The Pembroke City Council approved a wide range of events at its Monday meeting, ranging from honoring veterans and a paper crusade to holiday celebrations.
Among the events or organizations getting the OK were:
- Veterans Day: City Council approved a request by Susie Magee of the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary Post 164 to hold the organization's third annual Veterans Program on Nov. 3 at 10 a.m. The event will be co-sponsored by Boy Scout Troop 357 of Pembroke and will take place at the caboose on Hwy 280. Flags will go up on Nov. 6, and the public is welcome to participate, Magee said.
"I'd like to invite anyone physically able to come out," she said. "We're putting up 107 crosses this year, so please come out and help us."
- Halloween: Council approved trick or treating hours from 6-8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 31.
- Christmas: Council said yes to a request to hold the annual Christmas Festival on Dec. 12. Events will begin at 7 a.m. and the parade will get under way at 11 a.m.
- Shriners: Council approved a request to hold its annual paper crusade Oct. 2-3 from 7 a.m.-3 p.m. each day.
- First Baptist Church of Pembroke: Council said yes to a church request to give out breakfast sandwiches from 7-10 a.m. on Oct. 10 to help promote its Judgement House event.
In other business;
- Set the date for a budget workshop. It will be held Monday at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.
- Held the first reading of an amendment to reduce the number of trustees on the Pembroke Hospital Authority from 11 to seven. City Administrator Frank Etheridge said a smaller board will make it easier to get a quorum to conduct business.
- Police Chief Mark Crowe gave a number of updates, noting National Night Out was successful but the city may consider holding its own event later in the year and calling it Community Night Out or Pembroke Night Out. Crowe also gave an update on H1N1, noting a briefing he'd received from health officials in late August said there were documented cases of the flu in Bryan County.
Additionally, in the wake of the disappearance of North Bryan resident Emma Carroll, 83, Crowe said it was his understanding the Bryan County Sheriff's Department was going to apply for grants to fund purchase of two tracking systems for people with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. If the grant is obtained, one of the systems will be located on each end of the county. Carroll, who disappeared July 18, has dementia and is still missing.
Crowe also gave council members a look at the bulletproof vests funded by the Savannah chapter of the Frateneral Order of Police. Pembroke police received 10 of the vests, valued at approximately $300 each.