Mah jongg
“It’s amazing how well you get to know these people. We play every week, and that adds up over three-and-a-half years.” –Missy Van Lokeren, host of a weekly mah jongg group by Jessie Ammons photograph by Christer Berg By the middle of…
Category: Community
Aly Khalifa
Trailblazing shoe designer by Tina Haver Currin photographs by Travis Long Last year at SPARKcon, downtown Raleigh’s annual festival of innovation and creativity, Aly and Beth Khalifa, local designers and entrepreneurs, had to apply to participate. The couple had that…
Style bosses
The Triangle’s fashion bloggers by Mimi Montgomery In The Age of the Smartphone, where social media and viral hits reign supreme, blogging has evolved from a solo, diary-like activity into a lucrative field that allows tech-savvy entrepreneurs to create their own…
Gather in peace
Braima Moiwai and the djembe by Thomasi McDonald photographs by Peter Hoffman Sierra Leone, West Africa, Dodo village, 1965: It is a land of cascading rolling hills. To get there, travel eastward from the Atlantic Ocean, journey through virgin forests dotted…
Phyllis Brookshire: Equestrienne
A passion pursued by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio When Phyllis York Brookshire rides her American Saddlebred into the ring at the North Carolina State Championship Charity Horse Show this month, she’ll take him through the five gaits that make…
Style and substance: Librarian of the Year Susan Nutter
by Hampton Williams Hofer photographs by Christer Berg It’s late on a Friday afternoon at N.C. State University’s James B. Hunt Jr. Library, which doesn’t look much like a library at all. Instead of red bricks and right angles, it’s all…
Q&A with Eric Mitchko
by Liza Roberts photograph by Jillian Clark Six years ago, Eric Mitchko moved to Raleigh to lead the newly formed North Carolina Opera, the result of a merger of the Opera Company of North Carolina and Capital Opera Raleigh. Today, N.C….
Lewis Lovell
“It’s always been important to me to have the opportunity to help other people. That’s a big reason for doing what we do, and I think it’s the most important. ” –Lewis Lovell, Station 1 firefighter by Mimi Montgomery photograph by Christer…
The Volley Lamas
“We’re a pretty fun team to play; we don’t take ourselves too seriously.” –Anna Prorock, member of The Volley Lamas beach volleyball team by Mimi Montgomery photograph by Travis Long If you drive past landlocked Jaycee Park this summer, you may catch…
Crawfish connoisseur
by Liza Roberts photographs by Catherine Nguyen If your cookout requires 240 pounds of live Louisiana crawfish, it’s important to plan ahead. Raleighite Duc Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant by way of Biloxi, Miss., knows the drill. Twice a year, he has four…
Breaking the cycle
Southeast Raleigh Promise Project aims to end intergenerational poverty by Tina Haver Currin photographs by Travis Long When Raleigh is mentioned as one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities, the towers of central downtown and midtown come to mind. So do the soon-to-boom…
William Ivey Long: In search of the heat
by Liza Roberts photographs by Nick Pironio William Ivey Long, the prolific, multiple-Tony Award-winning costume designer, has drama – and Raleigh – in his blood, and in every single one of his earliest memories. “I grew up in the stage left dressing…
The Raleigh Dart League
“I used to pitch back in the day. I thought it’d be easier to throw a dart 7 feet or so than to throw a ball 65 feet. I’ve been proved wrong.” -Jim White, Wells Fargo mortgage underwriter and member…
Raleigh Police Department Mounted Unit
“Working with a horse is not only therapeutic for us, but it gives us an opportunity to meet people. It’s like an icebreaker for people in the community. They don’t see us, they see the horse.” – Officer M.R. Sherian,…