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Brooks – breadwinner, blogger, book author

March 22, 2016

  In 2008, life was good for Charina Illescas Brooks. Born and raised in the Philippines, she had married Daniel Brooks, a North Carolinian, in 2001. She struggled through two years of paperwork, but she and their 1-year-old daughter, Nikki, … Read more

Battaglini helps cancer patients heal – and hope

March 7, 2016

  Technically, he was trespassing, but Claudio Battaglini didn’t care. It was a Saturday morning, the door was unlocked, and he had come on a mission to peek inside this glimmering new building on the campus of the University of … Read more

Massey winner’s biggest prize: being a mom

December 11, 2015

Faydene Alston grew up in Pittsboro with four brothers and sisters and looked forward to starting a big happy family of her own when she got married at the age of 31. “I was determined to be a mom,” Alston … Read more