The email came into the inboxes of Sandhills Community College staffers and landed with a thud.

The news from President John Dempsey was urgent and dire, something none had ever thought would occur.

Higher health insurance costs were hurting all employers, and the college was facing a huge premium bill, Dempsey said.

The college has no choice, Dempsey wrote. Employees will have to pay premiums in line with their weight; those who are overweight will pay more.

Dempsey listed times and dates for staff to come in and be weighed at the student center.

“We had some upset people writing and calling to say, ‘I can’t believe you’re making me do that,’” said Wendy Dodson, SCC’s human resources manager and Dempsey’s assistant.

Then the staffers looked at the email’s time stamp: April 1.

They’d been had — again — by a man who couldn’t resist.

A man who loves April Fool’s jokes. A man of letters, good cheer, vision, a sense of purpose, and a great short game — this is John Dempsey. Since his arrival full time in the Sandhills almost 25 years ago, he has been a perpetual motion machine.

His main task has been building one of the ­premier community colleges in North Carolina. Along the way, he has helped immeasurably to make the Sandhills a better place in which to live, work and play.

Today, the college is a national leader in both academics and athletics. Earlier this year, the school’s 4-year-old men’s basketball team won the national championship for its collegiate level.

But in addition to all that, Dempsey has helped foster business development, given poor kids a shot at a college education, and has done it all with a seemingly effortless bonhomie that leaves the person in front of him feeling like his closest friend in the world.

It is for all those things that The Pilot has named John Dempsey, the president of Sandhills Community College, as its Newsmaker of the Year.

Dempsey would say he is merely “lucky.”

“When you look at a person’s parentage, at his or her community, and when you consider the talents they were given, some people are just luckier than others,” Dempsey said. “It may sound egotistical, but I always considered myself fortunate enough to be given certain gifts, and it makes sense to put those talents to use.

“A lot of good things have happened to me, and it would be silly not to be productive with what I was given,” he said. “I consider myself to be normal in every category except luck.”

Few would call anything about Dempsey “normal.” From his days in Vietnam, to the college classroom, to the boardroom of SCC, to the sport he cherishes and plays with gusto, John Dempsey has lived his life and served his community in an outsized manner.

As he approaches his 25th year leading the college — he is only its second president in its 50-year existence — many of Dempsey’s friends, colleagues, co-workers and partners look in awe at what he has accomplished.

He is, they say, a natural: intelligent, inclusive, respectful of everyone he encounters. He has a built-in drive, they say, to bring out the best in his employees, friends and students.

And he is incapable of resisting a good joke, especially an annual April Fool’s email to staff.

“One year,” Wendy Dodson said, “he wrote that the college was going to have to move to make way for a longer runway at the airport. Another year, Dempsey’s email said that the college would begin charging fees for parking, and that employees were welcome to walk to work if they so wished.

“He is the best boss I’ve ever had,” she said.

‘Smartest Career Decision’

Dempsey came to Sandhills Community College in 1989. He had been the president of Belmont-Abbey College near Charlotte since 1982, but he was familiar with Moore County, having visited the area numerous times to play golf with old friends.

“My first job after graduation was at the College of Charleston, where I taught political science,” said Dempsey. “I made some good friends there among the faculty, and after I left there a group of us would come up to play golf at the Pine Crest Inn every year, which is something we continue to do.”

As a result of his travel to the area, Dempsey and the late Bob Barrett, owner of the Pine Crest Inn, became friends. Their relationship would set the stage for Dempsey to become the president of Sandhills.

“I told Bob that someday I was going to move here,” Dempsey said. “Time passed, and then one Christmas he called to tell me that Sandhills President Raymond Stone was retiring.

“‘You ought to come down here and take that job,’ he told me.”

Southern Pines businessman George Little was chairman of the SCC board at the time, and head of the selection committee. He recalls being impressed with Dempsey during the interview process.

“We knew that Dempsey had a good shot,” Little said. “Bob Barrett had referred John to us, and he really blew out the interview. He is a leader, a quick decision maker, and was everything we wanted in a college president. Dr. Stone was tremendous, but John Dempsey has taken it to another level. The board is very happy with him, and we can’t say enough good things about what he’s done for the college and for the community.”

Dempsey said he knew the board members were wondering why the president of a four-year college wanted to switch to becoming the head of a two-year institution. It’s not a normal career trajectory, and certainly not for an educator of Dempsey’s caliber.

“An interview is like a date, and you can usually tell within 15 minutes or so if it’s going to work out,” he said. “I was giving them the usual politically correct answers during the interview, and I decided to revert to my real self.

“They asked why I had an interest in Sandhills. I told them I liked the area, and said that if the school was in Akron, Ohio, ‘I wouldn’t be here.’ They all laughed, and I felt like I had a pretty good chance after that.”

Jim Dodson, a best-selling author and currently editor of PineStraw magazine and Sunday essayist for The Pilot, recounts Dempsey’s story in his 2009 book “A Son of the Game”:

“In my wildest dreams,” Dempsey says in the book, “I couldn’t have imagined downsizing to a community college.

“But the spirit and attitude of the people I discovered here struck me as rare, even extraordinary. By the time I left, I was in love with Sandhills Community College. And so, entering the back nine of life, instead of going to the major leagues of higher education, to use a baseball metaphor, I realized I needed to go back to the minor leagues. I decided this was where I could make a greater contribution and have an impact. Some of my colleagues were astonished. But in retrospect, it was the smartest career decision I ever made.”

While they have become good friends over the years, Dempsey and Little continue to sit on opposite sides of the political divide. Little, a Republican candidate for North Carolina governor in 2004, said he has never had issues with Dempsey, who holds a liberal Democratic political position.

“Politics are always left out of our conversations,” Little said of Dempsey. “We have great respect for each other.”

Little attributed the two men’s successful relationship at Sandhills to a shared outlook toward whatever issues are before them.

“We communicate well, and our philosophy is the same, i.e., ‘no surprises,’” Little said. “He is a great leader, a wonderful community person, and he has built an academic program that is among the best in the state. Thank God he applied.”

Sandhills has grown significantly during Dempsey’s tenure.

“In the 1989-1990 academic year, the college had an unduplicated enrollment of 2,896 curriculum students,” said Kristie Sullivan, dean of planning and research at the college. “In comparison to the most recent academic year, 2011-2012, there were 5,708 curriculum students. That is a 97 percent increase.”

Facilities have increased both on the main campus and at new satellite locations as well.

In 1989, Sullivan said, the main campus had eight buildings. Since Dempsey’s arrival, eight more have opened, including Van Dusen Hall, the Dempsey Student Center, and the Little Education Building.

Other additions under Dempsey include the creation of the Hoke Center in Raeford, the Westmoore Center in Robbins, and the Caddell fire training facility in Carthage.

In 1990, faculty salaries at Sandhills ranked 15th out of 58 North Carolina community colleges. Since 1993, salaries have remained within the top five.

Institutional financial aid has grown as well, from $43,685 in scholarships given in the 1989-1990 year to $457,895 in scholarships awarded during the past 2011-2012 school year.

The Natural

John Richard Dempsey was born in Wyoming, Pa., to Irish-Catholic parents, the late Jack Dempsey and the late Rose Conlan Dempsey. He is married to the former Evelyn Condon of Charleston, S.C. The couple have two sons, Michael, 42, and John, 37, and two grandchildren, Harlan and Emma Rose.

Dempsey earned his bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame, a master’s from William and Mary, and his doctorate degree from the University of Massachusetts, all in political science.

An educator at heart, Dempsey continues to exercise his “great love” of the art at Sandhills as a political science instructor at the college.

His American Government class “is the best three hours of my week,” he said. “I told my current group that they are one of the three best classes I have had in 38 years of teaching. They are the best in niceness, interest in the subject, and politeness, but there is a generational difference that becomes apparent in certain situations.”

A fan of movie trivia, Dempsey found that certain references fell flat before his younger audience.

“I made a comment about the movie ‘The Godfather’ the other day, and only four students in the class knew what I was talking about,” he said. “They don’t get my Seinfeld jokes, either.”

Dempsey admits that he is “daunted” by new technology in the classroom.

“I am the only faculty member who still teaches like it was 1957,” he said.

Just as the younger generation is built to change, Dempsey’s composition grows through repetition and routine. He has seen the Robert Redford baseball film “The Natural” 31 times and the 1969 classic “Midnight Cowboy” 25 times.

“I once met the executive producer of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ and I spent time reading lines from the movie back to him. He looked at me like, ‘Who is this guy?’”

In addition to golf and movies, Dempsey’s interests include politics, Philadelphia Phillies baseball, the cities of New York, Chicago and San Francisco, and writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. He is also a fan of detective novelist Michael Connelly and of Jack Reacher, a fictional character created by British author Lee Child.

There is great comfort in routine, he says. Dempsey meets friends at Vito’s Ristorante and Pizzeria in Southern Pines “every Friday and sometimes on Mondays,” and he “never misses” his morning coffee at the Java Bean Plantation and Roasting Company on Broad Street.

“I don’t order the same thing every time, though,” he said with a laugh.

Friend and fellow “Vito’s” diner Ed Rhodes said that he and Dempsey have dined together at the popular Italian restaurant for a number of years.

“There are a lot of country clubs in this area, and we both love golf, but we’re not really the country club set,” Rhodes said. “We kind of feel like Vito’s is our club. We go there to experience that warm, folksy feeling that comes with meeting good friends over food. Vito’s is our great tradition.”

Good Sports

Dempsey’s passion has always been academics, with a healthy dose of athletics on the side for the Notre Dame University alumnus.

When he came in 1989, he gave the Sandhills athletics department “a half-hearted try, but it didn’t work.”

In 2007, Susanne Adams, vice president of student services and academic support at the time, promoted athletics as a tool to increase student recruitment.

“I was still unconvinced, since we didn’t even have a gym, and I had found the community college system to be poorly organized for intercollegiate sports,” Dempsey said.

“I gave her the usual sniveling bureaucratic reasons why we shouldn’t do this, but she eventually convinced me, and I’m glad she did.”

Adams, now the president of Brunswick Community College in Bolivia, believes that one of Dempsey’s reasons for hesitation involved the emphasis he placed on academics.

“As an instructor himself, Dr. Dempsey was adamant that academics have precedence at the college,” Adams said. “These are student-athletes, and I believe he wanted to be sure the students saw themselves as such.”

So Dempsey re-instated athletics in 2008. The results?

In short order, the school’s volleyball and golf teams had strong showings, with each finishing in the top eight in national competition.

The success rolled on earlier this year when, in just their fourth year, the Sandhills Flyers men’s basketball team marched into the junior college-level playoffs, a progression that didn’t end until the team won the national championship of the NJCAA District III Men’s Basketball tournament in New York.

Not surprisingly, Dempsey traveled with the team the whole way.

Afterward, the school’s staff and students turned out for a huge team rally in the Dempsey Student Center.

Dempsey said that hiring current athletics director Aaron Denton made “all the difference” in creating a successful athletic program.

“Aaron has done a tremendous job, and his hiring basketball coach Mike Apple and volleyball coach Alicia Hill has been great for the program,” Dempsey said.

Denton complimented Dempsey as well.

“Dr. Dempsey has a very positive attitude, and he treats athletics like any other program,” said Denton, who coached the basketball team for their first three seasons. “Especially in today’s big-time athletic society, it is not above or below any program, and that gives us a boost.”

Denton said that Dempsey’s presence has meant a lot.

“He has always been there for the department, even when it was not doing as well,” Denton said. “It meant a lot to everyone when he came to New York to watch the team play. I think the players were impressed.”

“Altruistic Spirit”

When you occupy a high-profile position in a small community over a long period, you are bound to have your acclaimers and defamers. For Dempsey, the latter contingent is a small one that grumbles quietly in the background, usually about a measure the college has done.

The former group is broad and deep, those who see a community forever improved by what Dempsey has done on and off campus.

“As a manager, he has a fantastic style that allows his employees to do what they know how to do and to make their own decisions without micromanaging them,” said Jim Dodson, The Pilot’s Sunday essayist and editor of PineStraw magazine. “He sets the tone, he has a good sense of what the college needs, and he understands what will elevate the school where needed.”

Dodson compared Dempsey to a successful corporate manager.

“I think that the college is the most culturally relevant institution in the Sandhills, and John runs it like a great corporation,” he said. “He may be offended by the phrase, but he lets people do what they need to do to get the job done.”

Partners in Progress Executive Director Pat Corso has been friends with Dempsey since “the week he arrived.” At the time, Corso was president of the Pinehurst Resort, a position he held until 2004. The two dine together with their wives regularly at Vito’s, serve on boards together, and meet for many a social occasion.

“John is a lover of life, a man for all seasons, and is perhaps the most well-rounded person I have ever met. I would love to take a page out of his book.”

Corso emphasized Dempsey’s altruistic spirit, a tendency made possible by an innate desire to help others.

“His presence is more than just at the college,” Corso said. “Anytime you ask him for assistance, he’s there.

“When we were trying to get the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Sandhills going, I asked him to help and he jumped right in, all while raising money for his own organization. He loved the kids so much he found the time to do this.”

Corso said that finding a critic of Dempsey would be “difficult.”

“John is a beloved figure,” Corso said. “Even if you could find a critic, it would most likely be in regard to only one thing or two. He has the unique ability to never find himself in a polarizing position, which is a very difficult thing to avoid when you are leading an institution.”

Dempsey didn’t just raise money for the Boys and Girls Clubs; he’s served on the board twice.

“He has led us through many difficult times,” said Caroline Eddy, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of the Sandhills. “When the economy is tough, he is in a leadership role to help us get through it. When we moved into a new building, he renegotiated the lease to continue our partnership with the town of Southern Pines.

“Thanks in part to his leadership, we have gone from being in one small facility to having two separate locations, where we now serve more than 300 children.”

Eddy said that Dempsey added an extra incentive to the children to continue ties with the club.

“Many don’t know this, but Dr. Dempsey has said that any child who stays with the club for two years can have two years’ free tuition at Sandhills,” she said. “What a wonderful initiative for the children to pursue.”

The Navigator

Dempsey enjoyed the benefits of Notre Dame through the benevolence of Uncle Sam.

“I went through college on a Navy ROTC scholarship,” Dempsey said. “It was the only way I could afford to attend.”

Following his days on the storied campus of Notre Dame, he entered the Navy as a commissioned ensign.

“I owed them four years in return for a four-year scholarship, and three years, nine months and 17 days later I was out,” he said. “I loved it, but at the same time I counted the days.”

It was the late 1960s, and a young man in the military was likely to find himself in Vietnam. For Dempsey, it was service as executive officer aboard the USS Sutter County (LST-1150), a support ship transporting supplies and men during the Vietnam War.

Most days were “fairly routine,” but for one night.

“It was July 30, 1970, and we were on the Mekong Delta when we began taking fire,” Dempsey said. “As executive officer I was also the navigator, and it was pitch black on a narrow river, the banks about 20 feet from the ship on each side. I had to say ‘turn right, turn left,’ and I had to call for flares from time to time, which illuminated the ship and made us easy targets. It was an extremely tense situation, but we made it.”

A gunship that anchored where the Sutter County had been was destroyed by enemy fire.

“Seventeen men lost,” Dempsey said quietly.

Shipmate Jim Kelley, of Whispering Pines, was chief engineer aboard the Sutter County and reported directly to Dempsey.

“He and the ship’s captain got us through that incident,” he said. “We were lucky to get out, but thanks to their smart seamanship we did.”

Kelley said that Dempsey was an “extremely popular” shipmate.

“He was great as an officer, the person responsible for the high morale we had on board,” Kelley said. “He could keep us all in stitches with his great sense of humor. As a leader, he knew when to delegate and when to manage. We were the only two golfers aboard, and we played golf at courses all over the Far East.”

Kelley now lives here thanks to Dempsey’s recommendation.

“I have family in the Raleigh-Durham area, and would come down to visit from time to time,” he said. “John suggested I move here, I eventually did, and as a result I love living in the Sandhills.”

A website containing information on the Sutter County lists Dempsey’s name among those planning to attend a 2013 reunion of the crew.

“He doesn’t just attend the reunions, he is the reason we have them,” Kelley said. “John is the glue that has held the crew together for all these years.”

Friend Without Peer

Dempsey has referred to his wife, Evelyn, as his “best friend. And there is no second,” he said.

The two met when he was a senior at Notre Dame and she a freshman at St. Mary’s College. They married on April 27, 1968, a month later than planned.

“John went into the Navy and I went to work to make some money, with plans to marry in March,” she said. “But then the North Koreans seized the USS Pueblo, and John’s leave was canceled. We got married the next month, which has resulted in 44 years of marriage that has been an absolute adventure.

“He has always been very interesting, is exciting to be around, and always has lots of ideas about things. He is full of life.”

Asked if he was a romantic or an idealist, Dempsey answered that he is “both in the extreme.”

Whenever the two are in Indiana, they visit a certain tree on the campus of St. Mary’s College, which was once the women’s college for Notre Dame.

“The tree we visit is where I asked her to marry me,” Dempsey said. “She thinks I am a hopeless romantic.”

Evelyn said that since she only attended for one year, “John’s memories of the place are fuller and longer than mine. He was always intrigued with St. Mary’s, since that was where all the girls were.”

Evelyn said she takes “the greatest pride” in the way her husband relates to their two sons.

“I am most proud of his ability to have a very good, deep relationship with our two boys,” she said. “It was not easy to do when they were growing up, but as they got older it got better. He has been a good student at figuring that out.”

Evelyn said that their sons go to Dempsey, rather than to her, when they have issues that need consultation.

“He is the solver, and often understands the situation better than I do,” she said. “He has always had a great depth and a great ability in that regard.”

A Love of the Links

If Evelyn is his friend without peer, then golf is his athletic “passion” of undying ardor.

He has played courses around the world. His partners have been friends and celebrities. He is a member of Golf Magazine’s ratings panel, which selects the top 100 golf courses in the world.

“John has seen every golf course in the world, and the SOB never misses a 10-foot putt. He needs to spend more time working,” said Jim Dodson, himself an acclaimed golf writer who was a contributing editor and regular columnist for Golf magazine.

Dempsey, laughing, said that was “based on old information.”

The moment led Dempsey to recall a story about playing golf with retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

“A few years ago I played a round of golf with Ms. O’Connor at Pine Needles, while she was in town to visit her friend Betty van Dusen. She and Peggy Kirk Bell played against Betty and me, and on the fifth hole I found myself faced with a 21⁄2-foot putt. Now, in golfing etiquette one often lets another have a putt that short, but as I stood there I heard nothing but silence. I said out loud, ‘One would think a Supreme Court justice would appreciate the meaning of compassion.’ O’Connor immediately retorted by saying, ‘Judgment is much more important.’ 

“And can you believe that I missed the putt? She won $2 from me that day.”

Rejecting the image of golf as reflective of the meaning of existence, Dempsey said the opposite is true.

“Life is a metaphor for golf,” Dempsey said. “I probably have an eight handicap on the way to 12, and have a great time with my semi-regular group that includes Pat Corso, Southern Pines Mayor David McNeill, Emmet Logan, Tom McPherson, John McKean and Ed Rhodes. The quality of the experience, for me, is higher than the golf.”

Dempsey, who said he began golf in college “to avoid going to class,” has played on many of the major golf courses in the world.

“We’ve played at the Caesarea Golf Club, the only course in Israel,” Dempsey said. “I’ve had a ball in Texas, playing at Shady Oaks with Jim Dodson, on a course developed by Ben Hogan. It’s been fun.”

Dempsey has said his “short list” of favorite courses in the world “would surely include” Mid-Ocean in Bermuda, Shinnecock Hills, North Berwick in Scotland, Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course “and our own Pinehurst No. 2.”

Dempsey has played golf in China, Japan, New Zealand, France, and many other countries. He and his wife had a memorable experience on a course in Zimbabwe.

“Evelyn and I had a marvelous time laughing with our Shona caddies, trying to steer clear of warthogs and giraffes, and avoiding, at all cost, the crocodiles,” Dempsey said in a column following his visit. “It wasn’t a course where you spent very much time going into the woods to look for errant shots, but it was definitely a course where we took a lot of pictures and had a lot of fun. Not a great course, but an amazing memory.”

Dempsey and his wife visit Scotland every year for a golfing vacation.

“Most Scottish courses are a little unkempt when compared with courses in the United States, but I love it,” he said. “Playing in the United Kingdom involves a good walk along with play, and as more of an exercise-oriented phenomenon it’s a great way to view the scenery. To me, the stadium is as important as the game. Even if I have a bad game, it’s a great day.”

Already well-known among friends for his luck, it was no surprise to George Little when Dempsey scored a hole-in-one at “his own” golf tournament, the annual SCC Foundation’s Coca-Cola Classic Golf Tournament fundraiser held in August 2000 to benefit the community college. The event took place at Pine Needles.

“Dempsey’s assistant at the time, Teresa Wood, comes up to us in a golf cart during the tournament and says, ‘We had a hole-in-one on No. 5,’” Little recalled. “I said, ‘Don’t tell me — John Dempsey.’ She said yes, and I replied something like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

“I said that, but I knew it was him as soon as she said ‘hole-in-one.’”

Dempsey holed a 4-iron tee shot on the 185-yard, par-3 fifth hole.

“It took a while for it to register, and then it came in about five stages,” Dempsey said in a prior interview. “People were yelling and dancing around the green, so I figured it must be close. First, I thought, ‘Hey, I’ve had a hole-in-one.’ Then I thought, ‘Hey, I’ve won a car.’ Then I thought, ‘Hey, a lot of people are going to be mad that I’ve done this.’”

Dempsey won a Chrysler PT Cruiser for his achievement, which his wife drove “for about a year” before making the car a gift to one of his sons.

The Road Ahead

Dempsey’s friends and associates have given much speculation to when, and if, Dempsey will retire from his position as president of Sandhills. The year 2014 will mark 25 years of service, and rumors abound that he has vowed to step down “25 years and one day” after assuming the position.

Former president Raymond Stone, who also led the college for 25 years before Dempsey took the helm, maintains a friendly competition with his successor on who will be the college’s longest-serving president. He laughs when asked if he is concerned that Dempsey will stay past the quarter-century mark.

“If he wants to stay for 25 years and one day, that’s fine with me,” Stone said, laughing. “I stayed 25 years and several months.”

Kidding aside, Stone said he is happy that Dempsey was chosen as his replacement.

“Although I was not part of the selection process, the board did ask for my input in choosing a new president,” Stone said. “I was impressed with Dempsey from the beginning, and although he was not in the community college system I felt that he could take on the broader curriculum.”

Stone said that Dempsey’s “greatest compliment” to him involved the college’s personnel department.

“After he began at Sandhills, he didn’t make any changes to those I had hired for two or three years,” he said. “But I think his greatest success has been in his ability to bring private funds to the college. He has enlarged and tapped sources to the great benefit of all.”

Dempsey said he has not committed himself to a decision on retirement.

“Some people say I should work forever, and Raymond Stone has joked that he will assassinate me if I stay longer than him,” Dempsey said. “Everyone is too kind to kick me out, so I have to make a decision about my effectiveness. I’ve asked the trustees, and Wendy (Dodson), to please let me know if they want someone else. I will understand perfectly.”

Dempsey said he has considered different ages at which to step down.

“I first thought 55 would be a perfect age, then 65, and if I go through 25 years I will be in my late 60s. If I’m still any good then, I might continue until I’m 70.”

One friend who encourages him to remain is Jim Dodson.

“Not just the college and the community, but the entire state benefits from his vision,” Dodson said.

There can’t be too many more achievements left uncollected. Dempsey’s honors include being named “Man of the Year” by the Moore County Community Foundation and receiving the Distinguished Service Award from the Pinehurst Civic Group. In 2004, Dempsey was the inaugural recipient of the United Way of Moore County’s Cornerstone Award. He has chaired or served on numerous boards including the United Way, First Health, and other organizations, and is a recipient of the Kiwanis Builders Cup.

Looking at the fullness of it all, Dempsey uses his characteristic wit to reflect on being chosen The Pilot’s “Newsmaker of the Year” for 2012.

“I told my wife that this (being interviewed for the article) is fun,” Dempsey said with exuberance. “It’s like writing your own obituary.”

Will John Dempsey stand in to the end?

In “The Natural,” the movie Dempsey has seen 31 times, there’s an exchange toward the end between Roy Hobbs, the Robert Redford character, and his girlfriend, Iris Gaines.

“I coulda been better,” Hobbs tells Gaines near the movie’s end. “I coulda broke every record in the book.”

“And then?” asks Gaines.

“And then? And then when I walked down the street people would’ve looked and they would’ve said there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.”

Contact John Lentz at (910) 693-2479 or jlentz@thepilot.com.