Fonta Flora Brewery and Foothills Conservancy have partnered in order to protect the historic Whippoorwill Dairy Farm in Western Burke County. With funding from the N.C.Clean Water Management Trust Fund and private donors, Foothills Conservancy purchased about 40 acres, the majority of Whippoorwill Farm, to donate to the adjoining Lake James State Park later this year. Fonta Flora Brewery, a Morganton craft brewery, has purchased eight acrea of the former dairy farm fronting Highway 126. Included in the eight acres are most of the old stacked-stones barn and structures. the brewery plans to restore the buildings in order to expand and create a farmhouse brewery, but will keep the old stonewalls intact. The expansion will allow Fonta Flora to brew around 2,500 barrels during the first year, roughly quadrupling their current production capacity. Fonta Flora plans to convey a permanent conservation easement on the property to Foothills Conservancy. The brewery also plans for gardens and orchards on the property to cultivate harder-to-find ingredients.

Morganton Department of Public Safety as been selected as a partner for the Watch For Me NC partnership. The program is for education and training in bicycle/pedestrian safety. Watch For Me NC partnership will provide traffic unit officers Gillstrap and Davis with Morganton Public Safety training, printed materials, billboards, and banners that will encourage education and enforcement. Officers will then take this into the school system. Morganton Housing will work with Burke County law enforcement agencies to educate, train and promote bicycle/pedestrian safety. Three other area partners from previous years will continue to work with Watch For Me NC, Asheville, Boone and Marion.

A Connelly Springs man is facing a murder charge in the death of one of his 3-month-old twin sons. The Burke County Grand Jury returned a true bill of indictment for murder last week, against 21-year-old Nicholas Brandon Clark, He was originally charged with and indicted for felony child abuse for a January 31st incident that led to hospitalization for one of his twins. The mother of the twins, 24-year-old Brittany Nichole Hefner, also of Connelly Springs, was indicted on a felony child abuse charge from a similar incident January 29th that involved the other twin. The case remains under investigation by Daniel Strauss and Scott Carico of the Burke County Sheriff's Office.