Paul Schenkel

Oct 10, 2024 | thepaper.media | Paul Schenkel

Seventh-year head coach Chris Powell and the Draughn High School football team lost a week’s worth of practice in the middle of the season, plus two scheduled homecoming contests, and a third total game this week. But they know many folks around the area lost incredibly more than that and have stepped in to do their part in the relief efforts from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene. The Wildcats were originally scheduled to host Avery County on Sept.

Jul 25, 2024 | thepaper.media | Paul Schenkel

Gabby Buruato was a conference softball player of the year and an all-county and all-conference basketball selection at Draughn High School, where she was also named the school’s athlete of the year as a senior in 2016. Buruato now hopes to relay that success to her own athletes, announcing this week that she was accepting a varsity assistant softball coaching job at Martin High School in Arlington, Texas. “New beginnings and a dream job,” Buruato posted on her Facebook account.

Apr 13, 2024 | thepaper.media | Paul Schenkel

Seventy years ago this week, a man from Morganton set the golfing world on fire as he nearly won the prestigious Masters golf tournament. That man was Billy Joe Patton. Patton, who was then a …

Jan 13, 2024 | thepaper.media | Paul Schenkel

Morganton native Jim Grady will celebrate his 91st birthday in a little over a month. Grady stays active, working out twice a week at HiTONE Fitness, playing card games and pool at the …

Jan 6, 2024 | thepaper.media | Paul Schenkel

The 2023-24 high school basketball regular season is now about halfway completed, so it’s time for a midseason check-in by the numbers for each of the eight traditional Burke County varsity …