By popular demand, Citizens Academy expands – Mount Airy News
Alma Venable made an impact here in Mount Airy and beyond as one of the most recognizable ambassadors of Mayberry and the proprietor of the Mayberry Motor Inn. She was an advocate for preserving the rich legacy of Mount Airy’s fictitious alter ego while welcoming guests into the community all year round.
Venable passed away Sept. 4 at her home in Mount Airy, she was 84 years old.
Donna Hiatt cal…….
Alma Venable made an impact here in Mount Airy and beyond as one of the most recognizable ambassadors of Mayberry and the proprietor of the Mayberry Motor Inn. She was an advocate for preserving the rich legacy of Mount Airy’s fictitious alter ego while welcoming guests into the community all year round.
Venable passed away Sept. 4 at her home in Mount Airy, she was 84 years old.
Donna Hiatt called her dear friend an “icon for Mayberry” while others who knew her called her granny despite no presence of a drop of familial blood. “People loved her and stayed from all over the country with her. She was an angel on Earth, and is now an angel in Heaven,” Hiatt said of her friend of 32 years.
Like Hiatt, Tanya Jones of the Surry Arts Council was an old friend of Venable’s, “Since the 70s when we were talking to hotels about the occupancy tax. Alma and her husband LP had the Mayberry Motor Inn before many things in Mount Airy had Mayberry in their names.”
That idea may have been prophetic and would predate unknown numbers of additional businesses over the years with the Mayberry moniker that is now almost interchangeable with Mount Airy.
Jones went on, “They were highlighted in the 1990 Washington Post article on Mayberry Days that was picked up by the AP and Mayberry Days was born as an annual event. Their purchases at the Frances Bavier estate auction became a tourist attraction before the others came about.”
The legacy and legend of The Aunt Bee room at the inn are well-known. After the 1990 estate sale of Frances Bavier, TV’s Aunt Bee, a reporter asked Venable what she planned to do with the artifacts she bought from the late actress to which she said, “I told him I was going to start an Aunt Bee Room.” The collection is an assortment of memorabilia belonging to Bavier, with certificates of authenticity, including hats, accessories, and an ashtray made by fan favorite George “Goober” Lindsey.
Jones and The Surry Arts Council coordinate the Mayberry Days festival, and she recalls Venable was always game for whatever was asked. “Alma and LP – and later the grandkids, Mikel, Josh, and Jeremy Snow, were always involved in Mayberry Days – the parade, Colonel Tim’s Talent Time and whatever the Surry Arts Council needed to make it work for the fans.”
Mount Airy’s visitors have memories of Venable that go back decades. David Browning, seen locally often as Deputy Barney Fife, made his first trip to Mayberry Days in 1991 and it was the next year he first took up a longstanding intermittent residence at the Mayberry Motor Inn at the suggestion of Jones. …….
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com/news/114163/by-popular-demand-citizens-academy-expands
