2011 -- day by day
By From staff reports
Published in News on January 1, 2012 1:50 AM
January
Jan. 1 -- Honorio Grajales, 44, is charged with murder after his live-in girlfriend, Teresa Pierce Harrelson, is found shot to death at her Fremont home.
Jan. 3 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized after a pipe bomb is found by a Department of Correction cleanup crew along U.S. 70, just two miles west of the Rosewood Walmart.
Jan. 3 -- Members of the Goldsboro City Council vote down construction of a new recreation center.
Jan. 3 -- Three Jamaicans living in Wayne County illegally are arrested for drug trafficking. Authorities seized more than 85 pounds of marijuana during the raid.
Jan. 4 -- Mount Olive Police Department Capt. Tommy Brown is awarded the Medal of Valor for his actions during an undercover drug bust.
Jan. 5 -- Mount Olive Board of Commissioners agree to pay $240,000 owed to Seaside Construction for wastewater treatment plant work.
Jan. 7 -- Goldsboro native Dorothy Cotton, 80, receives National Freedom Award for her work in civil rights and social change.
Jan. 8 -- Longtime Goldsboro physician, Dr. Paul Bennett, dies at 83.
Jan. 11 -- Architect David Gall is hired by the Goldsboro-Wayne Transportation Authority to design its $4.5 million GATEWAY bus transfer station.
Jan. 14 -- U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry comes back to his hometown to participate in the 39th annual George Whitfield Hall of Fame induction ceremony -- and to talk about progress being made in theater.
Jan. 14 -- Former City Manager Joe Huffman, less than a month after announcing his retirement, is named one of two finalists for a vacant city manager position in Pascagoula, Miss.
Jan. 17 -- Members of the Goldsboro City Council unanimously approve the Stoney Creek Master Plan, a move they believe will give the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant application more clout.
Jan. 17 -- Longtime Goldsboro attorney and former chairman of the Wayne County Democratic Party William Whitfield Smith dies at 82.
Jan. 18 -- Maj. Jeff Stewart is named Goldsboro's interim police chief.
Jan. 20 - Johnston County teenager Christopher Hayden Peedin, 17, was killed in a single car accident on Hinnant-Edgerton Road.
Jan. 21 -- The Arts Council of Wayne County's "A Country, A People," a photo exhibit of images captured by Seymour Johnson Air Force Base airmen serving in Afghanistan opens.
Jan. 21 -- Special Superior Court Judge Jack W. Jenkins declares a mistrial in the Windsor Ingram murder trial. Ingram, 24, had been charged in the shooting death of Tomorris Njai Raynor.
Jan. 21 -- The 4th Fighter Wing Civil Engineer Squadron is awarded the Air Force's Curtin Award, an honor given to the most outstanding unit of its kind.
Jan. 22 -- Silver Star recipient Bob Stone, a retired Army major, dies at 75.
Jan. 24 -- Wayne County residents mark the 50th anniversary of a B-52 crash in Faro that nearly resulted in Armageddon.
Jan. 25 -- Air Force Tech. Sgt. Les Williams, a Seymour Johnson Air Force Base airman and head coach of the Rosewood Little Eagles football team, dies in Afghanistan from injuries sustained in a "shooting incident" at Bagram Airfield.
Jan. 26 -- William Troy "Bill" Winslow receives the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce Cornerstone Award.
Jan. 28 -- Lee Hyundai announces plans to bring dealership to Goldsboro.
February
Feb. 1 -- A five-member committee begins the search for a new police chief in Mount Olive.
Feb. 1 -- Marian Mason is announced as the new president of the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce.
Feb. 1 -- Former City Manager Joe Huffman is chosen to hold the same post in Pascagoula, Miss.
Feb. 4 -- Former Democratic state Sen. Don Davis files lawsuit against Sen. Louis Pate over television ads.
Feb. 5 -- Sarah Lilley Joyner, 58, is killed after she struck a parked vehicle on U.S. 13.
Feb. 10 -- Angie Raines, of Rosewood Middle School, is named Wayne County Public Schools' Counselor of the Year.
Feb. 11 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized after a cellular phone prompted the lockdown of the area immediately surrounding two post office drop boxes located near the intersection of Eastgate and Cashwell Drives.
Feb. 11 -- Andy's Burgers Shakes and Fries announces that it will sell franchises in 13 other states, as far west as Texas.
Feb. 11 -- Local historian Charles Ellis dies at 81 from injuries sustained injured after a Feb. 7 fall off the concrete steps at his home.
Feb. 11 -- Ennis Oates, superintendent of Neuse Correctional Institution, is named Superintendent of the Year by the N.C. Division of Prisons.
Feb. 14 -- Four Mount Olive residents -- Ronald Dean Sox, Jeffrey Brandon Sox, Roy Lee Beavers and Wayne Douglas Whaley -- all plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Feb. 15 -- Partnership for Children executive director Patty Huffman announces her resignation.
Feb. 17 -- Members of the Goldsboro City Council approve the Center Street Streetscape project.
Feb. 18 -- Senior Airman Cody Hendrickson, a 4th Fighter Wing airman, is taken to Pitt Memorial Hospital after what officials characterize as a "suicide attempt" in his Wayne County apartment.
Feb. 22 -- Senior Airman Cody Hendrickson, a 4th Fighter Wing airman who was taken to Pitt Memorial Hospital after what officials characterized as a "suicide attempt," dies at Pitt Memorial Hospital.
Feb. 22 -- Tasha Logan is named interim city manager.
Feb. 24 -- Parks and Recreation Director Ruben Wall resigns.
Feb. 27 -- Princess Shelby King, 3, is killed by a stray bullet in the Day Circle housing community playground. A manhunt for the alleged gunman, Derrick Raymont Best, ensues.
March
March 1 -- Wayne County is awarded nearly $600,000 in state funding to expand and enhance services available to pregnant or parenting teens.
March 1 -- Frank Speer, a World War II ace and one of the "grandfathers" of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's 4th Fighter Wing, dies at 88.
March 1 -- Tim Bell officially retires from his post as Goldsboro's chief of police.
March 1 -- State ALE agents raid Lamar's Mexican Restaurant and seize 16 grams of cocaine.
March 1 -- Mount Olive Police Chief Ralph Schroeder retires.
March 7 -- Goldsboro City Council members express outrage over legislation filed by state Rep. Efton Sager to deannex portions of the city that were incorporated into the city limits in 2008.
March 7 -- Arlene Talton, who had served as Mount Olive town clerk for more than 46 years, is awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
March 7 -- A March 5 shooting on Mill Dam Lane becomes a murder when victim, Edward Lee Brewington, 46, dies at Pitt Memorial Hospital.
March 11 -- An early morning explosion destroys part of a former motel on U.S. 117 Alternate and sends four people to the hospital.
March 12 -- The Wayne County Republican Party elects Bob Jackson its new chairman.
March 15 -- Members of the 336th Rocketeers return from a deployment to Afghanistan.
March 16 -- Derrick Raymont Best, 29, is captured after being on the run for several months. Best was wanted for the shooting of 3-year-old Princess Shelby King.
March 17 -- Members of the 336th Fighter Squadron return from a deployment to Afghanistan.
March 19 -- Stephen Anton Garrett, 26, is killed in a car wreck. Driver Raheem Jamar Langley charged with DUI and reckless driving.
March 21 -- Sherry Archibald is approved as interim Parks and Recreation director by the Goldsboro City Council.
March 21 -- Goldsboro City Council members approve resolution against deannexation bill proposed by state Rep. Efton Sager.
March 25 -- In a letter to its members, the Arts Council of Wayne County announces that it will relocate to the corner of Walnut and John Streets.
March 26 -- Dancing Stars of Wayne County holds first-ever main event.
March 26 -- Chelsea Guild is crowned Miss Goldsboro 2011.
March 26 -- More than 5,000 people attend Fremont's 25 Daffodil Festival.
March 28 -- Wayne County clerk Marcia Wilson is presented with the Howard Holly Outstanding Clerk Award.
March 28 -- Members of the 336th Fighter Squadron return from a deployment to Afghanistan.
April
April 1 -- Wayne Country Day School rolls out a $5 million project that will double the size of the private school.
April 1 -- Officials of the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare are at Cherry Hospital investigating an incident involving an adolescent who left in the campus with authorization in March.
April 3 -- Natsaha Monet Bonaparte, 22, and Virgil Devon Cox, 22, both of Goldsboro, are charged with murder and jailed without bond in the March shooting death of a disabled man, Edward Lee Brewington, at his Mill Dam Lane home.
April 4 -- City Council approves $20,000 for a structural analysis of the Arts Council of Wayne County headquarters.
April 4 -- The Wayne County Board of Education approves a new vocational academy at Spring Creek High School.
April 4 -- Mount Olive receives permission from the local Government Commission to proceed with a $2.2 million sewer project.
April 16 -- Wayne and Duplin counties are mostly spared by a tornado-producing storm, but Snow Hill in Greene County suffers major damage and at least 10 people are taken to the hospital.
April 16 -- The body of 10-year-old drowning victim Henry Javregui is found near Hardy Bridge over the Neuse River in western Lenoir County by a search team ending a six-day search.
April 18 -- A preliminary report to City Council indicates that the Arts Council building the city is considering buying will require extensive repairs to windows and the overall structure of the building.
April 18 -- Goldsboro residents attending the City Council meeting speak out against closing the Park Avenue roundabout through Herman Park.
April 19 -- Wayne County's population has grown by 9,288 and shifts in where the population lives will mean that the county will have to redraw its voting district lines.
April 21 -- Organizers for Wayne County Reads say they are not worried about claims that parts of the annual selection, "Three Cups of Tea" were exaggerated or fabricated would necessarily cast a shadow over the program.
April 22 -- LaGrange native Dr. Jo Allen, 53, is named the eighth president in the 120-year history of Meredith College.
April 24 -- Goldsboro-Wayne Transportation Authority officials ask county commissioners to take on GATEWAY personnel as county employees as another step in not only restructuring the transit system, but making it a quasi-county department.
April 25 -- Donna Archer is named first recipient of the Outstanding Volunteer Director for North Carolina by the Governor's Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service.
April 26 -- Special Olympics athlete Alan Jenkins and volunteer Emily Crawford make up Wayne County's first unified bowling team to compete on the national level.
April 28 -- A $200,000 grant the city has received to move the Arts Council of Wayne County to downtown may hinge on whether the city buys the Arts Council's current building.
April 29 -- Noted Goldsboro lawyer and former state Sen. Lindsay Warren was named the annual recipient of the North Carolinian Society Award.
April 30 -- Close to 40,000 people attend the 25th annual North Carolina Pickle Festival in Mount Olive.
May
May 2 -- Maj. Brian Rhodes is named Mount Olive chief of police.
May 2 -- Goldsboro City Council members reject deal for purchase of Arts Council of Wayne County headquarters.
May 3 -- Former 4th Fighter Wing Commander Brig. Gen. Steve Kwast is nominated for promotion to rank of major general.
May 6 -- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visits Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.
May 7 -- Tammy Ferrell, 39, is killed while attempting to cross U.S. 70 East.
May 15 -- Dedication services are held for the new Mount Olive Area Chapel at Kitty Askins Hospice Center. A Mount Olive-based grassroots committee raised more than $130,000 for the center's $4 million expansion project.
May 15 -- With less than four weeks to go before commencement, officials say that a number of Goldsboro High School students have yet to complete their graduation projects, a prerequisite to obtaining a diploma, before graduation day.
May 16 -- Goldsboro's first proposed budget contains no appropriations for the American Red Cross, Project Uplift, WATCH or the Boys and Girls Club and would effectively end Communities in Schools' graduation coach at Goldsboro High School.
May 17 -- Wayne County commissioners approve $1.495 million to purchase three East Ash Street buildings including the former Sportsman's World that will house the county's senior center.
May 17 -- Former Tuscarora Boy Scout Council President Tom Yarboro receives the council's Distinguished Citizen Award.
May 19 -- More than 600 people, including about 300 cancer survivors, gather at First Pentecostal Holiness Church for the Relay for Life Survivors Banquet.
May 22 -- Six people, including four teenagers, are injured when shot while attending a party in the 400 block of North George Street around 12:30 a.m.
May 23 -- Goldsboro City Council announces that the position of city manager, vacant since February, will be filled by Kinston City Manager Scott Stevens.
May 26 -- The Wayne County Tax Department mails out approximately 60,0000 property revaluation notices.
May 27 --Wayne School of Engineering at Goldsboro High School graduates its first class.
May 29 -- A Virginia man, Samuel Evans Turner, 31, drowns in the lake at Busco Beach.
May 29 -- The new Asperger Connection school will serve 40 students who have been diagnosed with Asperger's, on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum.
May 30 -- Retired Spring Creek Elementary School principal Charles Ivey is named the new executive director for the Partnership for Children for Wayne County.
June
June 2 -- Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's 4th Fighter Wing is honored as the first recipient of the Air Force Historical Foundation James H. Doolittle Award.
June 3 -- After less than an hour of deliberation, Mohssen Ali Almogaded is sentenced to 13 years to 16 years and six months in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in connection with the death of Terry Lavone Singleton.
June 6 -- The Goldsboro City Council approves the site and landscape plans for an Olive Garden Restaurant to be built on Berkeley Boulevard following the demolition of Sears Auto Center.
June 7 -- Six teenagers assist in the rescue of four victims of a single-car accident near the Wayne-Johnston County line, pulling one of the victims from the burning wreckage after pushing the car off of him.
June 14 -- As the last 219 of Wayne County's high school graduates walk across the stage at Southern Wayne High School, they join the 987 graduates from the county's other six schools in celebrating commencement.
June 16 -- A new state law on the books gives the Wayne County Board of Education, for the first time in 20 years, the authority to appoint its own board vacancies -- a power it surrendered to the Wayne County Board of Commissioners in the 1991 agreement that merged the former county and city of Goldsboro school systems.
June 18 -- The General Assembly has its final vote on House Bill 56 -- a bill which, when enacted, began a process by which residents of Goldsboro's Buck Swamp and Salem Church Road areas could petition to have their annexation nullified. The law took effect immediately after it was passed by a 73-38 vote in the House.
June 21 -- Wildfires as far away as Pender, Dare and Hyde counties cause visibility and health concerns for Wayne County residents as smoke from the fires cause smoky, hazy conditions.
June 21 -- The Goldsboro City Council unanimously approves the city's 2011-12 fiscal year budget during a special budget work session. The tax rate was determined to remain at .65, which, thanks to revaluation, meant a budget that would reap more revenue than the previous year.
June 23 -- The Wayne County Relay For Life 2011 total is revealed at an award ceremony where it's announced the $512,965 total exceeds the campaign's goal by more than $12,000.
June 23 -- The Wayne County Board of Commissioners approves a $158 million budget by a 4-3 vote, assessing a 70.25 tax rate -- a rate higher than what was required for the county to remain revenue-neutral.
June 25 -- Wayne County native Hailey Best is crowned Miss North Carolina 2011.
June 25 -- Officers with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, Goldsboro Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration bring in a seizure of heroin estimated to be worth more than $30,000 in the largest heroin seizures in county history.
June 25 -- Donna Jean Braman, 53, and James Richard Govan, 51, both die in a head-on collision on U.S. 117 north of Fremont.
June 26 -- Seymour Johnson Air Force Base names its newest facility in honor of Maj. Robert Francis Woods, an airman who crashed during a reconnaissance mission over the Quang Binh Province.
June 26 - Longtime doctor Durwood Tyndall, 85, dies at Kitty Askins Hospice Center and donates his body to the University of North Carolina Medical School.
July
July 2 -- Alumni from Carver High School and Southern Wayne High School enjoy annual reunions.
July 3 -- Retired Marine Bill Carr is awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine for decades of service to North Carolina veterans.
July 5 -- The Goldsboro City Council moved, in a 7-0 vote, to acquire the former home of the Arts Council of Wayne County at 2406 E. Ash Street. Council members aimed to use the building as an Air Force museum.
July 5 -- The city moves to retain an attorney to evaluate its legal options in preparation of a possible challenge to a state law reforming municipalities' role in annexations -- specifically allowing the deannexation of the Buck Swamp and Salem Church Road areas within Goldsboro's city limits.
July 11 -- Wayne County Manager Lee Smith announces that the county will continue to fund the Fremont Library at least until July 2012. The branch was being considered for elimination leading up to the passage of the budget.
July 12 -- Wayne County Commissioners award a $311,000 contract to begin the design phase of Steele Memorial Library in Mount Olive -- a project estimated to cost $3.4 million.
July 13 - Cquashanda Laquan Mitchell, 19, dies in a gun shooting in Fremont.
July 14 -- The last steel girder of the new Cherry Hospital facility is laid into place, ending the first phase of construction in the project due to be completed in late 2012.
July 25 -- Five days after receiving the list of property owners in the area declared for possible deannexation, the Board of Elections is scheduled, by statute, to mail out petitions. The petitions are not mailed out, however, as Wayne County Attorney Borden Parker determined, thanks to advice from the state attorney general's office, that the petitions were subject to pre-clearance under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
July 28 - Julio Castillo Quettell, 30, dies in a two-vehicle collision.
July 31 - Jordan Perez Vasquez, 7, dies in a car wreck.
August
Aug. 1 -- Donna Phillips begins her first day as director of the Wayne County Public Library.
Aug. 1 -- Dr. Burkette Raper, instrumental in the early development and later growth of Mount Olive College, where he spent 40 of his 50 years there as president, dies of cancer at age 83.
Aug. 1 - Daniel Edward Hayes, 27, died in a car accident on U.S. 117 North after the car he was riding in struck a tree.
Aug. 2 -- Police begin search for 66-year-old Jean Hubbard, missing since July 30.
Aug. 3 -- Members of the 4th Fighter Wing's Security Forces Squadron prepare to begin a 150-mile leg of a cross-country Sept. 11 tribute Ruck March to Remember, first conceived on Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.
Aug. 4 -- The body of Jean Metzger Hubbard is found and two suspects are taken into custody by police after a chase and capture.
Aug. 4 -- Funeral services were held at Mount Olive College for former MOC president Dr. Burkette Raper. Raper lay in state on Aug. 3.
Aug. 5 -- Cherry Hospital Director Philip Cook announced he will leave his position to return to the private health care sector, effective Aug. 30.
Aug. 7 -- Husband and wife Gary and Ann Metzger arrested for killing his sister, Jean Metzger Hubbard.
Aug. 8 -- Scott Stevens starts his first day as the new city manager.
Aug. 9 -- Asperger Connection opens in Pikeville, serving 25 students diagnosed on the high-functioning end of autism.
Aug. 9 -- Staff Sgt. Ben Seekell, a 4th Fighter Wing airman who lost his foot during a bomb blast in Afghanistan, among those honored at the USO of N.C.'s "Salute to Freedom Gala."
Aug. 10 -- First Carolina Postal Credit Union undergoes name change to People's Credit Union.
Aug. 10 -- Federal budget cuts force local Social Security office to close doors earlier.
Aug. 10 -- Scott Barnard named new director of city Parks and Recreation Department.
Aug. 12 -- Wayne County Board of Education approves $14.5 million bid and entered into construction and lease agreement to proceed with projects at Norwayne and Eastern Wayne middle schools.
Aug. 13 -- A storm rips through Mount Olive causing downed trees and damages to homes and
businesses, while areas like Snow Hill and Grantham also experienced power outages.
Aug. 14 - Alejandro Mendez Castanedo, 26, dies in a single-car accident on U.S. 117 Bypass.
Aug. 16 -- Announcement is made that construction of new Veterans Affairs clinic in Goldsboro will begin in the fall after bid to build 10,000-square-foot clinic is awarded to Construction Managers of Goldsboro.
Aug. 17 -- Wayne Community College names Gene Smith associate vice president for academic and student services, Paige Ham hired as student activities director.
Aug. 18 -- Goldsboro police release document claiming that Gary Metzger confessed to killing his sister, Jean Metzger Hubbard; he and wife, Ann, charged with first-degree murder in July 30 killing.
Aug. 20 - Alejandro Castillo Aguirre, 21, dies in a single-car accident on U.S. 111 South in Seven Springs.
Aug. 22 -- Thoroughfare Volunteer Fire Department celebrates 50th anniversary.
Aug. 23 -- Wayne County shakes during a 5.9 earthquake centered around Richmond, Va.
Aug. 25 -- Mount Olive College officials announce plans to postpone graduation ceremonies planned for Aug. 27 in anticipation of Hurricane Irene that day.
Aug. 25 -- 4th Fighter Wing Security Forces Squadron on last leg of Ruck March to Remember, as it passes through Virginia. The airmen had marched nearly 150 miles.
Aug. 26 -- Jennifer Tyndall, business teacher at Spring Creek High School, named Wayne County Public Schools' teacher of the year.
Aug. 26 -- U.S. District Court officials confirmed that four people being charged and a fifth under investigation following inquiry into "public corruption" of awarding of roofing contracts by Wayne County Public Schools' maintenance department.
Aug. 27 -- Hurricane Irene blows through county, collapses roof at Berkeley Mall.
Aug. 28 -- Damages from hurricane include downed trees, power lines, as some residents wait out storm at shelters, others seek food.
Aug. 28 -- A 15-year-old girl is killed in a traffic accident at W. Ash Street and I-795, which police blame on intersection lights not working due to power outage caused by Hurricane Irene.
Aug. 29 -- Images from Hurricane Irene include Berkeley Mall remaining closed for undetermined amount time; storm also being blamed for potential $16 million loss to this year's tobacco crop.
Aug. 30 -- Several schools and businesses remain closed following Hurricane Irene, with Wayne County officials set to meet with FEMA to discuss what assistance, if any, will be available to county in the aftermath.
Aug. 31 -- The 2011 United Way campaign kicks off at the Paramount Theatre, featuring Stephen Freeman and his Echoes of Legend band.
Aug. 31 -- Wayne Country Day School wraps up its $5 million three-part expansion project in time for return of students.
September
Sept. 1 -- Three department stores at Berkeley Mall reopen after damage sustained during Hurricane Irene is repaired.
Sept. 3 -- Norwayne Alumni and Friends hold annual reunion.
Sept. 3 -- The season-ending, national champion-crowning ATV Extreme Dirt Track National -- the first ATV race held at Busco Beach -- draws large crowd.
Sept. 4 -- Darrel Maurice Best, 21, is fatally shot on the 900 block of Olivia Lane.
Sept. 6 -- Goldsboro City Council members approve site and landscape plans for proposed VA clinic.
Sept. 7 -- Shawtanna Lemarus Thompson is arrested and charged with murder in connection with the fatal shooting of Darrel Best.
Sept. 8 -- Maj. Thomas Reitmann, a 4th Fighter Wing pilot who was shot down in Vietnam, is, more than 40 years later, buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Sept. 9 -- Cynthia Thornton is named new superintendent at Neuse Correctional Institution.
Sept. 10 -- More than 200 airmen from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base begin six-month tours in Afghanistan.
Sept. 11 -- While Wayne County residents mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11, members of the 4th Fighter Wing Security Forces community hold a vigil in New York City's Battery Park.
Sept. 12 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized after an object resembling a bomb is found at the Wayne County Courthouse.
Sept. 12 -- Members of the NAACP tell the Wayne County School Board that local schools are not providing equal opportunities to minority students.
Sept. 13 -- Wayne Memorial Hospital hires the Rev. Colin Munroe to serve as the facility's chaplain.
Sept. 14 -- A small group of Cherry Hospital employees protest working conditions at the hospital.
Sept. 17 - Laquan Devon Pearsall, 21, is fatally wounded by gunfire in the area of the Jefferson Court Apartments.
Sept. 20 -- Harold Harloe-Bruce Clother, a suspect in a shooting incident that involved a Wayne County Sheriff's Office deputy, dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Sept. 22 -- IRS agents raid the MB Insurance and Tax Services office in Mount Olive.
Sept. 23 - Donald Beaman, 46, of Dudley, was shot and killed at a residence in Calypso.
Sept. 26 -- Gov. Bev Perdue begins her visit to Wayne County by announcing that Cooper Standard Automotive would make a $39.6 million expansion to its Goldsboro operation -- a move that would create 137 jobs.
Sept. 29 -- The 63rd annual Wayne Regional Fair begins.
Sept. 30 -- Steven Lynn Barbour is sentenced to life in prison after a jury finds him guilty in the first-degree murder of Jamie Lee Hinson.
October
Oct. 3 -- South Bank and Trust Co. acquires the 21-branch Bank of the Commonwealth.
Oct. 3 -- Mount Olive officials approve proposed changes to voting districts.
Oct. 3 -- Members of the Goldsboro City Council vote to put the Center Street streetscape project on hold.
Oct. 4 -- Attorney William Devaughn Orander III and loan officer Mark David Webb get prison sentences for their roles in a mortgage fraud scheme.
Oct. 4 -- Wayne County Manager Lee Smith gets a six-year contract extension.
Oct. 9 -- Wayne Regional Agricultural Fair ends and officials announce an attendance record, 104,000, for the annual event.
Oct. 10 -- City Council members reject bids on Center Street streetscape plan.
Oct. 12 -- Rene Nuncio, 14, dies in a car crash.
Oct. 13 - Karen Rebecca Jones, 21, dies while serving a seven day sentence in the Wayne County Jail.
Oct. 18 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized after a county dive team finds a live mortar round in a swamp off Napoleon Road.
Oct. 24 -- Local National Guardsman, 1st Lt. Ashley White, is killed by an explosion in Afghanistan.
Oct. 25 -- Health Director James Roosen announces his pending resignation.
Oct. 28 -- Ground is broken for Goldsboro's new VA clinic.
November
Nov. 1 -- Wayne County loses bid for a $90 million biofuels plant that would have created more than 60 jobs.
Nov. 1 -- County Commissioners agree to match a $157,000 One North Carolina Fund grant.
Nov. 3 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized after a small black briefcase left next to a gas line prompted the evacuation of several stores along Ash Street.
Nov. 3 -- Mount Olive College holds its 60th Founders Day.
Nov. 3 -- Betty Ray McCain, Mary Lyde Hicks Williams and Col. William Dickson are inducted into the Duplin County Hall of Fame.
Nov. 5 -- Edwin Alexander Sura-Cruz, 32, is found dead in his Mount Olive home. Carols Antonio Bran Calderon, 24, is taken into custody.
Nov. 6 -- Regina Ann Rugkit, Randy Arive Johnson and Tracey Terell Grady are charged in connection with an explosion at the former Goldwater Motel in Dudley.
Nov. 11 -- Wayne County Veterans Memorial dedicated by hundreds who turned out for the ceremony, held after the annual Wayne County Veterans Day Parade.
Nov. 13 -- ABC Board pulls alcohol license from Teasers.
Nov. 15 -- Ray Mayo is appointed by the Wayne County Board of Commissioners to take Andy Anderson's seat upon his retirement.
Nov. 18 -- Two Duplin County Masonic Lodges came together to open a time capsule buried in 1911.
Nov. 18 -- Marquis Lamont Ezzell, 27, is killed by a train in Mount Olive.
Nov. 18 -- Windsor Devone Ingram is convicted for the first-degree murder of Tomorris Njai Raynor.
Nov. 22 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized in response to a bomb threat at the Cherry Hospital construction site.
Nov. 23 -- District Court Judge Lonnie Carraway is charged with driving under the influence.
Nov. 29 -- Leslie Bobbie-Renee Watkins is located in Herman Park less than a day after a Silver Alert was issued when she went missing.
Nov. 29 -- Teasers of Goldsboro gets its ABC permits back, pending a hearing.
December
Dec. 1 -- Attorneys representing the city of Goldsboro file a lawsuit seeking an injunction against state laws, including the one that allows for the deannexation of properties from the city limits.
Dec. 1 -- Antwann Devonte Smith, band director at Goldsboro High School, charged with embezzlement.
Dec. 1 -- Air Force officials announce that the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base F-15E Strike Eagle Demonstration Team has been cut from the 2012 U.S. Department of Defense budget.
Dec. 2 -- Raymond Samenski Jr., 19, shoots his cousin, 18-year-old Ryan Shelby, and then turns the gun on himself.
Dec. 2 -- The defunct Jeffreys Seed Co., its president Edward Taylor Jeffreys and its corporate secretary James T. Jeffreys III, are sued by the U.S. Department of Labor to restore more than $20,000 in employee contributions to the company's employee pension and health plans.
Dec. 5 -- An exploratory committee is formed to determine how to transform the former Arts Council of Wayne County headquarters into an Air Force museum.
Dec. 5 -- Eddie Radford takes over as Wayne County School Board chairman.
Dec. 5 -- Mount Olive officials approve a 2.5-percent pay increase for town employees.
Dec. 5 -- Three juveniles are charged with vandalizing more than 100 tombstones at Providence United Methodist Church.
Dec. 6 -- Staff Sgt. William Guthery is awarded the Bronze Star Medal.
Dec. 6 -- Longtime Wayne County commissioner Andy Anderson retires. Ray Mayo takes the oath to replace him.
Dec. 8 -- Former Wayne County School Board member Lehman Smith dies at 74.
Dec. 9 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized after a threat is called in by officials in the small town of Kelford.
Dec. 9 -- Master Sgt. Tina Jorae is awarded the Purple Heart for injuries she sustained during a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
Dec. 10 -- Mount Olive College holds last of three yearly commencement ceremonies, graduating approximately 1,020 students in 2011.
Dec. 11 -- "The Pleasure Was Mine" is selected as the 2012 Wayne County Reads book.
Dec. 13 -- Danny Lee Langley and Earl Wayne Rhodes, both former Wayne County Public Schools employees, plead guilty to public corruption in a bid-rigging scheme.
Dec. 16 -- Betty Jean Herndon, 79, dies in a car accident five miles east of Mount Olive.
Dec. 16 -- First-ever female, Col. Jeannie Leavitt, named Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's next 4th Fighter Wing.
Dec. 20 -- Members of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight are mobilized in response to a bomb threat at the Cherry Hospital construction site.
Dec. 20 -- Dozens of 4th Fighter Wing airmen return home from Afghanistan just in time for Christmas.
Dec. 21 -- The Wayne County Health Department issues a Hepatitis A warning to those who ate at Fruity Yogurt.
Dec. 21 -- An inspection prompts officials to close the W.A. Foster Center due to concerns about asbestos.
Dec. 21 -- Marquell Hocutt, 34, is found shot to death along East Walnut Street.
Dec. 26 -- Goldsboro-based Pate Dawson Co. announces it will build a $9 million distribution center in Statesville.
Dec. 28 -- It is announced that 15-year-old Jordan Wiggins will be on the cover of Procter & Gamble's January advertising newspaper insert, promoting the company's relationship with and fundraising efforts for the Special Olympics.
Dec. 28 -- It is announced that Raleigh developer Plaza Associates has purchased Five Points Plaza on U.S. 117 South for approximately $5.77 million.
Dec. 29 -- For the third time in a month, members of the 4th Fighter Wing Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight were called to the Cherry Hospital construction site on West Ash Street.
Dec. 30 -- A preliminary and partial list shows Goldsboro retaining its Sears and Kmart stores after it was announced that 120 will be closing around the nation, including several in eastern North Carolina.
Dec. 30 -- Jefferson Park Barber shop closes its doors for the final time after 47 years in business.