Reading teacher wins state teaching award

RALEIGH -- Cindi Rigsbee has a message for her students posted in her classroom: "I believe in you."

"And they know I do," she wrote in a national teachers' magazine. Rigsbee was named the state's next teacher of the year Tuesday night at Raleigh's Brier Creek Country Club.

Rigsbee joined Gravelly Hill Middle School in the Orange County Schools district when it opened in 2006. She teaches reading to sixth- and seventh-graders.

In her more than 20 years of teaching, she has taught middle school language arts, reading, dance and drama at schools in Durham, Guilford, Vance and Wake counties. In February, she published an article, "Positively Teaching," in Teacher Magazine.

"The difference between the way I dealt with the struggle as an inexperienced teacher and the way I dealt with it yesterday is considerable. To me, it's all about relationships," Rigsbee wrote.

"Now, in the middle of all the stress of high-stakes testing and all the instructional demands placed upon us, I can feel my blood pressure lowering when I see my students coming down the hall to me. Those goofy middle school kids are my family during the day, and they know we're in it together. Our class motto is 'Whatever It Takes.' We'll do whatever it takes to be successful, together, like a family."

Rigsbee will spend the next school year advising the state Board of Education and traveling the state as an ambassador for the teaching profession.

-- Cheryl Johnston Sadgrove, 932-2005; cheryl.sadgrove@nando.com

Suspect thought his probation was over

RALEIGH -- Before Demario Atwater had his probation revoked Thursday, his attorney made the same claim Atwater himself made to a judge nearly nine months before his arrest in the March shooting death of Eve Carson, the UNC student body president.

Wake County probation officers failed to contact Atwater for nearly a year, causing the defendant to think he was no longer on probation, his attorney, Rudy Renfer, said.

In June, Atwater had noted his lack of supervision when he pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon as part of a plea deal. According to a hearing transcript Atwater said he didn't think he was on probation anymore. A timeline established by probation officials after Carson's death shows Wake probation officers first assigned to his case in February 2005 left for other jobs, passing his file to other officers. As a result, more than a year passed without them even calling Atwater.

Atwater's co-defendant in Carson's slaying, Laurence A. Lovette, 17, of Durham, was also placed on probation in January in Durham. But Lovette never met with his probation officer, who had not received training and faced a pending charge of driving while impaired of her own.

-- Sarah Ovaska, 829-4622; sarah.ovaska@nando.com

Charges follow sit-in at chancellor's office

CHAPEL HILL -- Campus police arrested five student protesters Friday morning and charged them with disorderly conduct after they moved into the UNC chancellor's office.

The students entered the office after a committee rejected their call for UNC to join a program they said would improve wages and conditions for workers who make clothing with the university logo.

The students began protesting at South Building about three weeks ago but had been told not to occupy the office of Chancellor James Moeser.

Linda Gomaa, a junior, was handcuffed and placed in the front passenger seat of a campus patrol car. Four other students were also handcuffed and escorted out of the building into a white police van.

One student, Sarah Hirsch, refused to walk out of Moeser's office and was lifted by her elbows into the lobby.

Salma Mirza, a senior history major, refused to get up from a chair and was wheeled out of the building. At the steps, she stood and walked to the van.

Earlier Friday, UNC's Labor Licensing Code Advisory Committee voted 7 to 5, with two abstentions, not to join the Designated Suppliers Program.

-- From staff reports