🗞️ A Kernersville brewery came home with two golds

🗞️ You can watch the county test its voting machines Wednesday

🗞️ Forsyth County is looking for people to sit on its boards

🗞️ Where to cool off before the pool closes for the year

☀️ Sunny | High: 97°F | Low: 74°F

Wednesday is the hot one. Sunny, a high near 97, a northwest wind around 3 miles an hour, and a heat index the National Weather Service puts as high as 100. Overnight goes clear with a low around 74. Thursday repeats it almost exactly, sunny and 97 again, and Friday holds at 97 before a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms arrives after 2 in the afternoon. There is no real break in this stretch, so early morning remains the only comfortable window for anything strenuous outdoors, and it is worth checking on neighbors who do not have reliable air conditioning. Further down we have put together a short list of places in town where you can get out of it.

The judging happened in Cary and Asheville, but the beer came off North Main Street.

Little Brother Brewing, at 221 N. Main St., won two gold medals in the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild's 2026 NC Brewers Cup. The golds went to Small Fires, in the North American-Style Lager category, and to User Friendly, in Other American Pale Lagers and Ales.

The taproom did not stop there. Civil Rest took a silver in European Wheat and Related Beer, and Pleasing Tony Italian Pilsner earned an honorable mention in Historic Beer and Smoke Beer. That is four beers recognized out of one Kernersville brewhouse.

It helps to know what the field looked like. Now in its 15th year, the competition drew 898 entries from 119 of North Carolina's independent craft breweries, which makes it the Southeast's largest commercial beer competition. Medals were awarded across 40 style-based categories.

The logistics are their own small story. Entries were received and organized into competition flights at Pro Refrigeration in Mocksville, then transported to the judging sites, Atticus in Cary and White Labs in Asheville, over the weekend of Aug. 22 and 23. Certified judges from across the Southeast scored the beers against the 2026 GABF Beer Style Guidelines.

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It is open to the public, and it starts this morning.

The Forsyth County Board of Elections begins pre-election testing of all voting machines at 10 a.m. Wednesday, ahead of the Nov. 3 general election. The process is called logic and accuracy testing, and it is the step where the county confirms that each machine counts what voters actually mark on a ballot.

It is open for public observation. Space is limited, though, so the county asks that anyone who wants to come schedule it ahead of time by calling Matt Doyle at 336-703-2803.

This is one of the few parts of running an election that any resident can simply sit and watch, and it usually happens in front of an empty room. If you have ever wanted to see the machinery of a ballot count up close rather than read about it, this is the open door.

There is a second date worth writing down. On the county's 2026 elections meeting schedule, the first absentee ballot meeting is set for 3 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, in the Cooper-Cardwell Board Meeting Room on the second floor of the Forsyth County Government Center, 201 N. Chestnut St.

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The applications are due Monday, and the work is more concrete than the phrase "volunteer committee" suggests.

Forsyth County is recruiting residents to serve on its volunteer boards and committees. Applications must be received by 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 7, to be considered at the Board of Commissioners meeting on Sept. 17. Residents apply through the county's volunteer board application page online.

One of the openings the county named specifically is the Adult Care Home Community Advisory Committee. Its members visit long-term care facilities around the county to help promote and protect the rights of the people living in them. That is a volunteer seat with a real function attached, and it puts ordinary residents inside places most of us never see.

We are passing this along because seats like these tend to get filled by whoever happened to hear about them. The hearing-about-it part is something a local newsletter can actually help with.

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Three straight days near 97 make this a useful thing to have on hand.

Start with the one that has a deadline on it. The Kernersville Community Pool and Water Park at 1113 W. Mountain St. has already shifted to its school-year schedule, which means weekends only: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5:30 p.m. That posted schedule runs through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 7, when the pool keeps holiday hours of 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. No dates are listed after that, so this weekend and Monday look like the last three days of outdoor pool for the year. The pool operates in partnership with the YMCA, and guest day passes are listed at $20 for an individual and $40 for a household. Call 336-996-2231 before you load the car, because the outdoor pool page and the guest pass page describe visitor access a little differently.

For the middle of the week, the indoor Community Pool at the Kernersville Family YMCA, same address, is open Monday through Thursday from 5 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and the smaller Program Pool opens an hour later at 6. The day rate is that same $20 and $40, so this is air conditioning you pay for.

Free and indoors is the Paddison Memorial Branch Library at 248 Harmon Lane, open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday until 6 and Saturday from 10 to 5. It closes Labor Day along with every other Forsyth County branch.

The Kernersville Recreation and Event Center at 1020 Shields Road keeps its indoor walking track open Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 8:45 p.m., with open gym for basketball and pickleball from 9 to noon and again from 1:30 to 4:30. Those are new September hours, so an older schedule on your refrigerator is out of date. You will need an ActiveNet account and a check-in at the front desk each visit. The center is closed Labor Day, and we could not find a posted fee anywhere on the town's pages, so call 336-996-3062 rather than take our word for it.

If shade is enough, the outdoor displays at Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden, 215 S. Main St., are open daily from dawn to dusk. There is no admission, though the garden suggests a $4 donation per adult. Century Lake Park at 309 Century Blvd. is also open dawn to dusk and has restrooms, picnic tables, grills and a fishing pier.

One gap we could not close: we found no free, town-run splash pad in Kernersville. The only sprayground we could confirm sits inside the paid water park. If we have missed one, reply to this email and tell us, and we will put it in front of everybody.

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