When trumpets blow, banners fly and the Fourth of July parade rolls through Southport, a true champion will occupy the grand marshal’s seat, gallantly panting, tail in a jaunty wag.
This time last year, veterinarians told Strike the Labrador retriever that he might never walk the same, let alone hunt ducks, let alone bounce balloons on his nose.
On that day last June, an alligator snatched him off the banks of a Brunswick County pond and dragged him out 30 feet, pulling him under until his owner Bonner Herring dove in after the 10-foot reptile swinging a garden rake, pulling Strike to dry land…