Olivia Webb

Richmond County Daily Journal

A four-legged local will be the beneficiary of the Allison Story’s Golden Seashell second-chance cash prize.

After spending hours on end searching - and coming within mere yards of the Richmond County Daily Journal’s Golden Seashell - the 24-year-old Rockingham woman and her fiancee’s grandfather, Robert Carlisle, lost the hunt to Greg Graves of Rockingham.

“I wish I would have looked harder, but I’m happy I won something,” said Story as she came to claim her $100 from the Journal office Friday morning. “Ya’ll did make it a lot harder than you did last time.”

Story said she and Carlisle entered the drawing together, and have agreed to divide the cash up 50/50.

“We made a deal that if one of us won without the other we’d split it, because he spent his time and gas traveling to find it,” said Story. “And we hunted from 8 a.m. till 3 or 4 a.m. a couple of days in a row.”

They had been to the hiding spot under the water tower, near where the former cat shelter was located, even before the telling “cat’s meow” clue came out in the paper. By the time Story’s fiancee T.J. Sweatt convinced the pair to head out to the area again, the seashell had already been found.

“We were just kicking ourselves,” said Story. “Because we were there before that clue was printed.”

Now Story, a former Richmond County Humane Society employee and now a dog groomer by trade, says she will probably use her $50 to go to the Richmond County Humane Society and get one of her cats fixed.

“I moved into my house and they were there first,” she said of the small pack of felines that inhabit her yard. But one of them has been having kittens.

Story, a strong advocate of animal population control, has been working to eliminate the problem.

“I’m gonna take the mama to get spayed,” said Story. “And then I’m gonna use the rest of my money to buy vouchers for the kittens when they get old enough.”

Cat-by-cat, she is hoping to do her part to eliminate the problem of homeless animals.

“I volunteer to take other people’s animals to get fixed,” said Story. “I’m like, it’s $20, come on people!”