolina environmentalists had begun celebrating an election that promises a paradigm shift toward green energy and environmental sustainability.

So says Carl Samuelson, a 23-year-old campaign organizer for the Raleigh-based Environment North Carolina. Samuelson and other advocates see great potential to build a green-energy economy once Barack Obama is in the White House and oilmen President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are out.

Drugs, sex & murder: 20 years of prostitution in Rocky Mount

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Saturday, September 19, 2009

The 32-year-old Rocky Mount woman didn’t dream as a child of a future jumping in and out of strangers’ cars, she said. Her aspirations were more typical — to graduate high school, go to college, maybe move to the big city and have a family.

An unplanned pregnancy her sophomore year in high school erased those hopes, replacing them instead with a crying baby, bitter poverty and drug addiction.

The woman remembers clearly the first time she traded her body for crack on the streets of Rocky Mount. It was the spring of 1992, and the guy was a jerk, she said. But what started as a one-time fix turned into a lifestyle that spanned the better part of 13 years.

Homelessness, splintered family ties and threats of arrest couldn’t keep her from the street.

“That was life,” the woman said, expressionless. “That’s all it was.”

The woman’s story isn’t unique.

Woman beats husband unconscious with frying pan

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Tuesday, August 18, 2009

An elderly Enfield woman is in jail today after allegedly beating her husband with a frying pan following an argument over breakfast.

Halifax County deputies said the dispute began early on Friday when 85-year-old James Lewis complained about the meal prepared by his wife, 71-year-old Rosie Lewis

As Rosie Lewis worked to prepare a second breakfast, authorities said, the couple continued to bicker. The fight escalated when James Lewis allegedly drew back his cane to hit his wife

Health care reform battle turns ugly

By Mike Hixenbaugh
Rocky Mount Telegram
Saturday, August 08, 2009

The temperature of the national health care debate has risen to unhealthy levels, some Democrats are saying, prompting a sharp change in plans for the congressional recess.

Attempting to deflate what Democrats are calling “generated outrage” over plans to overhaul the U.S. health care system, most North Carolina members of Congress are not hosting town hall meetings this month. U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield is the state’s only Democratic congressman so far to announce plans to hold a public meeting.

The community forums have been a staple of the legislative work break, offering constituents face time with lawmakers who usually toil at offices in Washington. In recent weeks, though, some lawmakers nationwide have been embarrassed by angry protesters disrupting community meetings by shouting and chanting against President Barack Obama’s proposal to reform health care