Three of the eight people who lost their lives Sunday morning when a gunman began firing on residents and staff at a Carthage nursing home had deep ties to Chatham County.

Bessie Hedrick, 78; Margaret Johnson, 89; and John Goldston, 78, lived in Chatham County before residing at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage.

Though fondly remembered, their deaths have left family and friends reeling from the unexpected violence.

"It was just a shock to everybody," said Chatham County resident Tammy Morris, whose grandmother, Margaret Johnson, was among the victims.

Morris remembered her grandmother as a "wonderful woman" who was originally from Greensboro before settling in Chatham County where she and her family operated a small farm in Silk Hope.

"She was a great friend," Morris said.

Johnson was a member of Sapling Ridge United Methodist Church and the Alpha and Sunshine Sunday School Class.

Bessie Hedrick’s sister, Eleanor Clapp of Siler City, was also stunned by the shooting but said she prefers to think about her sister’s passing in a more positive way.

Hedrick "loved doing things for other people. That was her loving nature," Clapp said.

But Hedrick was suffering from several debilitating ailments, including Parkinson’s disease.

"There’s no cure that for that," Clapp said. "With Parkinson’s, all you do is get worse. The way I think about this now is, she’s out of her misery and she’s in a better place than we are."

Clapp said her sister was "one of a kind. She was a good, loving person and she had five good children who were good to her."

She ran a beauty shop, sold insurance and taught classes at a cosmetology school in Greensboro. She also was a teacher at Chatham Trades, the rehabilitation program in Siler City for adults with developmental disabilities.

"She really did care for a lot of people and a lot of people cared for her," Clapp said.

Hedrick, whose father Frank Hedrick once served as mayor of Siler City, was active in local politics, a lifelong "dyed in the wool Democrat," her sister said.

Karl Kachergis, chairman of the Chatham County Democratic Party, recalled Hedrick’s service on the party’s executive committee.

"She was a dear lady," said Kachergis. "I feel for all those people."

John Goldston also was from Chatham County and has family here. He was a native of Goldston and was a member of Tyson Creek Baptist Church.

He loved putting puzzles together and was an avid fan of the University of North Carolina Tarheels

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As March Madness winds down and the Final Four have been established, Chatham County leaders are making their championship predictions.

The consensus: the UNC Tar Heels will play in the National Title Game.

"This year’s UNC team is much different than last year’s – mainly because of Ty Lawson’s ability to turn it up," Pittsboro Mayor Randy Voller said.

"I don’t think that this year’s [UNC] team is as dominant as 2005, but they have a good chance," Voller said.

"[Lawson] has made a huge difference this year for them and he doesn’t turn the ball over. He’s a little like Ray Felton was in 2005," Voller said.

"It’s going to be interesting to see whether Michigan State is able to overcome the shot blocking of Connecticut’s big center, Hasheem Thabeet.," Voller said.

Ultimately Voller sees a UNC versus Michigan State final game.

"Carolina is the clear favorite in the Final Four, where Michigan is the dark horse," Voller said.

As for a prediction on a winner – "I see the final game coming down to five to seven points. But I can’t predict a winner," Voller said.

Siler City Mayor Charles Turner also predicts UNC to make the final game, but facing Connecticut instead of Michigan State.

It started out as just another Sunday morning for my mother, Helen Gibbs, a resident at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage.

Her room is near the nurse’s station, the center of the complex.

She has been a resident for almost one year, and loves it there.

She cannot stand or walk, so all she could do was lie in her bed and wonder what all the commotion was about Sunday morning.

"I couldn’t go anywhere, so I just lay here listening to the shooting," my mother said Monday, the day after the shootings and after the lockdown was rescinded Monday morning.

The truth was she learned most of the details of the shooting spree from her TV, rather than any first-hand sight or knowledge.

The gunman Stewart shot some residents and did not harm others. There seems no rhyme or reason for who was or was not shot.

Only the completely-full Pinelake parking lots Monday afternoon, and the Highway Patrol that was checking cars that attempted to park, gave any indication anything extraordinary had happened.

My press sticker on the windshield almost got me excluded from entering until the patrolman saw it was a 2006 sticker. I told him my mother lived there and he allowed me to enter.

When I went inside Pinelake Monday just after lunch, there was absolutely no sign the home had suffered anything out of the ordinary.

There were no bullet holes in walls or anywhere else. Some residents were rolling slowly down the hallways in their wheelchairs as they always do.

The tree rings have been counted and Pittsboro’s holly tree is now unofficially the oldest in the world, by about 11 years.

For a long time, the tree, once located across from the General Store Café, had been variously touted as one of the oldest in America to the oldest in the world.

But no one knew for sure.

Then the tree died and was cut down last September.

It was a sad day and many Pittsboro residents grabbed pieces of the tree to keep as souvenirs.

But the age of the tree was not known.

Although the rings on holly trees are notoriously difficult to count, local woodworker Alan McGinigle was confident he could achieve an accurate count.

He has had experience dating trees, having worked as an archaeologist at UNC from 1968 to 1971 using a widely respected technique for dating prehistoric building timbers.

Several five inch slabs were sawed from the holly’s main trunk. The wood was very wet so he made tension relief cuts and allowed many weeks for the wood to dry.

He then spent over six hours sanding and polishing the surface of the wood to more clearly see the grain.

Using a ring light for accuracy, he made three counts. The first came to 153 years, and the second to 157 years.

A bill being discussed by the N.C. State Legislature could further restrict smoking statewide.

The North Carolina House Judiciary 1 Committee approved March 24 a bill that would ban smoking in all bars, restaurants and most all public places in the state.

The committee decided police officers should issue citations to smokers who refuse to put out their butts, altering an initial provision that said only a local health department official could cite smokers who ignore a request to put out a cigarette. The infraction includes a fine of up to $50.

The bill could see a House vote very quickly, as early as this week, and move on for Senate consideration. It is considered likely to be made law, even though a similar bill failed two years ago.