Nov. 21 - 27, 2019
bringing the local news home to northwest Guilford County since 1996
IN THIS ISSUE News in brief .................................. 2 Your Questions ............................... 4 Summerfield Town Council Meeting .. 6 NWO Business & Real Estate ......... 11 Real Estate Briefs/Q&A .................. 12 Affordable housing in NW Guilford? 16 This Old Barn................................ 14
Bryant’s Table Owners of BJ’s Grill in Stokesdale will provide a Thanksgiving Day meal for those in need of food and companionship. In memory of their son Bryant, they’ll also be raising money for ARCA, an organization that works with drug addicts. by PATTI STOKES
A wooden cupola on this old barn in Stokesdale shares the story of days gone by.
Friedreich’s what? ......................... 24 Crime/Incident Report ................... 26 Calendar Events ........................... 27 Beyond volleyball... ...................... 29 High School Sports ........................ 30 Student Profiles ............................ 32 Grins and Gripes ........................... 34 Classifieds ................................... 36 Index of Advertisers ...................... 39 NWO on the Go! ........................... 40
This Thanksgiving Day, Barry and Missy Joyner, owners of BJ’s Grill on U.S. 158 in downtown Stokesdale (next to Stokesdale Post Office), will once again open the restaurant’s doors to anyone in need of a Thanksgiving meal or just someone to share it with. This will be the second year the couple has celebrated Thanksgiving Bryant Joyner died Feb. 18, in this way. They said they 2018, at age 28 of a drug had the idea a few years overdose. ago, but it wasn’t until they lost their son/stepson that they acted on it. Bryant Joyner, son of Barry and Lisa Joyner, died of a drug overdose Feb. 18, 2018, four days after being rushed to the hospital. At age 28, he left behind a wife and two young children. Bryant’s battle with drugs, and later also with alcohol, began when he was around 15, his father recalled. “He broke his ankle and had to have pain medication. We felt that’s when it started,” Barry said. “A year later he broke another ankle…” That meant even more
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pain medication and the beginning of Bryant’s long, downward spiral into the dark world of drug addiction.
“What I want people to realize is, you never think of a child being hooked on medication,” Barry said. “It really didn’t dawn on me because it was medicine prescribed through the doctor. “You would think it was safe. At that time, we didn’t know what we know today.” “Opioids weren’t as out there as they are now,” Missy Joyner, Barry’s wife and Bryant’s stepmother, echoed. As they began to realize Bryant had a drug problem, the couple said they would talk with him and ask if things were okay. “Your children in that situation reassure you that they don’t have problems with anything,” Missy said. “They’re just doing what addicts do – covering up. “We tried the ‘tough love’ parenting. He couldn’t have cash. We didn’t enable him. If he got these drugs, he had to use his own money and work for it,” she continued. “When they’re adults, all you can do is talk to them and pray they can hear. We relied on prayer.” The couple said that over the ensuing years, Bryant sought help on several occasions; he attended AA meetings and checked into ARCA (Addiction Recovery Care Association), a Winston-Salem-based non-profit that works with recovering drug addicts. “His mom took him to ARCA and to the AA meetings,” Missy said. “She was keeping his money for him. He was sober and clean for over a year – she thought, and we thought he had it under control.”
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