Robbins graduated from NC STEP Monday night.

Mayor Theron Bell, Commissioner Mark Garner, interim Town Manager Tommy Combs, Marketing Director Randall Moore, and others from the northern Moore County area traveled to Raleigh for a gala celebration at the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center hosted by its president, Billy Ray Hall.

Bell accepted a certificate marking the town's completion of its participation in the first three-year program.

Gov. Beverly Perdue was the commencement speaker. She praised the program she had promoted from the beginning.

"I will go anywhere you want me to go to get industry, big or small," Perdue told the crowd of 150 town and cluster representatives, state lawmakers, Rural Center workers and STEP coaches. "I will do anything that's legal to help you build up businesses in your communities."

She told them all they had to do was asked, and passed out her phone number.

"We will help you," she said. "This 'Jobs Now' program gives us an opportunity to put people back to work, to train folks. This recession looks different than any recession in North Carolina's history."

For more on this story, see Friday's print edition of The Pilot.