County accepts ag center donations
By Steve Herring
Published in News on July 10, 2016 1:45 AM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Wayne County Commissioner Bill Pate, left, and Lynn Williams, Mt. Olive Pickle Co. public relations director, talk about the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. Foundation's $100,000 pledge for the Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center. Commissioners accepted the pledge during their Tuesday morning meeting as well as $50,000 from G&M Sales of Eastern North Carolina.
Wayne County commissioners Tuesday morning accepted donations from the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. Foundation and G&M Sales of Eastern North Carolina totaling $150,000 for the Maxwell Regional Agricultural and Convention Center.
The $100,000 pledge from the Mt. Olive Pickle Co. Foundation will be paid over three years.
The agricultural center lobby will be named as the Mt. Olive Pickle Lobby.
G&M Sales of Eastern North Carolina is making a $50,000 donation.
A room in the center is being named in memory of Ralph D. Johnson, who owned the company.
Groundbreaking for the new center is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, July 14.
In business since 1926, Mt. Olive Pickle Co.'s operations encompass one million square feet of production and warehouse space spread over 150 acres in Mount Olive.
G&M Sales was founded in 1958 in Statesville to assist in selling and assisting the poultry industry.
Johnson joined the company in 1959 to open the Goldsboro location. He later bought the Goldsboro location and changed the name to G&M Sales of Eastern North Carolina.
Over the next 20 years locations were added in Ahoskie, Rose Hill and Clinton that service eastern North Carolina with most major brands of poultry and swine equipment.
Johnson died in 2004 leaving the business to his daughter, Sandra Murphy, company president.
In 2009 Mrs. Murphy formed a new company, Johnson & Murphy Construction LLC to meet the need for a turnkey construction and equipment company.
Mrs. Murphy was unable to attend Tuesday's meeting.
But Commissioner Bill Pate, chairman of the board's Agricultural Advisory Committee, said he has known Mrs. Murphy for a number of years.
"With years of service and work ethic instilled by her dad, Sandra has continued to make G&M Sales a force in the poultry and swine industry," Pate said. "Now, she is making this thing grow even more."
Mt. Olive Pickle Co. was represented by Lynn Williams, company public relations director.
The company is another "good corporate friend" of Wayne County, Pate said.
"This is our 90th anniversary," Mrs. Williams said. "Mt. Olive Pickle was established back in 1926 by local businesspeople for the purpose of creating a new market for the farmers. We have been at it ever since, and today we are the best-selling brand of pickles in U.S. grocery stores. That is an awesome thing.
"We have always had a deep and abiding relationship with our community. That is where our roots are. So our participation in this effort is an extension of that. We are very proud and pleased to be a part of it. We think it is long overdue. We are grateful to be here today."
In other business Tuesday, commissioners, meeting as the Board of Adjustment, approved a special use permit request for Jester Solar for a solar energy facility at 1002 Millers Chapel Road
The only person to speak during the public hearing was a representative of the company developing the 25-acre, two-parcel site.
It will be interconnected to the local distribution system owned by Duke Progress Energy.
The site had been zoned agricultural.
Solar energy facilities are permitted as a special use in those zones and in all areas of the county covered by the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base Airspace Control Surfaces as defined in the 2011 Air Installation Compatible Use Zone report or subsequent reports.
Special use permits must be approved by the Wayne County Board of Adjustment.
The county Planning Board recommended approval of the plan as submitted with the recommended mitigation of requiring a vegetative buffer requested by base officials.
The southwest face of the facility does not incorporate the base's recommended vegetative buffer.