The Roanoker - September / October 2018 - 46

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 44

NASCAR'S CURTIS TURNER
NASCAR hall of famer and Floyd County native
Curtis Turner, hailed by many as a father of
motorsports, was killed in the crash of his twinengine Beechcraft on Oct. 4, 1970, with golfer
Clarence King as the pair returned home to
Roanoke from Pennsylvania. Turner, who died at
46 in the mishap, was born April 12, 1924 on a
small farm, his father, Morton, one of the biggest
moonshine operators in the county, according to
stories.
Daughter Margaret Sue Turner Wright is an
accomplished and noted award-winning artist in
the Roanoke region and beyond. She opened a
racing museum in 2001 dedicated to her father
and also has written a book about him, including
his racing stats, available on Amazon.com. There
also is a state highway marker in Floyd County in
Turner's memory in Floyd County.
Turner became the first stock car racer to make
the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, portrayed
in a feature entitled "King of the Wild Road." A
builder of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Turner
is credited with more than 350 wins, including 18
Grand National races, among them his triumph
in the 1956 Southern 500 in Darlington, South
Carolina. Turner, who was said to love a good
party, was almost unbeatable in his heyday (1944
to 1968, when he retired from racing).
NOEL C. TAYLOR
Noel Calvin Taylor, 1924-1999, born in Moneta
in Bedford County near what is now Smith
Mountain Lake, was mayor of Roanoke from
1975 to 1992. An ordained minister, Taylor was
widely considered one of the most influential
leaders in the city's history. Prior to becoming
mayor, he was a leader in Roanoke's African
American community and helped facilitate the
city's peaceful desegregation in the 1960s.
A Republican, he was elected mayor in 1976,
after having been appointed to complete the
term of Roy L. Webber after his death in 1975.
His lengthy tenure witnessed many changes
in Roanoke, such as the revitalization of the
downtown city market area and the opening of
Valley View Mall.
Taylor was pastor of High Street Baptist Church
in the northwest section of Roanoke from 1961
until his death.
Roanoke's city hall, the Noel C. Taylor
Municipal Building, and the Noel C. Taylor
Learning Academy, a combined middle school and
high school, were each named in his honor. Taylor
is buried in southern Bedford County.
-REBECCA JACKSON
46

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

RONI AND RICHIE SUTTON

Teacher RONI SUTTON and builder RICHIE SUTTON both have ghost
stories. While chopping wood in the couple's pre-Civil War Bedford
County house early in their marriage, Roni says Richie felt someone
walk up behind him and slap him on the shoulder.
"It felt like a friend walking up and half hugging him. He got a 'good
job' vibe from it. He thought it was me, but I wasn't there. It freaked
him out a little so he came up to the house to see what I was doing. I
was washing dishes."
A few months later, after experiencing the disappearance of some
small items, Roni was laying tile in the laundry room. "I was using a
dark purple pencil to mark the tiles. The tiles themselves were white."
She put her pencil down and when she reached for it again, "I looked
all around, no pencil." She made a thorough search of the room, but
did not find the pencil-in a small, open room.
And that's not all: "There is also a girl who appears in a bedroom
window very, very occasionally," says Roni. Her son has a story about
a baby ghost, but is reluctant to tell it publicly.

In the late 1980s, when ROBB
ROUSE was in fourth grade, his
family moved to a starter home on
Sugar Loaf Mountain and "as soon
as we moved in the shennanigans
started. The floor creaked two or
three times a week in a particular
way ... and we heard mumbling, a
female voice."
Rouse is a special investigator for
a risk mitigator and not given to
flights of fantasy.
ROBB ROUSE

Scary? Some of it maybe, but not most. Likely? You'll have to deal with
that reality-or ghostly apparition-yourself. I
TheRoanoker.com

RONI & RICHIE SUTTON: DAN SMIHT / ROBB ROUSE: DAN SMITH / RAGLAND: COURTESY OF BEDFORD MUSEUM AND GENEALOGICAL LIBRARY

CATOR RAGLAND

Lewis, bought it for $150
in the 1950s and restored
it. He drove it in the 1957
national Glidden Tour cross
country. The car, last known
to be located in St. Louis,
was purchased a few years
back by another antique
automobile enthusiast for
$92,500.

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