In this photo of the animal barn groundbreaking are, from left, Tony Martin, chief financial officer at Surry Community College; Jeff Jones, division chair – sciences at Surry Community College; Ashley Morrison, dean of academics at Surry Community College; Dr. David Shockley, president of Surry Community College; Debby Diamont, Surry Community College trustee; Leah Bryant, Surry Community College student; Earlie Coe, Surry Community college trustee; Joe Frank Seal, FFA member; Cassie Holder, Surry Community College student; Grayson Collins, FFA member; James Quick,lead instructor - applied animal science at Surry Community College; Miles Payne, FFA member; Lydia Haynes, agriscience teacher at Surry Central High School; Melissa Key Atkinson, Surry County Schools board member; Mamie Sutphin, Surry County Schools board chairperson; Clark Goings, Surry County Schools board vice chairperson; Cheyenne Rippey, FFA member; Misti Holloway, Surry Central High School principal; Kyndal Smith, FFA member; Anna Shew, FFA member; and Morgan Hodges, FFA member. (Submitted photo)

Superintendent Dr. Travis L. Reeves and Dr. David Shockley speak to the small crowd from Surry County Schools and Surry Community College before the groundbreaking ceremony. (Submitted photo) Potable Water Line

Surry County Schools and Surry Community College have partnered together to bring hands-on experiences to students taking agricultural classes with a live learning lab on the campus of Surry Central High School.

The facility will be used by faculty at both facilities to offer hands-on instruction for raising calves, goats, piglets, and other small animals. Students will receive training in the field of animal science in this cooperative lab. The barn will be 40’x60’ A-Frame metal building with two garage door entrances and a lean-to on each side.

The FFA of Surry Central was well represented and donned in their official dress apparel for the groundbreaking earlier this month. The agriscience teacher, Lydia Haynes, expressed the significance of such an event and remarked that “the joint-use facility will be extremely beneficial to the instruction and application of both SCC and Surry Central Animal Science classes. In this facility, we will be able to show students the processes and common occurrences they could encounter when working on a farm. At the barn, students will be able to apply what they learn in class to real-life scenarios such as milking dairy goats, helping birth animals, and routine animal husbandry practices such as trimming hooves and administering vaccinations.”

“We won’t be contained to the classroom as much and we can do more hands-on work than we do in-class small scale,” said FFA member Morgan Hodges. “This barn will afford students the real-world aspect of a farm that is going to be crucial to lifelong career success.”

“This joint facility barn will be a game-changer for both SCC and Surry Central. In this barn, students will be able to apply what they learn in class to real-life scenarios,” says James Quick, applied animal science lead instructor at Surry Community College. “For example, after reviewing reproductive physiology in class, students will be able to heat-check female pigs and potentially help in the birthing process. This barn will give invaluable experience for students and also allow them to practice responsibility in the raising of livestock animals.”

The groundbreaking event drew a small crowd of Surry Central High School and Surry Community College students and staff who came to witness the occasion.

“This event marks a community effort and the type of learning our community has come to expect,” said Superintendent Dr. Travis L. Reeves. “Hands-on learning is relevant to the world around us… .That is the beauty of public education. It is the cornerstone of our community and brings us all together. Career and College Promise is preparing students for careers and beyond. In order to do so, we have to make learning real; take learning out of the classroom into live learning labs.”

Dr. Reeves also stated, “I would like to thank those who have labored and will yet labor to make this vision of an agriculture barn a reality. An unknown author wrote, ‘It’s not about how bad you want it….it’s about how hard you are willing to work for it.’ That grit and tenacity to work hard are what makes the difference between good and great. We live in a great county, and we have a great school system where educators, community members, and business partners work together to ensure students have the best opportunity to be successful… .Great things are available in Surry County; careers, jobs, and life.”

“Surry Community College is excited to partner with Surry County Schools on the Surry Central High School barn project,” said Surry Community College President Dr. David Shockley. “The barn will be on Surry County Schools land, adjacent to our Dobson campus and across the road from one of the college’s agricultural storage facilities. Surry Community College and Surry County Schools will continue our strong partnership in the field of animal science by cooperatively using the new barn for high school and college instruction. It’s a wonderful effort resulting in shared resources and a non-duplication of instruction. Students take ag classes in high school and then advance to Surry Community College and earn a diploma in applied animal science technology. Then, they can pursue a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University through an established college transfer agreement.”

Surry County Schools is seeking additional funding to complete the agriculture barn project. Anyone who would like to get involved to help make this vision a reality should contact Ashley Mills, managing director of the Surry County Schools Educational Foundation at 336-386-8211 or by email at millsa@surry.k12.nc.us.

SCC PTK members write to Honor Flight veterans

First it was the Bears’ state championship football team, and now the girls tennis squad at Mount Airy High School will receive official recognition by the city council for its like achievement.

It is unusual for athletic teams from the same high school to win state titles within the same academic year, and both the MAHS football and tennis teams pulled off that feat during the fall.

The football players and coaches were invited to City Hall before Christmas to be congratulated during a Mount Airy Board of Commissioners meeting for their victory in North Carolina’s 1-A championship game against Tarboro on Dec. 10.

In November, the girls tennis team had captured its second-straight dual team championship in the state 1-A classification by defeating Chatham Central — not losing a single set in the process.

It will be recognized during a meeting of the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners scheduled today at 6 p.m.

This is expected to include a resolution of recognition being read and presented in honor the Lady Bears’ latest championship under their coach, Luke Graham, along with special remarks offered by city council members.

When the football team was honored last month, players also got the chance to introduce themselves.

Mount Airy officials believe the state championships reflect well not only on the high school but the community as a whole through the example of teamwork and dedication that the players and coaches have demonstrated.

In addition to announcing plans to have the football and tennis teams come to City Hall for special recognition programs, officials declared Dec. 18 as “Mount Airy Bears Day” in the city.

A Parade of Champions also was held that day in which both teams were featured in a procession that left the school campus on North South Street and made its way to the downtown area to be greeted by appreciative fans.

The resolutions of recognition for the football and tennis teams will be permanent parts of the official governmental records for the city of Mount Airy.

Mount Airy officials are awaiting word on an application seeking American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding targeting a section of town hit by stormwater runoff problems over the years.

This involves a possible infrastructure improvement grant for the Aims Avenue area. It is a densely populated residential neighborhood in the northern section of Mount Airy, where Aims Avenue occupies a low-lying spot near the bottom of a hill off Hylton Street adjacent to Madison Avenue.

It is one of several areas in Mount Airy with longtime drainage problems. “And we hear about them frequently,” former city Public Works Director Jeff Boyles said at a March 2019 meeting.

The money for the proposed Aims Avenue improvements has been made available through the N.C. Division of Environmental Quality, which announced plans for awarding $82 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding for such projects.

ARPA funding involves assistance provided by the federal government to help localities around the country recover from the pandemic. Earlier, Mount Airy received $3.2 million from that source to cover various other needs, with a chunk of that also allocated to aid the missions of local non-profit organizations after a rigorous selection process.

Meanwhile, a separate ARPA funding pool has been set aside for stormwater projects through a newly created Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Investment program, according to Mitch Williams, the city’s present public works director.

Those funds are available for cities, counties, non-profit partners and other entities for construction and planning projects that will improve or create infrastructure for controlling stormwater quantity and quality.

The cost of the Aims Avenue work is estimated at $450,000 to $500,000, to cover rehabilitation/replacement of the existing stormwater infrastructure there. It is part of a multi-year storm-drainage capital improvement plan that also seeks to meet needs in other areas of town including on Franklin Street near a former Quality Mills site.

That plan cites projects with a total price tag of about $1.3 million, also including several for water/sewer rehabilitation.

WithersRavenel, a consulting engineering firm working on behalf of Mount Airy, was hired to submit an application for the possible stormwater improvement grant targeting the Aims Avenue area.

“There is no guarantee we’ll get it,” Williams said after the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners voted to approve the application submission in September, which city documents state could be in the form of a loan rather than a grant.

A check with the public works director in recent days revealed that the city hasn’t learned whether the funding request was approved.

Williams has said that the proposed project would not change the fact that Aims Avenue is in a zone susceptible to flooding during major weather events.

“But it may help with some of the smaller storms that happen, getting water out of the street quicker.”

• A crime involving two commodities much in the news these days — a catalytic converter and gasoline — was discovered last Thursday in Mount Airy, according to city police reports.

The incident targeted a 2009 Mazda owned by Haylie Michelle Bullock of Pipers Gap Road while it was parked at 1412 W. Pine St., the address for an unspecified business.

In addition to the catalytic converter being stolen from the vehicle, its fuel was removed, representing a total loss figure of $215. Property damage also was caused.

• Police were told on Dec. 28 that power tools and related property valued at $1,360 had been stolen from a toolbox on a vehicle, constituting a felonious larceny.

This occurred at the home of the victim, Carlos Alberto Espinal Gomez, on Durham Street, where the items were taken from his 2022 Dodge Ram pickup.

Included were three pieces of battery-powered Dewalt equipment, a Sawzall, drill and sander; a Bosch concrete drill; and eight DeWalt and Bosch batteries.

• Cody Dodson Jackson, 36, of 250 Cross Creek Drive, was jailed without privilege of bond for a charge of assault on a female after police investigated a Dec. 21 incident at that location.

Jackson is accused of pushing Monique Sheran Howlett to the ground, causing an injury, police records state.

He is scheduled to appear in Surry District Court next Monday.

• Israel Jacob Davis, 24, of 211 W. Oakdale St., was arrested on charges including possession of a stolen motor vehicle as the result of a Dec. 20 traffic stop on Newsome Street.

Davis was found to be the subject of an outstanding warrant for the vehicle-related offense, which had been filed on Dec. 16 through the Surry County Sheriff’s Office with no other details listed. He also was charged with driving while license revoked and littering in connection with the traffic stop and confined in the Surry County Jail under a $500 secured bond.

During that same encounter with police, Hailey Nichol Robinson, 37, of 1243 Brooklyn Ave., was charged with possessing up to a half-ounce of marijuana and possession of marijuana paraphernalia.

Robinson is free on a written promise to be in District Court next Wednesday, when Davis also is slated to appear.

Another set of secretive economic development incentives was passed by the Surry County Board of Commissioner Tuesday evening. Project Denver will now join Project Cobra on the shelf as it waits for a companion incentives package to be debated by the Town of Elkin Board of Commissioners next week.

The county board was told a private company is proposing to make a direct investment of $6.4 million in property and equipment in Elkin. As per North Carolina general statute 158-7.1 a public hearing was called for so that residents could offer their thoughts on the proposed Project Denver.

Terms of Project Denver are for a five-year performance-based grant of $116,156.74 that will only be paid out upon the company’s completion of its investment and payment of property taxes.

Just as with Project Cobra, the identity of the company was not disclosed, “What I can tell you about the company is that it is a supplier to an existing industry cluster in the county,” County Manager Chris Knopf advised the board.

“Also, the company is looking at three states, three locations, this is one of them. So, this is a competitive project,” he added.

Richie Parker, the only speaker during the public hearing, spoke in favor of Project Denver on behalf of the Surry Economic Development Partnership, “SEDP supports the location of this new company in Elkin. The diversification of the business base is important to ensure that we have a strong and thriving local economy.”

He said the tract of land is suited for the company and would require no rezoning. “The proposed location is zoned for the land use, so the project aligns with the town’s long term development goals and future land use plan.”

He went on to offer a few tantalizing details that were enough to get the imagination of those in the gallery going with rampant speculation as to what the company may be. “This company will support an existing business cluster of the region and our primary economic develop strategy is to retain and grow existing businesses. This company will help with that strategy by strengthening the regional supply chain.”

Parker said a lot without giving away the farm and drew a few lines for the commissioners and residents alike to read between. “The new jobs created by this company will create economic opportunities for our citizens, and manufacturing jobs generate a higher economic multiplier than retail or service jobs.”

“This company’s impact will far exceed the direct jobs and investment by stimulating more economic output in the local economy and the incentive is performance based, so no funds expended until the investment is complete and begins paying taxes, plus the town and the county will receive new tax revenue from the company’s investment.”

Commissioner Van Tucker said that incentives are the way this business seems to get done nowadays. “These companies and their expansions, and new company startups, they are very highly sought amongst a lot of rural counties and municipalities in many states.

“It’s a proposition where they are expecting some type of incentives from the place where they will eventually reside. That’s what they’ve asked of us, and that’s the resolution we will be voting on,” he summarized.

Chairman Eddie Harris retraced some of his steps from the Project Cobra hearing and gave a short history lesson on the way in which incentives used to be done. “In the last twelve years economic incentive projects have been greatly scaled back, particularly in this county.”

He remembered again the Pittsburgh Glass incentives package. “That was an $8-9 million package, trimmed back to six, and then it went to four. They were required to hire 265 folks, and there was a lot of complicated parts and pieces to that, those days are long gone.”

“This one (Project Denver) is based on the investment the company does and they have to perform; they have to do what they say they are going to do. But, at any scale this is a very, very modest number and its indicative that the county supports bringing businesses to this community and job creation. I think it will pay taxpayers back many, many times.

“There are multiple locations in competing for this company,” the chairman continued “and I will say that in light of some of the comments I have heard recently about, ‘Well, how do we know what it is?’ These things are competitive in nature and some of the information proprietary,” he said, acknowledging some frustration of residents in a process that is pitting three communities against one another for this project.

“It just can’t happen in that order. I am about business succeeding on their own merit, and the free enterprise system, but I think this meets all the parameters of capitalism and free enterprise and furthermore that the county is supporting business and job creation, in particular small business. This would be classified as a small business under the definition by the standards.”

“We hope this business does move to Surry County and I think it’s a good thing for Elkin in particular,” he said in support of the measure before opening it to a vote which was passed unanimously.

The Elkin board will consider Project Denver on Jan. 9 at Elkin Town Hall located at 226 N. Bridge Street.

Officials at Shoals Elementary School recently announced the November Student Leaders of the Month.

“These students demonstrated the leadership attribute integrity,” school officials said. “We are so proud of these students for being honest, respectful, hardworking students in their classrooms and around school.”

The Surry Early College High School HOSA-Future Health Professionals club recently competed at the NC HOSA Regional Leadership Conference.

Fifteen students participated competing in several different categories. Nine out of the 15 placed in the top ten and will move on to participate in the NC HOSA State Leadership Conference in April.

Theses students who placed in the top ten, and their category, include:

– Ben Sain, second place biotechnology;

– Maddie Grimes and Saylor Jennings – third place CERT skills;

– Jordin Beasley and Angie Guarneros – top 10 CPR/first aid;

– Fayonna George – third place epidemiology;

– Addison Southern – top 10 human growth and development;

– Hadie Guarneros-Montoya – top 10 medical law;

– Jasmin Ruiz-Vazquez – first place medical spelling.

When is the best time to conduct public meetings on matters affecting taxpayers which takes the interests of everyone concerned into account?

For now, the prescribed time for the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners is 6 p.m. two days each month, under a revised schedule that will go into effect beginning with the board’s next meeting this Thursday.

The city council has regularly been convening at 2 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month and 6 p.m. on the third Thursday.

But when last gathering on Dec. 15, officials decided to alter that by holding both monthly meetings at 6 p.m.

This was suggested by Mayor Jon Cawley in response to a recent changing of the guard with three new commissioners coming aboard as a result of the November election. Two of those members, Deborah Cochran and Chad Hutchens, have day jobs out of town, while the third, Phil Thacker, is retired from a local industry.

The two others on the five-member board, Tom Koch and Marie Wood, also are retired.

Cawley reasoned that eliminating the 2 p.m. meeting in favor of a night session would better accommodate members who typically are at work during the afternoon.

However, Hutchens, a North Ward commissioner who is employed by the Surry County Sheriff’s Office, said his schedule shouldn’t matter.

“I don’t want to change the time for me,” Hutchens advised his fellow council members.

“I’ll make it work,” he said of the afternoon meeting time and the juggling of his schedule to accommodate that. “I’ll make it work regardless.”

Yet the group decided as a whole to go the 6 p.m. route for both meetings each month, which reflects concerns for other stakeholders.

In saying he wouldn’t object to maintaining the 2 p.m. session, Hutchens referred to municipal employees who might be attending for some reason. They obviously favor the daytime meetings to better fit their schedules as opposed to returning in the evening after work.

“We also have to remember the public,” Mayor Cawley reminded. “And for years I have heard that the public did not like our two o’clock meeting,” especially if there were matters of special interest to citizens on the agenda.

Time demands have necessitated public hearings being conducted during the first-Thursday meeting, yet those sessions are always moved to 6 p.m. to address the very concern cited by Cawley.

City Manager Stan Farmer pointed out that the scheduling change will be accompanied by giving municipal staff members the option of not attending the evening meetings unless there is some business pertaining to their areas of responsibility.

“Some department heads like to come even if they don’t have anything,” Farmer added.

Cawley mentioned that the origin of the 2 p.m. time dates to when he was an assistant football coach at Mount Airy School and the team’s practices conflicted with the evening start time. “We weren’t done in time for me to get here,” he said of rushing to City Hall.

Originally, plans called for the 2 p.m. meetings to be only work sessions with no votes taking place.

“But it wasn’t long until we were voting at two o’clock,” Cawley recalled, which usually occurred due to some action being needed which couldn’t wait until the third-Thursday session.

“The speed of life right now,” the mayor said in offering a reason for this.

Altering the meeting time requires formal action involving the Mount Airy Code of Ordinances, the council was advised at the Dec. 15 meeting by City Clerk Nicki Brame. “We need to change the ordinance if we’re going to change the time of the meeting,” she explained.

The board officially recessed its Dec. 15 meeting until the next one this Thursday night, when a vote on the time shift is expected.

As part of the same discussion, Commissioner Wood suggested that officials consider altering the standard agenda for the meeting being moved to 6 p.m. as a way to shorten that session.

Wood said this could include not conducting a public forum for citizens to speak on issues and eliminating a time set aside for city officials to offer general remarks — focusing “just on the business at hand that needs to be done.”

“I am not in favor of changing certain elements of our meeting,” the mayor responded. “We might run into a problem if we start trying to limit elected officials’ ability to be able to speak.”

Wood had successfully lobbied for council members’ comments to be eliminated during a meeting held right before the municipal election on Nov. 8.

The other members agreed to that move, including Koch calling it “an excellent idea” — which Wood said was a way to avoid politics being injected into those comments.

Wood later said she was not in favor of this becoming a permanent change, explaining that the early November bypassing of remarks “was just a one-time thing.”

Meanwhile, Cawley said the board will return to the 2 p.m. meeting time if the change to 6 p.m. proves problematic.

• An investigation of a civil disturbance has led to felony drug charges being filed against a Mount Airy woman, according to city police reports.

Brandy Lynn Kelley, 41, of 2540 Wards Gap Road, was encountered by officers on Dec. 24 during that investigation at a residence on Salem Drive off Wards Gap Road.

This was accompanied by a consent search of Kelley’s 1998 Ford Mustang which turned up drug items inside the car, police records state.

Kelley subsequently was charged with possession of a Schedule I controlled substance and possession of a Schedule II controlled substance, both felonies, along with misdemeanor violations of possessing a Schedule VI controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana paraphernalia.

The woman was confined in the Surry County Jail under a $3,500 secured bond and slated for an appearance in District Court next Monday.

• A theft of property valued at more than $700 was discovered last Thursday at Quality Inn on Rockford which victimized a person listed as a resident there, Hope Christina Forley.

The crime targeted a 2004 Jeep Cherokee that was unlocked at the time, enabling the larceny of items from the passenger and trunk areas of the vehicle, including an Apple iPad electronic tablet, a North Face book bag, assorted textbooks, a multi-tool knife, assorted “fake” jewelry and multiple medications.

In addition to Forley, Mount Airy City Schools is listed as a victim of the crime.

• Property owned by the city of Mount Airy was damaged as the result of an incident discovered Thursday, which involved an unknown suspect throwing concrete through a window, causing damage put at $300.

Police records indicate that the crime occurred at restrooms along the city greenway behind the Roses shopping center on West Independence Boulevard, with a double-pane decorative window receiving the damage.

Lisa Ring has stuck with Mayberry Mall in Mount Airy through thick and thin — keeping her Hallmark store there open even as the mall literally was crumbling and causing all but a handful of merchants to bail.

She maintained Hallmark’s presence as a South Carolina real estate firm bought the then-50-year-old shopping center in early 2019 — effectively rescuing it from forced demolition by local government officials after the former owner neglected repairs, making conditions unsafe.

Calling the acquisition by WRS Inc. “a blessing” at that time, Ring saw hope for the future as the company launched a major renovation project that signaled the kind of storybook ending often associated with the Hallmark name — until it didn’t.

After surviving the ordeals of recent years, Ring will not be resting on any laurels and deservedly taking her business to the next level — but closing it instead sometime later this month.

“It was my dream — I put every penny I made back in the business.” Ring said of how she built up the store over time.

“This store has been here over 40 years,” she said recently regarding a fixture at the mall on U.S. 52-North which itself had opened soon before in the late 1960s. “And I have owned it for 15.”

The reason for the closing is not the usual suspect where businesses are concerned — lack of profits — but a complicated series of events surrounding the space she leases at the mall from WRS Inc. for her 4,500-square-foot Hallmark store.

“The economy isn’t great, but that’s not why I’m closing,” Ring said.

It boils down to the business owner being told she must sign a new lease that would mean forking out more than $81,000 per year for that space — about double the present cost.

Coupled with this problem is a failed, 20-year-old HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system at her store which recently has meant hot conditions in the summer and cold ones in winter.

WRS was willing to replace the HVAC components at an estimated expense of $18,000 — but only if she signed the new, long-term (three-to-five-year) lease at the much higher cost, according to Ring.

“They will fix it if I pay that kind of rent,” she related. “They won’t do anything for me until I pay full rent.”

Yet Ring can’t justify coughing up that sum since the mall still has only a few occupants, not generating enough customers to cover such a hike. This relates to how the success of a mall depends on some extent to the ability to draw steady and diverse customer traffic through the power of stores’ collective presence.

Ring said the Hallmark outlet certainly does its part in this way. “I bring people to Mount Airy.”

Ironically, heating and air conditioning is not a problem elsewhere in the mall, where store spots await new occupants. “They have got spaces sitting here empty that’s got heat and air and mine don’t,” Ring said of the Hallmark store where three infrared heaters have been pressed into service in an effort to keep it warm.

“They told me I could send them a counter-offer,” the veteran businesswoman said of her negotiations with WRS personnel, “which was rejected immediately.”

Ring also questioned the timing of the lease ultimatum that she believes was a leveraging move to force a quick decision — coming during the advent of the holiday season. “They waited until I got my store filled with Christmas merchandise,” including an array of cards, ornaments and gift items.

Asset Manager Frank Peters at WRS — whom Ring has dealt with during the process — did not respond to a voice-mail message left Friday at his office seeking the firm’s response to the Hallmark matter. Peters also was invited to submit an email statement as an option, which hasn’t occurred.

Meanwhile, Lisa Ring is left wondering how the situation reached this point after everything else that has happened.

“It’s a shame,” she said of the closing that puts into question the fate of the eight-person Hallmark staff, which includes Ring — “as much as we have fought and put up with” since Mayberry Mall began deteriorating.

“It’s been nothing but a battle for six years,” the store operator continued in reference to the series of problems there.

“And it’s a losing battle.”

Lisa Ring concedes that part of the blame for the difficulties rests with her.

Before the recent impasse, the Hallmark store had been operating on a temporary lease that went into effect when Mayberry Mall was sold to WRS, which seemed reasonable on its face.

“I was so excited — I was gullible,” she now admits.

The rent cost under the temporary lease was 10% of her sales, the going rate for such temporary arrangements, according to Ring. The longtime business owner had the understanding she would not be charged a full rate until the mall was about 75% full of stores.

She further was led to believe WRS would take care of the HVAC upgrade.

“But since I’m in a temporary lease, legally they don’t have to,” advised Ring, who says she should’ve paid more attention to its fine print and had provisions included which weren’t.

“This is all my fault for not paying attention to my lease.”

Now Ring says she basically has no legal leg to stand on in butting heads with the South Carolina corporation that owns shopping centers in multiple states throughout the region.

“It’s kind of David and Goliath.”

A casual observer might suggest that Ring should just move her Hallmark store to another high-traffic location — but such an option is not as simple as it sounds.

Under guidelines imposed by the Hallmark chain in order for outlets to benefit from its highly marketable name, this would require upfitting another building with new fixtures to the tune of $30,000 in order to meet its specifications.

Ring said she is working with downtown property owner Gene Rees and Main Street Coordinator Lizzie Morrison about a possible new store site in Mount Airy’s central business district, and local businessman Bill Juno, who owns shopping center space locally.

“It would not be a Hallmark store,” Ring said of the requirements involved for a full-fledged operation. The only other option is to open a Hallmark Express outlet offering only limited merchandise such as cards.

While Ring is uncertain about her future in the local business community, she seems even more mystified by the circumstances leading to the present predicament.

“I wake up in the middle of the night and I just can’t believe it,” she said, while offering one possible explanation: “It’s greed.”

Ralph Hardy, who founded Hardy Brothers Trucking in 1965, passed away over the weekend.

Hardy Brothers Trucking Company wrote online, “Ralph Hardy loved his family, friends, and trucking until the blessed age of 90. Ralph opened Hardy Brothers in 1965, becoming a friend and mentor to all who joined the Hardy Brothers family.

Condolences were rolling into Hardy Brothers online with commenters, friends and colleagues who had worked for, or with, Hardy and Hardy Brothers Trucking over the years.

“Ralph was known for his generous spirit and always greeted you with a smile. He will be missed by many. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers for our Hardy Family. Arrangements are forthcoming.”

Cox-Needham Funeral Services has since released those arrangements — the family will receive friends at Salem Baptist Church in Dobson on Thursday, Jan. 5, from 10:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m., with a celebration of life service at 1 p.m. and a private interment following.

With Ralph’s son Eddie now the president and grandson Ryan the company’s vice president, Hardy Brothers Trucking has been and will continue to be a family affair — just as Ralph Hardy would have wanted it.

In September at the celebration of his 90th birthday, his grandson Ryan said that it was unlikely that there was anyone working in trucking who did not know of Ralph Hardy. “If you go across the country someone will know Ralph Hardy. He’s a hard worker who has never compromised and has made an impression throughout this area and across the trucking industry.”

That widespread acclaim in the industry help his company land the coveted task of transporting the 78-foot Capitol Christmas Tree from the Pisgah National Forest to Washington D.C. before Christmas, which included dozens of stops all across North Carolina and Virginia.

Siloam Baptist Church shared online, “Please remember the Hardy family, our church, and all of our Siloam family. This man was a true hero of the faith and Patriarch of our community. Ralph Hardy was a Blessing to all who had the honor of knowing him. He will be sorely missed.”

“Heaven became a little sweeter when the truck driving man pulled into the pearly gates. Rest Easy Ralph.”

Rebecca Carter wrote, “I never spoke with Mr. Ralph when he did not display a kind and gentle spirit. A hole will be left in the Siloam Community, Siloam Baptist Church, and his family and work family.”

“He was always at church no matter if Wednesday, Sunday, revival, etc. His life exemplified a Christian walk. Deep sorrow for the family,” she concluded.

Frankie Andrews of Pilot Mountain wrote, “I just heard the news of a local icon passing away. For some you may not recognize the name for those in the transportation industry many will be hurt knowing the last of the good ones is no longer with us.”

“Ralph Hardy founder of Hardy Bros. Trucking passed away… In a world where we all see darkness Ralph was always a light to all those around him. In an Industry that has changed so much over the years for what seems to be for the worse Ralph refused to change and continued to operate and run a business in a way that showed both gratitude and respect for those he worked with and for those who worked for him.”

“Proverbs 27:17: 7 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. Ralph surely made those around him better. I feel blessed and fortunate in saying I was able to attend Ralph’s 90 birthday party back in September.

“You see Ralph didn’t look at other Trucking Companies as the enemy or competition,” Andrews, who is the Operations Manager for RHJ Trucking said, “He sees them as family, and he always wanted family around. Thank you, Ralph, for all you have given us.”

Dwayne DeMoss, a vendor who worked with Hardy, said, “This one hit hard. Hate that I haven’t been able to see Ralph as much as I once did. But I’m glad I got to see him briefly a couple of weeks back.”

“I will miss him joking with me. One of the most genuine down to earth people I have ever met. I know one thing Ralph will be missed by many. What a loss to the community and the Trucking Industry,” he said. It seems that Hardy made such an impression over the years that even those who did not work at Hardy Brothers wanted to send along their remembrances.

Joining in also was Keith Kennedy who added that Hardy was a humble man who treated he and his wife “like family and we will be forever indebted to him, his family, and staff.”

Some said that Hardy was cut from a cloth that is hard to find these days like Denise Gusler who reiterated a comment from many others about the quality of the man. “Ralph helped me so much in trucking with his knowledge and his kindness. Trucking lost a good man.”

Project Denver is on the menu for the Surry County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday evening, the meeting moved from Monday to allow the county’s observance of the New Year’s Day holiday.

The board will be considering several staffing changes, hear an update on Surry on the Go streaming channel, and hear about changes to the detention center construction budget. The commissioners will also hear a presentation on Surry County’s natural heritage from ecologist/botanist Ken Brindle who was one of the featured lecturers during Surry 250, the county’s sestercentennial celebration, last June.

Of interest to many county residents will be the public hearing on Project Denver. While there have been no details released to the public on the name of the company in question, nor the type of industry it is, Project Denver is known to be a “proposed minimum investment of $6.4 million in real and personal property” to be made by the end of the calendar year 2023.

The draft resolution on the incentive package the board will consider reads, “Following the payment of taxes by Company to County, the County shall make an incentive grant to Company of not more than $116,156.74 over a five-year period.”

The county stipulates that its payment of the incentives package will only be paid out only after evidence has been provided that the investment benchmark has been attained. Also, the company will have to be current on its property taxes before the incentive funds will be released.

Wording in the resolution allows for wiggle room if the company in question does not meet all its targets,. “The incentive grant shall be reduced proportionally if Company fails to achieve or maintain its benchmark minimum level of investment.”

Board approval of the package will signify that the commissioners feel the incentives are justified because such financial inducements “will increase the taxable property, employment, and business prospects of Surry County.”

If approved Project Denver will join another package of incentives earmarked for the business growth of the county, Project Cobra, that was approved in November. That package was designed to entice an existing Surry County employer to consolidate its operations from locations out of state into one local hub in Mount Airy.

That consolidation represents a potential investment $1.9 million and would bring 35 jobs to the area, whereas if the Project Cobra bid fails the company will head elsewhere and take 63 jobs with them as its leaves.

When the commissioners were hearing details on Project Cobra, the former director of the Surry Economic Development Partnership Todd Tucker gave it his endorsement. “This incentive will keep people working and create new opportunities for others and add new value to Surry County’s tax record.”

The prompted Commissioner Bill Goins to note that retaining businesses that are already here is and should remain a priority to county leaders. To that end, the board voted unanimously to pass the incentive package of $36,244 spread over five years in performance-based incentives with those funds coming from the county’s general fund.

The City of Mount Airy board of commissioners followed suit shortly thereafter and approved a similar package. Neither package, Denver nor Cobra, made any declaration of what the specific use of the funds would be.

Targeted incentives with benchmarks that must be met are a safer bet, Chairman Eddie Harris said in November, then how many packages used to be designed. They will also be easier to ensure the recipient is in compliance than benchmarks tied to employee head count.

At Tuesday night’s board of commissioners meeting, the public will again be asked to provide comment to the board on the proposal.

There was some complaint after the Project Cobra hearing that the public was not given enough advance notice or any context to better understand the proposal. It is mandated that such a public hearing be held after public notice is given but it is unclear what residents may have to say on a proposal under wraps.

For those who were frustrated by the process, there will be no change to it Tuesday as the machinations of the county behind the scenes in business development must be kept secret. There will be no grand reveal of the company before the board makes their vote.

Commissioner Van Tucker explained after the Project Cobra hearing that some privacy and secrecy in deliberations such as these are needed. If a business shows its hand, he said, it may be opening itself up to have its idea or location poached right from under them.

The board of county commissioners meets at 6 p.m. at the Historic Courthouse in Dobson, 114 W. Atkins St., starting at 6 p.m. Meetings are livestreamed, and the videos will be posted to YouTube and the county’s website for residents unable to attend.

A Real World Simulation event took place recently on East Surry High School’s campus in Pilot Mountain.

Thirty guests from the Children’s Center, Alliance Insurance, Pilot Mountain Civic Club and State Employees Credit Union were on site to educate students who attended workshops, visited with businesses, compiled budget sheets, and entered to win door prizes.

Auditions for the Surry Arts Council’s production of “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” directed by Madeline Matanick are being held on Tuesday, Jan. 3 and Wednesday, Jan. 4, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. each day at the Andy Griffith Playhouse.

“Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella” is the new Broadway adaptation of the classic musical. This contemporary take on the classic tale features Rodgers & Hammerstein’s most beloved songs, including “In My Own Little Corner,” “Impossible/It’s Possible” and “Ten Minutes Ago,” alongside an up-to-date, hilarious and romantic libretto by Tony Award nominee Douglas Carter Beane, arts council officials said.

“At its core, ‘Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella’ remains the heartfelt tale of the girl from the cinders who connects with her prince,” they said. “This version shows her to be forthright and kind as she tries to change the prince into a better man.”

Those auditioning should be prepared to sing 16-32 bars of a musical theater song in the style of the show. Those auditioning may take sheet music or sing acapella. “Be ready to learn a short dance combination and read from the script,” organizers said. “Wear clothing you can move in and bring dance shoes if you have them. You only need to be present at one evening of auditions. Auditions are open to ages 5 to adults.”

Auditioners must be available for mandatory rehearsals and performance dates. Tech rehearsals will be on March 24 and from March 27 to March 30. The public performances will be at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 1, and at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 2. School performances will be at 12 p.m. on Friday, March 31, and Monday, April 3.

Watch for details of other activities associated with the production including a Cinderella Tea served by members of the cast, and Cinderella-theme craft workshops.

For additional information about auditions, contact Madeline Matanick at madi@surryarts. For all other inquiries, contact Marianna Juliana at marianna@surryarts.org or 336-786-7998. Tickets for the shows are available online at www.surryarts.org, via phone at 336-786-7998, or at the Surry Arts Council office at 218 Rockford Street.

The Franklin Elementary School Robotic Team, Robodogs, recently traveled to Surry Community College for the FIRST Lego League Competition, where the team won the Judges Award.

The team had to present their innovation project before a panel of judges and go through an interview process, without their coaches in the room. They had to design a robot and it had to run missions on the Lego table. At the competition the team had to run their robot against 35 other teams.

“These students really showed their awesome leadership skills,” school officials said. “Our team received tons of compliments about how energized the team was. This was the first year that elementary schools were a part of the competition.”

Winter Storm Elliot, as the cold weather system that rocked much of the nation over the Christmas weekend was named, is still being felt in Surry County. Residents have heard by now about the recently resolved issues with a water main break in Pilot Mountain that yielded a boil advisory and can breathe a sigh of relief that it has been lifted and water is safe for human consumption again.

In Mount Airy though it appears that the weather caused a power outage in the gymnasium of Mount Airy High that has caused damage that

“We discovered Monday morning that we had water in the back left corner of the gymnasium at Mount Airy High School,” Mount Airy Schools Executive Officer of Communications Carrie Venable said.

“There was also water discovered in the basketball offices downstairs which had come down a wall.”

“We are still trying to assess what happened, but it looks like the electricity flickered Sunday evening due to the weather and cutting the heat off in the gymnasium. Later a coil in the old heat blower gave out allowing water to come into the back corner area.”

“We are currently assessing to see if there is any residual damage that could affect sports schedules.”

SERVPRO said on their social media that they are, “Setting up heaters to begin the drying process after a boiler line ruptured at Mount Airy High School flooding a portion of the gym and the locker rooms.”

Request for comment from the administration of Mount Airy High and Mount Airy Schools were unsuccessful.

Mount Airy High is still on winter break and students are set to return on Wednesday, Jan. 4. On that day the Granite Bears are scheduled to host Thomasville and North Stokes on Jan. 6 for basketball games.

There is a fortunate break in the athletic schedule for Mount Airy High that sees them travelling for away contests before returning to host Alleghany for basketball on Jan. 17. That may allow enough time for school district officials to diagnose and solve the problem before more sporting events need to be rescheduled or relocated.

The Mount Airy News will provide updates as needed to the Mount Airy High School athletics schedule in January should changes be required.

CHAPEL HILL – The North Carolina Association for Scholastic Activities presented the 13th state finals of the state writing competition, The Quill, on Dec. 3 at Smith Middle School.

Twenty schools qualified from regionals to compete in the state finals.

Four students from each team wrote from four different text type prompts. Submissions were scored in the afternoon and individual and team results were presented. The Middle School Team from Millennium Charter Academy of Mount Airy was the winner and name middle school state champions of The Quill.

Mount Airy High School was also among the competitors at the state championship and the Granite Bears finished in sixth place.

In individual accomplishment, Millennium’s Paisley Chilton was named the State Champion in the category of informative / explanatory.

Contestants were not able to keep a copy of the prompt or their submissions.

ARARAT, Va. — It’s rare when an organization can exist for 70 years, and the Ararat Ruritan Club will be commemorating that milestone with a special event next week.

It will be held on Jan. 7 at the club building, located on Ararat Highway not far from the North Carolina border.

The celebration is planned from 2 to 5 p.m. that day, when the club will make the most of the occasion.

It will include special presentations, cake and ice cream (the standard anniversary party fare) and displays of photos, awards and other materials from the local Ruritans’ long history.

Ruritan 2022 National President Glen Broadwater also is scheduled to attend the event.

Old Ruritan records show that the local group was chartered in January 1953 with Cecil W. Spencer as its first president and fellow Ararat resident Hobert Bateman as vice president.

Although Spencer was in the teaching profession and Bateman worked as a rural letter carrier, most of those in top leadership positions with that early club were farmers, a breakdown shows.

That fact is not lost among those now heading the Ararat Ruritan Club who want to preserve its history.

“It means we’re carrying on a legacy that basically our local farmers started,” said Pamela Smith, who will serve as the club’s president during 2023. “It means a lot that we carried on a legacy from 70 years ago.”

Smith added Friday that everyone is invited to the Jan. 7 celebration, including community residents and anyone just wanting to learn more about the Ruritan mission.

Its national organization began in 1928 in another Virginia county, where residents saw a need for community leaders to meet and discuss ways to make their corner of the world a better place to live.

The word “Ruritan” was formed by combining the Latin words for open country, “ruri,” and small town “tan,” interpreted as relating to life in such places.

Ruritan National now has nearly 25,000 members throughout the United States who are working to improve more than 900 local communities, including Ararat.

The club there has 29 members who are engaged in a variety of public service projects.

Those activities have including holding fundraisers to support community causes. These benefitted the Patrick County Food Bank, a county backpack program and a Home Alone effort that serves residents in the Willis Gap and Ararat communities.

“The motivation is the needs that are in the community,” Smith said of what keeps members involved in such ways.

She mentioned one cause that emerged at the height of the coronavirus pandemic which recognized a gap created when local students were kept at home and could not attend schools where they normally received free breakfasts and lunches.

The Ruritans mobilized to provide bags of food for the youths.

“As bad as it sounds, COVID brought us together,” Smith said of how the group rallied, “to help the community.”

More recently when a cold snap produced record temperatures in the area, the club opened the doors to its building to provide safe, warm shelter for folks lacking that during the crisis.

Jeff Jessup is getting ready to call it a career at Scenic Ford in Mount Airy. After joining the staff in 1983 as a salesman and then promoted to General Sales Manager, he has seen a lot of cars leave the lot over the years. From the offices of Scenic Ford, he was jovial as he wrapped up his last week on the job and took a moment to reflect on his tenure.

To hear him tell it, you may think sales would be an easy job since Jessup said one of the best attributes a salesman needs is to be a people person. Being able to talk to folks and use soft skills like listening to what the customer is asking for can make all the difference.

It also helps to follow through for it has been said the consumer votes with their feet and will take their business to where they feel more valued, “The main thing is you need is to be good with people and make sure to take the time to call people back and follow up with your customers,” he said.

The cars and the industry have changed since he started at Scenic in 1983. He pointed to the fact that on their lot now that cars are no longer their bread and butter – the venerable Mustang is the only passenger car they currently sell.

Trucks like the Ford F-150 are what bring many Surry County residents into the dealership, and he noted the F-150 has been the top seller for numerous years. Their SUV lineup of Explorer, Expedition, Edge, and Escape now make up a strong percentage of sales for the company as well.

When asked about what has changed in the industry, “The technology, gracious,” he began, “When I first got in the car business power steering was an option, air conditioning, even bumpers on trucks were an option,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s been continuous progress ever since then.”

From his perspective as the sales manager, he said that “The market is strong,” but that issues with supply chains and shortages have caused a few headaches. That includes for him personally, “I never thought I would see the time where you couldn’t get inventory for people to buy, and it was the pandemic and computer chip, part shortages – various things. It’s not just one particular car, it’s across the board.”

“Who would have ever thought this two or three years ago?” he asked of the pandemic’s effect on the global economy. He is hopeful as so many others are that the pandemic may one day be in the rear-view mirror.

He did seek to calm buyers’ fears and explained that the wait times can vary dramatically. The horror stories of waiting over a year for a part are not the rule of thumb these days.

The computer chip problem is a byproduct of those technological advances that never stop. Drivers expect their cars to do more for them than ever before.

With advanced sensors guarding the blind spot, the backup camera making sure Fido isn’t in the driveway, or touch screens to manage media and apps, cars today are closer to the Jetsons than Flintstones and they need those computer chips to make it happen.

This comes at a price and has left auto makers held hostage by those few chip manufactures which are predominantly in Asia. Jessup sees the light at the end of the tunnel for this problem, “Most of your manufactures are starting to loosen up a little on getting inventory to the customers; but so much outsourcing was sent to China. We have to wait for them to get back up and going.”

Jessup is aware of plans to try and ramp up chip production domestically, “There is your biggest problem, you don’t have a factory here and by the time you get one built, the technology may have passed by.”

He reiterated that there is not a vast difference in the initial quality of cars made here in the U.S. versus those overseas, however the way folks take care of their cars is one of the biggest determining factors for how long a vehicle can stay on the road, “Checking the oil, the tire pressure, and having the car serviced at regular intervals will help and I think that it has a lot to do with the longevity of the vehicles, for sure.”

“I just want to say that I appreciate you coming to Scenic and buying cars with us, or being a good customer for all these years, and allowing me to serve you,” he offered to the many customers over the last 39 years.

He recognizes that to work in one industry, to say nothing of one employer, for nearly 40 years just is not common anymore. The Scenic family is just that, he said, a family and that is the biggest reason he stayed around as long as he did.

He said they do things the right way at Scenic and that goes back to 1983 when he was interviewing with owner D.A. Gough, “I was sitting right where you are now, and I was nervous as a cat.”

Jessup wanted the job and Gough wanted him, but as Jessup was a salesman at Simmons Ford at that time, “He said he didn’t want to poach me, that’s not how he did business. He said that he had a good relationship with the other dealers and didn’t want to do it like that.”

The stars aligned and a few weeks later Jessup arrived at Scenic where he will be found until the end of 2022. New Year’s Eve will be his last official day on the job, and Jessup says he does not have a ton of firm plans for his retirement years.

He admitted though that there may be some sales work left in his future as his son runs a furniture store. However, he knows there is golf in his future, and he sounded confident that you would be able to find him on the links at Pilot Mountain Park where he has been a member for many years.

The public has been invited to a retirement celebration for both Jeff Jessup and Jimmy Vernon on Jan. 14 from 2 until 5 p.m. at Scenic Ford.

The state Welcome Center on Interstate 77 in Surry County just south of the Virginia line is a key resource for travelers entering North Carolina — which will be coming to a temporary halt for a construction project there.

This will involve the present I-77 North Welcome Center, located at Mile Marker 105 on the southbound portion of the interstate, being torn down and rebuilt, beginning sometime in 2023.

“It’s 40 years old,” center Manager Jeff Mills said in explaining the reason for the project.

Records show that the NC. Department of Commerce facility was first opened in 1982 and renovated in 1997.

The I-77 North Welcome Center is one of nine such rest area sites in North Carolina. These are located just inside the state lines along interstates and provide travel information to motorists entering from outside areas to enhance tourism efforts.

Each center has a statewide focus, but with an emphasis on information for visitors traveling a particular interstate corridor, including directing them to local attractions. That task is aided by the on-site presence of professional, nationally certified travel counselors, according to state officials.

The centers collectively promote thousands of tourism-related businesses, attractions, accommodations, events and more, thereby enhancing commerce throughout the state.

The upcoming closure/rebuild project at the I-77 North Welcome Center was made public by Jessica Roberts, executive director of the Mount Airy Tourism Development Authority/Tourism Partnership of Surry County.

Roberts mentioned it during a meeting of the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners earlier this year as part of a quarterly tourism report to the board, covering that and other developments within the local tourism realm.

However, Mills, the manager of the I-77 North Welcome Center, is unsure when the closure, tear-down and construction of the new facility actually will begin in 2023.

“I have no idea,” he said.

While such undertakings typically reflect a need to modernize and/or enlarge a location, Mills is unsure about the scope of the I-77 project or how it will take shape.

“I’ve not seen any blueprints on that,” Mills said.

The present center contains 75 parking spaces for cars, eight for cars/trailers and 10 for trucks.

One aspect of the plan brought to light by Roberts, the Mount Airy tourism official, concerns the possible reassignment of personnel at the I-77 North Welcome Center until the project runs its course.

“As of now, we have three,” Mills said of the staff there.

Roberts told city officials that the shift could aid tourism efforts elsewhere in the county.

“I am working with the manager, Jeff Mills, to place the staff at no costs in our various visitor centers throughout Surry County, including ours in Mount Airy, Pilot Mountain downtown, Pilot Mountain State Park and Elkin, as well as at the Trails Center and Yadkin Valley Chamber of Commerce,” she related.

Those workers would be displaced during that time but still on the payroll with the N.C. Department of Commerce through the state Department of Transportation, the tourism official added.

“We will be happy to have this extra help for up to a year or so once construction begins.”

Mills says this shift in staff has been discussed as a possibility for the I-77 North Welcome Center. “Nothing is set in stone yet.”

The American Red Cross has announced a series of blood-collection events for every corner of Surry County during January through what one spokesman calls an effort “to save and sustain lives in our communities.”

While many activities have been curtailed during the holidays, the need for blood in surgical and other procedures has continued.

And to help maintain adequate supplies, the Winston-Salem office of the Red Cross, which coordinates blood drives in Surry, has released this schedule of ones that are open to the public, beginning in the coming week:

• Tuesday at the Surry American Red Cross building, 844 Westlake Drive, Mount Airy, from 1:30 6 p.m.;

• Wednesday, Copeland Community Ruritan Building, 975 Copeland School Road, Dobson, 2 to 6:30 p.m.;

• Thursday, Lifepoint Church, 1785 N. Bridge St., Elkin, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.;

• Jan. 7, Antioch Baptist Church, 137 Antioch Ave., Mount Airy, 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.;

• Jan. 7, First Presbyterian Church of Mount Airy, 326 S. Main St., noon to 4:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 8, Calvary Baptist Church, 314 S. Franklin Road, Mount Airy, 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 12, Sulphur Springs Baptist Church, 164 Sulphur Springs Church Road, Pilot Mountain, 2 to 6:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 16, Elkin Rescue Squad building, 940 N. Bridge St., 1:30 to 6 p.m.;

• Jan. 16, Highland Park Baptist Church, 1327 Grove Lane, Mount Airy, 1 to 6 p.m.;

• Jan. 17, Shoals Elementary School, 1800 Shoals Road, Pinnacle, 1 to 5:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 17, Surry American Red Cross building, 844 Westlake Drive, Mount Airy, noon to 4 p.m.;

• Jan. 18, Surry Community College-Pilot Center, 612 E Main St., Pilot Mountain, 1 to 5 p.m.;

• Jan. 23, Pilot Mountain First United Methodist Church, 210 Marion St., Pilot Mountain, noon to 4:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 24, Dobson Elementary School, 400 W. Atkins St., 1 to 5:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 25, Surry American Red Cross building, 844 Westlake Drive, Mount Airy, noon to 4 p.m.;

• Jan. 25, White Plains Elementary School, 710 Cadle Ford Road, Mount Airy, 1 to 5:30 p.m.;

• Jan, 25, Meadowview Middle School, 1282 McKinney Road, Mount Airy, 1 to 5:30 p.m.;

• Jan. 26, Cedar Ridge Elementary School, 734 Flippin Road, Lowgap, 1 to 5:30 p.m.

Donation appointments can be made by visiting Give Blood or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767).

This process also can allow one to determine the availability of appointments for drives on the schedule.

Prospective whole blood donors must be in good health, feeling well and at least 16 years old in most states, along with weighing no less than 110 pounds.

An individual can give every 56 days, up to six times a year, according to information from the Red Cross.

It undeniably will be a new year, but any cleansing or disposal processes accompanying the birth of 2023 must wait another day where sanitation operations for the city of Mount Airy are concerned.

This will include no residential yard waste collections on Monday due to its proximity to New Year’s Day on Sunday.

In addition, commercial and industrial sanitation routes normally serviced on Monday will be halted then as a result of the holiday.

City offices also are scheduled to be closed on Monday in observance of New Year’s Day.

Just in time for the new year, Mount Airy officials have unveiled a revamped city government website that in addition to serving local citizens is aimed at drawing more visitors and potential new residents to town.

“We think this is a way we are going to be able to promote Mount Airy,” Assistant City Manager Darren Lewis said during the last council meeting earlier this month. “This is just another way we can highlight the city and all the great things we have to offer.”

Both Lewis and City Manager Stan Farmer made a presentation then on the new website — at https://www.mountairy.org/ — which both have been working on for months in addition to their other responsibilities.

“It means a lot to me because this was one of the first projects I identified when I got here on Jan. 31,” said Farmer, who came to Mount Airy from a position in Texas.

“We’re both very excited that this has come to fruition,” he added regarding the effort involving him and Lewis. “It has taken quite a while to get this done.”

“I think it’s a little more user-friendly than what we had,” said Lewis.

The new online presence that has resulted contains the same basic City Hall information as before about utility services, the various municipal departments, employment opportunities with the city, records of commissioner meetings and other resources to engage citizens.

But the rejuvenated website, which went live in recent weeks, is much more visually stunning, including the presence of its most noteworthy addition: short video segments that can be accessed on it which are professionally narrated and contain music.

This includes an introductory, or welcoming, video that provides a general overview of various sites of interest in the community, which the city manager says is just a way to provide “a feel” of the place.

“I think we got all the highlights of everything in Mount Airy in three minutes there,” Farmer said.

Other short video segments highlight the Mount Airy Tourism Development Authority featuring comments by its executive director, Jessica Roberts; Mount Airy City Schools, with Superintendent Dr. Kim Morrison making an on-camera appearance; Main Street Coordinator Lizzie Morrison commenting on what downtown Mount Airy has to offer; and Northern Regional Hospital President and CEO Chris Lumsden speaking about that facility’s services.

Of course, the new website devotes much exposure to local Mayberry connections with Andy Griffith in addition to concerts and other events presented by the Surry Arts Council, local industrial parks and Mount Airy’s recreational resources including its greenway system.

The fabled white granite produced here is a further highlight along with the local fiddlers convention and Mount Airy’s proximity to nearby attractions such as the Blue Ridge Parkway, Pilot Mountain State Park and Yadkin Valley wine region.

At one point, the video narrator touts Mount Airy as “America’s greatest small town” and declares that “it just feels like home.”

There also are links to community organizations such as the United Fund of Surry and its 26 member agencies that meet various crisis, medical and other needs, and links to local commercial entities listed as sponsors.

“So it’s a way that we can promote our local businesses,” Lewis said.

“Lot of moving parts”

The new city government website bears a tagline with the words “Mayberry, mountains, music and Merlot,” which Farmer believes summarizes what the local area is all about.

“There’s a lot of moving parts to this,” Farmer said of what it took to develop the new website.

It involved the work of two videography companies, one that provided its services to the city for free, according to Farmer.

He dealt with an entity from Dallas to produce the three-minute welcoming video.

“Darren was the one who took the lead on this, almost daily,” Farmer said of Lewis.

“We both drove around with the videographers,” the city manager related, which sometimes consisted of rushing from Snappy Lunch to the greenway and then some other location.

The task additionally required sifting through hundreds of still photographs to find ones that appear on the website on a rotating basis, including scenes from a concert at Blackmon Amphitheatre, a picture from the greenway and more.

City officials worked with CivicPlus, a web development business that handles Mount Airy’s online site, in order to incorporate the new elements — “to change out information and make the look different,” Farmer said.

“A lot of technical things can go wrong,” the city manager said when so many facets are juggled to achieve a finished product.

“But we really like the look of the new page.”

Among the many missions of the Surry County Office of Substance Abuse Recovery is outreach and sharing with the community knowledge to live a happy and clean life. Over the last months, their teams have spread out to the schools to discuss opioids, fake pills laced with deadly fentanyl, and more recently have been sharing information on the dangers of vaping.

There is a field of study now known as hope science and institutes of hope have shown up at colleges and universities across the country. Arizona State University’s Center for the Advanced Study and Practice of Hope has been studying hope as a concept, and as a practice.

Those results are trickling into Surry County, and it is again the team from the Surry County Office of Substance Abuse Recovery (SCOSAR) who are preparing to find innovative ways to bring the message of hope home to those who have found hope to be in short supply.

“Hopeful people are able to set goals, identify ways to reach their goals and feel as though they can do the work to achieve those goals,” says Crystal Bryce, associate director of research in the Hope Center and clinical assistant professor in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University

“Hope requires a person to take responsibility for their wants and desires and take action in working towards them,” John Parsi, executive director of the Hope Center wrote. He explained that wishful thinking or optimism is just believing that something will come to pass. Believing that you can have an influence over your situation is hope.

It may require a little change in the way people think to break an association between wishful thinking and optimism versus actionable change, “Optimistic people see the glass as half full, but hopeful people ask how they can fill the glass full,” said Parsi.

“Dreams and optimism are just belief structures,” he further explained. “When you’re an optimistic person, you believe things in the world will turn out just fine. Hope is an active process.

Jaime Edwards, research analyst for SCOSAR concurred saying, “Without a sense of hope and a belief that we can have happiness, it can be impossible to change. If we don’t have a sense of hope, then why would people want to try and change anything?”

“A lot of trauma, adversity, or lack of basic needs diminish hope and hope is one of the single best predictors of wellbeing across the lifespan,” SCOSAR’s outreach coordinator Charlotte Reeves said. She has been collaborating with a team from the state and UNC-Chapel Hill to investigate early childhood traumas in Surry County like hunger, neglect, and substance abuse and find ways that the community can work together to change outcomes.

“The relationship I would like people to see is that there is certainly a great life after having bad times in our lives; we just have to be the drivers of our own destiny,” she said. Those childhood traumas can be overcome, and cycles do not have to repeat themselves.

Neurologist Dr. Jerome Lubbe said, “One of the most powerful things we have available to us as human beings is hope and the reason hope is so incredible and fascinating… is because of what hope can offer us in the here and now but also in the future. Also, the fact that hope is a tangible measurable experience that happens in the brain.”

There may be more to the power of positive thinking after all it turns out. He suggests positive thinking is the best way to create hope and create change in a person’s life, “Science has shown you cannot have a thought without having a legitimate change in neurochemistry – either a neurotransmitter changes or hormonal change that impacts your physiology.”

“We live in a distracted period or time whether that is environmental, online, or within our daily lives. For many of us we lack time to just be in the moment. If we can learn to be in the moment and listen to ourselves better that will yield a sense of hope and a sense that we can influence the outcome,” Edwards said.

From studies like those at Arizona State University it is felt there is a growing understanding of some of the neurochemistry behind hope, “This isn’t a squishy science,” said Parsi who points to statistics showing that efforts to improve hopefulness in young people can be “more effective than many mental health interventions.”

Edwards also said that hope can be passed along between generations, so creating an environment of hope and gratitude can help members of this community who are not yet among us.

Many people are looking for non-medical solutions to health issues, and mental health needs to be on that list too. If Edwards and the hope scientists are right that being mindful of the moment is part of the solution to those issues, then residents of Surry County are in luck to be blessed with clean rivers, parks, and trails aplenty to stop and smell the flowers or listen to the water ramble by.

• Employees of the Staples store on Rockford Street were the victims of a recent theft there, according to Mount Airy Police Department reports.

The loss of property and money from the Dec. 17 incident totalled nearly $500, including a Microsoft Surface smartphone, glacier white in color; an orange Bamberg phone case; a blue Oliver Co. wallet; a driver’s license; and a medical card.

Victims of the crime are listed as Kevin Mitchell Inman, a Roslyn Lane resident, and Suzanne Stewart of Gardner Street. The larceny was perpetrated by an unknown party.

• Police were told on Dec. 16 that a North Carolina registration plate, number JEH6632, had been stolen from a 2011 Honda Odyssey owned by David Alexander Hayes, who lives on Spring Water Trail.

The tag was taken while the vehicle was parked in a lot in the 200 block of Riverside Drive.

• Flores Vincente Gomez, 44, of 344 Granite St., was jailed without privilege of bond on Dec. 15 for a charge of assault on a female.

It had been filed earlier that day with Rosalba Gomez as the complainant. Flores Vincente Gomez is scheduled to appear in Surry District Court on Jan. 19.

In some cases, being at the “1” level is a great thing — but where economic rankings are concerned, Surry’s recent designation as a Tier 1 county means it is among the state’s most-distressed localities.

This development to be in effect for 2023 is prompting concern among both Mount Airy and Surry County officials, since the new rankings by the N.C. Department of Commerce reflect a decline in Surry’s economic well-being involving median household income.

“It doesn’t bode well for the county to be a Tier 1 county,” Eddie Harris, a longtime Surry commissioner representing its South District, said Wednesday.

“This status isn’t favorable because households have less disposable income at a time when inflation is rampant,” observed Deborah Cochran, a city commissioner who is troubled by the lower ranking and also weighed in on it Wednesday.

The state department annually ranks North Carolina’s 100 counties based on economic well-being factors and assigns each a Tier designation. The 40 most-distressed counties are designated as Tier 1, the next 40 as Tier 2 and the 20 least-distressed as Tier 3.

Surry had been Tier 2 before moving to Tier 1 through the latest evaluation. It is among five counties shifting to a more-distressed tier, also including Onslow, Pitt, Randolph and Transylvania.

Tier rankings are calculated based on four factors: average unemployment rate; median household income; percentage growth in population; and the adjusted property tax base per capita.

Where Surry came up short in the new Tier rankings for 2023 is the median household income category affecting its overall economic distress level.

For 2023, its shift from Tier 2 to Tier 1 is accompanied by the county’s overall economic distress rank being lower at No. 38 (it was No. 51 for 2022). This shift was largely driven by Surry’s median household income rank falling from No. 47 last year to No. 30 this year.

The county’s median household income is listed as $47,114 in the latest state report.

In comparison, Stokes County’s income figure was given as $59,068, ranking it 79th in North Carolina.

Union County has the top ranking with a median household income exceeding $90,000.

The income situation poses an obvious problem for county residents, Commissioner Harris said.

“Median household income is what drives prosperity and moves them out of poverty.”

Cochran, the city commissioner, also cited the link between income and poverty, which she sees as a signal for local government units to avoid placing other financial burdens on citizens such as increased property taxes.

Harris said the state rankings have presented a unique situation for Surry since it always is near the cutoff mark for Tier 1 and Tier 2. One change here or there can place it at one level, then the other the next year due to the variety of factors that can be involved.

From his perspective, the Tier system has always represented a “love-hate” situation, Harris said.

“Because if you go into a Tier 1 county it opens up opportunities for public schools to get more money,” he explained, along with added federal funding for local programs.

The Tier system is incorporated into various state programs to encourage economic activity in the less-prosperous areas of the state, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce.

“Cities and counties will be given preference for state assistance and grants due to being Tier 1,” said Cochran.

She was elected this year as the at-large member of the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners after serving in that position in the past and as the city’s mayor.

But both Cochran and Harris indicated that such extra assistance is not better in the long run than maintaining a healthy income level locally.

The county commissioner believes that the solution points to the ongoing need for economic diversity and more workforce-development programs to prepare workers for higher-paying jobs.

He pointed out that the local labor market remains tight, which can be considered a motivator for training opportunities.

In the meantime, local government also must do its part, Cochran believes.

“What might be done?” she added, answering that question by pointing out how a conservative approach is needed.

“Government on every level must operate in a real world of financial reality,” Cochran commented. “It would not be prudent to increase taxes, fees, water rates and increase unnecessary spending — if we keep taxes low, businesses will want to operate here and create jobs.”

“I served (the municipality) during the Great Recession and know it is possible to keep our rates low and focus on priorities,” Cochran added.

“When I was on the city council in 2013, we recruited a company that still pays $12,000 to $17,000 per month for water usage — this helps to keep our water system up and running without passing along increases to customers.”

On a recently Saturday morning, elementary and middle school students from across Surry and Yadkin counties converged upon Surry Community College to compete in the 2022 NC FIRST Regional Qualifying Event, sponsored by Surry First Lego League (FLL) and Surry Community College.

Teams representing Mount Airy, Surry County, Elkin and Yadkin County schools, took part in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) event with the hopes of taking the championship back to their district and school.

“Each year FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) selects a theme and develops a series of missions where competitors must learn, research, problem solve, and program their way through four competitive areas: core values, innovative project, robot design, and the robot game challenge.

“The mission of FIRST is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders and innovators by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership,” organizers said. “With adult Coaches to guide them, FIRST Lego League teams (up to 10 members) apply science, engineering, and math concepts, plus a big dose of imagination to develop solutions to real-world challenges. They also design, build, and program Lego Mindstorms or Spike Prime-based robots to perform autonomous ‘missions’ on a playing field. Along the way, they develop critical thinking, team-building, and presentation skills.”

Jeff Edwards, Science Institute coordinator for Surry County Schools, coordinated the event with the North Carolina FIRST Lego League Planning Committee.

“This year’s theme was, ‘superpowered,’” he said. “Teams were given the task to re-image the future of sustainable energy and power their ideas forward. Teams also had to prepare a presentation on their solution to the chosen problem. All members of a team must take part in the presentation and each team has no more than five minutes to sell their idea to the judges.” This year’s winners in the project category were the Solar Warriors of Central Middle School.

Edwards also shared, “Core values are the heart of the program. Through core values, teams express the FIRST philosophies of gracious professionalism and ‘coopertition.‘ Student participants learn that friendly competition and mutual gain are not separate goals and that helping each other is the foundation of teamwork. Participants are expected to display and uphold these core values in all that they do. Teams demonstrate core values to the judges by preparing a brief presentation on how they expressed these values as they completed this year’s preparations, and by engaging in a challenge designed to show how well teams shared the load and worked together to accomplish a task.”

This year’s winners in the core values event were Team Panther Attack of Yadkin County Schools.

“Robot design mimics a real-world engineering design review,” Edwards said. “In this event, teams must present their robots to judges who are tasked with determining how well teams used attachments, body shape design, and programming to get the robot they built to accomplish the missions created for the robot challenge. Using Lego bricks teams may build whatever attachments they think will help their robot in completing missions. They may also choose from an assortment of sensors to add to the robot.”

The winners of the Robot Design category were Team Robush of Yadkin County School.

“The highlight and public portion of the competition takes place in the afternoon, the Robot Runs,” Edwards said. “In the Robot Runs competition, teams must program a robot using coding skills to accomplish a series of missions relating to the theme Superpowered. Robots had to move energy units, battery packs and interact with energy production and consumption models as they completed missions on a robot playing field. Completing these missions earn points and the team whose robot attained the highest score is named the winner.”

The 2022 winners of the local tournament were Team Robush of Yadkin County Schools.

The Judges’ Award this year went to The Franklin Robodogs, a rookie team from Franklin Elementary. The Judges’ Award recognizes the team that impressed the judges during the participant presentation component of the competition. The team showed promise with the robot design, programming, strategy and innovation, teamwork, research, and presentation categories. Although not placing first in any of the individually judged categories, The Franklin Robodogs’ name appeared in the top three in multiple categories.

Team Energetic Engineers of Mount Airy City Schools were named the Overall Champions of the tournament. This event qualifies teams to participate in the state tournament held in January.

Maria Blakeney of Pilot Mountain Middle School was named the recipient of the Mentor Award. This award is given to an individual who has inspired their team to do their best, both as individuals and together. Mentors are nominated by a team member or member of the school community. After all nominations are submitted, judges review the information submitted and choose one winner. Blakeney’s guidance and leadership are evident among her team and she also served as this year’s competition emcee.

The Surry FLL program is supported by local business partners who recognize the value of the Lego FIRST Robotics Program to help students develop career skills as they participate in the program; career skills to prepare them for entering the workforce. To further enhance students’ skill sets, Surry Community College offers the Mechatronics Program. Students studying in the Mechatronics Program are able to be a part of the local pipeline into the STEM workforce.

This year’s sponsors of Surry FLL included Renfro Brands, NCFI Polyurethanes, Insteel Industries Inc., Northern Regional Hospital of Surry County, Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital, Surry Economic Development, and SouthData. “We are extremely grateful for their support of the FLL program. The support of these business partners made today possible. It was awesome to see all of these teams exemplifying STEM and demonstrating what they have learned and how much can be accomplished with teamwork” Edwards said.

When Mount Airy residents turn on a faucet, they might appreciate the clear, clean liquid that emerges without really considering the facilities and processes making this possible — which is where an important new project comes into play.

It is targeting the Spencer Water Treatment Plant on Orchard Street, one of two such facilities in the city.

The Spencer plant was constructed nearly 100 years ago — in 1924 — and still contains the original interior concrete walls of sedimentation basins installed at that time.

Those walls have been in a state of disrepair for years, according to city Public Works Director Mitch Williams.

He added that this is a concern since sedimentation basins are used to filter particulates from the raw water entering the treatment plant from Lovills Creek nearby.

The Mount Airy Board of Commissioners responded to that situation by voting earlier this month to award a contract for the rehabilitation of the interior concrete walls at the plant.

Two bids from qualified contractors had been received for the project, with a High Point company, Creative Resurfacing, tapped by the board.

It submitted the lowest proposal, $143,844, which was almost $50,000 less than the other bid received, $193,750 from Triangulation Inc.

In addition to the financial consideration, Creative Resurfacing has “an excellent working relationship with the city,” Williams pointed out in recommending that it get the job, based on past performance with municipal contracts.

The approval by the board includes a total project cost of $150,000 to allow for possible overruns. Funding for it was included in the budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year that began on July 1.

Work at the Spencer plant is to include pressure washing to remove old coatings, abrasive blasting to remove residual coatings and loose material, resurfacing spalled concrete and gaps with epoxy mortar, priming surfaces with epoxy and top coating with Sherwin Williams Duraplate 6000 Epoxy.

All products used in the rehabilitation will be NSF (National Sanitation Foundation)-certified for use in water-treatment facilities, Williams mentioned.

“It is imperative that the city adequately maintains and refurbishes the Spencer Water Treatment Plant because it is used as a backup to the larger Doggett Water Treatment Plant located on Stewarts Creek,” Williams wrote in a memo outlining the need for the rehab.

In elaborating later, he added that the Spencer plant paid dividends in this regard in February through a way the public might not have known about.

“Due to the fuel tank spill at North Surry High School late last winter, we had to totally shut down the Doggett water plant until the fuel cleared from Stewarts Creek,” Williams explained.

“The city had to totally rely on the Spencer plant for about a month until the fuel cleared from Stewarts Creek.”

That facility is in pretty good shape mechanically for its age, according to the public works director, who says maintaining it as a backup plant is “extremely important.”

“However, there are some issues (sediment basin rehab, interior concrete rehab and more) that we would like to address in the next few years to bring the plant back to its original glory, thereby ensuring the plant is a reliable backup for decades to come,” Williams stated in the memo.

“The city of Mount Airy is fortunate to have two operational water plants on two different water sources.”

Both facilities were awarded by the N.C. Division of Water Resources for surpassing federal and state drinking water standards in 2021.

The Spencer Water Treatment Plant also received the same recognition for 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 and the Doggett plant for 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Awards are given annually to water systems around the state which demonstrate outstanding turbidity removal, a key test of drinking water quality, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.

Turbidity is a measure of the cloudiness or haziness of water caused by individual particles that can interfere with disinfection and provide a medium for microbial growth. Microbes are microscopic particles that occur naturally but possibly include harmful bacteria and viruses.

While all drinking water systems must adhere to strict state and federal standards of quality, the local plants have met performance goals that are significantly more stringent than state and federal standards, officials say.

Since 1975 at Scenic Ford in Mount Airy Jimmy Vernon has been a fixture from his days back on the mechanics line to sitting in the big chair as the service department manager. As 2022 draws to a close, so too does his time with Scenic and he will be leaving the oil changes and sounds of air wrenches behind and taking fond memories with him.

To work so long in one industry, or more specifically for one employer, for that amount of time is no longer common. Vernon said the answer to how or why he last so long is easy, “I’ve never come to ‘work;’ I’ve always enjoyed it. I love cars and I love people, so this was the perfect job for me,” Vernon said from his office in the service bay of Scenic Ford the walls behind him filled with photos, memorabilia, and parts catalogs from years gone by.

In 1975 he started on the line and worked his way up from there saying he learned how to rebuild transmissions and differentials, “Before you knew it, I was doing it all.” In 1983 he was tapped as the new service manager and it was the same year, he said, that his most tenured current mechanic started.

“It used to be that you could do it all, you could pretty much fix a car with just a screwdriver,” he said of the changes to the cars over the years. The cars got smarter and lighter as they moved away from the heavy metals and manufacturers started using other materials.

Today some may deride the quality of autos versus the ones of the era before the massive influx of imports and the many changes that arrived with emissions standards, but he said that is not always the case. Most of today’s car are better built and will be on the road for “hundreds of thousands” of miles more than their older counterparts.

“The time was that if a car hit 50 to 60,000 miles that it was going to need a new engine, now? I had a lady in here recently over 300,000 on her first engine,” he said.

It is a good thing the cars are lasting longer because parts for older, and even some middle-aged, vehicles are harder to come by. Vernon said often folks are looking for a late 90’s car or truck thinking it may be easier to find a part and can be surprised when finding they are not the only one who has had that idea. A Ford Ranger sitting on the lot at Scenic right now of that age is patiently waiting while the right belts, hoses, and a filler spout can be tracked down so that it will be road ready once more.

As the technology changes, the human element of auto repair may never be fully replaced. Even though the cars are smarter and have computer chips governing much of their activity, there are things a human can do a machine cannot. Vernon quickly joked that automation and robots can never replace the humans because, “Someone’s gotta’ plug them in.”

Jokes aside, a human’s five sense can all be important when it comes to working on a car that gets entrusted at times with the most precious of cargo. A robotic helper may not be able to feel a vibration, detect the sweet smell of a leak under the hood, or the sounds of an engine idling higher than it should. The split-second decision making that comes with decades of working on autos cannot yet be matched by automation and many mechanics and drivers alike hope it stays that way.

Vernon agrees there is something to be said for tinkering and getting a feel for the car one is working on that a diagnostic readout will never duplicate, and he went on to add that a human is needed even after a diagnostic to pinpoint through isolation and exclusion what a faulty component may be.

He gained that knowledge from the elbow grease academy and earned his stripes when it was still just Scenic Mercury. While the brand names have changed and Scenic sells and services more than they used to, the human touch in repair and with customer never changes as styles come and go.

Same too with employees, Scenic customers should fret not upon his departure as Vernon says the service department is going to be in the knowledgeable hands of Kevin Pratt starting in the new year.

Looking back over his time he wanted thanked the team and ownership of Scenic for the many years and all the support he got from them saying, “You can’t do anything without support… I’d say you find more of that, and I see more of that, at Scenic than probably at the average business.”

Vernon said had it not been for health issues, he would like to have stayed on the job even longer, “I was hoping to work until I am 75, but the good Lord has other plans for me,” but he also noted that he isn’t going anywhere just yet, “People can still call me, if they like.”

Willie Wayne France celebrates the Project Timberlake Community Organization’s fifth Yard of the Month belonging to Sue Krepps who will have the sign adorn her yard until the first winner of 2023 is selected. The PTCO was formed to help foster a sense of community pride in their neighborhood and awarded a subscription to The Mount Airy News as a prize for winning.

The Project Timberlake Community Organization recognized James and Clara Carter as having the Yard of the Month. Carter (left) poses with Willie Wayne France of the organization and the yard of the month sign. The group has been working to improve the quality of life for residents of the community through service, outreach, and crime prevention via community watch.

Project Timberlake Community Organization Secretary Betty Brown-France and Treasurer Barbara France place the Yard of the Month sign in an earlier winners yard during what looks like much warmer days.

• A Mount Airy man has been arrested on a felony charge of obtaining property by false pretenses, according to city police reports.

William Joseph Spencer, 50, of 2553 Westfield Road, was taken into custody on Dec. 15 at 2038 Rockford St., the address for Advance Auto Parts, by officers during an investigation involving the possession of a stolen vehicle.

He was found to be the subject of an outstanding warrant for the false-pretense charge that had been filed in the city on Aug. 19, with no other details listed.

Spencer was confined in the Surry County Jail under a $5,000 secured bond and is scheduled to appear in District Court on Jan. 9.

• Colby Craig Cassell, 36, of 3886 Pine Ridge Road, Lowgap, was charged with possession of a Schedule II controlled substance, a felony, on Dec. 13, after he was encountered by officers at Walgreens on Rockford Street.

Cassell was jailed under a $1,000 secured bond. In conjunction with the same incident, Ashley Luann Goins, 35, of 511 Gillespie Road, Dobson, was charged with possession of a Schedule IV controlled substance (lorazepam), along with possession of drug paraphernalia, and transported to Northern Regional Hospital due to an overdose.

Goins is slated for a Jan. 9 appearance in District Court, with a court date not found for Cassell.

• Adam Kane Westmoreland, 32, of 1227 Bryant Mill Road, Ararat, was incarcerated under an $8,013 secured bond on Dec. 7 for a civil non-support order violation.

Westmoreland was encountered by officers during a traffic stop at Cook Out on Rockford Street and found to be the subject of the outstanding order whose name had been entered as wanted in a national crime database.

Surry Community College fall semester art students presented a Fall Art Show and Open House earlier this autumn.

The art show featured work from the current studio classes including 2D design, drawing, painting, ceramics, and digital photography. Attendees were able to tour the studio art classrooms to see additional student art and learn about the Associates in Fine Arts in Visual Arts degree. Art instructor Anna-Olivia Sisk was on hand to answer questions about the visual arts opportunities at Surry Community College and how students can register for future art classes.

The associate in fine arts degree in Visual Arts program at SCC focuses heavily on the visual fine arts and is recommended for those who plan to continue their education at a senior institution. This program prepares transfer students to meet selective admission criteria for acceptance into a Bachelor of Fine Arts or Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts at a senior college or university.

The course work in this program consists of Universal General Education Transfer Component courses in literature, humanities, social/behavioral sciences, mathematics and natural science. Students in this program are provided an opportunity to concentrate in a major area of fine art study that includes elective choices in drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics and digital photography.

Follow the fine arts program on Instagram @surryfinearts. For more information about the fine arts program, contact Lead Instructor Anna-Olivia Sisk at 336-368-3479 or siskao@surry.edu.

Registration is open for spring courses. For questions about college application, financial aid, or class registration, contact Student & Workforce Services at 336-386-3264 or studentservices@surry.edu.

This area was fortunate to avoid the blizzard conditions and subzero temperatures gripping much of America the past few days — but hasn’t escaped the cold and related issues altogether, including a 92-year-old record being broken locally.

That occurred Saturday morning, when a reading of 2 degrees above zero was noted at F.G. Doggett Water Plant in Mount Airy, the city’s official weather-monitoring station.

This not only shattered the previous low-temperature record locally for Dec. 24, a 7-degree day on Christmas Eve of 1930, according to a plant spokesman, but did so decisively as evidenced by the 5-degree margin.

Remember, this took place in early winter, with that season having just got under way last Wednesday.

Weather statistics have been kept in Mount Airy since 1924, and 2022 will go down in history for delivering the “gift” of a memorable Christmas weekend that proved challenging for many.

In addition to frigid conditions that descended Friday — dipping into single digits, gradually rising into the teens and 20s and finally creeping into the low 30s Sunday — high winds and rolling power blackouts were factors during the arctic blast.

Despite the record cold that swept in with little warning, no loss of life attributable to the frigid conditions has occurred in Surry, according to Eric Southern, the county’s director of emergency services, unlike some parts of the nation.

But other difficulties did surface.

”Countywide, I think we had over 200 trees that were down,” Southern said Monday in commenting on a situation caused by gusting winds on Friday. “Emergency services around the county were pretty busy.”

This included fire departments, N.C. Department of Transportation crews and county emergency management personnel. Duke Energy crews also were visible during the crisis, among others.

The cold weather caused rolling blackouts to be implemented Saturday by the two local electrical providers, Duke Energy and Surry-Yadkin Electric Membership Corp., in response to the statewide power grid being threatened by excess demand.

This mirrored a precaution taken throughout much of North Carolina, which involved some customers in Surry being without service for more than 90 minutes.

Southern said Monday that the severity of this situation was lessened by the fact folks among both local utility systems responded by conserving electricity.

Meanwhile, a weekend fire at a residence on Lambert Farm Trail is believed to have started in the attic, with residents getting out safely while facing another problem.

“I think it ended up displacing the family,” Southern said.

Regarding in-city activity, the Mount Airy Fire Department responded to calls during the holiday weekend including one structure fire, one electrical fire, one smoke investigation, two downed trees, three power line incidents and a trio of sprinkler activations caused by frozen lines.

None were thought to be major in nature.

All in all, Surry County weathered the arctic blast relatively well, the director of emergency services said, “compared to other places.”

That viewpoint was echoed Monday by Mitch Williams, who deals with climate-related issues within his realms of responsibility as Mount Airy’s public works director.

“Friday, we had a few downed trees,” he said, caused by the severe winds. And there was a water line break about 9 p.m. that day on Dyson Place, a street in the northern part of town which municipal workers addressed.

“They worked constantly until early Saturday morning,” the public works director said.

“We’ve been really lucky,” Williams added in assessing the overall effects in Mount Airy from the weather.

Where water lines are concerned, he was most concerned Monday about problems surfacing later this week as the ground thaws from the freezing temperatures. This relates to how water expands when freezing, exposing lines to stress that can lead to leaking or burst pipes becoming apparent as conditions grow warmer.

“Knock on wood,” Williams said optimistically.

The National Weather Service forecast, as of Monday afternoon, was calling for a warming trend that will bring mercury readings in the 50s Thursday, Friday and Saturday and even the 60s on New Year’s Day next Sunday.

Thirteen students recently graduated from Surry Community College’s Practical Nursing Program.

The graduates include Amanda Hutchens of Boonville; Jessica Mabe of Danbury; Sara Scott of Dobson; Brittany Walker of East Bend; John “Luke” Hatcher of Lowgap; Courtney Davis, Shannon Hobson and Dove Mayes of Mount Airy; William “Steven” Duncan of North Wilkesboro; Cassandra Bishop and Hailey Wilson-Felts of Pilot Mountain; Laura Mullins of Pinnacle; and Jessica Foley of Ararat, Virginia.

A pinning ceremony was held to honor the graduates and celebrate their accomplishments on Dec. 14, in the Shelton-Badgett North Carolina Center for Viticulture and Enology on the Dobson campus. The guest speakers at the ceremony were Dan Combs, BSN, RN, and Allison Bedsaul, BSN, RN, of Northern Regional Hospital.

Northern Regional Hospital is a strong partner of the nursing programs at Surry Community College, providing clinical experiences, as well as clinical faculty to support nursing student education. Bedsaul and Combs both serve key roles in nursing education within Northern Regional Hospital. Both speakers congratulated the graduates and encouraged them to find an area of nursing that they loved and to continue learning and growing in nursing. Bedsaul remarked about the graduates being fortunate to live in a community with such a variety of high-quality healthcare opportunities.

Combs also encouraged the students to keep in mind what is important in nursing, encouraging the graduates to find an employer who will support them in their goals and aspirations. He also reminded them of the importance of treating their patients and the patients’ families like they would want to be treated.

The practical nursingcurriculum at Surry Community College prepares individuals with the knowledge and skills to provide nursing care to children and adults. Graduates are eligible to apply to take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-PN) which is required for practice as a Licensed Practical Nurse. Employment opportunities include hospitals, rehabilitation, long-term care, home health facilities, clinics and physicians’ offices.

Prospective nursing students can contact Dr. Yvonne Johnson, SCC associate dean of health sciences, at 336-386-3368 or johnsony@surry.edu for additional information on Surry Community College’s nursing programs or go to www.surry.edu.

The fifth Annual Surry County Schools GROW Strong 5K bolted through Fisher River Park on recently, with all 11 elementary schools participating in the event with more than 300 students competing.

The 5K race for third, fourth and fifth-grade runners began at 9:30 in the morning. By 11 a.m., all student runners had completed the race with dozens of family members and Surry County School system staff cheering on each team.

GROW is an acronym for Go Run Our World. The initiative encourages enthusiasm for health and wellness, and a love of running. Each team’s coach trains students to run a 5K and teaches perseverance, responsibility, race etiquette, self-motivation, self-pride, and teamwork. Training takes place over ten weeks leading up to the big event.

Surry County Parks & Recreation hosted the event and worked with the organizers to ensure safety for all participants. The Surry County Schools Educational Foundation Managing Director Ashley Mills, along with Rockford Elementary Coach Deanne Fitzgerald, organized the event for Surry County Schools.

“This is a great day. I am so thankful for all of you and for your families that have come out to support you,” Superintendent of Surry County Schools Dr. Travis L. Reeves said before the race.Reeves also commented about how proud he was of each student. “These students have set goals for themselves, and today they are able to reach these goals. I am proud of these students, and I know their coaches and families are proud too.”

Third grade girls school time

Fourth grade girls school time

Fifth grade girls school time

Third grade boys school time

Fourth grade boys school time

Fifth grade boys school time

Dobson Elementary earned the titles of overall fastest boys’ team and fastest girls’ team.

The final recognition was the GROW Strong All Heart award for one male and one female student. Coaches could nominate students for this award based on attitude, participation, courage, and team spirit. Mia Faistl and Daniel Martinez, both from Rockford Elementary, won those awards.

The Surry Regional Association of Realtors gathered for its annual Christmas celebration at White Sulphur Springs recently, where several were recognized with awards and the group’s new executive board was installed.

The event featured a dinner catered by 13 Bones, live music from Craig Vaughn, door prizes and fellowship.

During the event, the 2022 Realtor of the Year was awarded to Stephanie Montgomery with Mitchell Prime Properties. The recipient of this award is nominated by fellow association Realtors and chosen by the two prior award recipients — Dana Whitaker and Tonda Phillips.

The 2023 executive board was inducted by the North Carolina Association of Realtor Region 6 Vice President, Paul McGill. The 2023 Executive Board includes President Stephanie Montgomery, President-Elect Maggie Cockerham, Secretary/Treasurer Dana Whitaker, State Director Bobbie Collins, and directors Eric Hodges, Steve Yokeley, and Brandon Johnson.

Interstate Sign Company Inc. recently celebrated its 31st year with its employees during a Christmas get-together.

“Interstate Sign Company Inc. has been going strong and consistent throughout COVID and economic fluctuations for 31 years,” the company’s officials said, leading owner and President Rick Shelton to hold a day of celebration with his employees. All totaled, 65 people attended the event held at Golden Corral in Mount Airy,

The day began with Secret Santa that brought a lot of laughs and Christmas Spirit. Employees were recognized for their contribution this year with each receiving a bonus check.

For lunch, the employees and crew brought their families to join and fellowship together. Shelton drew employee’s names from a bright red bucket with many winning Yeti coolers, Yeti coffee cup and mugs, gift certificates, and cash surprises.

To close the celebration, plaques were given to employees who had devoted their talents and commitment to the company for 17 years and more. A special recognition went to his father, Gray Shelton, with the most at 30 years. Donna Edwards in accounts receivable was recognized as employee of the year with a plaque and $500. Special puppy plaques were given to Raymond McGee and Russ Comer for “their time and exceptional craftsmen on a much needed dog house for two spoiled dogs,” the company said.

The start of a new year is a time for resolutions, reflection, rebirth and refreshing oneself, for which an annual event scheduled at Pilot Mountain State Park on Jan. 1 can play a role.

It will be joining other state parks across North Carolina that Sunday in hosting a First Day Hike. Many people have come to embrace those events as a means of recovering from the stress of the holiday season in a wholesome way involving the Great Outdoors with exercise and a connection to nature.

“It’s just a good way to wind down,” a local ranger has observed in the past regarding First Day Hikes. “It’s a very popular program.”

Guided hikes that are free to the public are featured, which tend to include interesting facts being presented by Pilot Mountain rangers leading the participants. This discussion typically includes the park’s long history, geology and local flora and fauna spotted along the way.

The hike at Pilot Mountain State Park, located at 1721 Pilot Knob Park Road, Pinnacle, is planned from 9 to 10 a.m. on New Year’s Day.

“And it is for all ages,” a spokeswoman at the park said Friday.

The hike will begin at the shuttle stop in front of the visitor center there, where participants will join park personnel for a trek along the Grassy Ridge and Fiddlehead trails which are at the park’s lower level, she said. The distance involved will be less than one mile.

More than 40 other hikes are planned on Jan. 1 at state parks, recreation areas and nature preserves across North Carolina, with cycling involved in some cases.

Eno River State Park near Durham launched the inaugural First Day Hike in 1971, and the events have been held at parks across the state since 2011 to encourage folks to get outdoors.

That formula appears to work, with past First Day Hikes at Pilot Mountain being well-attended.

This is not just a North Carolina phenomenon, with hundreds of free, guided First Day Hikes now being organized in all 50 states on New Year’s Day, according to the American Hiking Society.

Each shares the aim of creating a fun experience for the entire family.

Nearly all middle and high schools in the Surry County School System placed in the North Carolina Association for Scholastic Activities Art Showcase held recently.

Registration was from Nov. 2 through Nov. 10, with all schools having submitted artwork.

In the Central Regional competition, North Surry High School placed second overall. In the West Regional competition, Surry Central High School placed third overall.

On the middle school level, Surry Central, J. Sam Gentry, Meadowview Magnet, and Pilot Mountain middle schools all placed in the top four of the West Regional competition.

The association’s art showcase is a competition that recognizes both the best individual artists and the best art programs in North Carolina schools. An unlimited number of students in each school may participate in the school-level competition. Students are presented with a prompt and given about one month to create their submission. Media categories include painting, drawing, collage, photography, and other creative efforts.

Electronic copies of submissions are sent to the North Carolina Association for Scholastic Activities and forwarded to judges. Submissions from top teams and students from each category advance to the state finals and are evaluated by judges in a live exhibition.

For a few hours on Saturday, Christmas Eve turned a lot chiller for area folks already struggling with single-digit temperatures.

That is because Duke Energy and Surry-Yadkin Electric Membership Corporation each had to institute rolling blackouts to combat excessive demand for electricity.

Duke Energy announced the blackouts early Saturday morning, saying the high demand was endangering the statewide electric grid, forcing the firm to institute rolling blackouts throughout much of the state. At the time, Duke officials said most of the blackouts would last between 30 minutes and an hour, although several residents in Surry County reported power outages lasting more than an hour-and-a-half.

Surry-Yadkin Electric Membership Corporation purchases much of the power it distributes throughout its coverage region from Duke Energy, thus the local utility company was forced to institute power outages as well. A number of homes and businesses throughout the county were affected at various times, just as residents were struggling with temperatures climbing from overnight lows in single digits. Saturday’s high in Mount Airy was predicted to only reach 25 degrees.

Shortly before noon, the Electric Membership Corporation posted on its Facebook pages its rolling blackouts would end, but asked customers to immediately report any lingering power outages.

Duke Energy officials had not announced the end of its blackouts as of noon. The company was urging its customers to continue voluntarily conserving energy to help the firm reduce or eliminate the need for the blackouts. At various times during Saturday morning, more than 100,000 Duke Energy customers were without electric service at various points.

Flat Rock Elementary School held its annual spelling bee earlier this month.

Rhea Roberts, a fourth grader, was crowned the winner and will compete in the Surry County Schools Spelling Bee in February.

While serving the Yadkin Valley region for nearly a century, Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital has evolved into a comprehensive community healthcare system providing care across 350,000 patient care visits annually. To better reflect its breadth and depth, the organization has introduced a new brand identity: Hugh Chatham Health – where “Your Health is Our Passion.”

“At Hugh Chatham Health we are committed to exceptionally safe, high-quality care and I’m proud of the progress we’ve made on that journey,” said CEO Paul Hammes. “In the past year alone, we’ve ranked in the top 15% of hospitals nationwide for patient satisfaction, patient safety, and for stroke care. We are one of only two Joint Commission ‘advanced’ total hip and knee replacement centers in the state, recently named a 5-star program by Healthgrades. And we continue to invest in life-changing programs and resources, including a new electronic health record system which will transform the care process. At our hospital, surgery center, emergency department, 29 physician clinics, Hugh Chatham Health at Home, and beyond,”

Cynthia Gonzalez, vice chair of Hugh Chatham Health’s Board of Trustees, added, “The new brand honors our heritage, features a distinct and recognizable ‘HC’, and signals our bold commitment to advance the community’s health and vibrancy. And as we continue to grow, our vision remains clear: to be the best community healthcare system in the nation, with service as our guiding principle.”

In the months ahead, officials there plan for Hugh Chatham Health’s new brand identity to become more visible and broadly represented across the system and region.

It has been looking a lot like Christmas at Dobson Elementary.

Second grade learned how to write friendly letters in class recently, then they all wrote letters to Santa.

The students wrote the letters as part of their writing lesson, making sure to begin with capital letters and use punctuation, and of course adding their wish list. This is a writing assignment that they always love to do.

Early this year, leaders in the Mount Airy school system and local business community formed the Mount Airy City Schools Educational Foundation, a 501c3 created to raise money in order to support arts education, dual language immersion programs, and workforce development throughout the school district.

“The foundation also serves as a pathway of giving for those wishing to donate back to the school system in honor or memory of loved ones,” school leaders said of the non-profit agency.

As the foundation’s first year of existence draws to a close, it is already having an effect on the city schools. In November, the foundation awarded grants to staff members across the district to go toward their proposed projects. More than $23,000 was awarded to the surprise of staff and students.

“I am overwhelmed at the response from our Mount Airy community in the first year of the educational foundation,” Superintendent Dr. Kim Morrison said. “Bringing in dollars above and beyond normal giving to help with teacher grants and student scholarships shows that we have a giving community who cares deeply about education. Our teachers and students deserve our support and the educational foundation is another way to provide that support for each and everyone.”

Some of the funded projects include:

• Career and technical education teacher Garrett Howlett will help students utilize their new iPads by engaging them in the design process and the development of their digital engineering notebooks. The aim is for learners to gain a better understanding of industry standards while also honing their craft as designers with employability skills’

• Sara Lowe, sustainable agriculture educator, will be able to enhance the Bears in Coop project with a chicken run. This will enable students to learn about animal husbandry and raise grass-fed chickens and eggs. The run will allow chickens to have a place to be safe from predators while still able to get on the ground;

• Catrina Alexander and Kathy Brintle will work with Mount Airy Middle School students who will obtain access to an indoor hydroponic tower for sixth-grade lessons and for integration into the newly formed Future Farmers of America (FFA) Club. The plan is for students to gain an understanding of food sourcing and sustainability while also gaining employability skills;

• Hollie Heller, music educator for BH Tharrington Primary and JJ Jones Intermediate, will be purchasing a noteworthy classroom rug for active student engagement and a new set of risers for musical performances. Students also will have access to new ukulele racks and tuners to refine their hands-on artistry’

• Nicole Hooker, interventionist for BH Tharrington Primary, will be purchasing reading English resources for dual language immersion teachers to use to engage their students. Games, books, and pre-made instructional resources will allow teachers and staff to work with students to improve literacy and language skills.

The foundation’s goal to hold one fundraising dinner a year proved successful this year, according to officials. More than 150 community members came together in May for the first event, raising nearly $50,000 for the programs. The foundation is designed to put 10% of donations into its endowment fund and spend 100% of the investment income on “positively impacting student learning.” Money is also set aside for student scholarships that will open to current students in the spring of 2023.

The next fundraising dinner for the foundation is scheduled for April.

In addition to supporting programs in the district, the foundation set the goal of providing scholarships to students. A portion of the spring fundraiser was earmarked for student scholarships but the foundation’s board wishes to provide “impactful” scholarships for students, school officials said. That is how the fall fundraiser, termed “The Lucky Draw” came to be. The committee sold numbers 1-100 for $100 to raise $10,000 in a raffle.

Committee members asked businesses and community members for donations of prizes and “donors were generous and quick to give,” foundation officials said. The opportunities to win ended up being 11 prize packages valued at more than $400 each and 10 door prizes ranging from $100 to $300 each. The money raised will go toward student scholarships and students interested in technical fields, arts and language, and teaching will be able to apply for this funding beginning in spring.

• Property valued at more than $20,000 was stolen during a breaking and entering discovered at a business location in Mount Airy Wednesday afternoon, according to city police reports.

The incident occurred at 697 W. Independence Blvd., the address for a former Sonic Drive-In restaurant.

An Ansul-brand fire-suppression system involving four components altogether was stolen from inside the building during the break-in along with a trailer jack, with the total property loss put at $20,250.

David George Parks of Byron Bunker Lane is listed as the victim of the crime.

• Police were told on Dec. 16 that counterfeit currency had surfaced at O’Reilly Auto Parts on West Pine Street, where an unknown suspect used it to buy items. No denomination information was listed regarding the bogus money.

• Joshua James Moran, 31, of 258 Cherokee Trail, was charged with driving while impaired and driving while consuming on Dec. 15 after the investigation of a traffic crash that police records indicate occurred on U.S. 52 near its intersection with N.C. 89.

Moran, the driver of a 1999 Ford F-150 pickup, allegedly refused to submit a breath sample, leading to a search warrant being obtained to have two vials of blood drawn from his left arm.

He subsequently was confined in the Surry County Jail under a $1,000 secured bond and is scheduled to appear in District Court on May 15 of next year.

There are presents under the Christmas tree that entice, and a new package has quietly been placed under Surry County’s tree. Project Denver has been wrapped in pretty paper and bows with a ‘no peeking’ label affixed for county residents. It may make a nice, matched pair, so to speak, when paired with Project Cobra which itself remains coiled and under a thick veil of secrecy.

What is known is that a company has expressed interest in Surry County and the board of commissioners will be holding a public hearing on the matter early in the new year. The public hearing will be the first time that the board will discuss the project in public and will allow residents a chance to offer their opinion on whether the county should partake in the incentives package —although residents won’t have any information with which to form an opinion. The county is not releasing the name of the firm, the type of work it will do, nor will it say what kind of incentives it is seeking.

The county is observing New Years Day on Monday, Jan. 2 which means the county commissioners meeting that night, and the public hearing on Project Denver, are moved one day later to Tuesday, Jan. 3.

The county statement said, “A private corporation proposes a direct investment of $6.4 million within Surry County. A source of funding for the improvement is the County’s General Fund Reserves. Public benefit to be derived from making such improvement includes the expansion of Surry County’s tax base, creation of new jobs within the County and improvement of the general employment outlook in Surry County.” County officials won’t say what the “improvement” is nor how much of the county’s general fund reserve it might use.

“The public hearing shall be used as a forum to hear public comment on the proposed project and to evaluate the value of the project to Surry County and its citizens,” the statement concludes.

The amount of the incentives package or its proposed use are unknown at this time. With the recent departure of Todd Tucker as the leader of the Surry Economic Development Partnership, his duties have fallen temporarily to Creative Economic Development Consulting, LLC of Elkin. Crystal Morphis of Creative EDC said Friday it was their policy to not offer comment on ongoing negotiations, although she did offer the Town of Elkin will hold a public hearing on Project Denver Jan. 9 which may suggest the town is considering their own incentives.

The notice from the county that a public hearing was forthcoming appeared on their website at some point after the last meeting of the board of commissioners on Dec 5. Their agenda had no listing of any incentive packages to be brought before the board.

Surry County Commissioner Mark Marion said he was not able to shed any light on the forthcoming Project Denver. “I wish I could give some insight, but we are not in the loop on these two,” he said alluding also to the snoozing Project Cobra.

Marion has previously expressed interest in the potential of Project Cobra and its potential to grow an existing Surry County employer’s footprint and employee headcount. The commissioners in a unanimous vote passed the incentive package of $36,244 spread over five years in performance-based incentives. The City of Mount Airy followed suit approving a plan for $36,341 over a five-year period.

The public has not yet been made aware of the identity of the company at the heart of the project, or the timeline on their decisions. As Marion said, “We’re still in the dark on the advancement of Project Cobra.”

Project Cobra is reported to be the potential consolidation of warehouse and distribution operations for a company already in Surry County valued at over $1.96 million in investment. They are looking also looking at sites in Alabama and South Carolina where they currently have operations as well. If selected it may yield 35 new jobs to the area, conversely if they should move, they will take 63 jobs with them.

For Project Cobra’s public hearing there was only one in-person speaker, resident J.T. Henson who expressed frustration that a public hearing had been called and comment from the public solicited. He wondered how anyone could attend the hearing or speak on it with any authority if the public had never heard about it before. With no forewarning and no information provided he felt the public was in the dark and that in the dark, he said corruption can form like mold.

Some have wondered if incentive packages are the best way to bring a new business to town, or help one expand. Mitch Kokai, a North Carolina political analyst for the conservative John Locke Foundation, spoke on incentives earlier this month and used a turn of phrase that has found its way into debates and forums in front of Surry County’s Board of Commissioners – that being the concept of economic winners and losers.

He wrote, “These (incentive) deals offer another example of the government trying to pick economic winners and losers. If these companies actually need taxpayer support to survive, then the targeted incentive is ill-advised. If the companies only chose North Carolina because of the incentive, then that doesn’t bode well for the state when the incentive runs out and the business starts reassessing its options.”

He goes on to suggest that targeting across the board changes that are pro-business are a better path than incentives alone, “North Carolina does better when it focuses on broad-based economic reforms — low tax rates, light regulatory burden – that affect everyone,” he said. “That’s a preferable approach for existing businesses, new businesses, and people who don’t even know yet that they want to start a business.”

STUART, Va. — A Patrick County man has been arrested on child porn charges, Sheriff Dan Smith has announced, after an investigation to which the Surry County Sheriff’s Office lent assistance.

Oscar Alfredo Roman, 39, a resident of Willis Gap Road in Ararat, was taken into custody Thursday afternoon by Patrick deputies on 11 felony counts of possession of child pornography.

Ages of the alleged victims involved range from 3 to 7 years old, according to information released Friday afternoon by Sheriff Smith.

In conjunction with Roman’s arrest, a search warrant was executed at his residence by members of the Patrick County Sheriff’s Office Tactical Response Team.

Smith explained that his agency is a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) regional task force.

Investigator Jason Kruse, who represents the Patrick County Sheriff’s Office on the task force, had received a tip about Roman’s alleged involvement in child pornography and began an investigation. Kruse obtained multiple search warrants to retrieve electronic data, which led to Roman’s arrest.

“Cases like this are complex and involve specific training and knowledge,” Smith said in a statement.

In addition to the Surry County Sheriff’s Office, Patrick authorities were assisted in the investigation by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office and the Virginia State Police.

“We are grateful for our North Carolina and neighboring Virginia law enforcement partners — the inter-agency cooperation in this case could not have been better,” the sheriff added.

Roman was taken before a magistrate, who set a $9,500 secured bond in the case. He was bonded out of jail a short time later.

Sheriff Smith is asking anyone who has information regarding this case to contact Investigator Kruse confidentiality at 276-692-5123.

White Plains Elementary School recently held its annual spelling bee, with fifth grader Gracie Beasley emerging as the School Spelling Bee Champion.

She will compete in the Surry County Spelling Bee in February.

Times Square does its thing on New Year’s Eve — but the arrival of 2023 also will be celebrated with style in Mount Airy, where the annual Mayberry Sheriff’s Badge Raising is planned.

“We’re one of the few communities that does something like that,” said Executive Director Matt Edwards of Mount Airy Museum of Regional History, where the holiday observance now in its ninth year will be held next Saturday night as 2022 ends.

“Most drop something,” Edwards added regarding situations such as that in New York City, where a ball is dropped to signify the passage of time into another calendar as the clock strikes twelve. The museum official hatched the idea of the badge raising in 2014 because Mount Airy was lacking such an event to officially greet Jan. 1.

It involves a oversized, lighted sheriff’s shield being hoisted, a variation of the ball descending in Times Square at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. The badge is a tie-in to Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry, the television role immortalized by local native Andy Griffith.

The public is invited to the downtown New Year’s Eve celebration, planned from 11:45 p.m. to midnight in the courtyard of the museum.

“It is going to be kind of a toned-down event this year,” Edwards said in comparison with past badge raisings that also featured various other activities — but which have been hampered in more recent years by COVID-related issues.

This included being livestreamed in 2020 due to a nighttime curfew imposed during the pandemic.

The museum director said organizers have sought to keep alive the badge-raising tradition with the different formats employed.

“But we will not have a whole lot of programming associated with that,” he said of the Dec. 31 gathering.

It will, however, include some special features, including plans to invite the Mount Airy High School football team and coaches after their recent victory in the 1-A state championship game.

This is a fitting gesture since the Bears’ achievement is a highlight of the soon-to-be-ended 2022.

Edwards said he had contacted Coach J.K. Adkins about the team’s appearance. “And he sounded amenable to it,” the museum executive director advised.

While the players largely are to attend in a ceremonial capacity honoring their accomplishment, he says some might have the honor of holding ropes for the sheriff’s badge.

“We’ll have some music playing,” Edwards said, to be provided by a DJ, Mark Brown.

The museum official is hoping patrons who might be at other venues downtown on New Year’s Eve will meander to the courtyard of that facility for the raising of the badge.

The seventh grade students at Gentry Middle School recently had a sock drive to support Santa for a Senior.

Students were able to donate more than 1,900 pairs of socks and 519 handmade Christmas cards to support the efforts of Home Instead this holiday season. Their main goal was to make a difference in our community and help others feel joy this Christmas.

Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society (PTK) recently selected the academic research project of Surry Community College’s Alpha Xi Tau Chapter to feature in its publication, Civic Scholar: Phi Theta Kappa Journal of Undergraduate Research.

Civic Scholar features 18 research projects by PTK chapters across the country on a wide range of topics including: “Disability, Awareness, Inclusivity and Student Success Outcomes” and “Economic and Social Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on K-12 Education.” There were 394 submissions for the third edition of Civic Scholar.

“We are proud of all the chapters who took the opportunity this year to develop, implement, and write about their Honors in Action projects,” says Dr. Susan Edwards, associate vice president of honors programming and undergraduate research for PTK. “They are conducting research that matters, and their work has engaged people on their community college campuses and in their communities. Their work inspires us and highlights something we have known all along: community college students are central to the production of new knowledge and meaningful scholarship.”

Research was conducted as part of Phi Theta Kappa’s honors program, Honors in Action, and based on the topic, “To the Seventh Generation: Inheritance and Legacy.” The works published in Civic Scholar include both substantive research and community engagement — PTK chapters ultimately turned their research into action by using their findings to meet specific community needs.

Surry Community College’s Chapter Advisor Dr. Kathleen D. Fowler, who directed the project featured in the publication, is extremely proud of the students who dedicated their time and skills to work on it.

“Honors in Action projects are designed to help students grow as scholars and as leaders,” Fowler said. “The students research a global issue and how it manifests within their community. Then they design a project, based on their research, to help their community members. Thus, they are making a positive impact through their service.”

Surry’s Alpha Xi Tau Chapter of PTK entitled the research project, “The Errs of Our Ways: The Corrupted Inheritance of Child Labor and the Legacy of Hope.” After hearing a guest speaker’s presentation on child slavery, they developed this research question: “Do some countries exploit child labor for profit?”

Upon further research, they learned that child labor is one of the largest, fastest growing criminal activities today with 2.5 million victims at any given time. They also learned that Ghana is among the worst offenders, with 24% of children ages 5 to 14 engaged in child labor such as cocoa harvesting.

Researching this topic led them to develop a four-part project including an awareness campaign, fundraising, encouragement and volunteerism. They decided to partner with Hope House, a local missionary thrift store, to raise money and support Hope Chapel Orphanage in Ghana. They planned to reach 500 people alerting them of exploitation of children in Ghana, raise $2,800 for Hope Chapel Orphanage to repair its roof, write letters to 50 children rescued from slavery and volunteer at least 40 hours at Hope House.

The students also partnered with the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) for help with fundraising efforts. The local DAR chapter donated items for a yard sale fundraiser. All leftover items were donated to Hope House. Fundraisers were also held in the form of a basket raffle on the college campus.

The project resulted in the chapter surpassing three of the four goals its members had set for themselves. They reached 608 people through their awareness campaign, raised a total of $3,065 for Hope Chapel Orphanage and volunteered 56 hours of their time at Hope House.

This is the second time that the Alpha Xi Tau chapter has had its research published in Civic Scholar. They were included in the 2020 publication for their project “Transforming Families Impacted by Substance Abuse: The Opposite of Addiction is Connection.”

For more information about Phi Theta Kappa and its projects, contact PTK’s faculty Fowler at 336-386-3560 or fowlerk@surry.edu and Kayla Forrest at 336-386-3315 or forrestkm@surry.edu. Follow the local chapter on Facebook @surryPhiThetaKappa or go to www.ptk.org.

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