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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Brad Campbell |Rebecca Woltz |Tamiya Anderson |Lynn Wells
Listen as the pages of the magazine come to life in the Storytellers podcast showcasing the voices of six Our State writers. Each podcast episode features a writer reading their column aloud, allowing each distinct voice to shine. Click below to listen to Brad read his column aloud. Squinting into the late afternoon sun, you can barely see it across a grassy field: a long, L-shaped concrete wall, stained dark by time, lost in the shadows.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Jim Lauderdale |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
Of all the places in North Carolina that hold meaning in my life — places where music is made and joy is had, places that have charted the course of my life as a singer and composer of songs that are deeply rooted in our state — the small Foothills town of Troutman in Iredell County is perhaps the most special. My older sister, Becky, and I were born in Davis Hospital, the closest medical facility, about seven miles away in Statesville.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Todd Dulaney |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
When it comes to matches made in the kitchen, North Carolinians believe in soulmates. From breakfast to dessert, dig into a few of our favorite pairings.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Lori K. Tate |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
The white tulip table where Anne-Lindsay Beall eats lunch has an iconic profile with a touch of whimsy, blending the past with the present in elegant style. She’s sitting in the boardroom of Fairfield, the 104-year-old furniture company her great-grandfather started in Lenoir, but this isn’t a typical corporate setting.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Tim Crothers |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
In the waning seconds of NC State’s ACC Tournament semifinal game against Virginia last March, Wolfpack guard Michael O’Connell found himself the poster boy for the concept of luck. At the game’s final buzzer, O’Connell hit a jumper that one broadcaster reflexively deemed a “lucky shot.” I’m not sure why, but in that moment, that common phrase struck me like a bolt of Malcolm Gladwell. For the first time, I asked myself, “Wait, what exactly is luck? Do I really believe in luck?
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Celia Funderburk |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
In the early days after Shelton Vineyards opened in the rolling hills of the Yadkin Valley in 1999, visitors paired Shelton’s wines with the humble offerings from an on-site cheese shop. Palates were expanded when in 2005, the winery’s full-service restaurant, Harvest Grill, opened.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Rebecca Woltz |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
Gretchen Griffith loves the stories of the Foothills — the legends, characters, and folklore. The histories she has written about the area tell tales of moonshiners fleeing revenuers, nascent stock car drivers racing on the drag strips and circle tracks of Caldwell County, and fly-fishing on Wilson Creek and throughout western North Carolina. Biographies of the people in her community are also part of her repertoire.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Liz Wynne |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
Side to side, Mary Freas’s hands glide. Her loom is light to the touch, like weaving through air. On the first floor of the Sunset Fiberworks studio, loom parts and pieces surround her, claiming every tabletop and shelf in the open living room and kitchen. Through the windows, the Yadkin Valley stretches into view, a mosaic of earth and poplars that’s particular to this part of Wilkes County. Mary’s newer looms are wider than the one in front of her today.
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Alan Hodge |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Mark Kemp
Completed in 1805, the Dismal Swamp Canal was dug entirely by hand. Today, about 2,000 recreational boats travel the waterway each year. photograph by VisitNC.com/Bill Russ
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1 month ago | 
ourstate.com | Mark Kemp |Lauren Eberle |Brad Campbell |Sheri Castle
Joseph Bigley III was cruising along a curvy and pastoral stretch of NC Highway 268 near Happy Valley, north of Lenoir in Caldwell County, when he spotted it — a sprawling field of native grass and weeds set against a beautiful backdrop of rolling hills. Next to it was a stately brick building that once served as a boarding school and is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Behind the old school were dormitories that had been converted into apartments.
