June 20, 2025 Coats Museum News
The date was September 15, 1995, on the Daily Record. That was thirty years ago when Ann and James Little traveled to Ocean Isle to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. However, all news was not pleasant in that edition of the paper. Several families had deaths –Mrs. Ada Whitman, Rev. Atlas Blackman and James Aldridge Parrish. Ruth Parrish, Wade Stephenson, Cecil Stephenson, Avis Bouldin and Anna Belle McLeod were ailing.
Death has just claimed Craig Jones this past week but the popular man and his wife, the former Gayle Wilkins, had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 1995 in the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Fellowship Hall. Gayle was the daughter of Spencer Wilkins and was a Coats High School graduate of 1969.
Maude Weeks Hayes was honored at a reception at her home on the County Line Road. This was her 93rd birthday. She was the daughter of Ike and Sally Ann Weeks and the widow of William Gartha Hayes. How long do you think Gartha and she had been married when he died? They had been married for 75 years. That in itself is astonishing but then to live to be 93 years old speaks volumes about what she could share about changes she witnessed during those long years. Being born in 1902, she was a year old when the Wright Bros. made history at Kill Devil Hills with their small biplane.
Maude’s daughter was Edna Hayes Coats who was widow of Ransom Coats, a lumberman in our area who was in the same ancestral line of J. Tom Coats, the founder and namesake of our town of Coats. Edna had the assistance of her daughter, Dr. Larue Coats of Chapel Hill, to pull off the joyful event.
Another happy event written about in that same edition of the Daily Record was that Jerry and Diane Moore had announced the engagement of their daughter, Amy Tennile Moore to Jerry Ray Ellis, Jr. (Daily Record Sept. 18, 1995).
Joseph and Connie Ennis of Route 1, Coats, had announced the marriage of their daughter, Amy Katherine Ennis, to Sean Ray Moore of Erwin. The wedding was conducted at Ebenezer Presbyterian Church at Bailey’s Crossroads by Rev. Warren Bock.
Volleyball was the name of the game, and the Coats Middle Schoolers had their wins. The girls had downed the Erwin girls by 3-1 while the boys shut out the Erwin Redskins 2-0. For Coats girls, Tiffany Mattox, Karrie Hilderbrand and April Pleasant were scorers. For the boys, goalie Bradley Pope, Joshua Robinson, Dallas Messer and Kyle Turlington performed well for Coach Wayne Royal (Daily Record Sept. 20, 1995).
Johnnie and Estelle Williams were on the road again. They had attended the 78th reunion of the 35th Division. Johnnie was with the 35th Division in Europe in 1944. Gladys Stewart surely had to be all smiles when it was announced that she was the winner of the quilt raffle at the Coats Senior Center fundraiser.
It is so exciting to write about all of these happy occasions. I was busy teaching away at that time in my life and was not aware of so many of those events, so it is like I am getting to attend all of them now. For example, Garland and Jewel Whittington would come into my life when we were interviewing for information for our centennial book- The Heritage of Coats, NC in 2003-2005. Visits in their living room and car trips throughout the community with Garland sharing stories about people and places are some of my cherished memories of that couple. However, in 1995, the couple was celebrating their 62nd wedding anniversary according to the September 21st edition of the Daily Record.
In that same copy of the paper, we learned that Richard and Janice Daniel had visited their moms in Coats. Thessie Daniel and Hazel Barnes surely had much to catch up on that weekend with their out of state children.
Another popular Coats couple was surely all smiles as they shared with their friends that they were great-grandparents to Holden Christopher whose parents lived in Richmond, VA. For lack of more information, I assume this would have been the grandson of the late Dr. Bill Langdon who had graduated in 1957 at Coats High.
Tommy Williford and J.D. Norris were requesting that people save their Campbell’s labels from soups and other Campbell products to help get a van for the American Children’s Home in Lexington. Belle in her “Notes from Coats” reminded her readers to keep the families of Frank Turlington and Earl Price in their thought s and prayers (Daily Record Sept. 21, 1995).
Death claimed one of its most remarkable men this past week. Norfleet Gardner, my high school basketball coach, H.L.’s best friend, a fellow Kiwanian, a former museum board member and the godparent of our Lenee and Bryan. I am cherishing his memory with a memorial to the Coats Museum which contains several of Norfleet’s artifacts.
Ralph Denning, another student of Norfleet Gardner’s, has added a memorial to the museum. Thank you, Lorena and Ralph Denning--you are so faithful in your museum support.
Also remembered this week with honorariums to the museum are Edwin Sorrell Smith, Austin Bryan Sorrell, Randy and Rhonda Stephenson, Lenny Parker, Jack Johnson, Peggy Robinson and Liz and Bryan Sorrell on their 25th wedding anniversary.
The date was September 15, 1995, on the Daily Record. That was thirty years ago when Ann and James Little traveled to Ocean Isle to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. However, all news was not pleasant in that edition of the paper. Several families had deaths –Mrs. Ada Whitman, Rev. Atlas Blackman and James Aldridge Parrish. Ruth Parrish, Wade Stephenson, Cecil Stephenson, Avis Bouldin and Anna Belle McLeod were ailing.
Death has just claimed Craig Jones this past week but the popular man and his wife, the former Gayle Wilkins, had celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 1995 in the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Fellowship Hall. Gayle was the daughter of Spencer Wilkins and was a Coats High School graduate of 1969.
Maude Weeks Hayes was honored at a reception at her home on the County Line Road. This was her 93rd birthday. She was the daughter of Ike and Sally Ann Weeks and the widow of William Gartha Hayes. How long do you think Gartha and she had been married when he died? They had been married for 75 years. That in itself is astonishing but then to live to be 93 years old speaks volumes about what she could share about changes she witnessed during those long years. Being born in 1902, she was a year old when the Wright Bros. made history at Kill Devil Hills with their small biplane.
Maude’s daughter was Edna Hayes Coats who was widow of Ransom Coats, a lumberman in our area who was in the same ancestral line of J. Tom Coats, the founder and namesake of our town of Coats. Edna had the assistance of her daughter, Dr. Larue Coats of Chapel Hill, to pull off the joyful event.
Another happy event written about in that same edition of the Daily Record was that Jerry and Diane Moore had announced the engagement of their daughter, Amy Tennile Moore to Jerry Ray Ellis, Jr. (Daily Record Sept. 18, 1995).
Joseph and Connie Ennis of Route 1, Coats, had announced the marriage of their daughter, Amy Katherine Ennis, to Sean Ray Moore of Erwin. The wedding was conducted at Ebenezer Presbyterian Church at Bailey’s Crossroads by Rev. Warren Bock.
Volleyball was the name of the game, and the Coats Middle Schoolers had their wins. The girls had downed the Erwin girls by 3-1 while the boys shut out the Erwin Redskins 2-0. For Coats girls, Tiffany Mattox, Karrie Hilderbrand and April Pleasant were scorers. For the boys, goalie Bradley Pope, Joshua Robinson, Dallas Messer and Kyle Turlington performed well for Coach Wayne Royal (Daily Record Sept. 20, 1995).
Johnnie and Estelle Williams were on the road again. They had attended the 78th reunion of the 35th Division. Johnnie was with the 35th Division in Europe in 1944. Gladys Stewart surely had to be all smiles when it was announced that she was the winner of the quilt raffle at the Coats Senior Center fundraiser.
It is so exciting to write about all of these happy occasions. I was busy teaching away at that time in my life and was not aware of so many of those events, so it is like I am getting to attend all of them now. For example, Garland and Jewel Whittington would come into my life when we were interviewing for information for our centennial book- The Heritage of Coats, NC in 2003-2005. Visits in their living room and car trips throughout the community with Garland sharing stories about people and places are some of my cherished memories of that couple. However, in 1995, the couple was celebrating their 62nd wedding anniversary according to the September 21st edition of the Daily Record.
In that same copy of the paper, we learned that Richard and Janice Daniel had visited their moms in Coats. Thessie Daniel and Hazel Barnes surely had much to catch up on that weekend with their out of state children.
Another popular Coats couple was surely all smiles as they shared with their friends that they were great-grandparents to Holden Christopher whose parents lived in Richmond, VA. For lack of more information, I assume this would have been the grandson of the late Dr. Bill Langdon who had graduated in 1957 at Coats High.
Tommy Williford and J.D. Norris were requesting that people save their Campbell’s labels from soups and other Campbell products to help get a van for the American Children’s Home in Lexington. Belle in her “Notes from Coats” reminded her readers to keep the families of Frank Turlington and Earl Price in their thought s and prayers (Daily Record Sept. 21, 1995).
Death claimed one of its most remarkable men this past week. Norfleet Gardner, my high school basketball coach, H.L.’s best friend, a fellow Kiwanian, a former museum board member and the godparent of our Lenee and Bryan. I am cherishing his memory with a memorial to the Coats Museum which contains several of Norfleet’s artifacts.
Ralph Denning, another student of Norfleet Gardner’s, has added a memorial to the museum. Thank you, Lorena and Ralph Denning--you are so faithful in your museum support.
Also remembered this week with honorariums to the museum are Edwin Sorrell Smith, Austin Bryan Sorrell, Randy and Rhonda Stephenson, Lenny Parker, Jack Johnson, Peggy Robinson and Liz and Bryan Sorrell on their 25th wedding anniversary.