Surry County has declared a State of Emergency after heavy rainfall over the weekend caused major flooding, including flash floods, throughout the county.

Mount Airy was particularly affected and has also declared its own State of Emergency.

Officials say it’s some of the worst flooding to hit the area in decades. In a statement, the Mount Airy Rescue Squad says Saturday night it deployed all rescue boats and rescue vehicles as well as other resources.

According to Surry County Emergency Services, there are numerous road closures throughout the area. Travelers are urged to use caution.

WFDD will continue following this story.

Updated Jan. 30 at 4:21 p.m.

The Surry County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that four individuals have been arrested in connection with a shooting near Mount Airy that left two dead, and two others injured.

The arrests include two juveniles and two adults. They’re all facing multiple charges for first-degree murder and attempted robbery, officials say.

The juveniles are being held at the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice, and the adults at the Surry County Detention Center without bond.

This remains an active investigation. For that reason, police say no names will be released at this time.

Officials say emergency responders were called to Samurai Lane just after 2 p.m. on Thursday. Officers found four people with gunshot wounds. One died at the scene, and another passed away at a hospital.

At this time, one 18-year-old male victim is listed in stable condition, and one 17-year-old male victim is in critical condition.

The sheriff’s office says additional details will be released as they become available.

Updated: August 29, 2025, 8:19 a.m.

Police in Wilmington arrested the chair of the Surry County Board of Elections this week, accusing him of putting narcotics in his granddaughters' ice cream.

Authorities say James Edwin Yokeley Jr. flagged down officers to tell them about two hard objects the girls found in orders they had picked up from a Dairy Queen.

Two pills were collected and field tested. Investigators determined they were illegal narcotics.

Neither had ingested any of the substance. Investigators looked at video footage and determined Yokeley had placed the pills in the ice cream.

Yokeley has been charged with contaminating food with a controlled substance and felony child abuse. He has since posted bond.

The Surry County Board of Elections released a statement saying that both state and local officials are aware of the charges and will continue to gather information to ensure the board is able to continue serving the county’s voters.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections says Yokeley, a Republican, has resigned. A new Surry County chair will be selected from two nominations by the State GOP.

The Biscuit Eaters is one of three bands playing WFDD’s Spring Fling event this weekend. They’re a bluegrass family band from Surry County made up of five kids between six and 15 years old, and their parents, Meredith and Jason Wilkerson.

WFDD’s Amy Diaz spoke with Meredith about North Carolina’s traditional music community and performing as a family. 

Love of music

Crowded around a couple of microphones on stage, there’s 15-year-old Sam on mandolin, 12-year-old Jo picking a banjo, and 10-year-old Maggie Jane strumming a guitar. The little one in front playing the fiddle is 8-year-old Silas, and off to the side, 6-year-old Molly is dancing her heart out. 

Their mom, Meredith, is playing guitar and singing, and Jason, their dad, is keeping rhythm on an upright bass. The boys are all wearing cowboy hats and button-downs, and the girls are in dresses and boots. 

This is the Wilkerson family, also known as The Biscuit Eaters. 

Meredith says they played together for the first time on stage in 2022, at the Mount Airy Fiddlers’ Convention, and ended up taking home a trophy for most promising talent. 

“That was maybe the first time I saw, ‘Wow, you know, we could really have a good group,' and it just took off from there," she says.

Since then, they’ve performed at MerleFest in Wilkesboro; on The Martha Bassett Show; and most recently, filmed a live taping for Song of the Mountains, a PBS show about Southern Appalachian culture. 

Music has always been a big part of Meredith and Jason’s lives. Both of their parents encouraged them to learn instruments and sing when they were kids. But they fell in love with bluegrass specifically when they got married 25 years ago.

“We lived in Colorado, and there's a great community of bluegrass musicians, and we had a group and traveled around the state playing every weekend," Meredith says. 

So when the couple moved back to North Carolina and had children of their own, they knew they wanted to continue to pass that love of music down. 

“And so as a homeschool parent, I made music and singing a part of our school day from when they were just really little," she says. "I really think that has had a huge influence on their natural abilities, their abilities to hear the music.”

She says it didn’t take long for the kids to get the hang of their instruments and sing harmonies. She remembers the first time she heard them practicing together without her guiding them.  

“I was upstairs, you know, cleaning. Heard them playing music. Went over, looked over the little balcony there, and they were having a jam session," Meredith says. "And at that point, they had all learned just the basics of their instruments, and they were playing songs together. So, of course, that just tickled me to death, right?”

And so they continued to work at it. But they didn’t just play at home by themselves. 

North Carolina's traditional music community

Meredith says they met and became friends with lots of other musicians. They’d all swim in the creek together, play ball and do normal fun family things, but they would also make time for a jam session. 

“That's really where the magic happened, I think, is older musicians who valued children enough and loved my kids enough to spend time with them and say, ‘Hey, let me show you this tune,'" Meredith says. "And I think that's part of the beauty of the traditional music community in North Carolina that we have.”

Most of the songs the band plays are older, traditional bluegrass, like "Long Journey Home." 

These are also the kind of songs Meredith teaches other kids at the Reeves Downtown School of Music in Elkin, where she leads the Junior Appalachian Musicians program, or JAM. Every week, she teaches roughly 30 students about traditional songs, dances and music history. 

“I think it's a great program that gets them headed on that path to understand the history of the music, the culture from where they live," Meredith says. "Because it's really important, you know, this is where they live. This is part of their story, too. Even if you weren't born here, well, you live here now. It’s a huge part of Surry County and this part of North Carolina.” 

And Meredith says listeners appreciate hearing traditional music too. 

“We're playing the songs that, you know, our great, great grandparents played, and maybe their grandparents played," she says. "You know, it just really touches people's heartstrings.”

Making people happy

Meredith posts videos of her family playing together on Facebook and YouTube. They have more than 160,000 followers now, which is something she never expected to happen. 

She also didn’t realize how important her family’s music would be for some of those people. 

“I've had people say ‘I have Stage 4 cancer, and I get on here and listen to you guys every day, it's really lifted me up in some really dark times of my life,'" Meredith says. "And I understand the kids may not be able to appreciate that yet, you know, due to their age, but I hope one day they can look back and realize what a blessing they were to people.” 

While Meredith has taught her kids how to play instruments, harmonize and perform, those aren’t the biggest lessons she hopes they take from this experience. 

“Yes, you are special and talented and blessed, but how you treat others, that is more important," she says. "Who cares if you can play the fiddle well?”

She says performing together as a family has taught them all kinds of life skills like teamwork, forgiveness and perseverance. 

“It's kind of up a level. We've got to come together as a family in this moment, because we're going to go on stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people," Meredith says. "So let's put this aside. Let's forgive each other. Let's love each other first and do this and make people happy.”

The Biscuit Eaters will be playing alongside Detective Blind, Finn Phoenix and The Firebirds at WFDD’s Spring Fling on May 10.

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.

The Writers Road Show returns for a second year starting Sunday, bringing authors to four rural area libraries.

The Road Show debuted last year. This edition will have more authors, events and venues, says Joan Sherif, director of the Northwestern Regional Library.

But the focus remains on connecting writers to readers in Surry, Stokes, Alleghany and Yadkin counties.

“We're so glad to have authors who like to meet their readers and can talk with them about what they're writing about, both about the process and the content,” she says.

Sherif says most of the writers have a connection to North Carolina. They include author Dale Neal, who grew up in Winston-Salem and is now based in Asheville.

The Writer’s Road Show coincides with National Library Week.

The 50th Anniversary of the fatal collapse of the Siloam Bridge over the Yadkin River will be observed during a service Sunday.

The bridge collapsed on a foggy night in February 1975 when a car struck one of its support beams. Four people died and more than a dozen were injured.

The bridge was a previously used structure that replaced a ferry crossing between Yadkin and Surry counties, says Jeff Hinshaw, chief of the Yadkin County Rescue Squad and one of the event organizers. 

He says the span was known to be a dangerous passage even before it gave way. And though the collapse made national news, Hinshaw says many in the area need to hear the story.

"We've been able to interview not only some of the survivors, but several of the responders to the bridge collapse that night," he says. "The first thing you'll notice is the emotion they have that has been boxed up for 50 years."

In addition to the first responders, Hinshaw says volunteers from both sides of the bridge helped with the rescue, although many had no experience dealing with emergencies.

"These were workers at R.J. Reynolds, workers at Western Electric, and none of them had ever been trained for anything like this," he says.

Among the survivors was 10-year-old Graham Atkinson, who would grow up to be Surry’s long-time sheriff. 

Atkinson’s grandfather died in the wreck. Family members later found a letter in his coat pocket. It was intended for state officials to let them know how dangerous the bridge had become. 

Officials dedicated a new bridge in November of 1976, known as the Atkinson-Needham Bridge, in honor of the victims.

The 50th anniversary memorial service of the Siloam Bridge collapse will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday at Friendship Baptist Church in East Bend.

Amazon has announced it will build a multimillion-dollar distribution center in Surry County.

The plan is to build what is called a “last-mile” facility where it will serve customers within a 45-minute drive. They’re generally the final stop in the distribution chain before the delivery reaches the consumer.

Blake Moyer, president and CEO of the Surry County Economic Development Partnership, says Amazon’s investment will likely top $20 million. He says the county landed the project without financial incentives. 

"This project was kind of just happening because of where we were at," he says. "Amazon needed to be here to serve the immediate area, and so we did not have to incentivize the project at all.” 

Moyer says the center will employ about 70 people with a mix of full-time company employees and part-time or gig delivery drivers. The center is expected to open in the third quarter of this year.

The location west of Mount Airy has easy access to interstates 77 and 74.

Surry is one of four North Carolina locations recently planned for Amazon’s “last-mile” distribution centers. The others are Jacksonville, Southern Pines and Tarboro.

The Piedmont Land Conservancy has been eyeing a piece of property in Surry County for more than 20 years. Now, organization leaders say they’ve acquired it.

The Mitchell River begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains and meanders its way south to the Yadkin River. Along the way, there’s a gentle spot outside of Elkin that became the main target for land preservation. 

That’s according to Kevin Redding, executive director of the Piedmont Land Conservancy. He says these waters are an important draw for trout fishing and provide vital habitat for local aquatic wildlife.

“And if you fish, there should be interest or paddle. If you drink water that comes out of the Yadkin River, they should be interested in water quality in the Mitchell River and then to the Yadkin River," he says. "It's a hub of a lot of interest.”

Most of the 311 acres are forested, including a long section bordering the river. The land features steep hills with abundant trees and rhododendrons leading to bluffs overlooking the water.

Redding says the plan is to provide up to five miles of hiking trails available to the public. But that will likely take a year or more.

The Surry County property will be the conservancy’s fourth land preserve, joining projects in Randolph, Rockingham and Forsyth.

Pilot Mountain State Park is a beloved tourist attraction in Surry and Yadkin counties, but it may not have become a public space without the work of Joe Matthews. A new documentary shows how Matthews’ behind-the-scenes work made it happen.

Matthews was a native of East Bend but his public service impact went far beyond the boundaries of Yadkin County. Much of his work involved preserving natural and historic areas and developing trail systems.

But his greatest legacy may have been his efforts in the 1960s to turn the Pilot Mountain land into a state park, says Nathan Walls, a Surry County spokesman.

“Pilot Mountain State Park produces a huge amount of tourism dollars for Surry County every year, and we have Joe Matthews to thank for that," he says.

Walls says through it all, Matthews, who passed away in 1997, never sought credit for himself.

“He knew how to connect the dots. He was like a Swiss army knife," he says. "He knew who to talk to, how to talk to them, how to make things happen, how to get the ball rolling, how to get things done.”

The new 43-minute film, "Grit, Heart & History: The Joe Matthews Documentary" was directed, written and edited by Peter J. Kulsziski. It debuted this month and is available on YouTube and the Surry On the Go Facebook page.

A 73-year-old man has been charged in the strangulation deaths of three Southern California women in 1977 after cold case detectives obtained a DNA match, authorities said Thursday, adding they believe there could be more victims.

Warren Luther Alexander of Diamondhead, Mississippi, made his first court appearance Thursday but arraignment on three counts of first-degree murder was postponed to Aug. 21, the Ventura County District Attorney's Office said. He remained jailed without bail.

Alexander's case was assigned to the county public defender's office. A telephone message was left at the office seeking comment on the case.

Alexander was extradited to California on Aug. 6 from Surry County, North Carolina, where he is awaiting prosecution for a 1992 cold case killing, the office said.

All the California victims were killed by "ligature strangulations," District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said at a news conference. All were sex workers in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, and frequented an area known for sex trafficking, he said.

Kimberly Fritz, 18, was found dead in the city of Port Hueneme on May 29, 1977. Velvet Sanchez, 31, was found dead on Sept. 8 that year in the city of Oxnard, followed by Lorraine Rodriguez, 21, on Dec. 27 in an unincorporated area.

"While believing these three crimes were indeed connected, leads ran cold and detectives were unable to identify who was responsible for these horrific murders," Nasarenko said.

The DNA match to Alexander occurred last year when DNA evidence was uploaded into a national database, the district attorney said. Investigative genealogy had identified Alexander as a suspect in the North Carolina case of 29-year-old Nona Cobb, whose body was left along Interstate 77, he said.

A 2006 query of the database had failed to find a match.

North Carolina news media reported that Alexander was arrested in the Cobb case in March 2022. That case had yet to proceed to trial, said Joey Buttitta, spokesperson for Ventura County prosecutors.

Alexander lived in Oxnard in the late 1950s and '60s, attending elementary, middle and high schools, and returned in the 1970s, Nasarenko said.

From the 1970s into the early 1990s Alexander was a long-haul, cross-country truck driver, Nasarenko said.

"We believe there may be additional victims both locally and other states," he said. "This is an ongoing investigation, and we will continue to pursue all leads that become available. This is not in any way closed."