Out Around The Wilder

10/20/2026

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR KENT COUNTY VOTERS
Central Delaware NAACP Branch To Gather Candidates In Dover.

Good Morning, Neighbors.

Tomorrow evening, right in the heart of the Delaware capital, Kent County candidates will stand together in one room and answer to the people they hope to serve. You're invited to be one of those people.

The Central Delaware NAACP Branch #2028 and Restoring Central Dover are hosting Voter Vibes: Meet the Candidates, and the registration form gives you a space to send in a question ahead of time.

If you'd like a place to start, The Delaware Project has drafted 12 suggested questions for this year's Kent County races, on everything from electric bills and winter shelter to how candidates weigh evidence. You'll find them in our Kent County voter guide, linked at the end of this post. Borrow one, sharpen it, or write your own.

📅 Wednesday, Oct. 21
🕠 Doors open 5:30 p.m. · Program begins promptly at 6
📍 Dover Public Library, 35 Loockerman Plaza
📝 Register and send your question: https://bit.ly/votervibes26
(Or scan the QR code on the flyer in this post.)
✉️ Questions for organizers: [email protected]

On the invitation list (✅ = confirmed so far, per organizers):
- U.S. House: Sarah McBride (D) · Joseph Armino (R) ✅
- State Senate 14: Kyra L. Hoffner (D) ✅ · Mark Pugh (R)
- State Senate 15: Nisha Lodhavia (D) ✅ · Emily A. Thompson (R)
- State House 31: Sean M. Lynn (D) · Anton Brogden (R) ✅
- State House 33: Joshua Pennington (D) · Morgan Hudson (R)
- State House 34: Annie Norman (D) ✅ · Lyndon D. Yearick (R)
- Recorder of Deeds: Ramona Bracy (D) ✅ · Eugenia Thornton (R) ✅
- Levy Court At-Large: Terry L. Pepper (D) · Frank E. Coleman (R)

Worth knowing: three of those races (U.S. House, Recorder of Deeds, and Levy Court At-Large) appear on every Kent County ballot. Whether you live in Smyrna, Harrington, or anywhere between, part of what's decided in that room is yours.

Think About The Best Households You've Known:

Everyone at the table gets heard. The people carrying the most responsibility listen hardest, explain their choices honestly, and keep an eye on whoever has the least to fall back on: the grandparent on a fixed income, the kid having a hard year, the cousin between jobs. A county works best the same way. A forum is where we remind those seeking power that they answer to all of us, and where we see for ourselves how they listen. So ask plainly. Ask hard if the moment calls for it. Anyone who wants to serve us should welcome that.

The timing couldn't be better. Early voting opens Thursday at 7 a.m. and runs through Sunday, Nov. 1, with no early voting on Sunday, Oct. 25. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Hear them out Wednesday; vote as early as Thursday.

Before you go, give yourself a head start.

Plenty of us could name the candidates for Congress. Fewer of us could say what the Recorder of Deeds or the Levy Court decides, yet those offices keep our land records, set our county budget, and shape what gets built down the road. Don't let the ballot be the first place you meet those names.

The Delaware Project's Choose With Confidence: Meet the Kent County Candidates is a free, plain-language guide to the contested races on Kent County ballots this fall. It explains what each office does, introduces the candidates with links to their own websites and pages, points to other places to hear them speak, and now includes those 12 suggested questions, each paired with the offices that can act on it. We put it together as neighbors, for neighbors, so you don't have to start from scratch.

And we revised it to give Voter Vibes: Meet The Candidates the attention such an event deserves just this this morning.

Here's a plan that fits in a coffee break:
1️⃣ Tonight, open the guide and find the races on your ballot.
2️⃣ Pick one question and send it with your forum registration.
3️⃣ Share the guide with one person who votes where you do.

That last step counts for more than it looks. People act more readily on something a friend passes along than on something a feed puts in front of them.

📖 Read Choose With Confidence: Kent County
https://thedelawareproject.substack.com/p/choose-with-confidence-meet-the-kent

See you at the library. Walk in prepared, and help a neighbor do the same.

See Clearly. Do the Work. Build Together.


-- Gregory S. Layton, Out Around The Wilder, The Delaware Project

10/18/2026

EARLY VOTING BEGINS ON THURSDAY
Use Out Around The Wilder and The Delaware Project Choose With Confidence Guide On Substack To Prepare

GOOD MORNING, KENT COUNTY.

The time has come to choose our county's leaders for the next two years, and longer in a few cases. Are you ready?

We've gathered resources to help. You can find them on Substack, at no cost, through the QR code and link below. Set aside some time before early voting begins on Thursday, Oct. 22, to look them over, with special attention to the races that will be on your ballot.

They are designed to help you make fair and informed decisions.

INSIDE:
* Snapshots of the nominees in eight contested races for the General Assembly, Levy Court, and Recorder of Deeds, with what each says matters most and links to their campaigns.

* What they say about power bills, farmland, and schools.

* What each office decides, from zoning and 911 to the state budget that funds farmland preservation and homeless services.

* A plain-language look at SB 23, the new housing law, and how Kent’s lawmakers voted on it.

* Early voting sites and hours, Election Day hours, and absentee deadlines.

You don’t need to read it all. Find your districts with the tool linked in the guide, and then read the races on your own ballot.

So, let's make a plan: Which evening will you read up, and when will you vote? Early voting opens Thursday, Oct. 22, at four Kent sites, and polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Tell us your plan in the comments.

Next, think of one neighbor who’s still deciding, and send this their way. Good choices grow from good conversations.

Out Around The Wilder and The Delaware Project don’t endorse candidates. We help you see them clearly. If this guide helps you, subscribe to The Delaware Project on Substack. A free subscription brings each new guide to your inbox, and paid subscriptions help keep them free for everyone.

Thank you for caring about this place and the people in it.

Out Around The Wilder is an outpost of The Delaware Project.

-- Gregory S. Layton, Out Around The Wilder, The Delaware Project

See Clearly. Do the Work. Build Together.


You can read Choose with Confidence by scanning the QR code or following this link: https://thedelawareproject.substack.com/p/choose-with-confidence-meet-the-kent

10/18/2026

DELAWARE POETS TO READ AT AG MUSEUM
Artists From Mountain Roots Heading To Dover Gathering

Good Morning, Neighbors.

Some afternoons ask only that we show up and listen. Today, Sunday, October 18, is one of them. From 2 to 4 p.m., the Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village in Dover will be one good place to do it.

Four writers who've made Delaware home will share poems, photographs, and memories carried here from the Ozarks, the Appalachians, and the Adirondacks. Listening together, neighbors and strangers side by side, is one of the oldest ways people make meaning.

Some of what you hear will be tender. Some will ache. Beauty often holds both, and you're invited to meet each with open hands. No poetry experience needed, only curiosity.

Here's Who Will Be There:

Linda Blaskey · Ozarks-raised in Arkansas and Kansas before settling in Delaware, Linda writes of farm life, horses, long marriage, and the shadow that can follow love, in spare, unsentimental lines. A 2022 Delaware Division of the Arts Masters Fellow, Linda is the author of "Farm and White Horses," co-author of "Walking the Sunken Boards" and, with Jim Bourey, "Season of Harvest," editor of Quartet, and former poetry editor of The Broadkill Review.

Joyce Enzor Maust · Appalachians-born, Joyce is a Mennonite pastor's daughter raised on a Pennsylvania dairy farm, who holds degrees in English and physics and writes of land, inheritance, faith, and endurance. She carries stories long left unspoken into the light. Joyce has served as the Delaware House of Representatives Poet Laureate and a 2024 Emerging Artist Fellow in poetry.

Jim Bourey · Adirondacks-born, in Malone, New York, Jim is the author of The Distance Between Us and Out There and Back Again, and co-author, with Linda, of Season of Harvest; his chapbook Silence, Interrupted was named Best Book of Verse by the Delaware Press Association in 2015. Though he cannot join us in person, his poems will arrive in a friend's voice.

Jack Mackey · Reading Jim's work, and his own "Born in Brooklyn" and raised in a large Irish-Catholic family on Long Island, Jack writes elegiac, clear-eyed poems of childhood, fatherhood, and coming out later in life. A 2021 Emerging Fellow, he wrote "Up, Out & Over," his debut, which won first place from the Delaware Press Association in 2025.

Reserve Your Place: Presented in partnership with Delaware Poets, Inc., the reading is free, open to the public, and just two hours, with free parking and door prizes. Eventbrite is already marking registration as ending soon, so take a minute now: reserve your spot, put Sunday at 2 p.m. on your calendar, and invite someone you'd like to sit beside.

Delaware Agricultural Museum and Village, 866 N. DuPont Highway, Dover, DE 19901. Reserve tickets at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-gathering-of-mountain-voices-poetry-on-the-front-porch-tickets-1998922802913

10/16/2026

CHOOSE WITH CONFIDENCE: KENT COUNTY EDITION:
Out Around The Wilder And The Delaware Project Present Resources For Local Voters.

GOOD EVENING, Kent County,

Out here around the Norman G. Wilder Wildlife Area, we look after each other. That's a Kent County thing, and this fall, looking after each other means taking a close look at the folks asking for our votes.

On Nov. 3, Kent County will choose the people who decide how our farms and towns grow, what it costs to keep the lights on, and how the county answers when we call for help.

Out Around The Wilder and The Delaware Project teamed up on a new guide to help us make fair and informed decisions about who handles those responsibilities in government.

Our newly released guide, Choose With Confidence, Part 2: Kent County, is free to read here:
https://thedelawareproject.substack.com/p/choose-with-confidence-meet-the-kent

INSIDE:
* Snapshots of the nominees in eight contested races for the General Assembly, Levy Court, and Recorder of Deeds, with what each says matters most and links to their campaigns.

* What they say about power bills, farmland, and schools.

* What each office decides, from zoning and 911 to the state budget that funds farmland preservation and homeless services.

* A plain-language look at SB 23, the new housing law, and how Kent’s lawmakers voted on it.

* Early voting sites and hours, Election Day hours, and absentee deadlines.

You don’t need to read it all. Find your districts with the tool linked in the guide, and then read the races on your own ballot.

So, let's make a plan: Which evening will you read up, and when will you vote? Early voting opens Thursday, Oct. 22, at four Kent sites, and polls are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Tell us your plan in the comments.

Next, think of one neighbor who’s still deciding, and send this their way. Good choices grow from good conversations.

Out Around The Wilder and The Delaware Project don’t endorse candidates. We help you see them clearly. If this guide helps you, subscribe to The Delaware Project on Substack. A free subscription brings each new guide to your inbox, and paid subscriptions help keep them free for everyone.

Thank you for caring about this place and the people in it.

Out Around The Wilder is an outpost of The Delaware Project.

-- Gregory S. Layton, Out Around The Wilder.

See Clearly. Do the Work. Build Together.

09/24/2026

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A DELAWAREAN:
Hey, Good Morning, Kent County.

Serious question.

What makes a place feel like home? Is it where you were born, where someone welcomed you, or where you chose to build a life?

TONIGHT, Thursday, Sept. 24, the Friends of Historic Camden invite us to consider a larger question: **What Does It Mean to Be a Delawarean?** Michele Anstine, executive director of Delaware Humanities, will draw on history, literature, and philosophy. She brings more than 20 years of museum and history experience. The program offers ways to think about identity rather than a single, final definition.

The place where we’ll meet adds a story of its own. Camden Friends Meeting House was built in 1805. John Hunn, buried in its adjoining grounds, helped people escaping slavery. In 1845, Samuel and Emeline Hawkins left Maryland with their children to seek freedom. Samuel D. Burris, a free Black man from Kent County, guided them through Camden toward Hunn’s farm near Middletown. Hunn later lost his farm and possessions through lawsuits for helping the family.

That history is context for our reflection; it is not an announced subject of Anstine’s talk. In this 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, it brings the document’s claim of equality alongside the lives of people denied freedom. Whose stories do we remember when we describe Delaware? What makes someone feel they belong here? What do we owe one another when we call this place home?

You needn’t arrive with a perfect answer. Bring a memory, a question, or simply the willingness to listen.

**Thursday, September 24, 2026 · 7–8 p.m.**
**Camden Friends Meeting House**
**122 E. Camden-Wyoming Ave., Camden, DE 19934**

Put the hour on your calendar. If you can, invite someone whose experience of Delaware differs from yours. Come curious.

09/12/2026

Arts In The Middle of Somewhere.
Good Evening, Kent County.

This Sunday, Sept. 13, a working farm on Turkey Point Road in Viola, right in our backyard, will be hosting ballet dancers.

That one sentence says a lot about how this corner of Kent County works: it takes whatever the land gives it, and turns that into something worth gathering for.

Viola, you see, didn't start out as a town at all.

In 1856, when the Delaware Railroad put a station stop at this crossroads of farm country, the place was just a name on a schedule: Canterbury Station. A handful of farmhouses stood nearby, nothing more. A village slowly grew up around that crossroads, and when it needed a real name, the community gave it a personal one — Viola, after the daughter of a local landowner. Not a saint or a president. A little girl whose family worked this ground. By 1913, Viola had incorporated itself, with a board of five commissioners serving two-year terms, and it has kept doing that quiet work of self-government ever since, updating its own charter as recently as 2011. The Delaware Public Archives still hold a photograph of that original depot — a small reminder of the whistle-stop, farm-commerce town this used to be. A town that began as a train stop for the farms around it is still standing because those farms, and the people who worked them, decided it was worth keeping.

Loblolly Acres has its own version of that story. Barbara Ann Warren started the farm in 1964 with a plan simple enough to say in one breath: plant Christmas trees, and give families a reason to be together. She planted the first ones herself. When Barbara Ann died suddenly in 2001, Loblolly Acres almost ended right there. Her daughter, Cheryl Epps, chose to carry it forward instead of letting it close, and under her care the farm grew into something bigger: Delaware's top school field-trip destination each fall and Christmas season, where thousands of kids have learned firsthand what a working farm looks, sounds, and smells like. Today the Warren-Epps family is four generations deep in this ground. The old Christmas tree field is now home to the Old Pine Bar. And Cheryl's daughter-in-law, Angela Zielen Epps, a professional ballet dancer, founded a nonprofit here in 2022, the Art Society at Loblolly Acres, to bring live arts programming to Kent County — ballet included, performed close enough to hear the chickens and the alpacas.

That nonprofit is exactly why Sunday matters. Ballet, Brews, BBQ & Blues turns three years old on September 13, from noon to 4 p.m. The First State Ballet Theatre will perform twice. The Paradise Alley King Snakes will play blues under the Great Oak Pavilion. Bellefonte Brewing Co. is pouring, Missing Piece BBQ is smoking, and local makers — bakers, tea blenders, ice cream churners — will have tables up around the grounds. Ten dollars gets anyone three and older through the gate, and every bit of that goes back into the Art Society. It is a strange and wonderful combination: fine art and farm animals, blues guitar and barbecue smoke, all in one Sunday afternoon in a town of a few hundred people. That strangeness is the point. It is what renewal looks like up close: people taking what they inherited and building something nobody asked for, because it makes the place better.

If Sunday doesn't work, the ground keeps giving. Starting October 4 and running every Sunday through October 25, Loblolly Acres opens its Pumpkin Patch Sundays: pumpkin picking, hayrides, two live bands each week, local artisans, a petting zoo, and food trucks, for ten dollars a visit or twenty for the whole season.

Viola never asked to be famous. It was built, one crossroads and one farmhouse at a time, by people who showed up for each other — and it's still standing because they keep showing up. Loblolly Acres is carrying that same habit forward, just with better music now. This Sunday, noon to four, Turkey Point Road is the place to be.

Come see for yourself.

IMAGE CREDITS: Delaware Public Archives, Loblolly Acres

09/09/2026

Samuel D. Burris High School: A Homecoming for Everyone
As you may have heard, the Caesar Rodney School District Board of Education recently voted to pursue a second high school for district students because Caesar Rodney High School can no longer accommodate the district's growing population.

Out Around The Wilder supports wise investments in local students' potential and finds no fault with the board's vision.

We'll support and promote the school, regardless of anything below, but Out Around The Wilder does have an idea.

For the name? How about Samuel D. Burris High School, home of the Conductors?

The name would represent one of western Kent County's most committed champions of freedom, as well as its deep history in the abolition movement and ties to the Underground Railroad.

For the colors? How about Wilder green and Winter wheat gold, colors taken directly from the surrounding Kent County landscape?

The symbol? An 1860s railroad lantern, of course, exactly the kind used along the Underground Railroad to signify safe harbor as well as lead the way forward to freedom.

What do you think? Would that represent our community well?

If you think so, check out Out Around The Wilder petition on the topic and the linked deep dive on the man himself, Samuel D. Burris, of Willow Grove.

As you'll hear if you read the piece all the way to the end, we're already excited about Homecoming 2031, which would likely be the first one the proposed high school could hold.

Imagine sitting in the stands on that grand evening, knowing you helped make it happen.

That kind of enthusiasm may be one reason we snuck a Halftime Show into our petition at https://bit.ly/ConductorsBand

Press Play and contemplate the lives rich with possibility that may someday walk the halls of Samuel D. Burris High School.

09/02/2026

Hello, Kent County.
Frederica has a data center item on tonight's agenda — and it isn't the kind most towns are seeing.

Ordinance 26-05 is titled "An Ordinance to Disallow Data Centers in Town." It gets its first reading at the Town Council meeting tonight, Wednesday, Sept. 2, at 7 p.m. at Frederica Town Hall, 2 W. David St.

Three things worth knowing before you go.

A first reading is not adoption. It's the step where an ordinance is formally introduced. Whatever happens tonight, this isn't finished tonight.

The text isn't public yet. As of this morning, 26-05 was not posted on the town's online ordinance page. If you want to know what it actually says — how it defines a data center, what it exempts, whether it reaches substations, transmission lines, or accessory computing — call Town Hall at (302) 335-5417 and ask for a copy. In ordinances like this one, the definitions are where everything is won or lost.

Open Floor comes early. Public comment is near the top of the agenda, capped at three minutes per person and 15 minutes total, while 26-05 sits later under New Business. If you want to be heard, be in the room at 7.

We haven't read the ordinance, so we're not going to tell you yet whether it's strong, narrow, or symbolic. We'll get the text, read it against the town code, and write it up in full.

Here's what we'll say now: this is a decision being made in a room you can walk into, by neighbors you can talk to, about what gets built next to your water and your kids' bedrooms. That access is not a small thing. Use it.

Agenda: frederica.delaware.gov
Town Hall: 2 W. David St. | (302) 335-5417

08/22/2026

Even on this damp day, Wyoming Station Farmers Market is open, and there’s lots of good, local stuff—meat, produce, pastries—available.

If you’d like Out Around The Wilder to stop by your local offering and share it with our friends, drop us a line.

Kent County has so many hidden gems once out here beyond the highway corridors. Let’s show them to the world.

Thank you for sharing your stories, Backyard Blooms — Farm Fresh Flower & More, and Sweet Rachel’s Homemade Jelly, Jams, & Preserves!

08/21/2026

Hey, shop local. Let your kids hear some stories about bugs.
Wyoming Station Farmers Market has both and more.

Take an umbrella, just in case, but they're open tomorrow!

Miss Kristen from Delaware Kid joins us under the big tent for storytime! This Saturday at 9:00am