The Free Press, Kinston, N.C., Bryan C. Hanks column: We will continue to do our job at The Free Press [The Free Press, Kinston, N.C.]

Apr. 11--Having spent most of my newspaper life covering sports, I became spoiled by the ease of covering stories in that department. You go to a game, you talk to the coaches and athletes afterward and you write your story -- that's pretty much it in a shell, other than feature stories on said coaches and athletes.

It's a completely different animal over on the news side, though, and mainly because of the subject matter(s). While a coach or athlete enjoys seeing their name and picture in the paper, the person who is in trouble with the law or the public isn't particularly excited to have his or her name in print.

And that brings us to the Bruce Hill situation, a story we broke here in The Free Press a couple of weeks ago. In case you've lived in a cave over the past few weeks, you know that Hill, the general manager of the Lenoir County ABC, got into trouble with the state ABC board when he allegedly covered up some alcoholic beverage purchases at a December Christmas party for his board and employees. The state ABC board had some pretty harsh things to say about Hill, even to the point of saying in print that they wouldn't trust any other paperwork originating from Lenoir County until the situation was resolved.

"At this time, the commission has little faith in the veracity of any further reports originating from Mr. Hill's office," stated a letter from said Fred Gregory, chief counsel to the ABC Commission, in a March 18 letter to Wiley Dawson, chair of the Lenoir County ABC Board.

Our crime and courts reporter, Wesley Brown, did a fine job investigating the situation and wrote a couple of stories that appeared in this paper on Sunday, March 28 and Tuesday, March 30. In the follow-up story in the March 30 edition, Dawson told our reporter the board would release a statement later that week.

The week came and went and there was no statement from the board, which is made up of Dawson, Coley Little and Emmette Taylor. Not only did Brown make calls to Dawson and Hill, Free Press education reporter Chris Lavender -- who also covers Hill, a member of the Lenoir County School Board -- also attempted to obtain statements and updates from the Lenoir County ABC board.

Lavender talked to Dawson a couple of times on the phone this past Wednesday and was told a statement was imminent each time. Again, nothing came from the board on Wednesday. The same thing happened on Thursday. Lavender even attended an ABC board meeting Friday at 10:30 a.m., and after the board went into closed session at 11:30 a.m. (i.e., away from the public eye) to discuss personnel matters until 12:45 p.m., Lavender was told he'd get a statement shortly.

It didn't come, despite more phone calls from Lavender and Brown. Brown went to the ABC office on Herritage Street at 3 p.m. and was told there would be a statement e-mailed before 5 p.m. When 4:45 p.m. rolled around and there was still no statement from the board -- e-mailed or otherwise -- Brown went back to the ABC office, which was closed and locked at 4:50 p.m.

It took Brown staking out the ABC store itself for him to confront Hill, who read Brown a statement the board had made saying that it had accepted Hill's retirement.

If Brown hadn't been there to confront Hill, would we have received the statement Friday -- which came more than a week after it was originally supposed to be released? I don't know, but the action of the ABC board over the past two weeks leads me to believe we probably would not have received it.

I applaud -- and you should, too -- the work of Wesley Brown and Chris Lavender, who were dedicated enough to hold these public officials responsible to give you, the public, the information you deserve. The Lenoir County ABC board is not a private enterprise, it's a public operation for which we pay with our taxes and sales of alcohol in our county. For The Free Press to get the run-around we've received the past two weeks is, frankly, despicable and irresponsible.

But it is our job to tell you, dear reader, the truth about those that your taxes support. It'll continue in upcoming weeks as the primaries for the elections grow closer and it'll happen whether officials want to talk to us or not.

It's our job and we love it -- maybe not as much as covering a state basketball or baseball championship. But knowing that we're keeping an eye on our elected leaders and those appointed to public positions by those leaders for you brings us satisfaction.

Bryan C. Hanks' column appears every Sunday in The Free Press. You can reach him at 252-559-1074 or at [email protected]. Check out Bryan's blog at bhanks.encblogs.com.

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