North Carolina Rabbit Hole

In this special holiday episode, host Jeremy Markovich meets the man from Gastonia who became the world's largest manufacturer of Christmas ornaments and used his power to make North Carolina more tolerant of all religions. This episode was originally released in 2018 and was adapted from: "The Unlikely Ornament King of Gastonia" which appeared in Our State magazine's December 2016 issue. Additional music: Blue Dot Sessions

North Wilkesboro Speedway is hosting the NASCAR All-Star Race, a quarter century after its last major event. Why did it sit empty for so long? And how did it finally reopen? In this episode, host Jeremy Markovich takes a look back as a historic place now looks toward a new future. More Reading: "Ghosts of North Wilkesboro" (2015) - SB Nation "The Inside Story of How a Dead NASCAR Track Finally Reopened After 26 Years" (2022) - North Carolina Rabbit Hole "A Night When Anything Was Possible" (2022) - North Carolina Rabbit Hole Music via Blue Dot Sessions under a Creative Commons license.

Shortly after I moved to Charlotte in 2005, I became a Carolina Panthers fan because it was much better than being a fan of the Cleveland Browns. A few years later, I became the producer of the Panthers postgame show on a local television station. A few years after that, the production moved from the station to the stadium. It was there that I first heard a piece of information that I hadn't actually considered before: The screaming panther sound—the noise that you'd hear during home games whenever the Panthers did something good like get a first down or make a third down stop—was not actually the sound that a real panther makes. You can read more here: https://www.ncrabbithole.com/p/panthers-arent-real Closing song: "Riverboat Ron" by Crab Claw

After 2 1/2 years, host Jeremy Markovich is breaking his silence to explain, well, where he's been all this time, why you haven't heard any new episodes since then, and what happens now. Read more here about the immediate plans for Away Message and its new home at the North Carolina Rabbit Hole.

In the season finale, our hikers reach the Outer Banks of North Carolina and end of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Now, more than a year later, we see where they've ended up and how the trip has affected their lives.

As our Mountains-to-Sea Trail thru-hikers approach the end, one final challenge remains: A kayak trip down two of North Carolina's most well-known waterways. All will have to grapple with problems that could potentially stop them from reaching their final destination.

In this bonus episode, host Jeremy Markovich talks with long-time hiking guide Jennifer Pharr Davis about how anyone can prepare for and pull off a trip on a trail, from day-trippers to thru-hikers on North Carolina's Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Read Davis's story about hiking the Appalachian Trail from the October 2015 issue of Our State magazine. Read more about her 2017 hike of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. Learn more about Davis and her company, Blue Ridge Hiking Company.

In this episode, we travel to Roseboro, a small eastern North Carolina town that sits on the route of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail but doesn't actually have any good places to hike. Yet. We also meet the trail angels that hikers depend on to get to the end, and talk to a woman who's attempting to finish the MST in just 30 days. Find out more about Tara Dower's attempt to beat the fastest known time on the MST here.

As Erin Brennan and Aaron and Lexi Harris pass the halfway point on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the path undergoes a dramatic shift from footpath to roadside. In this episode, we take a closer look at the parts of the MST that only attract the most intrepid hikers, and discover what it takes to bike and hike your way through a world built for cars.

When it comes to trail towns along the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, Elkin stands out. So how did a quiet place in the North Carolina foothills go trail crazy? We find out, thanks to the men who are building footpaths as fast as they can.

In 1955, a dentist and five of his friends played a round of golf. They were black. The course was white-only. What happened next changed the course of one man's life, and in turn, helped integrate an entire town. This originally premiered in July 2018 under the title "The Round of Golf That Changed a City." To read a written version of this story, visit ourstate.com/simkins. There you can find the complete 2000 interview with George Simkins, along with a transcript.

What's it like to be with the one you love 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? In this episode, host Jeremy Markovich meets Aaron and Lexi Harris, a pair of newlyweds who experienced the highs and lows of hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail across western North Carolina.

On the first day of her trip across North Carolina on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, veteran Erin Brennan is making sense of new gear, new routines, and a new beginning with the help of Warrior Expeditions, a group that treats hiking like therapy.

The new season of our award-winning podcast begins with some fairly basic questions. What is the Mountains-to-Sea Trail? How was it created? Who were the first people to hike the whole thing? And who would hike all 1,175 miles of it today? In this premiere episode, host Jeremy Markovich talks to the man who (accidentally) created it, as well as a llama wrangler who ended up doing something no one else had done before. We also meet several hikers, who are about to set out on their own journeys across the entire state of North Carolina: by foot, by bike, and by kayak.

In the latest season of Our State's podcast, we take a trip down North Carolina's Mountains-to-Sea Trail. All 1,175 miles of it.

A replay of Season 1, Episode 3, entitled "As High As You Can Get." It's the story of a man who climbs to the top of 2,000-foot-tall television broadcast towers to change the light bulbs, and how he remains calm in an environment that most of us would consider to be frightening.

Jeff Postell was a 21-year-old police officer when he made an arrest in the middle of the night in a small North Carolina town. That arrest ended a five year manhunt for the Olympic Park Bomber, Eric Rudolph, and changed Postell's life in an instant. In this season finale, we track him down to find out what happened to the soft-spoken North Carolinian who brought in a notorious fugitive. Jeremy Markovich: producer, mixer, host James Mieczkowski: producer Elizabeth Hudson: editor-in-chief Music in this episode: "Bright Direction (You're A Dark Star Now)" by Hiss Golden Messenger Special Thanks to Matthew Yates, Katie Killen, Bill Evans and the Boston College Police Department, and Charles Winokoor of the Taunton Daily Gazette. Some archival audio courtesy of WLOS-TV. Sign up for our newsletter at ourstate.com/podcast.

What do outsiders see when they look at North Carolina? In this bonus episode, host Jeremy Markovich turns to The Andy Griffith Show for answers, and talks to a woman who worked on the series, then moved to the real-life town that the fictional Mayberry was based on.

Davis Island wasn't always an island. In the early 1900s, a hurricane cut a path through a peninsula that stuck out into Core Sound, separating a stately home from the mainland. Years later, a man achieved his childhood dream of living in that home. What he found was peace and beauty, and a love story that came to him, in an isolated place, with an unexpected knock on his door. We traveled to the North Carolina coast to tell the story of a remote island, a chance meeting, and a man who's trying to save a special place from an uncertain future. Watch a 7-minute documentary on Davis Island from Our State Short Films. Sign up for our upcoming Away Message newsletter. James Mieczkowski: reporter, producer Jeremy Markovich: producer, mixer, host Elizabeth Hudson: editor-in-chief Music in this episode: "Breathe Till I'm Full" by The Collection Special thanks to the Humber family.

A New Yorker named Stephen Barcelo moved to a small town in northeastern North Carolina. Then he started seeing ghosts. Then bigfoot showed up. In this episode, we visit Littleton, go on a search for a hard-to-find creature, and find out what it really means to believe. Sign up for our newsletter at ourstate.com/podcast.