By Tom Joyce tjoyce@mtairynews.com
Bill Holcomb holds a clock presented by Mount Airy Rotary Club members engraved with the dates of his Rotary membership spanning more than 50 years. The clock was given in appreciation of Holcomb’s decades of faithful membership and attendance.
Belonging to a group for more than a half-century is a remarkable achievement, but ironically, Bill Holcomb’s association with the Mount Airy Rotary Club would have exceeded 70 years had he not put work over membership.
“I was asked to join when they formed the club,” Holcomb, 94, said Wednesday afternoon when recalling events occurring shortly after its emergence in 1949 while he was employed at a family business located downtown, Holcomb Hardware.
April 22, 2021
It takes a village to raise a child but it takes the Mississippi Nailbenders to build a local camp for youths.
That group’s name suggests it is “hammer-challenged” concerning the fastening of objects to each other using slender metal shafts with pointed ends (nails).
It is actually a mission organization of skilled volunteers who go from place to place tackling new construction projects for church congregations and related groups and probably don’t smash their thumbs all that often.
The Mississippi Nailbenders boasts more than 600 members, about 40 of whom representing nine states made their way to Surry County last week to lend their talents in launching a project known as Camp Andrew.
If there is such a place as Canine Heaven, Brownie appeared to be there.
The Beagle-Chihuahua mix from Claudville, Virginia, scampered happily around a large fenced-in area at the Rotary Pup Dog Park in Mount Airy Wednesday afternoon. At times, Brownie was proving to be more than a handful for the person at the end of its leash, Andrew Hill, 11, to restrain.
After all, the spacious grounds along the Emily B. Taylor Greenway behind the Lowes Foods shopping center were offering not only room to run, but small agility stations featuring hurdles, bridges and other obstacle course-implements appealing to canines’ playful side.
March 26, 2021
• A suspicious-person investigation in downtown Mount Airy led to a Bethesda, Ohio, woman being arrested this week on a felony drug charge, according to city police reports.
Delores Ann Richardson, 67, was encountered by officers Monday afternoon in a parking area at the Robby’s store on North Main Street and allegedly found with methamphetamine and a pair of glass smoking devices, resulting in charges of possession of a Schedule II controlled substance and two counts of possessing drug paraphernalia.
Richardson was confined in the Surry County Jail under a $5,000 secured bond and slated for an April 7 appearance in District Court.