The congregation of East Highway Baptist Church will celebrate its 70th anniversary during Sunday morning service. Flanked by cotton fields, the church building sits east of Temple on State Highway 53, just across the road from its first location.

Originally the Czech Baptist Church, the first building was constructed around 1936 by the churchs first pastor, Joseph F. Rundus, who came to Texas from Blue Rapids, Kan. Services were done held Czech until the mid-1940s, when the church changed to English.

It was a very small church. Just an auditorium and two small classrooms, said the Rev. Ernest Thompson.

Thompson, a former pastor for East Highway Baptist, now serves as pastor emeritus. He said he has seen a lot of change during his time with the church, including the construction of a new building after the congregation outgrew its original structure.

We built on it all the way around as far as we could, Thompson said. And 64 filled it back then. I mean, I had them sitting in the aisle, had them sitting everywhere.

In 1990, the old building was moved from its foundation to land across the street that had been donated to the church.

Thompson retired as the full-time pastor in November after 49 years of ministry. He said he would have gone to 50 years, but his health wouldnt allow it. He still serves the church whenever he can.

We still have three services a week out there, he said. A lot of them dont have that, you know? Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. And then we have our fellowships and everything.

Thompson said the East Highway congregation is one of the friendliest groups hes dealt with.

When new people come through the door, they make them feel at home, he said. I trained them years ago, and I told them When someone comes through these doors, you be sure theyre made welcome at home.

He said the church members love everyone and are committed to serving the Lord.

Thompson said some smaller churches are shutting their doors, but he doesnt want to see that happen to his church.

We dont want to do that, he said. Its like I tell them, Its not the name of the church. Its what where there to do: worship and praise the Lord.

Thompson said the church is in good hands with its new pastor, the Rev. Duane McCoy.

McCoy said the 70th anniversary celebration will begin with Sunday service at 10:30 a.m. He said there will be presentations on the history of the Czech Baptist Church and history up through the building of the new church.

Three groups will sing, including students from the childrens ministry. McCoy said Thompson will deliver a sermon, and Dr. Tom Henderson, Bell Baptist Association director of missions, will bring a closing message and charge for the future.

A congregational luncheon will follow the service.

The rest is here:
East Highway Baptist Church celebrating 70th anniversary - Temple Daily Telegram

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Church | Morton Buildings

by Eric Peterson, FOX 11 News

Hope Community Church east of Shawano, August 11, 2017 (WLUK/Eric Peterson)

SHAWANO COUNTY (WLUK) -- Construction on a memorial project, and fitness trail at a Shawano area church, is starting to take shape.

The initiative is to honor Four-Star General Robert Cone.

Cone lost his battle with cancer last year, after retiring to Shawano with his wife Jill.

At Hope Community Church east of Shawano, construction crews were hard at work. The General Cone Memorial Fitness Trail was shaping up.

"I just got goose bumps. I just can't believe this is coming to be. All these great hearts that have been a part of this. It's bee a blessing to me through my grief," said Jill Cone, Shawano.

Jill Cone is Robert Cone's widow. The couple attended Hope Community Church. She says her husband's funeral created a wave of donations from all across the country.

"I came up with a very large idea, and that was a one mile paved fitness trail with fitness stations, like pull-ups, sit-ups, balance beam," said Cone.

"This is just a gift to the community to honor Bob, and what he stood for. His faith, his attitude, the fitness," said Pastor John Anderson, Hope Community Church.

About 35 Bayland Buildings team leaders volunteered their time on Friday. While coping with cancer, Cone was scheduled to speak to the Bayland group, but passed away before the meeting took place.

"One of his biggest things was leadership is a privilege. And I think that says a lot for who he was as a general, and I kind of want to bring that into our company, and let everybody know, that leadership is a privilege," said Shawn Mueller, Bayland Buildings Vice President of Sales.

Cone served 35 years in the U.S. Army. He was a veteran of both Gulf Wars, and Afghanistan too. Cone was commander at Fort Hood, Texas, during the 2009 shooting rampage which killed 13 people.

"So here at the trail, we're going to put in 13 trees, to represent the 13 that were massacred there," said Cone.

Cone says the memorial trail will give people a chance to run, reflect, and remember. She says her General would approve.

"He'd grab my hand and squeeze it, and say oh my God hon, I can't believe you did this. This is such an incredible thing," she said.

A dedication ceremony will be held for the Memorial Trail on September First.

The park will be free and open to the public.

Continue reading here:
Memorial fitness trail under construction at Shawano area church - Fox11online.com

The Rev. James Donovan has a clear goal as the new pastor of St. Barnabas Roman Catholic Church: keep the momentum going.

Donovan officially assumed his new role with the church, 10134 S. Longwood Dr., on July 1. He has been assigned to the church for nine years.

At St. Barnabas, he leads a parish that is preparing for a major expansion project at both its elementary school and church, as well as enjoying an increase in student enrollment.

Donovan replaced the Rev. William Malloy, who retired and has dealt with health issues since late last year. The new pastor said hes fortunate to be at St. Barnabas.

Its a great parish, so you just want to continue the tradition, Donovan said. Weve had some great pastors, so Im pretty lucky to be here.

Donovan, a North Side native, has been a priest since 1987, and he also served the parish of Our Lady of Loretto Roman Catholic Church in Hometown.

In the Archdiocese of Chicago, he was secretary of priest placement from 2008-2013, and in July 2013, Cardinal Francis George appointed him vicar of priests.

Now, he will lead St. Barnabas during a busy time.

The parish is in the midst of its Imagine. Innovate. Inspire campaign, a three-phase project with a $5-million first phase that calls for a major addition to the school and church renovations.

A new education center will be built, officials said, in front of the school on Longwood Drive in an area that is currently open between the north wing of classrooms and the gym on the south.

Church updates will include new flooring, improved acoustics, built-in technology including Wi-Fi internet access, an updated kitchen and bathroom, increased storage, new lighting and a hospitality counter.

That construction is planned to begin in spring of 2019.

Phase II calls for an addition to the second floor of the school that will include classrooms and a science lab, and an expansion of the church vestibule, including a renovated main entrance.

The school addition will cost $2.85 million, officials said, and the church improvements will be $1.2 million. Construction is planned to begin in 2023, according to the campaign Web site.

Phase III, which would begin in 2030 and cost $8 million, officials said, will include demolition of the convent, located on the south end of the campus, and construction of a parish center that will feature a fine arts activities center/gym, an early-childhood center and parish offices. A rooftop space could also be included to host events ranging from student activities to community gatherings.

According to the school, over the past eight years, enrollment has increased by about 30 percent; there were 604 students in 2016-17, and as of last summer, 60 new families had joined the parish since July 1, 2015.

Donovan hopes the project continues to progress as planned.

Its doing pretty well so far. Certainly, you want the campaign to run its course, he said. Hopefully, we get everything we need. Its a wonderful parish with a great tradition, so well see how we can continue to build that up.

The past two years, St. Barnabas has also hosted ecumenical meetings and services, inviting people of all faiths for discussions on major issues in the city.

In February 2016, What Can We Do? addressed violent crimes, and the meeting included a panel of police officials and religious leaders.

Last March, You Are My Neighbor was held in response to the travel ban imposed after an executive order from President Donald Trump. A near-capacity crowd gathered with leaders from various religions.

Donovan praised church members for organizing such events.

That really started with some key parishioners bringing it forward, Donovan said. So it was important to kind of run with it.

Malloy will remain active with the parish as pastor emeritus, and he will continue to reside in the church rectory.

Last December, he announced in a church bulletin that he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and he underwent surgery to remove his prostate.

Malloy said the operation went well and that he finished radiation treatments about a month ago.

His tenure at St. Barnabas, Malloy said, can be summed up in one wordgratitudeand he expressed confidence in the new pastor.

Whatever we accomplished, Im grateful because we did it together as a parish, Malloy said. I think weve turned over a pretty good parish community to Fr. Donovan, who I know is going to do well. Hes got a lot of skills and ability, and he is going to be a fine pastor.

St. Barnabas celebrates Mass on Saturdays at 4 p.m., as well as on Sundays at 8 a.m., 10 a.m. and noon.

Excerpt from:
Donovan becomes pastor for busy St. Barnabas parish - The Beverly Review

Home | Top Stories | Alabama-rooted ministry approaching 4 decades of church construction

August 12, 2017

By Karen O. AllenCorrespondent, The Alabama Baptist

Heres the church. Heres the steeple. Open the doors and see all the people.

Remember the church rhyme? As children it brought a smile to our face. The building did not seem as important as the wriggling people (fingers) inside. But Alabamas Builders for Christ (BFC) group prefers to focus on the building so the people will have a place for corporate worship and fellowship.

Every summer BFC volunteers from around the country converge at a site that has undergone an extensive screening process. The project site could be anywhere from Maine to Louisiana or the upper Midwest. Volunteers (aka construction missionaries) give one week of their time for one purpose: to construct a church or church addition in a community with accelerated church growth or dire need. The motto on the BFC truck reinforces the purpose: a network of Christian laypersons who build churches for congregations who are rapidly leading others to a saving knowledge of Christ as Savior and Lord.

The vast majority of volunteers are nonskilled laborers (e.g. teachers, health care workers, homemakers, salespersons, truck drivers). Skilled volunteers include home builders, engineers and architects. Some are newcomers while many are seasoned BFC veterans. No matter the age, gender or skill set, there is a job for everyone.

The BFC leadership team prepares months in advance for the 15-week construction period that begins in late May and goes through mid-August. Along with planning and coordinating, the leadership team provides advice and consultation to the host church throughout the entire process. The leadership team is composed of a project team leader, construction leader, financial analyst, church team leaders and kitchen coordinator.

Wood and light steel framing, electrical work, plumbing, HVAC services, roofing, drywall, cabinetry, carpentry, hardware installation and painting are services provided by the construction missionaries. Typically it will take about eight months before a building is ready to be occupied.

Constructing meals

While the kitchen team may not swing hammers and drive nails, they play a vital role in the building effort constructing 300 to 500 meals per day. They prepare a big breakfast, a sandwich/fruit lunch combo and finally a hearty dinner equivalent to that of a Thanksgiving meal, said Lawrence Corley, BFC founder.

Corley, a Birmingham architect and member of Brookwood Baptist Church, Birmingham, describes the BFC seed as having been planted following his pastors return from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979. The pastor gave the disheartening announcement that it would not be possible to tell the world the good news by the year 2000 as hoped.

Laypeople were going to have to be enlisted to help fulfill the daunting challenge.

Corley accepted the challenge and focused his efforts on helping build churches.

The first church construction project took place in Adamson, Oklahoma, in 1981. It didnt take long before a network of interested churches began to form.

In 1994, Appleton, Wisconsin, made its debut as the first official construction site under the Builders for Christ name. Another BFC team was developed in 1991 and aptly named Team B. In 2005 Team C was added. Corley serves as team leader for Team A while Earl Rhyne and Allan Ivemeyer from Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, have served as team leaders for B and C, respectively. With the combined efforts of all three teams, BFC boasts a total of 70 projects in 21 states in the past 37 years.

When asked about the ministry name, Corley says Builders for Christ was decided collectively by the volunteers and represents a comprehensive body of builders, not just contractors, electricians, etc.

Volunteers represent a variety of groups including Baptists, Methodists, nondenominational churches, Lutherans, Catholics and Presbyterians as well as come from various states.

Gatlinburg project

This summer BFC went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to rebuild the worship center and family life center for Roaring Forks Baptist Church following the devastation of the 2016 fires. The project logged 25,000 square feet. Seventy-six church teams from 22 states with 1,850 volunteers paid their own expenses to sweat in the sweltering heat.

Twenty-two teams were from Alabama Baptist congregations.

Kellyann German, a four-year BFC veteran from Meadow Brook Baptist Church, Birmingham, said, Every year we encounter churches with different ministries and different needs. This years trip was unique in that it followed a disaster.

At least two other churches have been built by BFC in response to a disaster Phil Campbells Mountain View Baptist following the April 2011 tornadoes and First Baptist, Chalmette, Louisiana, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.German said she and her husband plan to serve Christ by serving His church through BFC as long as they can.

_______________________________

For more information on Builders for Christ, visit http://www.baptistbuildersforchrist.org.

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Alabama-rooted ministry approaching 4 decades of church construction - Alabama Baptist

Just down the road from Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia,where a thousand white supremacists congregated around a statue ofRobert E. Lee this weekend, is another historical landmark. Its alarge, two-story brick building called the Jefferson School, which firstunderwent construction in 1924the same year that the Confederatemonument went upat the insistence of the local black community, whosechildren were barred from the citys high schools because ofsegregation. Now the school is on the National Register of HistoricPlaces.

On Monday night, a few hundred Charlottesville residents gathered at theJefferson School, in an auditorium on the second floor, for a communitymeeting. Two days before, three people died and nineteen were injuredwhen violent demonstrators from across the country came toCharlottesville with guns, shields, weapons, and flaming tikitorches for a Unite the Right rally. Well fucking kill these people if wehave to, one of themtold ViceNews. A twenty-year-old neo-Nazi from Ohio ran over counter-protestersin his car, in an act that Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General, latercalled domestic terrorism. (The President initially condemned violenceon many sides, then followed up on Tuesday afternoon by saying thatthere were very fine people on both sides.) But, almost as soon asthey had arrived, the agitators were gone, and community members wereleft to try to make sense of what had just happened.

One of the local leaders at the school was instantly recognizable toeverybody: a sixty-five-year-old reverend named Alvin Edwards. WhenTerry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, came to town on Sunday, hewent directly to a service at the Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church,which is Edwardss congregation. Hes been there for the past thirty-sixyears, and during that time hes also served as the citys mayor and asa member of its school board. His years in politics have only seemed tostrengthen his ties to his parishioners, and he likes to joke, withfolksy charm, about his B.C. daysbefore Christwhen he lived inIllinois, where he grew up with plans to make money and to be anindustrial engineer. Edwards marched with the counter-protesters overthe weekend, but these days hes best known for founding a broadcoalition of local faith leaders called the Charlottesville ClergyCollective.

For the past month, the Collective has met weekly to prepare for theincursion that took place this weekend. The violence outstripped evenEdwardss expectations, and he and others in the Collective are tryingto balance spiritual and pragmatic imperatives in the aftermath of thetragedy. The local debate over what to do with the citys Confederatemonuments, which was fractious but never violent, will flare again atthe end of the month, with another public hearing on the issue. Youcant let others have the last word, but we have to move to the highground, Edwards said. If they come back, we have to shout louder andmore often.

In 2015, after a white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina,murdered eight church members and their pastor, Edwards wondered what would havehappened if a similar attack had taken place at his own congregation.Would he have called any of his fellow-clergy in Charlottesville fortheir support? The answer was no, he told me, when we met in hisoffice Monday afternoon. We didnt have the kind of relationship thatwould warrant a call like that. Why would I call you when I barely knowyou? The clergy community herethe faith communityhas been dividedsince desegregation. It was almost like they were nonexistent. They wereover there; we were over here. Youd almost think they didnt want tocome over, because they were afraid of the projects! It was adisturbing realization that Edwards vowed to correct immediately, sothat summer he started calling other pastors to float the idea of acollective.

The initial proposition was simple: once a month, a small group of whiteand black pastors, from different denominations, would meet forbreakfast and discuss activities that they could do together, such as takinga day trip to Monticello. We talked about how we didnt know eachother, he said. We had a bunch of ideas. But we werent prepared forwhat happened with the K.K.K. coming here. We didnt know that was goingto happen when we formed this. In May, two permit applications camebefore the City Councilthe first was for a Ku Klux Klan rally, to beheld in July, and the second was for Unite the Right. Attendance atthe Collective went from about five or six regulars per session to closeto fifty.

We talked about the safety of those demonstrating close to the front,and about whether or not we wanted to march down there, or go pray,Edwards said, of the meetings. He has the slightly more conservativeoutlook of an elder statesman, and hed sooner lead a prayer vigil thanrush into the fray. My thought was that we should completely ignore theKlansmen, he told me. Their numbers were smallthis wasnt the Klan ofold, he arguedand theyd clearly come from out of town. The worstthing you can do to a person is to not listen to him. I hate whensomeone does that to me, he said. But in the Collective you had theones who wanted to confront them, and I respect that, he told me.

Ultimately, the group decided to stage a counter-protest against theKlansmen, who in July flocked to another Confederate monument in town, astatue of Stonewall Jackson, in Justice Park. Elaine Thomas, a priest atSt. Pauls Memorial Church, a mostly white Episcopalian congregationacross the street from the University of Virginia, had joined theCollective at its inception and marched with the other members at theK.K.K. counter-protest. Were not activists, but we are people whowanted to make our presence known, Thomas told me. Young racial-justiceactivists whod shown up to stand in opposition to the Klansmen ralliedaround the pastors when they arrived. As we rounded the corner toJustice Park, they rushed toward us, she said. They kept saying, Theclergy are here! The clergy are here!

There are a number of historically influential churches inCharlottesville, but Mt. Zion and St. Pauls are especially emblematic.One is mostly black, the other mostly white. Mt. Zion sits at the bottomof a hill, in a quiet neighborhood called Fifeville, on the outskirts ofdowntown. St. Pauls is on University Avenue, within feet of theschools iconic statue of Thomas Jefferson; its classical portico andbrick building are an extension of the campuss architectural style. OnFriday night, close to a thousand people were packed into St. Pauls fora prayer service when a throng of torch-wielding demonstrators startedmassing across the street. Several police cars sped to the church justbefore the service let out, after reports that one of the demonstratorshad brandished a rifle.

I visited St. Pauls earlier this week to talk with its rector, theReverend William Peyton, a native Virginian whose great-great-grandfather lost his arm at the First Battle of Manassas. He has onlyrecently returned to the state, after serving as the associate rector atSt. James Church, in New York City, for the past seven years; he andEdwards are still only loose acquaintances. Peyton marched with a largegroup on Saturday that started at the Jefferson School and continued tothe First United Methodist Church, which is directly across the streetfrom Emancipation Park. As armed demonstrators moved along the fringesof the park beating counter-protesters, Peyton and others stood in thechurch parking lot to make sure that the property wasnt overrun.

There are all kinds of deep and intertwining historical ironies here,Peyton told me, as we walked through St. Pauls on Monday. We had sevenhundred people in the church the other night. There were Nazi torchesoutside. Some of the pews in the chapel bear the names of Confederatesoldiers. This church also had a proud history of leadership during thecivil-rights era. Thomas Jefferson was a white supremacist, he said,adding to the litany. How far was Robert E. Lee from Jefferson in termsof world view? But we deify Jefferson in this town.

Even the liberal politics of Charlottesville were complex and tangled,he told me. On one side was what Peyton called Old Virginia, acontingent of residents with a more conservative, nostalgist bent, whonever quite defended the Confederate monuments but still saw the CityCouncils vote to remove them, in February, as a needless provocation.On the other was a progressive group anchored by students and faculty atthe university, some of whom would leave town when their time at schoolwas up. Its a big university and a small city, he said. People whocome here from elsewhere dont always appreciate the depth of thehistoric ties to the Confederacy.

Peyton, like Edwards, wants his church to be a source of moral clarityand purpose, without overt activism becoming its sole function duringtrying times. Im trying to lead a church whose Christian identityleads my members to their politics, and not to have their politics leadthem to the church, he said. On Saturday morning, while protestersgathered downtown, Edwards invited congregants to Mt. Zion to pray fromsix until noon. To hear him describe it, the worshippers were a criticalpart of the resistance, too. We were trying to be prayerful, and Imgrateful for that, because I believe it would have been worse if peoplehadnt prayed, he told me.

The Collective is now at a crossroads. Some of its participants,especially younger pastors, grew restless in the weeks before thisweekends confrontation. They wanted the group to prepare for nonviolentdirect action and to hold the line against the white supremacists whowere coming to town by the van-load. You cant wish this away, SethWispelwey, a recently ordained minister, told me at the JeffersonSchool, on Monday. He helped a colleague, Brittany Caine-Conley, put outa nationalcall for pastors to come to Charlottesville to join the counter-protesters onthe front lines. The move wasnt exactly a consensus position amongmembers of the Collective, but its defenders saw it as necessary giventhe circumstances.

On Monday night, one sentiment seemed to elicit broad and unqualifiedagreement. There is a specific and demonstrable connection betweensymbols of racism and acts of racism, Lisa Woolfork, a University ofVirginia professor and member of Black Lives Matter, said. They keepcoming because we keep inviting them, she said, of the whitesupremacists from out of town. To rescind the invitation, you have toremove the Confederate monuments. Her statement drew the biggestapplause of the night.

See the article here:
How Church Leaders in Charlottesville Prepared for White Supremacists - The New Yorker

Instead, the items completely transformed and repurposed, creating an elaborate, full-sized gingerbread house set for the lessons taught at Vacation Bible School.

The woman behind the intricate set design, church secretary and former art teacher Shirley Johnson, has been working at the church since 1989. Now on Highway 29 in Alexandria, the church was originally housed in a smaller building. Because of space issues, decor for VBS was not always as detailed as it is now.

"We didn't do much then," she said. "We had a character, a tie-dyed sheet, stuffed animals and a paper palm tree. It's come a long way."

Now, the set building process takes months. The planning process for summer VBS begins in January, when the theme is established.

"We don't use anybody else's themes," Johnson said. "We write our own script, come up with the (Bible) verses, all the lessons. Pretty much before the meeting is over I can see it (the set) in my head."

From there, Johnson sketches out the set and begins brainstorming what materials the staff will need to construct it. In late May, the materials are brought to the church and construction of the set begins, typically taking about three months to complete. Assisting Johnson with construction are church members Don Kuelbs and Gene Ward.

Nothing from the set is ordered online or elsewhere. Each item involved is constructed by the church staff. For example, the multitude of M&Ms decorating the set this year are each cut from styrofoam and hand painted. The gingerbread frosting is fashioned from caulking, which was then spray painted white and glittered. The counters in the set's store were built from scratch.

This year, since the set involved a store, certain items were brought in by church members. Johnson even managed to track down the exact cash register she was envisioning.

"I have to give a shout out to ACE Hardware for that," she said. "I walked in one day and there sat that beautiful cash register, exactly what I wanted. I asked about it and they said it had been in the family a long time and they let us borrow it for the week. It would not have been the same without it."

Johnson says this year's set is by far the most colorful and animated, but sets from past years were special in their own way.

"One of my absolute favorites was Jesus University," she said. "We built bookshelves to the top of the cross (in the sanctuary). That was probably the most challenging because there were so many pieces to it."

Another challenging but rewarding set involved building a lighthouse.

"I think building-wise that was the hardest," Johnson said. "It touched the ceiling and was made of wood and styrofoam. You can do amazing things with styrofoam."

In some cases, materials from past sets are saved and reused for future sets. This year, the last of the styrofoam from a previous safari-themed set was used.

"The jungle is very precious to me," Johnson said. "I hated painting over it."

Johnson says one of the highlights each year is seeing the children's reactions when they come for the first day of Vacation Bible School, which runs in the evenings at the church.

"We're doing it for the children, sharing God's word in a proper way," Johnson said. "The kids do appreciate it. They have a lot of fun."

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Vacation transformation at Good Shepherd Church - Alexandria Echo Press

CONNELLY SPRINGS The North Carolina Department of Transportation will begin a project to replace two bridges that date to the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential administration by Monday.

On Thursday, NCDOT announced the start date for the project that will replace a pair of 60-year-old bridges on Interstate 40 that cross over Berea Church Road in Connelly Springs. The department says tens of millions of cars have passed over the bridges, which were constructed in 1956 (eastbound) and 1958 (westbound).

The $8.56 million contract for work on the bridges was awarded to NHM Constructors of Asheville. By Monday, NHM will close Berea Church Road to begin what is expected to be a two-year process to replace the bridges. The department previously announced that aside from planting, reforestation and permanent vegetation establishment, all work on the project will be completed by Sept. 1, 2019.

According to information from NCDOT, NHM will construct an onsite detour to allow I-40 traffic to flow in all four lanes. A local detour has been established for Berea Church Road to help accelerate construction, the department said. The Berea Church Road detour will direct westbound traffic to Burke Boulevard, then to U.S. Highway 70, then to Knobs Landing Road, then back to Berea Church Road. The opposite applies to eastbound vehicles on Berea Church Road, according to a release.

NCDOT requests that motorists follow detour signs, obey all posted speed limits and slow down in construction zones.

The project to replace the bridges is part of a 10-year plan for Burke County. Many of the projects slated for the first five years of the plan already are funded, according to information from NCDOT.

Other NCDOT projects that are part of its 10-year plan include:

I-40 paving Pave 23.8 miles of road from mile marker 95.2 to mile marker 119 at a cost of $23.5 million. Construction will start in 2018.

Exit 100 (Jamestown Road) Upgrade the interchange at a cost of $2.42 million, plus an additional $250,000 for preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2018 and construction will start in 2020.

Exit 107 (Drexel Road) Upgrade the interchange at a cost of $16.1 million, plus another $400,000 that already has been spent on preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2019 and construction will start in 2020.

U.S. Highway 64/Burkemont Road Improve the interchange at a cost of $1.41 million, plus another $250,000 that already has been spent to do preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2019 and construction should start in 2021.

Exit 111 (Carolina Street, Valdese) Revise the interchange at a cost of $3.61 million, plus an additional $250,000 for preliminary engineering. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2019 and construction will start in 2021.

N.C. Highway 181 road widening Widen less than a mile from St. Marys Church Road to Clay Street at a cost of $10.9 million. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2020 and construction will start in 2022.

Exit 116 (Old N.C. Highway 10) Upgrade the interchange and remove two-way traffic at a cost of $14.8 million. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2022 and construction will start in 2024.

Exit 112 (Mineral Springs Mountain Road, Eldred Street) Construct interchange improvements at a cost of $16 million. Right-of-ways will be secured in 2022 and construction will start in 2024.

N.C. Highway 181/Bost Road widening Widen 2.8 miles to three lanes at a cost of $18.4 million. Planning and design is in progress and the right-of-ways will be secured in 2023 and construction will start in 2025.

Excerpt from:
Road construction project on I-40, Berea Church Road to begin Monday - Morganton News Herald

Houston Business Journal

Photos: Churches expand with population boom northwest of Houston Houston Business Journal In April 2016, Houston's First Baptist Church broke ground on a 100,000-square-foot church on 32 acres off the Grand Parkway in Bridgeland. After a little more than a year of construction, the church opened the doors to its new Cypress campus on June 11.

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Photos: Churches expand with population boom northwest of Houston - Houston Business Journal

McDONOUGH Turner Church Road is just one many dirt roads in Henry County that will soon be transformed to asphalt.

On Tuesday, the Henry County Board of Commissioners approved a $987,278 bid to pave the road. McLeRoy Inc., of Zebulon submitted the lowest bid for the project, which was approved by commissioners unanimously.

SPLOST Transportation Project Director Roque Romero expects a notice to proceed for construction to be issued by the end of August. The project is expected to be complete within 300 days, he said.

The project, which consists of paving east of the bridge to Ga. Highway 20, will be funded using District 3 SPLOST IV funds. Turner Church Road is the last of District 3 dirt roads to be paved under SPLOST IV collections.

During the Tuesday meeting, the BOC received an update on SPLOST IV projects, which included other dirt road projects that are remaining:

Two of five roads have been completed. Construction for Lester Mill Road is in progress, while the design for Peeksville Road from the bridge to Old Jackson Road is in progress. Right of way acquisition is in progress for Peeksville Road from New Hope Road to the bridge.

Six of 10 dirt roads have been paved under SPLOST IV. Right of way acquisition is underway for Amah Lee Road, from Old Highway 3, and Thoroughbred Drive, from Greenwood Road.

Preliminary design is in progress for Selfridge Road, from Speedway Boulevard to the Atlanta Speedway Airports entrance, and South Cleveland Church Road, from New Morn Drive to Stone Road.

One of two dirt road projects is in progress. Commissioners are expected to approve a construction bid for Elliott Road, from East Lake Road to Crumbley Road, in the coming months.

There were no SPLOST IV dirt road updates listed for District 5.

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Turner Church Road approved for paving construction, others on list - Henry Herald