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Ghosts of Davidson is a Tour Steeped in History
This article originally ran in Lake Norman CURRENTS. As a true crime fan and person who is intrigued by ghost tours, I love checking them out whenever I’m traveling. Several years ago, I got the chance to stay at the Omni Grove Park Inn, where the mysterious story of “The Pink Lady” is shared by the staff. I’ve also taken ghost tours in Asheville and in Charleston, S.C., where I’m pretty sure I captured some paranormal activity in one photo of a church. The LKN area is also home to rich history, so when I heard about Ghosts of Davidson, I reached out to the student who owns the tour company to learn…
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A Purposeful Life
This editor’s letter appears in the March 2022 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. In early January, the community of Lake Norman learned of the passing of Tom Clark, a Davidson College professor who eventually found his life’s calling working in sculpture. While planning an article on his work, we put a call out on our social media pages asking if anyone had a collection of the miniature gnomes he grew so famous for creating. We were overwhelmed by the responses of so many people, not only of those who still have his gnome sculptures in their homes but also those who had a personal connection to Clark or a memory of what his…
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Get Refreshed
This letter originally appeared in the April 2021 issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. When I was twelve, I moved from Central Texas to the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, where I spent much of my time outdoors, hiking on nearby trails, taking long drives on the parkway with my parents, eating berries straight off the bushes the bloomed in our yard and playing in the icy rivers. I’ve come to realize nature has always been a big part of my life, even if I consider myself a homebody who probably spends too much time indoors reading, working or simply trying to cover off all the household chores. It’s hard to…
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Love Thy Neighbor
This letter originally appeared in the February issue of Lake Norman CURRENTS. There are many different ways to show love. While we all know Feb. 14 is a boon for the chocolate and greeting card industry, I had another revelation come to me as I’ve worked on putting together this issue. It’s been almost a year since a global pandemic affected almost every aspect of our lives, from our job security, our health and wellness, our children’s education, to our eating and shopping habits, travel plans, etc. The list goes on and on. But through it all, we’ve had to keep moving, to continue putting one foot in front of another even though…
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How Visine Drops Contributed to Stacy Hunsucker’s Death
Most people wouldn’t think of Visine, a common over-the-counter eye drop product used to treat itchy and dry eyes as a murder weapon, but one Gaston County man awaiting trial is accused of using it as just that. On September 23, 2018, Stacy Robinson Hunsucker, a 32-year-old Charlotte preschool teacher and mother of two young daughters, passed away suddenly at the home she shared with her husband. Stacy had suffered from heart problems in the past and actually had a pacemaker implanted not long after the birth of the couple’s second daughter. Her husband, 35-year-old Jonathan Lee Hunsucker, refused to authorize an autopsy after her death, attributing his wife’s sudden passing to “myocardial…
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How Did Irina Yarmolenko Die?
I recently purchased the book, Charlotte True Crime Stories, penned by Charlotte author Cathy Pickens. It’s a great read, full of a varied assortment of stories from Charlotte’s collective past, from cases of fraud, murder, serial killers and missing people. One story that stood out to me was the mysterious case of Irina Yarmolenko. I’m still not quite sure what to think of it. I remember hearing the story on the news when it first happened back in May 2008. Irina had emigrated to the United States from Ukraine with her family when she was a child. At the time of her death, she was a young 20-year-old college student at UNC Charlotte…