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Pilot Mountain Pride opens Saturday

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — Fresh produce picked almost daily from local farmers are now in a retail store. Starting Saturday, Pilot Mountain Pride will open its first retail store at 227 Market Street in Mount Airy.

“The produce you’ll get here are at most a couple of days old,” said Bryan Cave with the Surry County Cooperative Extension. “[The produce] may come in at 1 o’clock today and actually have come from a field this morning.”

Since 2010, about 50 local farmers from Surry and surrounding counties have been able to sell their fresh produce directly to restaurants, grocery stores and online through Pilot Mountain Pride. PMP is a non-profit that was formed to help market and distribute produce for the smaller farmers. “It gives small farmers new marketing avenues that they wouldn’t have any other way.”

Surry County authorities looking for emotionally disturbed person

SURRY COUNTY, N.C.– Surry County Sheriff and Emergency Management are requesting the public’s help in finding an emotionally disturbed person.

They are looking for an unidentified, 30-year-old, white woman who is described as partially clothed, heavy-set with long brown hair.

She was last seen Tuesday afternoon in the West Dodson Mill Road community.

Law enforcement officers caution the public not to approach her if they see her, call 911 immediately.

Historic Dodson Hotel in Walnut Cove demolished

WALNUT COVE, N.C. — The historic Dodson Hotel in Walnut Cove was demolished on Sunday after inspectors condemned the building after years of disrepair.

The hotel has been known since the 1920s, once considered one of the finest places to stay in the area.

But the Stokes County landmark came down and town officials sold what was inside.

The items spanned decades, from the hotel’s original banister to an old Bee Gees lunch box.

Man arrested in Surry County home invasion

SURRY COUNTY, N.C. — Surry County deputies said a man was arrested after allegedly breaking into a home and robbing a man at gunpoint.

Jereme Joseph Rasmussen, 21, of Hamptonville, allegedly broke into a residence on N.C. 268 in the Elkin area around 11:22 p.m. Thursday.

Surry County Sheriff Graham Atkinson said the suspect forced one of the victims into another room and assaulted and robbed him.

The sheriff said the victim did not need medical attention and provided authorities with a description of the suspect and his vehicle.

Deputies said the suspect was arrested shortly later at a gas station by a Yadkinville police officer.

The suspect was charged with first-degree burglary and robbery with a dangerous weapon. He received a $65,000 bond and has court planned for June 16.

Deputies said another man in his vehicle was arrested on outstanding warrants for failure to appear in court.

Mount Airy man arrested in double shooting

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — Deputies say a Mount Airy man has been charged in connection with a double shooting that occurred this week in Surry County.

According to the sheriff’s office, 45-year-old Michael Vestal McNeal was taken into custody around 3 p.m. Wednesday at a home on Eleanor Avenue.

The suspect is charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.

He is being held in the Surry County Detention Center under a $450,000 secured bond.

McNeal is accused of shooting Donald Bradford Carter, 43, of Ararat, Va., and Harold Ray Vernon, 48, of Dobson, just after midnight Wednesday on Eleanor Avenue in the Flat Rock community.

Two wounded in Mount Airy shooting

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — Deputies say two men were injured early Wednesday in a shooting in Mount Airy.

The shooting occurred just after midnight on Eleanor Avenue in the Flat Rock community.

Surry County Sheriff Graham Atkinson says Donald Bradford Carter, 43, of Ararat, Va., and Harold Ray Vernon, 48, of Dobson, were both shot in their legs.

According to Sheriff Atkinson, the victims told deputies they were driving to visit a friend in a pickup truck when the suspect, an acquaintance of the victims, flagged them down on Eleanor Avenue.

Atkinson says the victims told deputies the suspect “re-ignited an argument stemming from an incident years ago.”

The suspect then pulled out a gun and began shooting into the truck, Atkinson said.

Atkinson says the victims drove away from the scene and were on their way to Northern Hospital when they wrecked on Worth Street.

North Carolina’s drought conditions reverse with recent rainfall

North Carolina’s wet winter and spring helped erase drought conditions in 65 counties and left about two-thirds of the state with higher than normal water levels heading into the summer, state officials said Friday.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported that several counties, however, are still experiencing abnormally dry conditions, a classification given to an area at an elevated risk of drought.

Thirty-four counties in the eastern third of North Carolina were listed as abnormally dry May 28, according to the North Carolina Drought Advisory Council.