Katie Evans

Sup Dogs, the newest restaurant at a popular downtown Greenville location, the corner of Fifth and Reade streets, specializes in chili dogs, as its name suggests.

The fast casual restaurant and bar with all ABC permits serves 100 percent beef hot dogs and burgers but also has some vegetarian options. Everything on the menu is under $6.

The Sup Dog ($4.99) is topped with 16-ingredient homemade chili that's simmered for four hours; add slaw or cheese for 50 cents more. The Sup Burg ($5.49) is a hamburger topped with lettuce, tomato, onion, dill pickle and special sauce. The Slaw Burg ($5.99) features slaw and chili. The menu also includes BLT on a hot dog bun ($5.49) and the Sup Melt with turkey and ham on a hot dog bun ($5.99). The Veggie Burg is made with a slightly spicy black bean burger ($5.99). All sandwiches are served with thin shoestring fries.

Appetizers include chili cheese fries ($5.99), beer-battered onion rings ($5.49) and Pigs in a Blanket (fried corn dog nuggets served with syrup for $4.99).

Old-fashioned milk shakes ($3.49) and Itty Bitz small ice cream balls ($3.49) are available, along with the Sup Ball ($4.49), a ball of ice cream rolled in toasted coconut and covered in caramel and whipped cream.

Specialty cocktails and Sup Tinis are served, along with draft beer, 14 bottled beers and Coca-Cola products. Drink specials are offered nightly.

Hot dogs are available for $1 on Sundays, and jumbo hot wings are 49 cents each on Sundays.

Owner Derek Oliverio said he searched the East Coast for the perfect spot for his first restaurant - and thinks he's found it, just steps from the East Carolina University campus beside The Stop Shop convenience store.

Extensive renovations to the location - which formerly has housed such restaurants as La Vista Pizza and The Back Porch - have included revamping the dining room with wood paneling and booths to seat 40. There are four small flat-screen televisions in the dining room. The popular outdoor deck, a prime people-watching spot which seats another 40 people, has been upgraded and adorned with tiki torches.

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With a nursing shortage expected to intensify in the coming years, East Carolina University's College of Nursing enrollment has jumped nearly 40 percent since 2004.

For this fall semester, the college has about 1,200 students enrolled in classes, making it the largest nursing program in North Carolina.

There are now more than 2,600 registered nurses working in the state who graduated from ECU, according to the Sheps Center, a health services research facility based in Chapel Hill.

"We've grown phenomenally," said Sylvia T. Brown, acting dean of the College of Nursing. "We have steadily increased our enrollment, but it eventually gets to the point where you get tight. There is somewhat of a limit."

Every semester, Brown said, the College of Nursing receives about 350 applications, but has room for only 130 students. That is a big jump from its inaugural class of 1964, which consisted of 17 graduates.

Still, Brown said, there are some constraints to how many nursing students the college can admit, including the availability of clinical site placements and a limited number of faculty members.

"It's a complicated process when you look at the enrollment," she said. "It's more than just putting (students) in a classroom. You have to think about the clinical experience."

To help prepare them for clinical settings, the Health Sciences Building, which opened in 2006, houses eight simulation labs where students can practice basic and advanced medical procedures on mannequins programmed by computers.

Laura Gantt, executive director of learning technologies and labs at the College of Nursing, said the students can practice taking blood pressure, assessing normal and abnormal heart or lung sounds and different patient-care scenarios.

"I think labs, historically, have always been used to practice in a safe environment," Gantt said. "That is why simulation labs are so big. We want our students to be prepared before they practice on people."

The growing need for nurses has been documented by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, which predicts the shortage of registered nurses across the country could reach 500,000 by 2025, according to a report by Dr. Peter Buerhaus. The report states the demand for registered nurses continues to grow by two or three percent each year.

Locally, Brown said, there is an extreme shortage of nurses and nurse faculty in the state, with about 20,000 nurses needed by 2015 and as many as 32,000 needed by 2020.

The Sheps Center reports nearly 11 percent of all active, registered nurses working in the state with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree, graduated from ECU. Of that number, most are concentrated in and around eastern North Carolina.

In Pitt County, ECU nurses account for more than 60 percent of the total number, according to the Sheps Center.

"We are a big school with a down-home atmosphere," Brown said. "We attract people who are interested in staying in eastern North Carolina. I think they realize that we are a quality school, and I guess that is why they choose us."

Two students who say they plan to stay in North Carolina to practice nursing, Joe Gill and Caitlin Biggerstaff, are entering their third semester in the college. Both Gill and Biggerstaff worked in externships at Pitt County Memorial Hospital, which the College of Nursing helped them secure, and plan to work there after they graduate

Gill said he likes the potential behind ECU, because it provides a lot of areas for success. Similarly, he said, the elevated level of education makes the nursing students competitive with people from all other backgrounds.

"The College of Nursing promotes us being patient advocates when we are treating them," Gill said. "You have the opportunity to have an immediate impact on people's lives and a delayed impact on the community as a whole."

Biggerstaff said she often sees the administration make the effort to reach out to its high achievers, which creates a conducive environment for success. She described the education she has received from the college as superior.

"ECU provides you with that pride," said Biggerstaff, a Greenville native who received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The teachers really reach out to us. They are student-advocates like we are patient-advocates."

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Arrrrrgggggg!

So what if they have slipped one point in the AP poll. Number 15 is AWESOME FOR a Conference USA Team. Saturday's game marked the first time that they have been ranked since 1999. (Hurricane Floyd sent the team to Raleigh and a huge upset to Miami).

Saturday's game was tough to watch. Was this the same team that pumpled through West Virginia and Virginia Tech?

However, they squeaked past Tulane 28-24.

Saturday is NC State. They are going to have to put on a much better show to keep up the rankings! WHIP THE PACK BOYS!

Hopefully as we like to say in GREENVILLE, "We can paint this one Purple."

GO PIRATES! Argggggg.

The town will be going nuts this September, and it would like area residents and their families to join in the fun.

The Town of Fountain will hold its first Fountain Peanut Festival in the downtown area. A two-day event of music, food, fun and games will be held in honor of the peanut.

The festival, which will be free to the public, will take place Friday, Sept. 12 through Saturday, Sept. 13 at the intersection of Railroad and Wilson streets in downtown Fountain. It will run Friday from 5-11 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m.

During the event, patrons will be able to enjoy rides, provided by All American Rides out of South Carolina, and various craft and food vendors that will be selling wood works, candles, rib eye sandwiches, sausages and peanuts -- fried peanuts, boiled peanuts, sugar-coated peanuts, you name it.

Mike Barnes, vice-chairman of the festival committee, said Fountain is not a large peanut-growing area, but it is situated in an area near larger peanut-growing regions. There are local farmers in the area who do grow peanuts, he added, and boiled peanuts are popular among locals.

"So we felt like that was an appropriate festival," he said, adding that North Carolina and the eastern region of the state are among the top peanut-growing areas nationwide.

The festival is being sponsored by the Town of Fountain, the Town of Farmville, the Fountain BB&T, the Farmville Piggly Wiggly and Oldies 107.9, which will have radio personalities Max McGann and Donna Kelly do a live show Friday, said festival chairman Benji Holloman.

Holloman, who said the festival will "showcase a nice quiet town," said local country music group Cripple Creek will take the stage at 7 p.m. on Friday. Local band Trainwreck will perform Saturday at the same time.

The event will also feature gospel and bluegrass music, line dancing and different demonstrations to be showcased on the main stage.

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This year a long term Parks and Recreation study was done for Farmville. I have not read the study but had a conversationwith Farmville's town manager, Richard Hicks. (Richard is my father.)

There are some key points that I would like bring out of the study:

1. Farmville is expected to experience great growth in the next 5-10 years. The population currently is about 4,500. They anticipate the population to surge to around 7,000!

2. The town needs to improve the parks and recreation department as a whole. One of the major takeaways was Farmville needs a wellness center, for lack of a better term.

For years my friend, Amy Church, and I have tossed around the vision that Farmville needs a YMCA.

As of yesterday, we are one step closer to that dream! After several phone calls with John Moore, Farmville Commissioner, we are dedicated to making this a reality.

In the next few weeks, John and I will be working with the Goldsboro YMCA. They have graciously agreed to assist us! The first thing we will have to do is a feasibility study. I will continue to keep everyone updated with the progress.

I would love to be rained on. Does anyone in the Active Rain community either help start a Y or is currently involved? Your input would be graciously appreciated.

For the Farmville community, if you would like to volunteer please let me know. We will need to rally the troops on this one! We will need to raise some money.

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