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Twenty years seems like a long time ago.

2005 marked the beginning of the second term in office for George W. Bush – better known as “Dubya” as my late great friend Keith Hoggard called him.

Some of the year’s other top stories were the death of Pope John Paul II (April 2, 2005), Danica Patrick became the first-ever woman to lead the famed Indianapolis 500 (May 29, 2005), the last Ford Thunderbird (a famed sports car first built in 1955) rolled off the assembly line (July 1, 2005), American cyclist Lance Armstrong won a record-setting seventh Tour de France (July 24, 2005), and Hurricane Katrina slams into the Gulf Coast (Aug. 29, 2005), leaving over 1,000 dead and causing damages in excess of $125 billion.

But what about local news. What were the top news stories in the Roanoke-Chowan area in 2005?

As I’ve bragged many times before – and will continue to do so as long as I draw a breath – your local newspaper is the “keeper of the flame.” We report on local news, thusly recording local history which is stored in our files.

In mid January of 2005, a near two-week search ended for a worker who fell overboard from a tugboat operating on the Chowan River. A dive team from Beaufort County pulled the body of 24-year-old Aaron Drew Kahill from the river near Mt. Gould. Kahill apparently fell overboard on Jan. 2 as the tugboat made its way south after leaving the Nucor Steel Plate Mill.

Bertie County Sheriff Greg Atkins stated there was no foul play involved. He said drowning was the cause of death.

In early February, the Bertie County Board of Education, following a public hearing, collectively said, “thanks, but no thanks” to a recommendation from the United States Department of Justice (USDJ) to close three schools. That suggestion came during a Nov. 30, 2004 public hearing held in front of a standing room only crowd that packed the Bertie County Superior Courtroom. There, Michael Crowell, legal counsel for the Bertie Board of Education, said it appeared that the Board’s only option was to close Askewville, Aulander and J.P Law elementary schools. (NOTE: now, 20 years later, each of those schools are closed).

In March, Town of Ahoskie leaders were updated about a plan submitted by the Choanoke Area Development Association to transform the old Ahoskie High School into apartments for senior citizens. The $6.4 million project opened two years later.

In late April, Shelia Moses, a nationally renowned book author from Rich Square, received the 2025 Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Letters Award from Chowan University.

Her first novel, The Legend of Buddy Bush (Simon & Schuster, 2004) was a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award in Youth Literature. In January 2005, she received the Coretta Scott King Honors Book Award for this novel. Her second is I, Dred Scott, which is a fictional slave narrative based on the life and legal precedent of Dred Scott (Simon & Schuster, 2005).

In early May, the Northampton County Board of Education approved a $7,609,093 bid submitted by A.R. Chesson for the construction of Central Elementary School near Jackson. That school was built to replace Jackson-Eastside Elementary and Seaboard Coates Elementary.

The last week of June 2005 saw the GEO Group, a worldwide company based in Boca Raton, Florida, announce it had been awarded a contract by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for the continued management of the company-owned Rivers Correctional Institution (RCI) located in Winton. At that time, RCI was among Hertford County’s largest employers (347 at full staff) and was the county’s largest corporate taxpayer. It’s now closed.

In early July, Michael Chadwick “Chad” Geddings was taken into custody in Virginia Beach, VA. Geddings became the subject of a two-state manhunt after his step-grandparents – Charles and Phyllis Dennis, both age 63 – were found shot to death in their Sawyer Road home near the Reynoldson community in the northern part of Gates County.

Commissioners with the Town of Woodland, at their August 2005 meeting, presented Joyce White with a framed uniform worn by her late husband, Police Chief Joe White. Chief White, who later became Chief of Police in Rich Square, was killed in Rich Square in the line of duty in 2000.

Ironically, one month later (September 2005), Jason Dwayne Hebert entered a guilty plea in Chief White’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In mid October, U.S. District Court Judge Terrence Boyle sentenced former First District Congressman Frank Ballance to a four year active prison term, two years of probation and a $10,000 fine. The judgment came on the heels of a near three-year ordeal that saw Ballance, a 63-year-old Bertie County native, accused of misusing state funds from his now defunct John A. Hyman Memorial Youth Foundation. As a state senator, Ballance had steered approximately $2.1 million in state funds to the Foundation.

A memorial service was held Nov. 19, 2005 at Ahoskie Baptist Church for Nicholas “Nick” Brantley who was among the crew of a Navy Seahawk helicopter that went down off the North Carolina coast on Sept. 24 during a training exercise. Interment, with military honors, followed at the Ahoskie Cemetery.

In early December, the Northampton County Commissioners unanimously approved the purchase of approximately 635 acres of land located behind the Lowe’s Distribution Center where the Advanced Vehicle Research Center of North Carolina (AVRC) was built.

These month-by-month listings represent just a brief glimpse of local history from 2005. I hope the successor to my job as Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications will be able to do the same 20 years from now.

Cal Bryant is the Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at cal.bryant@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.