GRIT - Stories of Resilience

Chekesha Hukins knew from the time she was seven years old, she wanted to be a lawyer, and from the time of college, she knew she wanted to be a prosecutor. As she puts it, she does not have a defense attorney bone in her body. For a lifetime in the law, she has become a career prosecutor, with a primary emphasis on illegal drugs, in a three-county district in eastern North Carolina, based in Crav...

Clark Wright, the son of a well-known and respected medical doctor in Raleigh, has been, for many years, a highly successful business litigation lawyer in New Bern, North Carolina with an emphasis on environmental issues. In his spare time, Clark is an avid outdoorsman, who finds peace and happiness in hiking, rock and mountain climbing all over the world. He has walked the entire Appalachian Trai...

It was the spring of 1979, more than nine years since Colette, Kimberly and Kristen MacDonald had been brutally murdered in their home at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, in the early morning hours of February 17, 1970. Now, in a few short months, in mid-July, Brian Murtagh, an attorney with the United States Justice Department in Washington, D.C, and I were going to prosecute Jeffrey MacDonald, Colette...

A Harvard University Medical School study, 85 years in the making, is very clear on the question of how to have happier lives in the world. As the New York Times recently reported, "strong relationships are what make for a happy life". While I have done a recent podcast on Finding Happiness, this one is a bit different, perhaps in response to last week's podcast in which Jade Neptune...

"BENJAMIN NO!!!!!" Jade Neptune, and a new article on College Suicides, gives us these last two words sent to Ben Salas by a father to his son moments after receiving word that he intended to kill himself that day, April 26, 2023. In a compelling article titled The Heartbreak of College Suicides, Jade Neptune, a recent college graduate from UNC Chapel Hill, tells the story of Ben's struggles in th...

If you want to feel better about the future and the next generation, just become a client of Patrice Nealon's Digital Marketing class at N.C. State. For more than seven weeks and counting, going towards the rest of the semester, teams of talented marketing students have worked to give me their best creative ideas as to how better to market my podcast Grit: Stories of Resilience. Not stopping t...

When I was very young, I thought it was normal to ride bikes all over town, go swimming every summer day in the large community pool, where the deepest part was ten feet, a depth I thought that went on forever, walk to the Saturday afternoon movies, go to college football, basketball and baseball games every season, rarely missing any, and having sleepovers with best friends every Friday night. My...

The next time you walk into a pet store or any other place with cats and dogs and look at them playing or sleeping in cages, think for just a moment that most of them are all on a journey to hopefully a good life in what they hope will be a forever home. If you are one of those who falls in love with one or more of them, adoption will be in the air, and it will be a win for everyone. Sadly, not ev...

Happiness, I believe, is what people in the world want most in their lives. Attaining that is a lifelong pursuit, with sometimes different results, depending on where we are and what we are doing. There are lots of books, college courses and even podcasts and apps for smart phones on how to live a happier life. It is becoming a well-plowed field. I am not sure there is any one way to make that hap...

One of the most challenging things to do in life is something new, something you have never done before, such as go to college, start a new job or changing to another job, or just plain starting over in your life. All of us have some fear of the unknown, fear of failure or at least some nervousness about the future. But if we try, if we are optimistic, if we keep on, keeping on, we just might make...

When Anne Drescher was in her second year of Doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina School of Psychology, she developed and taught a course on Mental Health and Wellness for UNC undergraduates. It was so successful that the course continues to this day and hopefully will be expanded to all freshmen at the university. Today, Anne believes students are often stressed, overwhelmed, soci...

John Drescher knew he wanted to be in the newspaper business at the age of 15 when he became a reporter for a neighborhood newspaper in Raleigh. In the following years, he was the Editor of The Daily Tar Heel, reported for The State, the newspaper of Columbia, South Carolina, wrote for the Charlotte Observer, becoming its Metro Editor, and then in Raleigh, first a Managing Editor and ultimately Ex...

Duke Lineberry never planned on practicing Family Law. A native of Charlotte, he interned at the United States Attorney's office in Raleigh and hoped to become an Assistant United States Attorney. Instead, after working on an admiralty case and impressing a well-known attorney from Wilmington, he moved there, practiced in the attorney's firm for a number of years before striking out on his...

The partial title of the song by Garth Brooks captures both the tone and story of my time in the winter months of 1994. From January, 1994 through almost the end of April of that same year, I spent my time learning what it was like not to be free. But this podcast is not about that so much as it is about the experiences I had and the people I met. Some of their names are now gone from my mind. Oth...

"So Wade, if I take yours and Rick's advice and plead guilty to all of the counts, everything, with no plea agreement of any kind, what do you think will happen to me?" "Jim, if you do this, if you accept full responsibility, go into court and say I did this, I am guilty, I am responsible, and accept whatever the Court gives you, you will get your life back, and you will have mo...

Paulette Wilkes, born and raised in England, a graduate of both high school and college there, went home one day after a particular trying time at work, and asked her husband if he was still interested in going to America and getting a job there. He said yes, and she replied, "Then do it". And they did. That one decision changed their lives forever. Paulette's husband went first with...

Jill Staton Bullard was a soccer mom, going lto a game one Saturday morning in north Raleigh many years ago when she and another mom decided to go to a fast food restaurant to get breakfast sandwiches and coffee for others who were going to be on their side of the field. After getting their order and now ready to leave, the server asked if they needed anything else, and they said no. What happened...

Rufus Edmisten, in this Episode, does not hold back. He tells his life story of the last fifty years. There was so much success, winning the office of Attorney General three times, becoming the Democratic candidate for Governor, twice being elected Secretary of State and a hugely rewarding law practice. There were sad and unhappy times as well. One of his best friends and chief of staff when he wa...

More than 500 years ago, the first Wild Horses came to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. They likely came to the east coast of the United States, stretching from Virginia to South Carolina via Spain and South America. Or they could have come on Spanish ships that wrecked off the shores of North Carolina in what is called the Graveyard of the Atlantic and then swam ashore. No one knows for sure. T...

In the mid 1990's and one year in the early 2000's, I was at the 42nd Street Oyster Bar almost every night waiting tables. It was a long way from being a well known attorney, but it felt good to me. It was where I needed to be. I needed to learn if it was possible to start over with my life and find something new to do that would give me a purpose in going forward. Working at this restaura...

Coming from Boone, in the mountains of North Carolina, Rufus Edmisten knew he wanted to be a lawyer and work for U.S. Senator Sam Ervin in Washington, D.C. And did he succeed! Becoming Chief Deputy Counsel to the Senate Watergate Comittee in 1973, the youngest state Attorney General in 1974, Democratic nominee for Governor in 1984, closing his public career with the office of Secretary of State, h...

Geoff Hulse knew two things to be true when he was young. He would never live in the relatively small eastern North Carolina city of Goldsboro, where he had grown up, and he would never be a lawyer. He was wrong on both counts. Except for college and law school, he has lived his life there, and he has done so as a lawyer. He and his wife have raised two wonderful and successful daughters. Still, a...

Dana Stevens has had a long career writing feature films and television. Her most recent movie, "The Woman King" starring Viola Davis premiered in 2022 to wide acclaim and is now on Netflix. Other films include The City of Angels, starring Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan, Safe Haven from the book by Nicholas Sparks, For Love of the Game with Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston as well as creating...

I first met Leslie Van Der Have many years ago after making a talk at the North Carolina Bar Center when she approached me and pressed a hand written note in my hand. It was a full page of hope. Leslie has practiced law for about twenty two years, most of them in her family law firm in Greenville, North Carolina. Listening to her, you soon learn that I am not the first or last person to whom she h...

Freddy Kassab, was the stepfather of Colette and by extension the grandfather of Kimberly and Kristen. When they died on February 17, 1970, a piece of Freddy went away as well. But enough was left for him to pursue justice for them, and successfully encourage others to do so as well. He felt he had no other choice. What else would you have had him do? He gladly dedicated all his remaining years fo...