By Catherine Kozak | Outer Banks Voice
The first drops started to fall from a heavy sky as audience members on Thursday night settled into their seats at Waterside Theatre for Opening Night of the 88th season of The Lost Colony.

Two former Town of Manteo officials have each been charged with a felony bribery offense related to an informal $50,000 agreement that was part of the 2017-2018 dredging project in Doughs Creek. Lee King Tugwell, 64, and Wayland Hannon Fry Jr., 61, both of Manteo, were indicted by a Grand Jury in Dare County Superior […]

Calm and clear, the morning of Monday Jan. 27 was a lovely day to sink a boat — and build a reef. Four years after the Outer Banks Anglers Club set in motion plans for a 162-acre artificial fishing reef off Oregon Inlet, a big old tugboat is the first infrastructure to be submerged in […]

A long-awaited report from the Office of the State Auditor released Tuesday found that former Manteo Mayor Lee Tugwell, former Manteo Commissioner Hannon Fry and current Manteo Finance Officer Shannon Twiddy each violated proper procedures and policies in their dealing with a $50,000 handshake agreement related to the Doughs Creek dredging project that lasted from […]

Manteo town officials met on Tuesday evening in an hour-long closed session to discuss the town’s response to a state auditor’s report that concludes its 18-month investigation of a $50,000 verbal agreement related to the town’s Dough’s Creek dredging project.

By Catherine Kozak | Outer Banks Voice
Outer Banks commercial shrimpers will be waiting until next week to learn the fate of a bill in the North Carolina House of Representatives that could potentially destroy their business.

A tribute to the late Bobby Owens
By Catherine Kozak | Outer Banks Voice
All three hallways and the front entrance to the chapel at Twiford Funeral Home on the evening of Thursday Jan. 11 were packed wall-to-wall with people waiting to pay their respects to Bobby Owens, who spent much of his productive and long life immersed in politics, skillfully steering Dare County during its years of explosive growth.

New law shields NC legislators from outside scrutiny
By Catherine Kozak | Outer Banks Voice
Good luck obtaining public records to see what state lawmakers are up to in Raleigh. An amendment slipped into the new state budget bill absent debate or notice will allow General Assembly members to decide what, if any, of their records — present or future — will be available to the public. The measure will also grant state lawmakers the right to destroy their once-public records, or if they’re so inspired, to sell them.

Kelley Shinn’s memoir reveals a life of trauma and accomplishment
By Catherine Kozak | Outer Banks Voice
Within moments after she sat herself down, crossed her legs with her tan-colored prosthetic bare feet poking out from under her long, flowered dress and started reading from her memoir, The Wounds that Bind Us, it made sense not just what brought Kelley Shinn to the Outer Banks — specifically, Ocracoke — but why she stayed. 

Robin Lynn Byrum sentenced to up to six years, charge against father dropped
By Catherine Kozak | Outer Banks Voice
A former Kitty Hawk resident arrested in 2021 for the suffocation death of her newborn son 30 years earlier has agreed to a plea deal that will send her to prison for up to six years.

Remembering fishing advocate and writer Susan West By Cate Kozak | Outer Banks Voice Susan West, a long-time advocate for the Hatteras Island fishing community and a writer who helped foster improved communications and respect between regulators and fishermen, died on Nov. 10 at age 73.

After petition, item on BOE agenda for next week This story is co-published with the Coastal Review Online. When the Clyde A. Erwin High School in Buncombe County was under national media klieg lights more than 20 years ago due to a U.S. Justice Department civil rights investigation of its Indian mascots, the Manteo “Redskins” […]