Ft. Hood Hero Returns Home to Wilmington

Hometown hero Kim Munley will return home to Wilmington to serve as grand marshal of Saturday's Azalea Festival parade.

Munley garnered national attention after she was wounded while trying to stop the deadly shooting at a Fort Hood, Texas Army base in November. Since then she has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and was a guest of the first lady Michelle Obama for the 2010 State of the Union address.

Munley was born in Wilmington and grew up in Carolina Beach. After graduating from Wilmington's John T. Hoggard High School in 1993, she studied law enforcement at Cape Fear Community College. Before she became a police officer in Ft. Hood, Texas, Munley worked as a law enforcement officer in Wrightsville Beach, at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and for New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Munley says she is doing some soul searching while she recovers from gun shot wounds to her wrist and both legs. She told the Wilmington Star News that she might even return to the Wilmington area. "It's my roots. Eventually I think we might be coming back," Munley said. "There's something pulling me that way."

Renting to Students Is Good Business

Off-campus student rental housing is surviving the recession nicely, say landlords who rent apartments and rooms to students near campuses all over the country.

"I wouldn't say it's recession-proof, but it's recession-resistant," says Jim Arbury, an executive with the National Multi-Housing Council, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group for the apartment industry. "It's still one of the bright spots in the housing market."

For instance, Brad Hastings, whose company Walk2Campus rents 400 units in South Carolina, has about a 94 percent occupancy rate.

Hastings says it's not a business for everyone because it's management-intensive. "You have a customer base who, possibly for the first time, are living out on their own. There's a certain amount of hand-holding, teaching of life lessons."

Source: Inman News, Mary Umberger (12/30/2009)

Wilmington, North Carolina is home to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW), Cape Fear Community College, and a variety of small professional and technical schools. To find income-producing properties near these schools, please visit www.seacoastrealty.com.