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Couriering this area this week in 1984 — 37 years ago:

Merit pay for teachers and crackdown on drug traffic are the two main issues of the North Carolina governor’s race, according to Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Martin. Martin made his remarks at a fundraising breakfast at Clemmons United Methodist Church, prepared by the Methodist Men’s Club, last Saturday morning. Martin visited Clemmons at the request of Dennis Brewer, who welcomed the 50 people in attendance by saying, “We are here to honor our second Republican governor of this century.” Joining Martin and Brewer at the table were Wallace Van Hoy, state senatorial candidate; Frank Rhodes, candidate for the state House; and Edgar Broyhill.

Aaron Ashley Boone celebrated her second birthday on Aug. 19. A party was held at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Yontz of Clemmons, her grandparents. Special guests included her parents and aunt, uncle and cousin.

Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Cranfill of Clemmons, announced the birth of their second child, a daughter, Emily Rose. She was born on Aug. 10 at Forsyth Memorial Hospital. The Cranfills are also the parents of a son, Reid, 15 months. The mother is the former Martha Simpson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harold E. Simpson of Lewisville.

Odell Gross of Yadkinville is very proud of a mush melon he grew this summer. It weighed 18 pounds and served seven families at the campground at Lake Norman. Gross got his seed from Dick Dull of Lewisville, back in 1971, and the Gross family has been enjoying them ever since. This year he grew the biggest mush melon ever, according to his family.

Students of the C.C. Nelson Preparatory and Industrial School gathered together at the Ramada Inn Tanglewood last Saturday night to socialize, reminisce and most of all to honor the school’s founder and namesake, Charles C. Nelson. Nelson was a black man who saw the need for young black children to be educated and did something about it. When he was young, someone had shaped his mind and provided him with an education and he sought to do the same for others. He was befriended by a white Moravian woman, Sarah Neeley, who recognized Nelson’s potential early on. A teacher at Clemmons Moravian School, she took it upon herself to teach young Charlie to read and write. She went far beyond the basics, however, often reading to him in the fields he worked. Eager to learn, Charlie responded by absorbing volumes of knowledge. Neeley died some years later, leaving Nelson a 12-acre tract of land on Hampton Road. In 1904, he built his first schoolhouse, which stood on the represent site of the Winston-Salem Shrine Club.