By Neill Caldwell neill.caldwell@thestokesnews.com
Mark Thorpe, a 25-year veteran of the City of King Fire Department, is teaching the first course of the county schools’ new Fire Academy.
Thorpe instructs his Public Safety I students at South Stokes High School.
DANBURY When students went back to school last week after their Christmas break, it also meant the start of something pretty important: The Stokes County School System’s new Fire Academy, something that’s been dreamed about for quite a while.
Twenty-nine students have signed up for the program. Classes are being taught at South and North Stokes high schools by Mark Thorpe, who has been with the City of King Fire Department as a firefighter since 1996.
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Another Christmas Eve, as I look out my bedroom window, and wonder where the kids could be, it seems so long ago, he sings in the opening verse of the melancholic, three-hanky folk song.Â
This song has special resonance for McGee this year. For the first time in his life, he won t get to see his mother, Martha, on Christmas. She became a resident at Priddy Manor in King a few weeks before the spread of COVID-19 forced assisted living homes to restrict visitors. Typically, we d have a big family gathering, said McGee, who is the executive director of the Stokes County Arts Council. We d be there Christmas morning. This is different, and I m definitely relating to this now. I didn t know it at the time, but she s the someone I was singing about when I wrote this. Years later, she s the subject of my song.