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Chad Setliff was named the new president and chief operating officer at Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, effective Aug. 12. Setliff received his bachelor’s degree in economics and systems engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York and a master’s degree in business administration from Wake Forest University. Setlif has held a variety of leadership roles at Novant.

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OBITUARIES

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HIGH POINT — As state contractors try to catch up on the Skeet Club Road widening project in north High Point, officials have put forth a work plan for upcoming phases of the construction.

Crews are expected to start on the grading and paving of a temporary relo-cation of Waterview Road near Skeet Club Road the first week of September, according to N.C. Department of Trans-portation resident engineer Paul Ingram.

In addition, two large utility lines will have to be installed across Kendale Road, and this work will most likely be performed on a weekend when a tempo-rary detour can be set up.

The state has not announced when this phase of work will take place.

In the meantime, motorists can expect to see continued flagging operations dur-ing the day, as grading and pipe work continues along the sides of the road, according to the DOT.

Skeet Club Road is being widened from two to four lanes with a median from Johnson Street to Eastchester Drive, but the project is more than two years behind schedule.

City Councilman Britt Moore said while the DOT is overseeing the con-struction and not the city, he does occa-sionally hear complaints from residents about the project.

“I haven’t had any total anger that I’ve heard, just the occasional frustration of inconvenience and wishing it could

DOT updates Skeet Club projectBY PAT KIMBROUGHENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER

LAURA GREENE | HPEAs state contractors try to catch up on the Skeet Club Road widening project in north High Point, officials have put forth a work plan for upcoming phases of construction, including the temporary relocation of Waterview Road in early September and the installa-tion of utility lines across Kendale Road.

HIGH POINT — After more than 14,000 views, 462 shares and 85 comments on Face-book, Greg Commander has gone viral, but he wishes it wasn’t for this reason.

“I wasn’t intending for that to happen, I was just speaking out,” Commander said.

Commander, 53, filmed his now-viral video calling for an end to street violence after learn-ing about the death of 61-year-old Brenda Herbin on Aug. 9. Herbin, a bystander, was shot in the head in a drive-by shooting on Franklin Avenue, a result of gang violence.

In the video, Commander can be seen stand-ing next to a puddle of Herbin’s blood on the roadside.

“I’m out here because there’s blood in the streets right now, this means there’s pain in the streets,” Commander said in the video, pointing towards the blood. “It’s time for a difference, it’s time for a change. It’s going to take us, the community.”

Commander, who lives on the city’s east side, said he woke up around 5 a.m. that morn-ing and could feel that something was wrong.

“I wasn’t planning on doing this video,” Com-mander said. “When I saw this blood laying in the street, that means a body was there. I actu-ally cried.”

A former felon and federal inmate, Greg Commander is not a man you would expect to cry.

Blood in the streets

results in viral call for peace

BY LEE SANDERLINENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER

LEE SANDERLIN | HPEGreg Commander revisits the spot where Bren-da Herbin was shot and killed Aug. 9. Command-er filmed a Facebook live video next to a pool of Herbin’s blood, where he called for community peace amid a rash of gun violence.

H I G H P O I N T

D on Ussery, 84, retired Aug. 17 after 60 years

with the same High Point company

Electronic Data Magnetics prints mass transit tickets and smart cards for clients like airlines, major municipal subways and the federal government. During Ussery’s time, the company has evolved, changed ownership and altered the technically advanced printed products it makes to suit specialized needs of its customers across the nation and in Canada. When Ussery joined the company in July 1958, it was called Electronic Accounting Card Corp.

Ussery began work there as a press operator to produce IBM computer punch cards long before magnetic stripe cards were developed. He moved into other positions as needed at EDC, becoming its troubleshooter and director of purchasing before completing his

unusually lengthy career.“Whatever it takes to

get it done, we jump in there and do it,” Ussery said. “I think that’s been our strong suit for many years.”

Richard Hallman, EDM chairman of the board and treasurer, said Ussery taught him how to operate the press when he joined the company after completing his military service in 1959. The two men became fast friends.

“At one time in our history, EAC was producing 1 billion tabulating cards a month,”

Hallman said. “That’s when we were at our peak of growth.”

At that time, trains delivered multiple carloads of paper to the company headquarters, which include 250,000-square-feet in three buildings at 210 Old Thomasville Road. The company acquired Business Supplies Corp. of America and had about 18 smaller satellite plants across the nation to make production and shipping more competitive, Hallman said.

STAYING POWER

BY CINDE INGRAMENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER

Worker retires after 60 years with same company

LAURA GREENE | HPEDon Ussery, 84, retired Aug. 17 after 60 years with Electonic Data Magnetics. Ussery began work there as a press operator to produce IBM computer punch cards.

SEE PEACE/PAGE A2LAURA GREENE | HPE

Don Ussery holds a stack of old IBM computer punch cards that Electonic Data Magnetics produced back when he began working for the company 60 years ago.

SEE POWER/PAGE A2

SEE PROJECT/PAGE A2

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FROM THE FRONT PAGE

Commander spent more than 18 years in federal prison for drug charges stemming from his time as a dealer and fearless brawler in High Point during the 80s. He was the leader of High Point’s notorious street gang, the “Juice Crew.”

“I star ted hanging in the streets, breaking and entering, stealing, getting high all night. Next thing you know I failed the seventh grade and I dropped out in the eighth grade,” he said. “In the streets I was a totally different person. My mom passed away in 1987 and my father left home. That made me take the streets more serious, so I ended up in the street selling drugs trying to pay the bills.”

During his time in the Juice Crew, he lost his left eye in a fight, taking a whack from a Louisville Slugger base-ball bat to the face. Now

he wears an eyepatch, a constant reminder of the violence he used to be a part of. Commander said because of his past, he is able to understand the motives of the young men committing acts of violence today.

“Those are my broth-ers that I will always love,” Commander said about the men involved in gang-related violence. “These kids are in transi-tion, these kids are still growing up. Why do they do this? They do this because they don’t think rational right now. You don’t start thinking rationally until you’re 21. A man that’s 17-18, doing things in the streets, they aren’t fully responsible because their parents didn’t teach them right.”

Commander com-pared the last two years of gang shootings to his time selling drugs.

“I was never shooting anyone, but I was feeding them drugs,” he said. “I was selling them crack cocaine. I come to realize that I caused my people to be in the condition

they were in.”For Commander, his

decision to turn his life around came after his long jail stint where he worked to get an educa-tion, including learning how to properly read.

“I could read words, but I couldn’t punctuate (sentences),” he said. “That’s not reading. Com-prehending what you read is reading. I couldn’t comprehend. I don’t know how I made it to the eighth grade.”

N o w 1 0 y e a r s removed from jail, Com-mander works tirelessly to help his community and to lift up the young men responsible

“I love my community, I love my people, even in the state of mind they’re in now, because I was in that state of mind,” he said. “It was my respon-sibility to come back and uplift my community to get them to where I know they can be.”

He also said people need to begin focusing on solutions for the African-American community instead of solely talking

about the problems.“I know we can’t

save the whole com-munity, we ain’t gonna stop crime, crime always exists,” he said. “I want to stop the dying. Live a life of being free instead of being incarcerated. If you’re too young to be dead, you’re too young to be incarcerated.”

Commander said the young men responsible for the gang violence now are looking for respect in the wrong way.

“The young guys doing this, they need love,” he said. “All the violence going on with all the shooting and kill-ing going on, I saw the pain (in the community). They need someone to sit down and talk with them about what peace means.”

For Commander, PEACE is an acronym: “Proper education always corrects error.”

Commander sa id people in the African-American community, specifically the young men, need proper educa-tion and communication skills to break the cycle of

violence, skills he learned trying to turn his life around.

“I had to change my language, learn how to talk and learn how to ask for what I want and not take what I want,” he said. “I know (the young men in gangs) feel neglected because people look down on them because they’re in gangs. They need someone to love them, (because) they’re like everybody else. I’m try-ing to save them from going to prison or laying in the graveyard.

“I lived that life for almost 20 years. That’s why I’m so compassion-ate. I don’t want to see the next man go through what I went through. We need kids becoming law-yers and doctors and not getting locked up.”

For people to learn these skills, Commander is working to start his own non-profit for young men in High Point’s east side and south side. Known as the Com-mander Peace Academy, he wants to raise enough

money to open a box-ing gym and a computer lab so that the boys can have an outlet for their anger and frustrations while also having access to technology to further their education.

“We know we have to be hands on with our youth to make a differ-ence. Because I’m from the community … I know what will work, you just have to give me a try,” he said. “Just to get out here and let our community know we have someone on this side of the fence that’s working with us. The Commander Peace Academy is where we build these men up to be men.”

While the academy is only in its beginning stag-es, Commander encour-ages anyone interested in donating or volunteering to contact him. He can be reached by email at greg.commander@yahoo.com or by phone at 336-991-3524.

lsanderlin@hpenews.com | 335-888-3601 | @HPELee

FROM THE FRONT PAGE

“We had various types of tabulating cards, and Don worked in every department that we had,” Hallman said. “He was manager of what we called our specialty card division, and that was checks, stub cards, money orders, hunting licenses and, at one time, we even produced government checks and cotton bale receipts.”

Hallman said Ussery’s versatility has enabled him to have such a long tenure at the company. He learned several different jobs as a press operator, then as manager of those departments.

“He was our plant manager several years,” Hallman said. “He incrementally produced and managed virtually every department that we’ve had as far as manufacturing tabulating cards. His expertise was very much needed all along.”

Hallman, who served as president/CEO after EDM was formed in 1983 until a couple of years ago when he passed the torch to his son Russell, promised Ussery would have a job there as long as he wanted.

The company presented Ussery with a set of Ping irons to allow him to play golf more in retirement (he can still shoot his age on the golf course).

Ussery recalls in his earlier years looking forward to retirement and saying, “I can’t wait until I turn 65 because as soon as I turn 65, I’m out the door.”

That was nearly 20 years ago.As data processing cards evolved,

the company’s satellite plants were closed and operations were consolidated into its three High Point buildings.

“I got into purchasing, and you get to meet so many people,” Ussery said. “If you’re a people person, you just enjoy meeting people and dealing

with people.”When he met with a group of

executives in Dallas once, Ussery listened to an angry outburst from their spokesman while he calmly looked at the cards the man had stacked in front of him. Once the executive finished railing about a mistake in the product, Ussery told him he may want to talk with one of EDM’s competitors, whose company had printed those cards.

“It’s just been a learning process,”

Ussery said. “It was a lot of fun, but I’m glad I don’t have to travel anymore. It’s been a good ride.”

A couple of women who work on the EDM print line blinked away tears as they hugged Ussery’s neck and wished him well on his last day.

“We are a family-oriented business and we care about each other,” Hallman said.

cingram@hpenews.com336-888-3534 | @HPEcinde

FROM THE FRONT PAGE

hurry up,” Moore said. “We’re certainly trying to encourage the state to move as quickly as possible, and I’m sure they’re trying to as well.”

The $32 million DOT contract with APAC Thompson-Arthur of Greensboro had an original completion date of Oct. 1, 2018.

Utility conflicts, which are beyond the con-tractor’s control, have been the main source of project delays, Ingram said.

DOT officials and contractors are now aiming for completion of all the work by the end of 2020. The state has offered the contractor additional financial incentives to complete the section of the widening from Barrow Road to Eastchester Drive by November 2019.

“They’re committed to doing that,” Ingram said. “We wanted to do as much as we could to provide relief to the traveling public and property owners, and that seems to be busi-est section.”

The Waterview Road/Skeet Club Road intersection will be relocated about 200 feet to the west to provide space for construc-tion equipment to work on the Oak Hollow Lake bridge.

This realignment will stay in place for an estimated nine months to a year, because it will take the bridge contractor that long to complete its task, Ingram said.

The public can also expect to see traffic signal work begin throughout the project corridor. Some intersections on Skeet Club Road will be signalized as part of the widen-ing, including Kendale Road and Birchgar-den Drive.

Moore said what he hears from the com-munity indicates that people understand the merits of the widening despite the construc-tion hassles.

“It was to try to alleviate the congestion and what we’ve grown to and where we’re projecting to grow going forward,” he said. “Areas where there’s been high growth — the merging of Kernersville to High Point, High Point to Greensboro — there’s a lot going on. So with that growth comes the chal-lenge of providing adequate infrastructure.”

pkimbrough@hpenews.com | 336-888-3531

PEACE

POWER PROJECT

Electronic Data Magnetics prints mass transit tickets and smart cards for cli-ents like airlines, major municipal subways and the federal government.

PHOTOS BY LAURA GREENE | HPERichard Hallman, EDM chairman of the board and treasurer, and Don Ussery stand outside Ussery’s office on his last workday before retiring.