>From: "freestateofpatrick" <freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com> >Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 19:12:34 -0000 >Subject: [freestateofpatrick] Patrick County Retired Educator Inducted Into > Sports Hall Of Fame >For Immediate Release in Patrick County: March 10, 2006, Mount Airy, >North Carolina > > The Greater Mount Airy Sports Hall of Fame Committee is >pleased to announce the Class of 2006 to be presented at the >Induction Ceremonies on Sunday, April 9, 2006, at 3 p.m. at the >Blackmon Amphitheater beside the Public Library and across from the >Andy Griffith Playhouse on Rockford Street in Mount Airy, North >Carolina. > >The Granite City Award for 2006 will go to Patrick County retired >educator and resident Erie Meredith Perry of Ararat, Virginia. Perry >spent his entire professional career in the Patrick County School >System teaching at Blue Ridge High School beginning in 1959. He >became Principal of Red Bank Elementary School before returning to >Blue Ridge Elementary School in 1973 until his retirement in 1988. He >is married to Betty Jane Hobbs Perry, who he met while in the United >States Army stationed outside her hometown of Augusta, Georgia. They >married in 1957 and will celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary >next year. Their son is historian and author Tom Perry. > >Erie M. Perry was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1931. The son of >Erie and Idell Bates Perry the family moved to High Point, North >Carolina, when Erie was a child and then to Mount Airy, where he >spent his last two years of high school playing baseball, basketball >under Coach Sam Moir and football under Coach Wallace Shelton. The >first in his family to attend college, Erie attended Lees-McRae >College winning the Western North Carolina Junior College >Championship two years in a row in basketball and the North Carolina >State Junior College Championship in football teams. Perry was co- >captain on both championship teams his second year. He went to play >basketball and graduate from Appalachian State Teachers College, now >Appalachian State University. He later received a Master's Degree >from Radford University. > >For over thirty years, Perry broadcasted Mount Airy High School >football games on WSYD with "legendary" announcer Ronald Johnson, the >first recipient of the Granite City Award > >Other inductees for 2006 into the Greater Mount Airy Sports Hall of >Fame include > >Tom Childress played basketball on the state championship team under >Coach Sam Moir and later at Catawba College. > >Alfred "Chubby" Dean, who played baseball at Mount Airy High School >and Duke University before playing professional baseball with the >Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland Indians. > >Jim Miller, who played four sports at Mount Airy before lettering in >football and basketball at Duke University. > >John Yokley played on the State Championship teams under coaches Sam >and Charlie Moir and later at the University of North Carolina at >Chapel Hill under Coach Dean Smith. > >The Mount Airy Graniteers baseball teams of 1946-50 will be honored >as well.