A small celebration is planned for 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday following the board's regular meeting at the ABC Administration Building at 201 W Fairfield Road.

How about a night of clogging at the Valentine Hoedown held at the City Lake Park gym in Jamestown.

So what's next?

Marie McDonald was at her home at 2421 Woodruff Ave. in High Point at 10:51 p.m. when her doorbell rang, police said. When she answered the door a man pushed his way into the residence, forcing McDonald to the ground.

McDonald told police that the man strangled her until her telephone rang. The phone startled the man, who took some items from her purse and fled, police said.

McDonald described the man as 16 or 17 years old, about 5-foot 8-inches or 5-foot 9-inches tall, with braided hair.

McDonald was treated at High Point Regional Hospital and released, police said.

No other similar events have been reported since the incident, said Lt. Ken Steele.

Police are asking anyone with information about the incident to call Detective Kevin Ray at 887-7806.

I start up there tomorrow, so this will be my last post on the High Point & Jamestown blog.

I'm sure some of you won't miss me, but I want to say thanks to everyone who has come by and read the blog. It's been a great learning experience for me and I hope people have found it useful. I'm hopeful that another News & Record blog might be in my future because I've enjoyed interacting with readers this way. It's hard to believe a year has already gone by.

The request is to rezone 36 acres and it would have a maximum of 95 units. The Cartys told neighbors of the property in letters that were mailed out that they intend to make the subdivision an affordable one, with homes ranging in price from $100,000 to $125,000 and in size from 1,100 to 1,500 square feet.

Update: The Planning Commission recommended approval.

City planners estimate it would add as many as 90 62 students to Union Hill or Jamestown elementary, Jamestown Middle and Ragsdale High schools.

It's recommended for approval, although the transportation department would like the developers to upgrade Avondale to city code.

Some parts of the property were involved in a zoning request Carty made earlier this year that was rejected by City Council in February. In July City Council approved a land-use designation change that allows for low-density residential on the site.

If you want to go:
What: High Point Planning and Zoning Commission
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday
Where: City Council Chambers, 211 S. Hamilton St.

Exhibitors come from around North Carolina and nearby states to show off old engines, tractors, implements and other wares from a bygone era. At least that's what they say.

Anyway, there will be bluegrass and gospel music, a lawn mower pull -- now that sounds fun -- and a toy tractor pull.

It costs $4 but the proceeds help pay for various Lions Club projects. So check it out. Sounds like a good time.

Bobby Callahan grew up in that odd little area of Guilford County that I never know what to call. It's not in High Point city limits, but is almost entirely surrounded by the city and has a Jamestown address.

I spent a lot of time with his family today talking about him. They were incredibly gracious. I'm always amazed when families let a reporter into their lives during such difficult times. I know for some it helps with the grieving -- to talk about their loved one -- but they put in incredible trust in us that we will do the story right.

Bobby Callahan's death is a sad story. But the way in which he turned his life around before his second tour in Iraq is uplifting. See tomorrow's News & Record for the full thing.

Update: The Army release about Callahan's death can be found here. They list him at a different rank than what his family said last week.

Update II: Several people have asked me about services for Bobby. There will be a visitation Thursday evening, although family members have told me they would like to keep that private, and there will be a public burial at 11 a.m. Friday at Forest Lawn Cemetery. The obituary his family ran can be found here and there is a link from that page to a guest book where people can leave their condolences.

Also I caught up with the right person at Fort Drum today (Wednesday) and found out that Callahan was promoted posthumously to corporal, hence the discrepenancy above.

Update III: The story about his burial can be found here.

Electricity went off about 1 p.m., Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said. It may take until 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. to restore. Duke Energy crews were working to find the location of the problem and once they find it, the estimated time for restoration could change.

Update: That was fast. The power's back on. Hey, at least it was worth learning about that handy Duke Energy outage tool down below. Police said the outage was caused by a construction crew digging.

The outage has cut power to several stop lights along Wendover Avenue in High Point.

Most of High Point is served by the city’s electric utility company, but a portion of north High Point is served by Duke Energy.

Sheehan said residents can call 1-800-POWER-ON to report their outage and find out if the estimated restoration time has changed. The company’s Web site has a page at which people can see how many customers are without power by county.

Good economic news for High Point and perhaps better news for those of us who have had loved ones suffer from Alzheimer's.

High Point city reporter Kory Dodd reported that at one point in the meeting the university made a veiled threat to take its new school of education to its Winston-Salem campus if the northern portion went unapproved, which it did but only for a few weeks until council revisits it. The university said its Winston-Salem property is already properly zoned.

I thought the threat was interesting. Of course it'd be easy to move forward with plans on property that's already zoned correctly. But taking a major program to a satellite campus seems like it would either disconnect a significant chunk of the student body from the university or put a number of students on the road between the two campuses.

It's also interesting that in front of the Planning and Zoning Commission the university said those northern lots would be used for parking lots, but now it's talking about putting that school of education there.