This is a sad sad day for our area!

http://www.salisburypost.com/article/20 ... s-suddenly

God Bless Ronnie's family: Joan and the boys!

Ronnie gave our Tyler his first job in sports photography! Very sad day for our family!

Very sorry to hear about this. Great person. All my thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.

asutrnr81 wrote:This is a sad sad day for our area!

http://www.salisburypost.com/article/20 ... s-suddenly

God Bless Ronnie's family: Joan and the boys!

Ronnie gave our Tyler his first job in sports photography! Very sad day for our family!

Sorry to hear of Ron's untimely death. It certainly makes one swallow hard to learn of the passing of someone you know well--who is younger than you are. It's a reminder that every minute, hour and day are blessings and that we have no guarantees. Our time could be coming a lot sooner than we'd like to believe.

I've known Ron for a quite a while and I followed his coverage of the Rowan high school sports scene (my old stomping grounds) in THE POST online. We never had a problem until the whole West Rowan/Mike Gurley/ASU/Donte Minter controversy blew up in Houston Fancher's face. Ron put his trust in the person he knew best--WRHS head coach Mike Gurley--and eventually wrote and printed three or four stories concerning Minter's recruitment, signing by ASU to a LOI, his release, his matriculation to Fork Union and his eventual recruitment to UVA that were patently false. A couple of the stories were damaging to ASU's recruiting. Several folks from the ASU "family" that need not be named here, initiated discussions with Ron and the POST's publishers about that situation. Ron was s-l-o-w to come to the realization that Gurley misled him. He eventually saw the light, but the damage had long since been inflicted. We all moved on--until Minter returned to his roots and to the folks who had always had his best interests at heart--Mt. Ulla, Rowan County and above all, ASU. In the end, it had a good ending for Donte. He had two good years to end his basketball career (at ASU) and graduated on time with a degree in Criminal Justice. Ron's POST coverage of Minter's two playing seasons at ASU was frequent and fair. That's all anyone could ever ask or expect. RIP, Ronnie!