2023 FOCUS ON THE FUTURE Progress Section

Pictured: Terry

&

on left of sign & David McCall, Taylor M. Shaw & Frank Neely on right side of sign.

Growing up

Mayor Mike Rogers:

Mayor Mike Horn:

BY JIM BUICE

For the Clemmons Courier

What makes a community special?

Here’s what Mayor Mike Rogers of Clemmons has to say: “Great schools, a farmers market featuring local vendors, good roads, safe neighborhoods. These are just a few of my favorite things about the Village of Clemmons.”

Of course, there’s much more.

“Clemmons is particularly pro-business, spurring an incredible amount of development recently, including a large redevelopment project, a new connector street, dining and shopping venues, start-up businesses, as well as residential developments,” Rogers added. “Yet, we retain that small-

See Clemmons, page 6

BY JIM BUICE

For

the Clemmons Courier

For Lewisville, it’s all about that small-town feel and everything that goes along with it.

Just look at Mayor Mike Horn’s take: “By working to preserve the characteristics of a small town, our residents have a sense of community where they know their neighbors, participate in our many activities that bring people together and share a pride in where they live.”

It all goes back to when the town was incorporated in 1991.

“From our first community comprehensive plan, our residents established a shared vision and direction for the town,” said Horn, the longtime mayor who moved to Lewisville that year and was elected to his first term as

See Lewisville, page 7

‘Clemmons is a community that is small enough to know your neighbors, but large enough to find what you need in the village’

‘Lewisville’s small-town character and values make us the most desirable place in our county in which to live and raise a family’

Clemmons from page 5

town feeling that residents crave, creating that sense of Southern charm with modern amenities.

“Clemmons has a hospital, a YMCA, a chamber of commerce, a newspaper and a wide array of long-established churches and religious institutions. The Clemmons Library is one of the busiest branches of the Forsyth County Library system, as well as the newest library offering community gathering places and activities for all ages. Our elite fire department and dedicated community policing help keep us safe. We enjoy this quality of life while having one of the lowest tax rates of all the towns in our region. Our village council and staff is meticulous when allocating and spending taxpayer dollars.”

Certainly, Clemmons has become a coveted destination for those looking for the right place to live since it was incorporated in 1986. The village’s census population was 9,213 in 1990, 15,825 in 2000, 18,627 in 2010 and 21,217 at the 2020 census. Current projections have that number continuing to climb going forward.

Mary Cameron, who has served a total of 27 years on the council, remembers what it was like when she came to Clemmons a couple of years before it became an official town — saying her family liked the location and the feel of the community.

“When I first moved here, you could buy groceries, go to the drug store, eat at one of the two restaurants and that was about it,” said Cameron, who stated she was responding as a resident and not as a council member. “This was, and still is, a great place to live. We enjoy one of the lowest tax rates in the state, are provided with the highest quality services and reside in a prosperous community that has no debt. What’s not to like? Of course, people want to move here.”

Village Manager Mike Gunnell added that although there are a number reasons why Clemmons is a noteworthy place to call home, the common factor is truly the people.

“It is the residents and business own-

ers that make a community special,” he said. “They take pride in living and owning businesses here — that makes everyone invested in what is the absolute best for the Village of Clemmons.”

Naturally, there’s always the question of how much growth is too much.

“I wish there was an easy answer,” said Gunnell, who also has served the village as public works director, village engineer, stormwater engineer and assistant manager before taking over as manager early last year. “I think first we need to look at reasons why there is growth in Clemmons. Location is attractive to new businesses that prefer a smaller city atmosphere where employees can live in a less stressful environment.

“Clemmons welcomes smart growth and also looks to appeal to all generations. Older residents with ties to a community tend to stay put, but it takes growth of good schools, retail and services as well as adequate housing to attract younger families. We need to maintain a high quality of living for all generations.”

That includes having people being able to live where they work and have the necessary support such as child care, schools, youth sports and medical care available.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep traffic flowing since we understand I-40, U.S. 158 and Lewisville-Clemmons Road bisect our town,” Gunnell said. “The upcoming sidewalk projects along Harper Road will help increase pedes-

trian availability and make it possible to connect the YMCA to Tanglewood via sidewalk.”

Gunnell is hopeful that the NCDOT project involving safety and traffic flow improvements along the busy Lewisville-Clemmons Road corridor will help.

“NCDOT has been studying this for many years — and they have had many of their experts spending countless hours studying the traffic patterns and road design,” he said. “It is important that support is provided to NCDOT to make this project a success and trust the experts in making our roadways as safe and efficient as possible.”

Most agree that traffic that is the biggest concern in Clemmons.

“According to many residents, it is traffic,” Cameron said. “I grew up and lived in New Jersey until I was out of college, so I know what traffic really looks like and am probably the wrong person to answer that. Here I will speak as only one member of the Clemmons Village Council. There is a fine line between allowing property owners to build on their property and putting controls on the use of that property based on the amount of traffic it will produce, but it must and is being done.

“Probably the best example of disbursing traffic is found in Village Point. Instead of businesses being lined up along one road, such as Lewisville-Clemmons Road, businesses and multifamily units are spread out in one location drawing traffic off the main road with multiple entrances and exits allowing

shoppers and apartment dwellers to access the area from different locations. In that same area, they can access the hospital, the lake and Morgan Elementary school.”

As for how much growth and development is too much, Cameron said, “That is not for me to determine. When people feel that Clemmons is too crowded, they will stop moving here.”

When asked what was the biggest problem facing Clemmons, Gunnell said that the answer to this question could change every day but the most consistent answer is actually a good problem to have: “Clemmons is attractive. People want to continue living here, new residents want to move here, current businesses are happy here, and new businesses want a place in Clemmons. Why is Clemmons so attractive? We have a governing body that works tirelessly to balance smart growth, tax rate and amenities. We have a staff that is second to none in filling the needs and wants of the community, which leads to another problem we are facing along with many of our counterparts. Recruiting new employees to fill vacancies is a challenge. We have taken some steps to make our benefits more appealing to employees such as adding vacation time, flexible hours in many of our positions, as well as on-the-job training.”

Rogers points to another area that makes Clemmons desirable.

“On any given weekend, you will find a long list of family-friendly events ranging from live music, triathlons, outdoor movies, or simply enjoying a leisurely walk around Village Point Greenway or fishing the Village Point Lake.” he said. “Residents and surrounding neighbors also attend many of our annual events, including a holiday tree-lighting ceremony, a Monster Dash and Goblin Hop around the greenway for kids dressed in costumes to interact with local businesses and organizations, and our annual Harvest Fest. This is just a small sample of such events.”

Rogers concluded with this: “Clemmons is a community that is small enough to know your neighbors, but large enough to find what you need in the village.”

The new Publix in Clemmons.

Lewisville

from page 5

a council member two years later. “Everything we have done, every investment we have made in our community, has been consistent and intentional to realize that vision.”

That includes a pedestrian-friendly environment in the downtown area, including establishing Shallowford Square, with sidewalks and street lights, and the eventual expansion of parks and meeting places along with events and activities to connect the community.

Over the years, Lewisville has grown at a steady pace. The town’s census population was 8,826 in 2000, 12,639 in 2010 and 13,381 in 2020. And the rooftops are continuing to be added.

Ken Sadler, who was part of the charter council and has served multiple terms on the board, agreed with Horn that everything has gone according to plan.

“The evolution of the town has been much in line with what we had wanted to occur,” Sadler said. “That was part of why we wanted to have a planning process in place so that we could at least control what we could control. I think the focus of having citizen involvement in all of our committees has been instrumental in helping us move the town in the direction that the citizens want it to move.”

Sadler said that Lewisville’s effort to form its own government included a mindful eye to the larger neighbors to the south and east — and warding off any possibilities of annexation.

“We wanted to control our own destiny, and the best way to do that as a community was to be in control,” he said. “If we were part of Clemmons or part of Winston-Salem, our ability to do that would have been lost.

“My position has always been that you have to balance growth against the rights of people who own property, and that’s what we’ve tried to do — looking at ways to get beneficial results for both those who want to develop and also the citizens of the town.”

Planner Stacy Tolbert, who added the title of assistant town manager

last year, said she relies on the past and current comprehensive plans that have been adopted to help keep things on the right track.

“Over the years, Lewisville’s planning boards and town councils have been very supportive of keeping our comprehensive plans updated,” she said. “These plans are important because they create a vision of our residents’ wants and needs in order to be proactive and guide growth, and I encourage residents to attend public involvement meetings. Historically, the plans show a similar vision for Lewisville’s future — maintain the town’s character, focus small businesses and higher densities in the downtown area, preserve the rural and vulnerable areas of town, help Lewisville become more walkable, etc.”

Tolbert said that the most pressing issue facing the town, from a planning perspective, is development and change overall.

“I say this because Lewisville is such a special place and many people want to live here,” she said. “Lewisville is growing, and we have to be able to balance that growth to meet the needs of all residents from young families to seniors. While we grow and new opportunities arise, it is so important to protect our greatest assets including

the character, scenic views and our physical environment to name a few.”

Horn pointed to several items worth noting regarding challenges facing the town.

• Managing our growth consistent with our comprehensive plan.

• Putting in place the infrastructure to handle our growing population.

• Retaining our experienced and dedicated town staff.

• Seeking out the next generation of residents to become involved in the leadership of our community.

• Managing our budget to continue to provide our residents with the services they expect.

“Over the years Lewisville, which was once predominately a rural agricultural community, has today become more urban,” Horn said. “The wants and needs of our residents have also evolved. However, I think the roots of a community are somewhat different than its visual appearance. I think our roots are the values we share. How we treat one another. How we connect as a community. How we embrace our history and share a pride of place.

“I don’t think people move to Lewisville because they perceive the community as rural but rather how we have attempted to preserve our small-town character and values that make us the

most desirable place in our county in which to live and raise a family.”

James Ayers, the still relatively new town manager, can offer a unique perspective as someone who was looking at Lewisville last year as a job opportunity but also a place to live.

“Before I started as town manager, I visited Lewisville multiple times, and each time I was struck by how friendly and welcoming the residents were to me,” Ayers said. “It was great to see how the community came together in different ways such as attending concerts, planting flowers and picking up litter, or simply gathering for coffee.

“I also observed the investment in community assets ranging from Shallowford Square to Jack Warren Park to the Mary Alice Warren Community Center, plus the town has excellent schools, library, shops, restaurants and more. From the outside looking in, Lewisville appeared to be the perfect hometown, so I became a resident as soon as a suitable place became available.”

Ayers realizes many others also desire to live in Lewisville, and he realizes the importance of growing in a measured way while embracing the many pastoral views and protecting the natural environment and rural heritage.

“Lewisville may have incorporated as a municipality just a few decades ago, but its rich history and culture go back hundreds of years, and it is worth preserving for future generations,” Ayers said. “The growth rate in Lewisville is lower than surrounding cities, and this intentionally measured pace should allow us to achieve balance between growth and preservation while allowing municipal services to keep up with community needs.”

“I can see connections in the literal sense as the town continues to build sidewalks and pathways throughout the community, plus there are the human connections as we present special events like concerts and movie nights that bring neighbors together. If we do our job right, Lewisville will continue to be that friendly and welcoming hometown that is the preferred destination for current and future residents alike.”

The new Mary Allen Warren Community Center in Lewisville.

Double take

As the successful operator of the Chick-fil-A in Clemmons, David Moore looks to forward to opening a second location in Bermuda Run

BY JIM BUICE

For the Clemmons Courier

What could be better than being the owner/operator of a Chick-fil-A franchise? Well, how about having two of them?

That’s what’s ahead for David Moore, who came on the scene as the franchisee when the popular fast-food restaurant came to Clemmons in 2017 and is now preparing to open his second store just across the Yadkin River in Bermuda Run later this spring.

For Moore, his goal for both locations remains what founder Truett Cathy established in 1946 with the opening of the first Chick-fil-A restaurant in Georgia.

“He built the company on a platform of care and said, ‘We’re in the people business, but we just happen to serve the best chicken sandwich in the world,’” Moore said. “So we focus on care and great, fresh awesome food, and then connecting to our community in a special way. Again, that’s a tribute and the standard he set that now about 2,900 restaurants are trying to model.”

As for the food, you might be surprised to learn that the waffle fries are the No. 1 seller on the menu.

“The Chick-fil-A sandwich and nuggets are right up there neck and neck, but the waffle fries are actually the most selected item because they can accompany both a sandwich and nuggets,” Moore said.

Breakfast, which Moore said probably accounts for 15 to 20 percent of the daily volume, continues to grow with the four-count minis leading the popularity poll followed by the chicken biscuit.

Never willing to rest on success,

Chick-fil-A constantly tries out new items with the addition of the cauliflower sandwich on the menu in three national test markets, including the Triad.

“What they like to do periodically is introduce new products and see how those markets respond and then if they think it will be a favorable rollout then they can choose to do that within the chain, or they can choose to not to do or could do it in a limited/seasonal offering.”

That was the case in the first year for the new Chick-fil-A restaurant on Lewisville-Clemmons Road in Clemmons when mac and cheese was introduced along with baked beans.

“Mac and cheese made it, and the baked beans didn’t,” Moore said. “And the mac & cheese has been a huge success. People love it.”

Other favorites are the milk shakes, including the seasonal Peach and Peppermint Chocolate Chip in the winter.

Staying in the experimental realm, a Caramel Crumble shake will be offered as a limited time favor this fall.

Chick-fil-A also pivots to food in filling a vital role in the community by backing nonprofits such as the Clemmons Food Pantry and Davie Hunger Fighters — and partnering with 19 local schools to support teachers and organizations within the school in various activities.

Moore added that for each Chick-fil-A grand opening, such as the upcoming one in Bermuda Run, an organization named Feeding America will donate $25,000 to a local hunger partner yet to be named.

This is the 15th year that Moore has been affiliated with Chick-fil-A. He spent the first part of his professional career in Dalton, Ga., as regional operations manager for Shaw Industries and eventually moved to Kernersville in 1997 to run the distribution center there before being selected as the owner/operator of the Chick-fil-A location on Peace Haven Road in Winston-Salem in 2008.

“We had success there in creating a good customer experience and growing the brand, so after nine years there, when the opportunity came available to come to Clemmons, I had a chance to relocate,” he said. “The opportunity was a brand new store, closer to the interstate and possibly a chance to have more of an influence in sales, so that was attractive to me.”

In the established business model, Chick-fil-A owns the land, building and equipment for each store, so basically the actual owner/operator or franchisee does a lease agreement and owns the entity itself. Things have certainly gone well for Moore in Clemmons, which is part of about 30 stores in the Triad.

Left: David and Susan Moore pose for a quick photo at the Chick-fil-A in Clemmons. (Jim Buice photo)

“We do healthy sales competing in that market,” he said. “As far as the country, there’s stores doing way more than we are, but they have huge populations. We are closed on Sundays, so we compete with the other brands but our team gets a chance to rest. We feel good about what we’re doing.”

And now Moore has a chance to replicate a successful Clemmons start in Bermuda Run with a location that is “four miles from parking lot to parking lot” just off I-40 on N.C. 801 in the Lowes Foods shopping center.

“It’s kind of a perfect scenario for a multi-unit and one of the largest sites that I’ve ever seen for Chick-fil-A,” he said. “We’ll have a long drive-thru car stack line queue that will not impact anybody coming into the restaurant, leaving the restaurant or being out in the street. It’s really a great setup.”

The current length of the drive-thru in Clemmons presents a bit of a challenge with the two lanes converging into one lane at the front northern corner of

the building and extending around the curve to Market Center Drive. However, Moore said in the next year or so, plans call for making it two lanes throughout the drive-thru.

He said that although the Bermuda Run location will be a bigger footprint, most of the increase will be reflected in the kitchen with a different layout calling for not as many seats in the dining room but a lot more capacity in the drive-thru.

Moore said that the Clemmons restaurant has about 110 total employees, including 40 full-timers, but Bermuda Run may end up having a slightly larger complement. Although earlier projections called for an opening date of May 1, he said that late May is probably more likely — although it could even be June depending on weather and other factors.

For Moore, 59, who calls himself “an Army brat who was born in Seattle but been over the world and doesn’t really have a hometown,” certainly appears at

home in this area. The Moores lived in Lewisville for nine years before moving to Mocksville three years ago.

He and his wife of 38 years, Susan — they met in college at Georgia Southern — have seven kids (five of them are married), and “we got our first two grandchildren recently,” he said. “We’re entering a new phase of life.”

Susan actually helps out in the Clemmons store, putting flowers out on the tables one recent morning before shifting to bagging food.

“She works a little bit here and loves it,” David said of his wife. “She just wants to be in touch with the team and know their names. She bags the drive-thru, which is one of the hardest jobs.

She did 200 cars the other day in an hour. It was amazing.”

One constant for the family over the years has been a shared love of music.

“We all like to sing and play instruments and make music together,” Moore said. “That’s probably one of my greatest joys at our church, Calvary Baptist,

Peace Haven, for years and now Calvary West in Bermuda Run. We’ve been involved with music and teaching our kids music and producing music, and we can actually lead worship together as a family and have all the instruments and the vocal parts covered.”

Then there’s that strong faith that carries over to all walks of life, including work.

“My faith is the biggest, most important thing in my life and in my walk,” Moore said. “I want Christ to be seen in my life and in the things that I produce, and my wife wants the same thing.

“We want to care for my team and community and want to be his hands and feet wherever we go. It’s great to be in a company that allow us to care by the way we need to — around generosity, stewardship and excellence, loving others and being unselfish. Our world, our country is kind of messed up. It’s good for the soul to be greeted with a smile and, like, ‘I really care about you, not just here’s your food.’ ”

Finding her place

Merrikay Brown, longtime librarian and president of the Historical

BY JIM BUICE For the Clemmons Courier

As the director of the Lewisville Branch Library for more than three decades along with being the longtime president of the town’s Historical Society, probably no one knows more about Lewisville than Merrikay Brown.

Heck, she even helped put together a book on Lewisville.

“When I came here, especially to Lewisville when I got married, I said ‘I’m going to put down roots.’ ” Brown said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever put down roots, and I’ve been here more than 40 years.”

Growing up in a military family, Brown was constantly on the move every three years before going to college at N.C. State, graduating with a degree in Spanish and English education, and becoming a teacher.

However, after teaching middle school for a couple of years and then serving as a school media specialist in Robeson County, she decided to go in a different direction — opting to get her master’s degree in library science from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Brown came to Forsyth County in 1982 and worked two years at the Central Public Library in downtown Winston-Salem before coming to Lewisville in 1984, the same year she married Tom Brown, who owned a historic house in Clemmons.

“And then, the library director at the time said, ‘Well, I’ll just give you a wedding present.’ ”

Brown recalled. “He gave me the Lewisville branch, which was then across the street in the shopping center. We had a lot of fun there. It was a very cozy library. It started out at 2,000 square feet and was expanded to 4,000 square feet.”

As Lewisville continued to grow, a new, bigger, better library with 15,000 square feet was proposed and approved, opening in 2007 on the corner across from Town Hall. Brown continued to lead the local branch until her retirement in 2015.

“I’ve just really enjoyed my career at the library,” Brown said. “The community is so wonderful.

I’ve gotten into some of the clubs — Lewisville Civic Club, the Friends of the Library. It was just something that I really liked to do.

“When I came into the public library, I felt like I had just come into my own because it was one on one helping somebody,

Society, is ‘one of the reasons Lewisville is a great place to live’

Merrikay Brown poses in front of the book she put together on Lewisville. (Jim Buice photo)

and I just wanted to help. I’m a real joiner, like at church you know they would ask for somebody to do something, and my hand would be in the air, and it was the same thing with these clubs.”

She was the first president of the Lewisville Historical Society, which actually got started a month before the town was officially incorporated on Aug. 13, 1991, and served for a couple of years in that capacity. Brown returned as president in 2012 and is still running the show.

In her various roles, she naturally learned a great deal about Lewisville, but after getting a call from Arcadia Publishing and doing the book on the town (as part of an “Images of America” series) with her good friend Darla Johnson added to the knowledge.

“It was a lot of work in putting everything together,” Brown said. “They called me and said they were trying to get more books on towns, so I talked to Darla because she’s a writer, and it struck a chord for both of us. A lot of families ended up bringing in photos, and we were helped by people who knew a lot of the history.”

Where does she start with all the rich history in Lewisville?

“The Great Wagon Road and the wagons, and the Shallow Ford, which is not far from here, and that’s why Winston is there because the Shallow Ford was the link in the Great Wagon Road,” Brown said. “It went from Philadelphia Pa., to Augusta Ga., and went right through Lewisville.

Lewisville’s current roads are the closest to the old road track anywhere in Forsyth County.”

Those are just starters from a long list including the George Elias Nissen House, built in 1876 — and saving it — which has been a point of emphasis for years.

“I remember on my birthday in 2008, the Courier came out with a photo that said this house was going to be bulldozed because a doctor’s company wants to come in and build, and they can’t use the house,” Brown said. “We were all shocked in the Historical Society. We had just learned from research

of the significance of that house, so we were all up in arms and had people sign petitions. It was in middling shape. It was owned by somebody, but they really didn’t move into it. He was going to sell it to send his kid to college.”

With the help of citizens and the town, $150,000 was raised to move it from Shallowford Road on Jan. 1, 2009, a block away to its present location on nearby Arrow Leaf Drive near the intersection of Lucy Lane — and efforts have continued over the years to raise funding, including restoring it, through help from donors, grants and various other means to keep it afloat.

“We’re ready to open it to the public as a rental venue,” Brown said. “We still haven’t saved it. It has to pay for itself. This is preservation for you. It’s an ongoing thing. We have now started a new nonprofit board that is going to take it over, run it and own it while actually spinning it off from the Lewisville Historical Society.”

She and husband Tom bought 10 acres and built a house on Bullard Road at the edge of the old Lewisville Township with a Clemmons address in unincorporated Forsyth County more than 20 years ago where he grows heritage apples, and they enjoy all of the many things Lewisville has to offer.

“It’s the people, the people are so friendly, the landscape is not so filled with buildings, there’s nice beautiful landscapes and trees,” she said. “There’s the Conrad Road with the beautiful maple trees and lots of land on Shallowford Road, and nice houses, historical houses. It’s just more of a feel of families living out here. Since the town was formed in 1991, they’ve added to the town square, more parks and the new state park coming at the Shallow Ford.”

There’s also Merrikay Brown, who was just honored with being presented a certificate stating “I’m One of the Reasons Lewisville is a Great Place to Live” in the March 2023 town council meeting “for outstanding contributions to the Town of Lewisville and residents.”

That’s one of the things that can happen when you put down roots.

We have been bringing local products to the community for over 20 years. We have a great assortment of take and bake items including chicken pies, enchiladas, quiche, gluten free products, baked spaghetti and more. Tuesday and Thursday we get in fresh sourdough bread and baked goods. We always have local honey, elderberry and preserves. You can find pimento cheese, local eggs, chicken salad, Ashe Co. cheese, NC sausage & bacon, gouda spread and more in our refrigerators.

Making a difference

Council member Michelle Barson twice leads vote as political newcomer in Clemmons and pushes for more successes in thriving community

BY JIM BUICE

For the Clemmons Courier

As a young mom with toddler twins and still being fairly new to Clemmons, Michelle Barson perhaps didn’t fit the profile of a candidate for the Village Council in 2017.

But as a political newcomer who has always served on boards and volunteered for different organizations, Barson decided to run because she thought she could do better than those in the seats before her.

“I felt like I had the time, energy, and ability to keep Clemmons the great community it is,” she said. “To maintain being the desirable community we have been for the past several decades takes a lot of work and the willingness to make big changes based on the ever-evolving needs and expectations of the residents.”

Barson ended up being the top vote-getter in her first attempt at public office, thereby being appointed mayor pro tem and receiving a four-year term, and then followed that up with a repeat performance in 2021 by leading the vote and landing the mayor pro tem role again that went with it.

“I’m proud of having led the way on a few big successes of our village council over the past five years,” she said, with the first being the Street Modification Guide, which aims to give residents a clear path toward requesting changes, and later addressing the growing stormwater issue.

“Our community grew quickly and densely and that has led to lakes being filled in, personal property damage and safety issues,” Barson said. “While we

can’t undo the past, we can learn from it. We now have the strictest stormwater ordinances in the state.”

In the last year, she has been focused on projects such as improving school traffic and playing a key role in the Drone as a First Responder Program pilot program coming to Clemmons through the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office becoming a reality.

Barson was part of the “Stop the Me-

dian” movement, regarding the Lewisville-Clemmons Road project, when she was first elected in 2017 along with a new mayor and two other council newcomers.

“I’m still anti-median,” Barson said. “It’s a simplistic, cheap fix for traffic flow. The plans we saw last year (which have since been approved) included some additional medians but with multiple creative traffic maneuvering

devices as well. It included sidewalks, adding turn lanes and widening our roads, which are currently too narrow and out of compliance. It had a more holistic approach.

“What needs to continue to happen is a positive, working relationship between our staff and the DOT staff, as well as dialogue between our residents and business community with our council. When we voted to accept the funds in

Councilwoman Michelle Barson enjoys a light moment with her twin sons. (Jim Buice photo)

2018, it was the right decision, and when we turned down their previous plans it forced them to go back to the drawing board. I believe everyone agrees that we need a solution for safety, access to businesses, and flow in Clemmons, specifically on Lewisville-Clemmons Road, and that taking our time to find the right solution is what will produce the best, most lasting outcome.”

Coming to Clemmons certainly wasn’t on the radar for Barson, a native of Ohio who lived there until she was 24 before moving to Albany, N.Y., for her husband David’s job in 2007. They had planned to stay there for three years with his new work experience before moving back.

“That didn’t happen, but many other things did,” she said. “While I loved the people I met in New York, I did not love the winters. My husband was already working for a company based in North Carolina, so we decided to make the move here — specifically because it felt like a ‘now or never’ situation because I was pregnant with twins. We heard Clemmons was a great family place, and we rented an apartment at Hawk’s Ridge before finding our first Clemmons house in Asbury Place.”

Of course, she stays busy juggling her time between being a wife, a mom with the two active now 8-year-old boys, Beckett and Fielding, in addition to working and being on boards and volunteering for different organizations — including serving at their school, Morgan Elementary, as their sponsor’s chair connecting local businesses and professionals with the school community.

“I started working full time a little over a year ago, and that’s added another layer of difficulty, but I’m so happy I was only part time when I took this role on,” Barson said. “It gave me the flexibility and time needed to really learn the ins and outs of my role and of the inner workings of the village.”

“Up until recently, I was on several boards, including Kaleideum Children’s Museum, Jerry Long Family YMCA and three school board committees. I’ve had to drop all of them over the past 12 months. While there was a lot of value

to Clemmons by my serving on them, I was getting burned out, and if I’m burned out then I can’t give anything of quality to these boards, to Clemmons or my family.”

Barson said she and her husband and kids enjoy going on hikes, kayaking, fishing, playing or watching sports, watching movies and visiting the mountain or beach.

“My children are finally at an age where we are able, as a family, to do fun, new activities together,” she said. “My favorite hobby is walking, around my neighborhood, their neighborhood, at Tanglewood or around Village Point. I really swing my arms and am hard to miss. It’s my ‘me’ time and allows me to reset.”

Barson looks forward to what’s ahead in her role on the council, admitting the overall experience “has been absolutely exhausting but also a huge honor. It is such a big responsibility, and there is so much to learn when first elected that it can be overwhelming. I feel going into my sixth year that I’m familiar with our UDO’s (Unified Development Ordinances), have a strong working knowledge of all the village does or does not do as a municipal body, and know how to make change.

“I still feel like I have things I want to accomplish in Clemmons. For instance, I’m passionate about making sure we are the type of community that continues to attract new residents. This includes making sure our infrastructure is modern and efficient. That it allows residents to get from one place to another quickly and safely by whatever mode they prefer — walking, biking or driving.

“Perhaps, what I’m most passionate about right now is ensuring that we maintain that ‘small- town’ feel. By that, I mean be the type of community where people know and care for one another, as well as have organic opportunities to meet new people and run into old friends. We’ve grown our events and communications over the past few years with this vision in mind, and I believe we have some opportunities soon to further enhance our shared sense of community.”

These individuals invested in the future and their generosity will be remembered forever. Their charitable gift continues to give back to our community with grants or scholarships every year from a fund in their name. You can make a difference forever, too. Call or visit our website to learn more.

Steve and Anne Sessions

Mary Elizabeth Dodson Conrad

Thad and Mary Bingham

Growing stronger

Ron Willard was driving force behind Jerry Long Family YMCA

BY DAN KIBLER

For the Clemmons Courier

Ron Willard was on the first Clemmons Village Council, was the first mayor of the village, been president of the Clemmons Rotary Club — and served in a handful of other roles that have taken him from a 34-year career with Reynolds Tobacco Co. to a 20-year retirement that’s been as busy as most peoples’ work careers.

But if there is one thing he’s done, however, that leaves the biggest imprint on the community and holds the No. 1 spot in his heart, it’s his role in the establishment and development of the Jerry Long Family YMCA on Peacehaven Road near its intersection with Lewisville-Clemmons Road.

“That has been one thing that I feel really good about — one thing that has been so rewarding,” said Willard, a fitas-a-fiddle 80 who exudes energy from every pore.

“Clemmons needed something like the Y. Clemmons was a church community; that’s where all the social life was. They needed the Y, and it’s become sort of a community center for Clemmons. The Y became the driving force in the whole development for that area.”

Built in 1993 after Willard had to twist a few arms to get the attention of the head honchos of the Winston-Salem YMCA to even consider a satellite branch in Forsyth County’s leading bedroom community, the Jerry Long Family YMCA has exceeded everyone’s expectations, even Willard’s — and his were pretty high.

Originally covering 35,000 feet, the building now covers 100,000 square feet after four major expansion projects over the past 30 years. A branch

that the Central Y crowd figured would be lucky to have 1,200 members topped out at around 14,000 before COVID arrived in 2020. Its 15 acres are literally crawling with people most days, pumping iron, swimming, playing basketball, jogging around the indoor track, pedaling stationary bikes and, on warm weekends, even buying produce at a community farmers’ market. Willard said the Jerry Long Family YMCA has the largest “Silver Sneakers” program for senior citizens in North Carolina, and it’s the biggest YMCA in Northwest North Carolina — providing some of the funding that keeps other satellite’s up and running.

Willard remembers the Y’s genesis,

its starting moment.

“Back in 1988, I was on the board for the YMCA in Winston-Salem, a representative for the (Clemmons/Lewisville) area,” he said. “Jerry Long (former president of Reynolds Tobacco Co.) was the financial guy for the Winston-Salem YMCA, and he knew me. I had been involved in the incorporation of Clemmons — I’d gotten to know all the big movers and shakers in Clemmons and Lewisville — and at one meeting in 1988, Jerry said, ‘Ron, why don’t we have a YMCA in Clemmons?’ I said that you have to have interest from a community to want a Y — the Y just didn’t do it itself. He asked me to do some talking, and I said I’d check with people in Clemmons.

“It was obvious that we needed a Y in Clemmons.”

The Winston-Salem YMCA organizers required a feasibility study, and when it was finished, the downtown folks weren’t really jazzed about building in Clemmons.

“The Y spent $13K on the feasibility study, and when it came back, it said the best we could expect to raise in the Lewisville-Clemmons area was $750,000, and the most memberships we’d have in the first 3 to 5 years was 1,200. I asked, ‘Who have y’all been talking to?’ I knew better than that. So I called Mr. Long and gave him the news.

And Long gave Willard his marching orders — show the YMCA bosses downtown that Clemmons wanted and would support a satellite YMCA.

A small group of interested Clemmons residents met at the village library in February 1989 to talk about getting the ball rolling for a YMCA. A site-selection committee was formed at a March 2 meeting, and by August, the committee had decided on the present site of the YMCA and knew it would cost $300,000 to acquire it.

“Chuck Lott, who was the village manager, said he’d ask some real-estate agents if they knew about any property that might be available, and he found the 15 acres on Peacehaven. The YMCA bought the land, and that allowed us to start honing in on businesses. We started talking.”

That’s when Willard and a few others went, “hat in hand” so to speak, to the community and businesses in the area to solicit funds, with a $1.5 million target for a project that was targeted at $2.5 million. The Winston-Salem YMCA agreed to kick in a million dollars from a capital campaign if the Clemmons folks could double what the feasibility study

Ron Willard

said they’d be able to raise.

The village of Clemmons didn’t have a recreation department in 1990 — it still doesn’t — but it wasn’t willing to kick in any money on the front end.

“I was naive about how much time and energy it was going to take,” Willard said. “Over Christmas vacation one year, I visited 53 people, and 52 of them pledged money to the Y. But I knew we could raise more than a million in a heartbeat. At that time, a lot of us from Clemmons were going to the Central YMCA.

“I did a lot of cold calls; hundreds of people gave $50 or $100; that’s what got us there. I remember when we were at $600,000. Jerry Long had left Reynolds and he said he didn’t think he could ask them for anything, but I knew somebody else at Reynolds, and they gave us the money to build the gym. That put us at $750,000, but we still needed to get to a million. Then, the village bought 5 acres of the YMCA property for $150,000. They still own it; they lease it to us for $1 a year. And that got us there.

Getting money was tough, because we were going to people who were getting hit up for money all the time. People will give money to three things: they will give to their church; they will give to their college; and they will give to something they’re passionate about.

So we were fourth, at best. And if you don’t have a good story, you’re not going to get any money.”

With $1 million in the bank in Dec. 1990, the Clemmons Y committee got $1 million from the downtown YMCA’s capital campaign. Bids went out, and

ground was broken on Aug. 25, 1992. Clemmons annexed the YMCA into the village four months later, and the YMCA opened on July 18, 1993. By the next spring, plans to expand the new building were already under way.

“Ordinary people can do extraordinary things if they’re passionate, enthusiastic, persistent and have a vision,” said Willard, who served on the YMCA’s board until 2016. Shortly after that, he was asked to chair the Clemmons Medical Center Foundation by Novant, which was looking to put a satellite hospital in Clemmons.

“I need to slow down; I’m retired,” Willard said, chuckling. “I retired from Reynolds in 2003 (as vice president of new business development and agricultural research) and I imagined I was going to play a little golf.

“But people who I asked years ago to do things for me are coming back now and asking me to do things. I hate to say no. Sometimes it gets busy, but my life has been a wonderful life. Giving as best I can is something I can do.”

The pool at the Jerry Long YMCA is quite popular. (Michael Bragg photo)

Making things happen

Shannon Casey works tirelessly as West Forsyth’s assistant athletic director

BY DAN KIBLER

For the Clemmons Courier

Shannon Casey stepped on the West Forsyth High School campus 35 years ago. She played softball, volleyball and basketball as a student. She left for four years of college — with a softball scholarship to UNC-Greensboro — and returned not long after graduation. She’s never left and doesn’t plan to leave until she has 30 years of teaching under her belt when her daughter,

Meredith — a softball pitcher for West — graduates in 2026.

“I’ve have 4 years as a student and 27 as a teacher,” said Casey, who has served as an assistant coach in the three sports she played in high school but has focused on her job as assistant athletic director since 2003.

“I don’t know anything other than West Forsyth.”

And there are a lot of coaches and athletes who are glad she is in that situation.

Casey has been in charge of deter-

mining whether the approximately 1,000 West Forsyth students who are also athletes are eligible to set foot on the fields and courts at the Clemmons school. She calls on guidance counselors and teachers all the time to make sure a football, softball, tennis, basketball or baseball player has all of his or her ducks in a row, as far as passing courses — the right courses — and maintaining grades good enough to remain eligible to put on the Titans’ green athletic attire.

And she’s done that without, well,

attracting much attention to herself, which is just fine.

“I am perfectly happy to fly under the radar, and do what I do,” she said one day in March, sitting in the driver’s seat of an ATV, a stylish pair of Oakleys covering her eyes and her left foot in a walking boot/cast from a Meredith fastball that cracked a metatarsal bone.

But Casey, 49, almost wound up across town.

“When I went to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to major in; I just

Shannon Casey graduated from West Forsyth and has spent her entire 27-year teacher career there. She stays buys as the school’s assistant athletics director. (Marc Pruitt photo)

wanted to play softball,” said Casey, a catcher. “I decided on PE, and you are certified to teach for K-12. I did some stuff with an elementary school and realized quickly that wasn’t for me. I thought about high school, and I decided the only high school I would consider was West Forsyth.

“I took a job at Hanes Middle School. I put my contract in the mail, and that afternoon, Durwood Pack (West’s athletic director) called and said they had a PE opening. I talked with Norma Harbin (West’s principal) about it, and then I called the principal at Hanes, Debbie Brooks. She told me she would let me out of my contract if she could fill the opening by the end of the school year.”

She did, and the rest is history — good history for Titan Nation.

T.R. Richards, who succeeded Pack as the Titans’ athletic director in 2003, had the idea first to move Casey into athletic administration. When Pack retired, Charles Beatty, who had been

handling athletic eligibility, decided to set aside those responsibilities. Richards turned to Casey.

“When Durwood retired, Charles retired from doing eligibility. He taught me the job. I started the same year Austin (her son) was born.”

“Durwood wanted me to have assistants, and Mr. (Kurt) Telford (former WF principal) created that position and funded it,” Richards said. “I asked her, ‘Is this something you would want to do?’ and she said yes. She bleeds green. Anything she can do to help, she does it. I couldn’t have done my job without her doing hers. She and Kevin McIntosh (another assistant AD), they were so great.

“Shannon’s organizational skills are outstanding. She takes her job extremely seriously, and she’s willing to put in the time to do it. I really needed her to take eligibility off my plate, because most years, we had more than 800 athletes out of 2,200 students. With the new rules the county put in, on top

of the state rules for eligibility, it was too much.

“She has to keep track of eligibility, and of physicals, and now, she has to keep up with the concussion protocols. When I started (as assistant AD), we had to keep papers on kids for 4 years. All of our papers could fit into one box. By the time I became AD and Shannon came on, we had three boxes for boys and three boxes for girls. And we have more sports now — sand volleyball, lacrosse. Durwood realized it was a big (job), getting bigger and bigger.

“It’s an unsung hero’s job. Nobody knows there’s someone sitting in an office, going through pages and pages of paper. The average person would go crazy, but she is very meticulous — she crosses every T and dots every I, and she has always been looking for ways to streamline things. Now, Shannon has become the expert the rest of the county turns to with questions.

“And Shannon is such a team player. She’d come help us with ball games

when it gets busy.”

When Richards retired in 2014, Casey said a number of people asked her if she was going to apply for the job, but she had no desire to be in charge.

“No way,” she said. “I don’t like the limelight. I do what I do.”

Casey said she learned there was plenty to her job outside of making sure the star tailback, baseball catcher or star butterfly swimmer is eligible.

“I think I love most seeing all the kids standing around, watching them do what they love and be good at it — take it to the highest level they can,” she said. “There’s no telling how many picture days I’ve been at, watching kids come through.

“There are a lot of things they don’t teach you in college that you learn to do — in this job and about teaching in general,” she said. “It’s more than physicals and insurance forms. I found out, one of the most important jobs an AD has to do is make sure there is toilet paper in the bathrooms.”

No. 1 fan

Coach Pat Murphy keeps morale high at West

BY DAN KIBLER

For the Clemmons Courier

There isn’t a student and hardly a staff member or teacher at West Forsyth High School who can remember a time when Pat Murphy wasn’t the Titans’ No. 1 fan.

Murphy made his first appearance on campus 31 years ago, a neighbor of Dave McConnell, then a coach at West Forsyth, who started driving him to school to attend games and practices. McConnell has now been retired for several years, and Murphy has outlasted five principals during his time as a top-drawer fan and volunteer “assistant coach” in a number of different sports.

“Murphy is West Forsyth,” said Kevin McIntosh, an assistant baseball coach at West. “Think about it; you go to a basketball game, a football game, a baseball game, and he’s always there. If there were tiddlywinks matches, he’d be there.”

In 2017, when K.J. Henry, a West Forsyth football player who was among the most-highly recruited seniors in North Carolina as a senior, got ready to announce his college intentions, Murphy was at the podium with him, holding a microphone. He announced that Henry was headed to Clemson, shortly before Henry handed him a Clemson cap to wear.

“I didn’t think twice about it, because he made such a difference in my life. He made me smile every day, especially during football. It was the least I could do,” said Henry, who will likely be drafted by an NFL team later this month. “There’s only one Murph.”

Last year, the Shallow Ford Foundation established a “The Coach Murphy Scholarship” in honor of Murphy, 65, who was born with a mental disability. It was funded by the WF Family Fund, for a “West Forsyth senior who demonstrates the same qualities as Coach Murph: good character, hard work, leadership and the ability to overcome challenges while a leader on the field of play, in the classroom and the community.”

Seed money for the scholarship, worth $2,500 annually to a student attending a 2-year or 4-year school, came from the Wall family, whose matriarch, Jennifer, met Murphy while she was a pitcher on the Titans’ softball team in the early 1990s, and who features a son, Cam, a freshman baseball player at Belmont Abbey who was a West Forsyth baseball player for four years — under the watchful eye of Murphy. Janie Peterson, now a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill, was the first recipient of the scholarship.

“We have always told our kids, if they ever felt like the Lord was calling them to do something, let us know,” said Brad Wall, the family’s patriarch. “Cam had that connection with Murph. He enjoyed being around him so much. We’ve all been blessed to have him around, but it’s not about us — it’s about Murph.”

Coach Pat Murphy gives his seal of approval after a Titan victory. (Marc Pruitt photo)

Shannon Casey, an assistant athletic director at West Forsyth who was Jennifer Wall’s catcher in high school, said several years ago that she “can’t remember (Murphy) not being here. He’s the sunshine that comes every day, rain or shine.”

Adrian Snow, who recently retired as the Titans’ winningest football coach over a 15-year career, is one of Murphy’s biggest supporters.

“His family will talk about how much we have done for Murph,” Snow said. “Oh, how they have it wrong. He has done so much for our kids, our school, our community.”

How do the Titans’ really feel about Murphy? He’s listed in the Titans’ football game programs as an assistant coach, and a metal sign that’s tacked up in the West Forsyth baseball stadium lists names of the players on the 2014 Class 4-A state championship team, plus six coaches — including Pat Murphy, who got a state-championship ring.

Stories about Murphy and his West Forsyth doings are numerous and memorable.

Several years ago, Murphy grew a beard because one of the Titans’ baseball coaches was growing a beard. He has flooded coaches with calls and voicemails for a number of reasons, including reminding them about games, but also to take their trash out.

A month ago, Brad Bullard, the Titans’ baseball

coach, got eight phone calls from Murphy while he was doing an hour of physical therapy after a work-related injury.

“I called somebody with baseball and asked if Murph was around,” Bullard said. “I told them to tell him if he called me again, I wasn’t going to let him on the (team) bus.”

Murphy, who recently returned from a two-week trip to Ireland to spread the ashes of his father, who died last year, was on the bus that afternoon, headed to another game. According to several coaches, Murphy has the routes to each school the Titans play memorized — even if he doesn’t know the names of the roads.

And then there is Murphy discipline. If you’re a coach or administrator at West, you’d better not get out of line.

“If you haven’t been fired by Murph, you haven’t been alive,” McIntosh said.

T.R. Richards, a former athletic director for the Titans, admits that Murphy “fired” him “eight or 10 times.

“Anytime I’d cancel a baseball game, even if it had rained 3 inches that day, Murph would say, ‘T.R., you’re fired.’”

For a West Forsyth coach, there may not be a bigger honor.

West Forsyth football standout KJ Henry poses with Coach Pat Murphy

‘We connect giving hearts with needs’

Tim Bell lends talents and time to Shallow Ford Foundation

BY MARC PRUITT Clemmons Courier

When Tim Bell and his wife Donyea decided on where they wanted to live once he retired from his 20-plus years in the Air Force, Clemmons came up as a possible destination.

“Being in the military, the spouse always gets the short end of the stick with where you are stationed,” Bell said with a laugh. “So, I told my wife that when I retired, we could live wherever she wanted. Her sister, Dr. Pamela Dockery Howard, lives here and we really liked the area. I didn’t even have a job yet, but we wanted to make Clemmons our home.”

Bell eventually found work through a headhunter at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, now Atrium Health, as an accountant in the spring of 2001. He is currently the director of facilities management for Atrium Health and is also the chair of the Shallow Ford Foundation.

“I knew I wanted to become involved in the community that we lived in, and I have served on numerous boards over the years,” Bell said. “This is the most thoughtful, organized and driven and results-oriented board I’ve ever sat on. They are a very talented group of people to work with. You are only as talented as the people you surround yourself with. I have the privilege to shepherd the process as the chair, but the real brain trust is in the staff, the board and the donors. It’s an honor to be a

part of this organization. This foundation is infectious. The things they do are transformational, and you can see the positive changes in people’s lives. Connecting with donors who want to help but don’t necessarily know how to do it, we can step in and help them.

We connect giving hearts with needs.”

Bell got involved with the Shallow Ford Foundation through his friend Greg Bell, a past board member.

“He told me that I would be a great fit for this organization and everything it stands for and does,” Bell said.

“I’ve been a part of this great group for three years now and the last two as the board chair. The community I grew up in, we used to have block parties and events to get to know one another, help one another. That’s totally changed in a lot of areas these days and communities suffer because of that. I got involved because I want to make a difference.

Lily Tomlin said, ‘somebody ought to do something about that. Then I realized, I’m somebody.’

Each one of us has a gift, has time, treasures, talents, that we can give to an organization that allows us to be something bigger than ourselves. That’s why I wanted to get involved. We are all here to help someone else.”

Bell said that being involved on the Bell Scholarship Committee was the hook. It is one of numerous scholarships the Shallow Ford Foundation awards every year to area students, which not only offers a financial component, but also provides a peer group and a personal mentor during high school and for two years behind high school graduation.

“Being at the signing ceremony for the Bell Scholarship was my hook,” Bell said.

Bell bounced around several locations while in the Air Force — Rome, New York, Knob Noster, Missouri, Goldsboro, Northern Virginia and Iceland.

He grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and joined the Air Force not to become a pilot, but because he wanted to see the world and he wanted a challenge.

Tim Bell is director of facilities management for Atrium Health and is also the chair of the Shallow Ford Foundation. (Marc Pruitt photo)

“There weren’t many people from my neighborhood who looked like me that were joining the Air Force. I knew it would help open a lot of doors for me. But I have a lot of respect for pilots. Once you pull six, seven Gs (g-force), you develop a healthy respect. I also thought I was going to see the world. Mostly, I saw the east coast of the United States,” Bell said with a laugh.

Bell began his Air Force career doing aircraft security for six years before moving into accounting.

“Hey, I’m a bean-counter by trade,” Bell said with a laugh. “And the funniest part of that is that math was my worst subject in high school.”

Bell said that being in the military has helped him in every direction that life has taken him in.

“Building relationships, being a team, being driven are all things that I learned from the military that I still carry through in all my work now,” Bell said. “The real beauty of the military is that it brought people together who would have otherwise never met and made them work together. You learn a

lot about diversity and learning about people and understanding them. That’s a community. It prepared me prepared me to work at any level. It prepared me to transition into what I’m doing now. I deal with the most contentious things possible — money, space and people.”

Bell loves being involved with the Shallow Ford Foundation and loves the Clemmons area.

“It’s a great place to raise a family,” Bell said. “The needs here are the same as they are in most other communities. Relationships matter, and building those relationships matter I think I’m most proud of the transformational changes that we make with the foundation. The grants in the communities. The scholarships where we help lift students up. I work with a thoughtful, determined group of people who have huge hearts. We are always looking forward, always asking what we can do to help the community. We make connections and I love that. We’re doing stuff constantly. You can’t be around our group without wanting to do something.”

The test of time

Southwest Athletics still thriving as it celebrates first 60 years

BY MARC PRUITT Clemmons Courier

he one constant through the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a

blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field. This game. It’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.” — Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones) from the movie “Field of Dreams.”

Sixty years looks really good on

Southwest Athletics, formerly known as Southwest Little League.

You can hardly see any signs of aging on the complex situated off Idols Road, but you can certainly see the growth. You can smell the clean-cut grass on a spring day just as easily as you can smell the corndogs being made

in the concession stand. Baseball gives you those aromas. It provides great sights — that seeing-eye double that splits the gap between center and right field, the perfect slide into home — and even better sounds — the perfect thump of a ball in a catcher’s mitt, the crack of a bat — or ping as the

Barry Leonard has served as the president of the board at Southwest Athletics for 32 of the organization’s 60 years. (Marc Pruitt photo)

case may be these days.

Barry Leonard has seen it all and heard it all. Leonard has been the president of the Southwest board for 32 years now, more than half of the program’s existence.

He has seen a little bit of everything during his tenure — budding future high school, college and professional players, the establishment of travel teams, expanding the operations of the league, adding fields and a 10,000 square foot indoor complex at Wilson Park — to name a few.

But even Leonard still gets just as amped up for opening day of the recreation league at Southwest, the program the organization was built on, every year.

“It’s always a special day,” Leonard said. “You come in and see all the hard work and it’s the culmination of a lot of effort from a lot of people coming back to life. It’s pure. The kids in our recreation league want to be here to play baseball. They love it, and they want to learn. That’s what this facility is all about. That’s what it has always been about.”

Leonard knows. He got involved with the organization when he was 20 years old, helping coach a team that his younger brother, Steven, who was 10 at the time, was playing on.

“When I came out, everyone was so welcoming,” Leonard said. “There was a position open on the board when I started. I think it was as equipment manager. And I started making all these friends from it. I realized pretty early on how special a place Southwest is.”

Leonard grew up in Alta Vista, Virginia. He played little league growing up and it’s where his love of the game blossomed.

Even when he moved to Greenville, South Carolina in 1997, Leonard would still return to Southwest on the weekends to coach.

His dedication to the program was rewarded in 1998 when he became the president. Other than the two years he stepped away when his daughter was born in the early 2000s, Leonard has

been a constant presence.

“We’ve gone from a two-month out of the year program to a 10-month program now with fall ball and travel teams and running tournaments from February to November,” Leonard said. “We’re much more of a year-round organization now. There’s not a lot of down time anymore. The budget is a lot bigger now and when you look at the top baseball and softball organizations in North Carolina, we are probably near the top.”

Leonard said that the number of participants in the league has remained fairly steady throughout the years at around 500.

“I think we spiked to around 700 one year when we went to the Little League World Series in 2002,” he said.

Leonard also helped shepherd the change from being affiliated with Little League to Babe Ruth/Cal Ripken in 2016.

“That wasn’t easy the first few years, but my role here and my fiduciary responsibility is to the entire program, and we made the best decision for us at that time,” Leonard said. “We felt like it was the right time to make that change and it was a very hard decision to make. But because of the rules and regulations Little League operated under at that time, it made it hard to run a large-scale operation like we wanted to. We have a strong presence here and we came through it without too many scratches. It was a tough decision, but it was also the right decision.”

Leonard praised the efforts of those who have helped along the way, people like Larry Walker, Jack Bullard Senior and Junior, Joe Mullen and David McIntosh, among others.

McIntosh got involved with the program in the early 1980s when his three sons were playing in the program.

His role grew from coach to board member to jack-of-all trades, even helping construct the current concession stand and helping the rebuild the grandstands after they were burned down by arsonists.

“Our involvement with Southwest changed my life,” McIntosh said. “Our

family lived and breathed to be down there every day. My wife, Pam, was the player agent for two or three years. She ran the concession stand for three years. Our three sons played. Coaches were strongly encouraged to help everywhere. You worked the concession stand, you mowed the fields, you dragged and lined the fields, you picked up the trash. “

McIntosh was also instrumental in bringing softball to the complex in the early 1990s. The softball teams had played their games at Joanie Moser Park in Lewisville before McIntosh stepped in.

“I felt like they needed to be brought over and be a part of the program, playing at our complex, and feeling like they were a part of our program,” McIntosh said.

McIntosh said that he still has grown men approach him and tell him ‘Thank you’ when he’s out in public for everything he did for them when they were younger.

“Most of the time, I have no idea who they are,” McIntosh said with a laugh. “But it does mean a lot. You think of the impact Southwest has had on this community and the thousands of families that have participated in the program. Hundreds of kids have gone on to play college baseball. I think they are up to 20-30 that have played professionally at some level. I think that says a lot.”

McIntosh has grandchildren playing in the league now.

“I was out at a game (recently) watching my grandson and Joe Mullen told me I had a permanent parking spot inside the gates, that I didn’t have to park in the parking lot,” McIntosh said with a laugh. “It’s been a special place for our family and still is.”

Brad Bullard, the current baseball coach at West Forsyth, grew up playing at Southwest and now has a 5-year-old son playing Quick Ball.

“That’s where I literally grew up,” Bullard said. “My grandfather played a part in getting the league started. I was out there every weekend from age 5 to around 16 playing, hanging out with my friends all day, watching games. I

won a state championship on the big field there. My dad grew up there and coached me. It’s incredible how it has come full circle for our family.”

Bullard said a lot of his teammates from the state championship team at Southwest also went on to play at West Forsyth with him.

“A lot of those guys played for a high school state championship in 2002 with me,” Bullard said. “It’s always been a great feeder program for West Forsyth. I am still benefiting from that now.” Bullard, who teaches sports marketing at West, said that Southwest is a frequent topic of conversation.

“We talk about the community impact it has had on everyone who comes through the program and for all the kids who have played there, but there is also a financial component to it now that they are running these tournaments. You can have 40 teams coming to Clemmons any given weekend now and they are staying in hotels in Clemmons, eating in restaurants in Clemmons. From a financial standpoint, that’s also a huge impact.”

Leonard said that Southwest still faces challenges — recruiting volunteer coaches is the biggest.

“We used to have coaches send in their applications in December every year, before we even started registration, just so they would be among the first to be considered,” Leonard said. “Now, we are having to draft teams and find coaches after the fact. That’s definitely the hardest part.

But the good parts outweigh any negatives, which there really aren’t many. This facility has played a role in the lives of thousands of kids and their families. I hope that it has been a beacon of good for this community. I know that this has been a proud spot for Clemmons over the years. I love seeing the dads who are coaching their kids now that grew up playing in the league. I just love Southwest. I really do. I tell people all the time that I am where I am in my life, in my business, because of the time I have devoted here. I really feel like you get all that back and more.”

‘I definitely found my passion’

BY MARC PRUITT Clemmons Courier

It may have taken Trichelle Cross a year or so to find her footing as a student at West Forsyth High School.

But once she discovered the Student Government Association and became involved, it didn’t take her long to make an impact.

Cross, a senior and the president of West’s SGA for the 2022-23 school year, recalled her struggle find things she could be an active participant in when she stepped onto the campus at West as a freshman.

“I was looking for ways I could get more involved at schools but hadn’t quite found my group or my niche for most of my freshman year,” Cross said. “I had looked at some clubs and went to a few introductory meetings for them but just didn’t think any of them were for me at that time.”

Towards the end of the school year, she discovered SGA and thought that might be her ticket.

“I’ve always had a passion for helping others,” Cross said. “It’s something that my parents instilled in me from a very young age. And I saw some things around school that I felt like needed to be addressed and wanted to help try and change, and I wanted to be a part of that. So, I felt like getting involved with SGA might be the thing for me.”

Her hunch turned out to be correct.

Cross became a sophomore class representative and a junior class rep -

resentative last year.

“I ran for SGA vice president as a junior but lost,” she said. “But that didn’t stop me.”

Cross decided that she wanted to run for president going into her senior year and began the process of

campaigning for the position.

“I had a lot of support from family and friends and people around school,” Cross said. “We made a pretty neat video we could show people of what I wanted to do. We hung posters up all over school. I gave out candy. A lot of can-

dy. I just wanted everyone at school to know that I was someone who wanted to make a difference at West Forsyth, someone that they knew they could all come and talk to.”

Cross was sitting in her international relations class during fourth period

Trichelle Cross is West Forsyth’s SGA president

Trichelle Cross is the SGA President at West Forsyth. (Marc Pruitt photo)

towards the end of the of the 2021-22 school year when announcements started being read.

“I heard my name called as being the next SGA president and I literally just started shaking,” Cross said. “I was in shock. My class erupted with applause. I could hear other classes down the hall screaming with excitement. It was an amazing feeling and I think I was just frozen at my desk for about five minutes afterwards. I guess all that candy I gave out helped.”

Cross said she wasted no time in diving into her new role. She had already heard from plenty of students on some things they asked her to try and help with.

“First thing I wanted to do was set up a meeting with (West Forsyth principal) Mr. (Kevin) Spainhour to go over

cause of COVID. He gave me his blessing for that. We also decided that we could do a Senior Sunrise event, which we had a great turnout for and was a really cool event.”

It was also at the meeting with Spainhour when Cross learned that the SGA would be involved with a new initiative at the school, the Chickfil-A Leader Academy, a national high school leadership program focused on making an impact through action.

The SGA had to come up with an impact project that would help make a difference in the community and attend regular meetings that were structured to offer support and advice on ways they could all become community-driven leaders.

“We raised 2,737 dollars from the Powder Puff game and donated that

great option.”

SGA also provided 525 treat bags to students at Forest Park Elementary School.

“Forest Park is a lower income school, and my godmother is a teacher there,” Cross said. “I had been in contact with her about doing something and we got approval from the principal. We stuffed bags full of candy and snacks. We set up tables in the cafeteria at West for students and teachers to make donations or write encouraging messages to the Forest Park students. The day we delivered the treat bags to the school was a really special day. Just seeing their reactions was everything.”

SGA also organized a dodgeball tournament on the last day before Spring Break and raised close to $4,000 from that. That money will go towards several projects that will benefit West Forsyth, such as a teacher supply closet, paying off student lunch debts, and campus beautification.

“We wanted to be sure we were making an impact in the community

and also making an impact at West Forsyth, and I think we were able to do that,” Cross said. “The experience with Chick-fil-A Leader Academy was invaluable. I learned that leadership isn’t just about telling people to do things. Leadership comes from your actions and having people around you who want to follow your lead to shine a light on something and try to make it a little better.”

Cross is still in the process of deciding where she wants to attend college. UNC, N.C. State and UNC Charlotte are her top options.

“I want to go into the medical field and I’m looking forward to making a difference in the future and continuing to grow as a person and as a leader. I think my biggest growth area from my freshman year to now is that I’m not afraid to speak up for what I think is right. I’ve always been socially outgoing, but I was just a little more hesitant as a freshman. But once I got into student government, I found my people. I definitely found my passion. West Forsyth has really helped me with that.”

Panel explores issues impacting local economy

Lewisville-Clemmons Chamber of Commerce Economic Forum covers wide range of topics

BY JIM BUICE

For the Clemmons Courier

From growth/development to roads/traffic to employment/ jobs to housing/real estate and much more, last Thursday morning’s Lewisville-Clemmons Chamber of Commerce Economic Forum panel discussion wasn’t short on topics.

The local economy, in general and with lots of specifics, was front and center for the breakfast gathering and nearly two-hour discussion at the Historic Broyhill Office Suites, led by Director Kristin Johnson, who served as the moderator.

The heavyweight lineup of speakers included Mayor Mike Rogers of Clemmons, Mayor Mike Horn of Lewisville, Davie County Economic Development Commission President Terry Bralley, NCDOT Division 9 Engineer Pat Ivey and Baldwin Properties President Lou Baldwin.

There was something for everybody, including this take that covered several topics from Bralley, who has been promoting Davie County in several roles for more than 40 years.

“If you want to have a lot of fun today, have a rezoning hearing,” he said. “You know what the No. 1 issue is? It’s traffic. People move here from somewhere else, and they want it to be in the rural country side, and now you’re changing all this.

“We happen to be in a very popular

part of the state of North Carolina, which has seen some of the most growth out there with an additional 2.5 million since 2000. That’s a large amount of people. And you’re living close to an interchange here for convenience, and you want that cornfield to stay. That’s not going to happen. It’s called capitalism.”

The two mayors talked about the tremendous growth inside and around their borders with Horn, the longtime

mayor of Lewisville stating, “Lewisville and Clemmons are truly the drivers in Forsyth County on the western side with Kernersville on the other side.”

Of course, with all that growth comes traffic, and lots of it, particularly in Clemmons where the overloaded Lewisville-Clemmons Road is in the spotlight with the massive $40 million road improvement project, including the I-40 interchange, in the process of getting ready to move forward to im-

prove safety and traffic flow.

A question from the crowd asked if it was true in a recent edition of the Courier about McDonald’s having to move to make room for a looping connector on Lewisville-Clemmons Road that is proposed to go there through the Stadium Drive intersection.

Ivey confirmed that was indeed the case, saying the alternative selected by NCDOT will provide the purchase of the McDonald’s site, and was then quizzed if the fast-food restaurant will be relocating in Clemmons.

“I’m sure they will,” Ivey said. “They will be compensated for that. Our experience with McDonald’s and other businesses like that is that they like the corridor that they’re on. Clearly, McDonald’s has indicated they want to stay in this area. I’m sure they will find an alternative location in this same area.”

While Lewisville-Clemmons Road has captured most of the headlines, Ivey received a question for an update on an also hectic Clemmons Road/U.S. 158.

“That is a separate transportation project,” Ivey said. “We’re working with both Clemmons and Bermuda Run on what that corridor needs to look like, and I think we have settled on a threelane section basically between Lewisville-Clemmons Road going across the river all the way through Bermuda Run to Baltimore Road. They’re two individual projects, and both of those will be submitted for prioritization, and that process will begin this summer.”

Last week’s Lewisville-Clemmons Chamber of Commerce Economic Forum panel included, from left to right, Mayor Mike Rogers of Clemmons, Mayor Mike Horn of Lewisville, Davie County Economic Development Commission President Terry Bralley, NCDOT Division 9 Engineer Pat Ivey and Baldwin Properties President Lou Baldwin. (Jim Buice photo)

Both mayors were asked how they could help small businesses, including providing grants.

“We do not offer grants,” Rogers said. “What we do offer is a robust community, good median incomes, good jobs and a low tax rate. That’s our incentive. And with the projected number (of population growing 7,000 in our area in five years), that’s a lot of customers for a new business.”

Horn said, “We’re not focusing on business development or growth in retail — part of our picture is 10, 15, maybe 20 percent. We’re focusing on quality of life issues — like safe neighborhoods, pedestrian connections, low taxes, community engagement programs at the square, facilities available free or at low cost to residents. Everything we focus on now is to build community.”

Housing shortages and the soaring costs of real estate, including the steadily climbing interest rates, and increasing rents also play a major role in impacting the local economy.

Baldwin, who has been the president and owner of Baldwin Properties since 1989, said that supply “is everything” in this equation.

“We’ve had a market that is out of equilibrium for a long time,” he said. “You look back at 2014, 2015 and 2016, and people were saying the same thing they are saying today, which is there is not enough housing. When demand outpaces supply, prices are going to go up, and the last three years, the prices have just been unbelievable, and it hasn’t been healthy. We are starting to show some signs of settling down, and what we’re seeing is a recalibration in the next 12 to 18 months on housing leveling out.”

Here are some other fast facts, quotes and observations offered by the panelists:

• Bralley, on what drives the economy here and everywhere and why the Triad is in a great spot: “In today’s world, it’s analytics, the harvesting of data and speed to market. It’s a changing world. Out of the seven fastest metropolitan area in U.S., we have two of them in Charlotte and Raleigh. And

Asheville is the fastest-growing city. We’ve got a lot of opportunities, and I believe this economy here is going to be stable.”

• On people moving into the Greater Winston-Salem area over the last three months, Baldwin said that Raleigh headed the Top 10 list, followed by New York City and other large cities across the United States.

• When Bralley asked if anyone in attendance knew what was the No. 1 country was in terms of people moving into North Carolina, he figured most everybody would say Mexico and one person guessed Canada. However, he stated it was “India, the largest English-speaking democracy in the world.”

• On too much state control over local governments, Rogers said: “Some bills being presented in Raleigh want to take away our authority for zoning. And that’s something that should be local and shouldn’t be dictated by the state. Our citizens are telling us by electing us what they want in their community.”

• On the current mindset on the community, Bralley said: “I could bring a $100 million project to the table and hire a thousand people, but people don’t seem to care about it. They’re more interested in, you know, ‘Terry you’ve done a great job, but why can’t you get a Chick-fil-A here?’ ”

• With interest rates at 6.5 percent for a 30-year fixed mortgage and 5.5 percent for a 15-year fixed mortgage, Bralley said, “My first house was 12.5 percent. You get used to cheap money. It’s like sugar. It doesn’t last.” He added that his son is paying $1,700 a month to rent a 1,500 square-foot house in Davie County. “A dollar a square foot is the going rate, if not a dollar and quarter,” Bralley said. “And there’s no vacancy. This in a nationwide issue, not a local issue. It just feels like it is. It’s like labor. Labor’s the same wherever you go. The cost of labor, the cost of materials is $175 to $200 a square foot to build it.”

• On workforce housing, Baldwin said: “As Mayor Horn said, it’s really the heart of this and if we are going to be able to attract businesses, we are going to have to have a place for them to

live, and it has to be affordable.”

• On manufacturing, Bralley said: “If you want to manufacture, you do it here in Piedmont North Carolina. It’s what we do. We make things. We have a history of that.”

• Continuing on the job front, Horn said: “Look at white-collar jobs. So many of those have been transitioned to blended jobs where you can work at home or you can work at your jobs if you want to, but as Terry (Bralley) mentioned, you have a bunch of blue-collar jobs coming to the Triad. You can’t do a blue-collar job at home in your underwear.”

• Moderator Kristin Johnson: “As the mom of two rising employees, we have to teach our kids to get off some of this social media and start getting their hands dirty again.”

In closing, the five panelists were asked about the greatest concern facing them and what they’re most encouraged about in their particular town, county or specific area. Below are condensed responses to those queries.

• From Mike Rogers in Clemmons: Biggest concern — It’s always traffic, how do we manage it, get connectivity and build grid networks, which is not a simple solution and costs a lot of money; Encouragement — Wonderful staff doing a great job answering the questions from the public and providing services to our citizens.

• From Mike Horn in Lewisville: Biggest concern — State governments continuing to cripple our ability to manage

our communities, supply chain shortages, and a different vision of development between the town and county; Encouragement — Great place to live, managing the majority of growth, more stability in local businesses.

• From Terry Bralley of Davie County: Biggest concern — Developing leadership to take the place of these people who are willing to serve today; Encouragement — What we’ve got here together and being in great shape and can drive our own future if we have the leadership in place.

• From Pat Ivey of NCDOT: Biggest concern — Other than finding sustainable revenue sources, experiencing some of the same issues as the others of finding good, qualified, skilled employees; Encouragement — The partnerships DOT has with the municipalities, other government agencies and private sectors to work together to solve transportation challenges, including local governments stepping up to the plate financially to partner with DOT, along with the private sector, to leverage these resources.

• From Lou Baldwin of Baldwin Properties: Biggest concern — Those left behind in all of this. You can talk about inflation affecting businesses, but folks who can’t afford a meal or a place to live are even more affected by that. Encouragement — Even when it comes down to disagreements on how things get done, we live in a very collaborative, cooperative area. People work together to solve problems.