J. Kirk Ring, owner of RingO’s Donuts in Smithfield, was recently named 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year. “I am honored and humbled that RingO’s Donuts has been selected to receive Isle of Wight County’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. The support that RingO’s Donuts has received during our first year has been tremendous, and we look forward to continuing to grow and build upon our relationship with the community in the years to come,” said Ring.
RingO’s opened in March of 2009 at 1200 S. Church Street. Ring, a former banker, is now a baker rising at 3 a.m. to make the donuts. Just two months after opening, RingO’s was selling more donuts per day than projected and running out. Ring keeps it simple by focusing on making and selling fresh, handmade yeast and cake doughnuts and offering Daily Donut Specials, yummy honey buns and cinnamon twists. Ring has added a few tables and chairs at the request of customers and a large picture window so that children can see how the donuts are made.
By Charlie Passut | Tidewater News
Published Friday, May 28, 2010
COURTLAND—Another option for high-speed Internet access will be coming to Southampton and Isle of Wight counties and the City of Franklin within the next year-and-a-half, thanks to funding through two grants.
“We look forward to providing this service and to being the premiere provider of broadband and voice communication in Southampton County,” Mickey Sims, general manager for the Buggs Island Telephone Cooperative, said to the Southampton County Board of Supervisors on Monday.
In April, BIT, which is based in Bracey, Va., was awarded two grants for expanding and improving existing broadband and voice communications networks.
We were cheered by last week’s news that 25 percent of the workers displaced by the closure of International Paper Co.’s Franklin mill already have landed on their feet — even before the final wave of workers leaves the IP campus on June 30.
Randy Betz, vice president of workforce development for Paul D. Camp Community College, has been tracking the employment of mill workers since IP’s announcement last fall that the mill would close this spring. As of Friday, 275 mill employees had either started other jobs or accepted job offers.
Forestry is big business in Virginia and produces more than $23 billion of goods and services annually in the Commonwealth. There are nearly 700 wood products manufacturing facilities in Virginia. Additionally, byproducts from these manufacturing operations are burned to produce electricity that saves more than 2 million barrels of oil annually.
The IP (International Paper) Economic Recovery Task Force Forestry Committee has worked to provide information to interested companies that may want to locate on the mill site or other potential sites in our area. Our region has come to the attention of domestic and international companies hoping to capitalize on our location, our natural resource and our valuable and experienced workforce.
Generally speaking, when people in the forest industry talk about their wood basket, they are referring to an area where wood is available that may be used by a particular manufacturer such as a paper mill, sawmill, pellet mill, particleboard mill, chip mill or any other wood-using facility.
If we look at our wood basket within a 100-mile haul distance from Franklin, there are 58 counties and cities in Virginia and North Carolina that provide timber to the overall market.
