FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 7, 2001
For additional information contact
Paul Pope, VP of Community Relations
(919) 890-6061; ppope@cbc-raleigh.com
Captiol Broadcasting Company To Help Beautify Durham Trail
RALEIGH, NC – Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) held an azalea cutting celebration on Tuesday, August 7, at 5:00pm, to announce its participation in the American Tobacco “Rails To Trails” Project. Over the next five years, CBC will donate 5,000 azaleas each year to help develop the trail. CBC will contribute $50,000 ($10,000 per year for 5 years) to a new endowment fund devoted to the care and maintenance of the trail. “We look forward to watching the development of the American Tobacco Trail,” said CBC President & CEO Jim Goodmon.
The 23-mile American Tobacco Trail will eventually run from downtown Durham near the Durham Bulls Athletic Park to New Hill Road in western Wake County. This plan ties into the American Tobacco Project on which CBC is also working in the Bull City. The trail will wind through the center of the American Tobacco Campus, a site CBC plans to develop into retail, housing and office space.
In the early 1850’s farmers brought their tobacco crops to the railroad and warehouses in downtown Durham, North Carolina, for sale and to ship. The small railhead town eventually bloomed into a textile and industrial center with six rail lines. The American Tobacco Company (ATC) used three of the later rail lines until the railroad moved east towards Jordan Lake in the 1970s; the ATC eventually followed the railroads out of town, closing its Durham doors in 1987.
Although the aging tracks are no longer used for railroad traffic, CBC is working with the city of Durham to put the lanes to a new use. The linear park to be used by walkers, runners, and bikers will turn the unused railroad tracks into a recreational outlet for the city.
The cuttings taken today will be ready to plant on the American Tobacco Trail in January of 2003. Those attending the celebration all participated in the cutting. Everyone was given shears and took cuttings from the azaleas in WRAL Gardens, located behind the WRAL-TV studios. The renowned gardens were designed by CBC Founder A.J. Fletcher in 1958-59, and include a wide variety of species of the plants.
Capitol Broadcasting Company, Inc. is a diversified communications company which owns and/or operates WRAL-TV, WRAL-Digital, WRAL-FM, Microspace, the North Carolina News Network, DTV Plus, Wolfpack Sports Marketing, and Capitol Sports Management in Raleigh, NC; WJZY-TV and WWWB-TV in Charlotte, NC; WILM-TV in Wilmington, NC; WRAZ-TV and the Durham Bulls Baseball Club in Durham, NC; and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans Baseball Club in Myrtle Beach, SC; Capitol Broadcasting Company also founded Local TV on Satellite in Raleigh, NC.
