By LES HIGH
Editor

In October, my wife Becky and I bought the small Pender Post newspaper in Burgaw. It’s one of two newspapers in Burgaw, the county seat of 3,500 people in central Pender County.

During our frequent trips to Burgaw, I often think of the contrasts between Pender and Columbus counties as I drive through the rural countryside along N.C. 11 across the Cape Fear and Black rivers.

Western Pender County and Columbus County are essentially mirror images of each other. Atkinson, the first town you come to in Pender, could just as easily be in Columbus County. It has a handful of old storefronts, a volunteer fire department, a convenience store and Fowler’s Restaurant, a spot where everybody gathers for breakfast. Harold Woodcock has a roadside vegetable stand based out of the bed of his pick-up truck.

But Pender County has one rather important distinction from Columbus County – it lies next to an ocean.

Thousands of people have moved to Pender County in the last 10 years, ranking it among the 80 fastest-growing counties per capita in the U.S. Almost all the growth has occurred in three areas: Topsail Beach and Surf City, the U.S. 17 corridor along Scott’s Hill and Hampstead, and the Rocky Point area adjacent to I-40, where numerous subdivisions have sprung up to escape the high land prices and traffic of New Hanover County.

Pender County still has fewer people than Columbus County, 48,000 compared to 55,000, but Pender’s eastern growth has changed the once symbiotic relationship between the two counties; namely, Columbus County’s poverty level exceeds 20 percent (36 percent of our black population lives below the poverty level), while Pender’s poverty rate is 9.5 percent and declining.

The population shift in Pender County has obviously brought about a number of changes – some good, some bad.

The schools in Pender County are very good. The Pender system continually outperform all other school systems in the region, including New Hanover. There are a number of reasons. One is that poverty levels are typically correlated to school success rates, in part because the school system can put more money into their schools, and students from poverty-stricken families usually don’t do as well in school.

Many working families are moving to Pender County because of the reputation of its schools. Soon after we bought the paper, I spoke with one family decorating their yard for Halloween in a sprawling middle class subdivision near Hampstead. They had moved from New Jersey, looking for a better climate and a safe neighborhood for their children to play in; plus, there were plenty of jobs to be had in New Hanover County. The clincher was the school system. “When we saw how their schools performed, we knew this was the place for us,” the mom said. So they moved to Pender County, not knowing a soul.

I suspect Pender County teachers are no smarter than Columbus County teachers, but the Pender County economy allows them to pump more resources into their schools, which attracts more educated people, who contribute back to the economy... and so forth and so on. The trend is ever upward.

Another observation is the correlation between sewer and growth. Rocky Point had just a few scattered homes and Paul’s Place hotdogs, even with a county water system in place. But it wasn’t until sewer lines were put in the ground that housing developments sprang up everywhere.

Interestingly, the U.S. 17 corridor through Scott’s Hill and Hampstead has sewer and is rife with development, but travel just a mile or two west of U.S. 17 where there is no sewer service, and it’s like stepping back in time.

Burgaw, which compared to Whiteville is still a sleepy town, is currently in the process of connecting to a regional sewer plant in Wallace. When that happens, Burgaw will explode.

Wendell Murphy will one day build another River Landing-like golf course development off U.S. 421 in southern Pender County along the Black River, where a wastewater treatment plant will be conveniently constructed.

I hope it’s not lost on anyone here that the biggest economic development project in Columbus County in the last 20 years – the prison at Tabor City and the 400 jobs it will bring, wouldn’t have happened without sewer, or that our biggest housing project ever – a planned 300-unit development at Dothan, of all places, is the result of a partnership between the county and the Grand Strand Water and Sewer Authority to bring sewer to the project.

But the changes in Pender County haven’t been without fallout. There is a very palpable divide between east and west Pender – a battle between the retirees and the locals, the North and the South, the Democrats and the Republicans, the haves and the have nots.

Nowhere is this more emblematic than the incorporation battle in Hampstead. The newcomers want to incorporate the Hampstead area into an approximately 8,000-population city. They want stricter zoning control and have proposed a town council stacked with retirees. The locals want to do with their land what they want, and without the additional taxes a new town would bring.

As one might imagine, public hearings on incorporation have been nothing short of civil war (maybe that should be the proper noun, Civil War). Bumper stickers abound. Every yard has a sign.

The east-west divide has hurt progress in Pender County, and there have been a lot of hard feelings and mistrust resulting from it.

There are many other differences between the two counties. For example, Burgaw has a much neater and prettier courthouse square, but we have better hamburger and barbecue joints. Pender County has 13 building inspectors. Columbus County is lucky to keep one.

Pender County has lots of Yankees, but most of our Yankees are nice people.

Burgaw has a downtown coffee house, but hey, Whiteville’s about to get one too.

I’m not sure in which county you’re more likely to hit a deer at night. It’s probably a tie.

The rural heritage of both counties is still intact, but it’s slowly, maybe even quickly, slipping away in Pender County.

But Pender’s prosperity is hard to argue with, especially when one sees the growth of nice neighborhoods filled with happy families, and the good schools that go hand-in-hand with the new prosperity.

Pender County is no doubt a land of opportunity. I believe Columbus County is on the verge.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from our kissing cousins in Pender.

I hope we’ll listen.