Hundreds of residents, church members and local officials gathered in Jordan-Matthews High School in Siler City Monday night to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The evening was a mixture of prayer, song and inspiration.

The Rev. Barry Gray, pastor of Siler City’s First Missionary Baptist Church, presided over the even and kept the mood light and joyful.

"Let’s remember that tonight, this is a house of God," he said to open the ceremony. "If you want to go to school, come back tomorrow."

The ceremony was part church service and part tribute to honor King’s work.

Readings of inspirational Scripture laced the event, tying the Bible to the Civil Rights Movement.

The Rev. Edward McClure, pastor of Alston Chapel U.H. Church in Pittsboro, was one such speaker.

Powell referenced passages citing the Apostle Paul, who encouraged people to work for a better, brighter future, just as King and his followers did.

In addition to Scripture, speakers told of how King affected their lives, even though some weren’t born when he was assassinated in 1968.

Locals such as Maria Jordan, who became the first black executive director of the Chatham Group home, said she was just one of many touched by his words.

"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has impacted my life, and the lives of millions, with his philosophy," Jordan said. "I realized that with hard work, dedication and faith, all dreams can come true."

One of those dreams, Gray said, is the desire for a good education.

To that end, the Council of Churches took up a collection, which would benefit the group’s scholarship program.

Elder Samuel Obie, pastor of the Holy Trinity U.H. Church in Siler City, said that, given the occasion, attendees should consider whether they could give a bit extra.

"I see you reaching for your dollars," Obie said. "But this time, I’m asking if you can give a bit more."

The Chatham County Board of Commissioners (BOC) may be seeking a new method of allocating funds to the Board of Education.

During the Board of Commissioners’ retreat last Thursday, commissioners discussed the possibility of appropriating funds to schools by the Purpose and Function method.

The Purpose and Function method is a "broad, not targeted, control and has more to do with how funds are removed each year," said Renee Paschal, assistant county manager.

Eleven counties in the state are now budgeting by Purpose and Function, according to a NCASS Budget Survey.

The discussion followed a presentation by Paschal on the roles of the BOC and BOE in the school budget.

Currently, the county allocates roughly 40 percent of its budget to education. The school system presents a summary of requests to the county and a line-item budget for county allocation. The county appropriates the current expense, supplement and capital each in a separate lump sum. A quarterly report is given on the capital expense.

Farmers in Chatham County may be eligible for financial aid sustained during last year‘s damaging tornadoes and hurricanes.

Gov. Bev Perdue has received from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack a disaster declaration for 35 counties to help farmers recover from the devastating tornadoes and hurricanes of 2011.

The secretarial disaster designation enables farmers in primary and contiguous counties, which includes Chatham County, to apply for federal financial assistance through low-interest Farm Service Assistance loans and Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments (SURE) disaster assistance program.

"We have never stopped working aggressively to secure as much aid as possible for our fellow North Carolinians who suffered damage during these storms," Perdue said. "We owe it to them to do everything we can to help them recover from these devastating losses and be ready for this year’s growing season."

Farmers in designated counties have until September 10, 2012 to apply for disaster assistance to cover crop losses.

The annual celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr was held at Jordan-Matthews with a packed house in attendance. Above, keynote speaker Reverend Anthony J. Davis speaks to a crowded auditorium as part of the congregation, lower left, listen intently.

During recent excavation work at the Chatham County courthouse, evidence has emerged to support one of the famous courthouse legends – that a tunnel, or secret passageway, once existed under the structure.

The existence of an opening in a below-ground wall was first reported on a blog on the Hobbs Architects website.

"A brick arched opening has been uncovered in one of the primary south side bearing walls," the blog stated. "The opening is now crudely filled in with masonry, but it is clear that a tunnel type opening existed at one time."

Grimsley Hobbs of Hobbs Architects is careful not to call the opening a tunnel at this point since there is no indication it extends beyond the wall. But he said further exploration will be conducted.

Gene Brooks, a past president of the Chatham County Historical Association, said he has known a tunnel existed for a long time.

"I knew it was there because too many people told me about it," he said. "I talked to people who had seen it and knew about it. One of them, Mr. Petty, was a carpenter who might have been involved in filling it up."

Brooks said one Chatham County man told him he had been inside the tunnel as boy in the early 1950s.

"He and some other boys went far enough that they found some wooden cases and they became scared and never went back," Brooks said. "They thought they might have been rifle cases."

Brooks said the tunnel progressed from the courthouse north for a block and emerged near what used to be an antebellum residence, the Launis House.

The Launis House was demolished sometime in the 1950s to make way for a Piggly Wiggly and later housed the PTA Thrift Shop. The building has been vacant for several years.

Brooks said the exact location of north end of the tunnel is not certain. It may have ended near the back of the City Tap, or on the north side of Salisbury Street.

Brooks said he does not think the tunnel was constructed as part of the 1881 courthouse currently being restored but was part of the previous courthouse built in the 1840s.

Brooks has never been able to talk to anyone who could tell him the purpose of the tunnel but there is wide speculation that it was some sort of escape route for the judge and jurors.

Pittsboro Mayor Randy Voller thinks this theory makes a lot of sense.

"It was not used for drainage or anything like that," he said. "I think it was put there so if someone had to get away from the court quickly, they had a way. Back then court day was a big day. If they had a big case, they could get a couple of thousand people there. If the jury or judge made a decision the crowd didn’t like, maybe it gave them a way to get out."

A famous 1912 incident in Virginia known as the "Hillsville Shootout" demonstrated this type of danger. Five people, including the judge and sheriff, were killed in a courthouse shootout.

Cell phone ban would be difficult to enforce

A ban on drivers’ use of cell phones could be hard to enforce, according to local law enforcement officers.

Last month, the National Transportation (NTSB) Safety Board called for a 50-state ban on the use of "personal electronic devices", which includes phones, while driving.

The NTSB used deadly accidents that have been attributed to drivers who were using their phones as the basis for the ban. The NTSB specifically cited a 2010 multi-vehicle crash in Missouri where 2 people were killed and 38 were injured. An investigation into the accident revealed that it originated with a driver who was texting.