July 19, 2001

Richmond Retreat envisioned as quiet place
for team and character building

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

About five miles south of raucous Rockingham racetrack in Richmond County lies a quiet place that seems much further from the roar of racing motors and the shouts of NASCAR fans urging racers to go ever faster in pursuit of victory at North Carolina Motor Speedway.

Dr. Al Haltiwanger, right, and fellow retreat board member Susan Parsons chat in front of the planned site of the Richmond retreat, the former L.A. Corning hunting lodge property between Rockingham and Hamlet.

Turn off N.C. 177 onto E.V. Hogan Road, go the end of the pavement, ease down a dirt pathway called Pine Lodge Road - appropriately among rows of tall pines - then turn onto Pine Needle Lane and suddenly you're in an entirely different world, a quiet place. Nestled on about 20 acres of forestland is a 2-story lodge and a smaller log home, both overlooking a 5-acre lake inhabited by a pair of mooching mallards.

This place has served as a quiet retreat away from city life for the L.A. Corning family, founder of the Buttercup ice cream company in Hamlet, NC.

But Dr. Al Haltiwanger, a retired Rockingham dentist, has other plans for this quiet place than a hunting and fishing retreat for the well-to-do. Haltiwanger has quietly gathered together a group of like minds from local fields of finance, health, business and education to form a working group of a dozen people to bring this vision to reality.

His vision is simple: a retreat for private, public and business groups to teach youth leadership, team and character-building skills. And Haltiwanger knows it can be done because he's already done it once when he headed up a similar project. Haltiwanger founded the Beth Haltiwanger Conference and Retreat Center on Lake Tillery in Montgomery County in memory of his daughter Beth, a nurse who died tragically.

Haltiwanger conceived that dream in 1984 and guided the work to the center's opening in 1990. It continues to operate under Pfeiffer University, and many of the people Haltiwanger has recruited to serve on the Richmond panel have visited the Montgomery center and participated in its programs and some are already trained program facilitators.

The great room downstairs is dominated by a huge fireplace made from native stone.

During a recent visit to the planned retreat site, Haltiwanger and another of his working group members, Susan Parsons, discussed the plans. Parsons is administrative operations manager for Seaboard Containers and is one of the group's trained facilitators who worked with groups at the Beth center.

"We're head and shoulders above where we were then," Haltiwanger refers to the Beth center's start. "We can cut to the chase. It's not a matter of floundering around because of the people here who have been to the Beth center. We hope it'll be easier to do this one than the last one."

Parsons adds, "Dr. Al has already done a lot of the preparatory work. We all have the same vision and the same goal."

Other members of the working group, in addition to Dr. Al Haltiwanger and Susan Parsons, are:

• Dr. Bill Haltiwanger, Al's brother, a Rockingham orthodontist, who is waterfront director for several area Boy Scout camps and one of the few local graduates of the National Aquatics School.
• John Langley, retired principal of Richmond Junior High School, who led groups of students and faculty from his school to the Beth center.
• Wiley Mabe, a banking officer with BB&T of Rockingham and former president of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce.
• Fran Erby, director of the nursing program at Richmond Community College in Hamlet, who also led groups of nursing students in programs at the Beth center.
• Karen Jenkins, current faculty member at Richmond Junior High School.
• Jean Way, retired educator at Richmond Junior High School, now owner of Frye Family Printing Co. in Rockingham.
• Ed Ormsby, retired principal of Richmond County Schools.
• Dr. John Stevenson, radiologist at Richmond FirstHealth Hospital in Rockingham.
• Frances Reaves, retired principal of Montgomery County Schools.
• Chris McEntire, operations manager for Elf Lubricants of Rockingham.

The second floor of the lodge has four bedrooms and two baths, and overlooks the great room below.

"It's a real diverse board," Haltiwanger notes. "I've learned the more diversity you have the stronger it is."

The group first met a month ago and has a commitment to purchase the property from its owner, Claude Smith, a Rockingham land developer. The next step is to apply for a charter as a nonprofit group, create the organization's bylaws - which will be patterned on the Beth center's bylaws - and then apply for state and federal tax-exempt status.

The target date for opening is spring 2002, and Haltiwanger predicts, "We can do that if everything falls into place." The group will begin soliciting donations and grants as soon as the charter is granted.

Unlike the Beth center, which was built on a bare hill overlooking Lake Tillery, the Richmond retreat - which is yet unnamed - is much further along with existing facilities.

The 2-story lodge has four bedrooms and two baths upstairs, a great room and near-commercial kitchen downstairs and a full-width screen porch on the ground floor facing the lake. Sleeping four to a room - and perhaps using the screen porch also - the lodge could accommodate groups of up to 20 for overnight stays. And with six canoes on hand and a pier on the lake, a variety of water activities for youth groups can also be offered easily.

A single-story log home is also on the property and will be utilized, and a full-time director for the programs at the facility has already committed to the job, Haltiwanger said.

Building plans include a climbing and rappelling Ropes Course and a 50-foot Alpine Tower, which are key to the programs for leadership, team and character-building skills.

Susan Parsons, who participated in and later worked as a facilitator for the Ropes Course at the Beth center, said the climbing and rappelling course is also good for spiritual development. "It's almost a religious experience. I found myself saying 'Oh, my God!' several times on the Ropes Course. You have to go through it yourself to understand it.

"It's like, how do you tell somebody about God who's an unbeliever? It really did change my life," she said of the Ropes Course.