The Down East Seniors Club held its July 13 meeting at the Blind Center of North Carolina in Washington. President Ed Hamrick led the meeting. Jim Hackney played for the singing of “God Bless America” and Ed Bolen gave the invocation. Dick Paul provided humor.

Ed Bolen presented Investigator David Richards with the Narcotics Division of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office. Richards was accompanied by Elsa the K-9 narcotics dog. Elsa is qualified to detect five different narcotic drugs. She is an 8-year-old Labrador retriever that was born in Czech Republic and trained in the U.S. Richards controls her with commands in the Dutch language. They do about 400 drug investigations per year. In addition to narcotics enforcement, lawmen also utilize dogs especially trained for detecting bombs, cadavers and multi-purpose use.

John Tunstall won the 50/50 drawing.