RIAA meets; Huber's contract not renewed

"We had a great week. It was phenomenal," said Bryan Edwards, chairman of the board of the Blue Ridge Business Development Center (BRBDC, also known as the Blue Ridge Telecenter).

Edwards was referring to the visit last week by the board of directors and staff of the N.C. Rural Internet Access Authority. The RIAA — whose initiatives include establishing information technology centers, or telecenters, as well as "e-NC," an effort to connect all North Carolinians to the Internet — conducted its quarterly site visit of BRBDC July 24, then held its monthly board meeting the next day in the Sparta United Methodist Church fellowship hall.

During that board meeting, the RIAA approved second-year funding for telecenters, along with more than $1.4 million in grants for public-access sites and digital literacy training.

Locally, that means the BRBDC will be eligible for up to $390,000 of additional RIAA funding later this year. The telecenter was established with an RIAA grant of $650,000 toward its projected first-year budget of $2,141,000.

Alleghany County was included in the list of grantees of the $768,000 awarded for public access sites and $705,718 for digital literacy training last week. New River Community Partners (NRCP) — which was the official applicant for the Blue Ridge Telecenter — was awarded $40,000 for digital literacy training in Alleghany and Ashe counties.

NRCP was also awarded a $12,000 public access site grant for Alleghany County. That award, like almost half of the public access site grants announced last week, is contingent on the RIAA receiving some additional information from the applicant.

"Whatever information we need to provide for them, we will do it," said Edwards. "We're not going to let the grant money pass us by." He said RIAA officials praised local leadership and progress.

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