Seven Wonders of Lenoir County begins Monday

You voted for it — and beginning Monday, you’ll get to see what you voted as the Seven Wonders of Lenoir County.

The voting was held last month at Kinston.com and nearly 1,000 votes were cast. In Monday’s edition of The Free Press, the seventh wonder will be unveiled, followed by No. 6 on Tuesday, No. 5 on Wednesday and so forth.

Free Press Publisher and Editor Patrick Holmes came up with the idea to localize the Seven Wonders after a worldwide committee recently reworked the original Seven Wonders of the World. Free Press columnist and staff writer Jon Dawson promoted the idea in his popular column and blog.

“Thanks to the people who took the time out of their day to have fun with us as we selected the Seven Wonders of Lenoir County,” Holmes said.

Dawson added, “It was a lot of fun seeing what the people of Lenoir County were most proud to call a local wonder.”

There are seven distinctive local wonders — as voted by the residents of Kinston and Lenoir County — but there were 23 others nominated that didn’t make the final list. Just missing the final seven were La Grange’s Sandpiper Restaurant, the original CSS Neuse and tobacco.

Other top vote-getters that didn’t make the final cut included the Kinston/Lenoir County Visitor’s Center, Christopher’s Restaurant in downtown Kinston, Hollywood actress and acclaimed author Jaime Pressly, along with Kinston Indians’ legend Evelyn “Mama” Kornegay.

The annual Bucklesberry Barbecue, Grainger water tank, Wynn Odom Ford flag and the Cummings Plastic Surgery billboards were also in the final running.

Among other potential wonders that were nominated and received votes were Grainger High School, TACC-9, DuPont, the Caswell burial site, the Grainger Hill Performing Arts Center, the “Magic Mile,” Barnet Park, Ram Neuse Park, Shady’s, Bill Fay Park and Reece Gardner.

Bryan C. Hanks can be reached at 252-559-1074 or at bhanks@freedomenc.com. Check out Bryan’s blog at bhanks.encblogs.com.

The Free Press is unveiling the Seven Wonders of Lenoir County, as nominated and voted on by visitors to Kinston.com. Pick up a copy of Monday’s Free Press to see what was voted No. 7.

Monday — No. 7

Tuesday — No. 6

Wednesday — No. 5

Thursday — No. 4

Friday — No. 3

Saturday — No. 2

Sunday — No. 1