RALEIGH – Four rural regions will have the opportunity to boost local business development with help from a grant program announced Tuesday. Grants from the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center will help fund regional entrepreneurship coordinators for three years. The center also will provide additional support to the coordinators and their multi-county regions as they create a broad-based system to encourage and sustain entrepreneurs and small businesses.

SPRING LAKE – RLM Communications, Inc., a high-tech defense contracting communications company in Fayetteville, broke ground today on its new 40,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and technical support unit in the Spring Lake Business and Industrial Center – the first firm to start construction in the 50-acre park.

RALEIGH – Progress Energy’s (NYSE: PGN) board of directors today declared a dividend on the company’s common stock.

MOUNT GILEAD – McRae Industries, Inc. (OTC Pink Sheets: MRINA; MRINB) reported consolidated net revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 of $20,773,000 as compared to $17,123,000 for the second quarter of fiscal 2007.

FAYETTEVILLE – The Board of Trustees has authorized management at Cape Fear Valley Health System to conclude negotiations to lease Bladen County Hospital for a five-year term starting May 11.

FAYETTEVILLE – A proposed partnership between Cape Fear Valley Health System and Bladen County Hospital received final approval today from Cape Fear Valley’s Board of Trustees.

SANFORD – Central Electric Membership Corporation is sponsoring a Touchstone Energy Sports Camp Scholarship for the Kay Yow Basketball Camp and the Roy Williams Basketball Camp.

TROY – The Board of Directors of First Bancorp (Nasdaq: FBNC), the parent company of First Bank, has declared a cash dividend of 19 cents per share payable April 25 to shareholders of record as of March 31.

MOUNT GILEAD – McRae Industries, Inc. (Pink Sheets: MRINA) has declared a dividend of 9 cents per share on the company’s Class A Common Stock payable on March 28 to shareholders of record on March 14.

HAMLET – After what company officials described as “an exhaustive search” of more than 10 counties in the Carolinas, SRB Holdings LLC announced that it will build a 300,000-square-foot building in the Richmond County Industrial Park to distribute recreational products.

ASHEBORO – FNB United Corp. (NASDAQ: FNBN), the holding company for CommunityONE Bank, N.A., today announced that its board of directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of 15 cents per share, which is the same rate as paid in the prior quarter.

SILER CITY – Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation announced today that it will close its chicken processing complex in Siler City, a move that will result in the loss of about 830 jobs.

FAYETTEVILLE – Nine months after Bill Martin resigned as president and chief executive of the Cumberland County Business Council, the organization soon to be known as the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce has hired Doug Peters to replace Martin.

PITTSBORO – Biolex Therapeutics, Inc. has published results for a Phase 1 clinical trial of Locteron, a controlled-release drug to treat chronic hepatitis C, in the Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research.