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Other 

 Whoppers 



By Ann Green 



LEFT: Rodney Kemp is preserving 

 Carteret County's fine art of fish 

 house lying. 



TOP: From left, James Allen Rose, Kitty West, Newport Mayor Derryl Garner, David Yeomans, 

 Rodney Kemp and Capt. Jim Willis entertain the audience at the 2003 Storytelling Festival in 

 Morehead City. BOTTOM: Bland Simpson, director of the Creative Writing Program at the 

 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shares some of his unique coastal stories. 



mile standing in front of a fish house scene complete with rocking chairs, Rodney Kemp 

 spins a whopper about a bolt of lightning turning North Carolina's only menhaden plant into a 

 towering inferno. 



The Beaufort Fisheries management called in fire trucks from all over Eastern North Carolina 

 and as far away as Raleigh, says Kemp. 



"Those fire trucks couldn't get within 100 feet of the fire because of intense heat and watched 

 it burn," relates Kemp to an audience at the 2003 Down East Storytelling Festival in Morehead City. 

 "So finally the management of Beaufort Fisheries waved a check for $10,000 as a reward to the 

 firefighting company that is successful in putting out the blaze." 



But not a single fire truck budged, he says. 



c c J Continued 



COASTWATCH 



