“We Remember Them.”

The phrase which was the response in the benediction to Saturday’s annual Surry-Yadkin Law Enforcement Memorial Service sums up the reason everyone attended the event, which was moved to the Mount Airy First Baptist Church sanctuary due to rain making the outdoor facility at Bright Leaf Drive-In muddy.

Eight officers from Surry and Yadkin counties were honored during the service, with the highlight of the event being the dedication of the twin bridges on U.S. 52 that cross over N.C. 89 as the Detective Clinton Monroe Boggs Bridge.

Saturday’s service honoring fallen law enforcement officers falls in line with the national observance of Peace Officers Memorial Day and Police Week. The memorial day is observed annually on May 15, and Police Week is the calendar week in which the memorial day falls, explained Alcohol Law Enforcement officer Chet Jessup, who annually organizes the local memorial service and has worked diligently to have all fallen officers recognized.

This year, the Surry County Board of Commissioners, represented by Bill Hamlin, also passed a resolution naming this week Surry County Peace Officers Week.

Mount Airy Commissioner David Beal, who served as a special agent with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation in 1971 when Boggs was killed, recalled the incidents of that night.

Beal also aided in the investigation the night Pilot Mountain Police Officers Ralph East and Glenn Branscome were killed.

“Tragic events never leave the place in your mind where they are stored,” Beal said. “Law enforcement officers are part of an occupation that makes one thing clear — when you get dressed and report to your shift, there is no guarantee you will return to your family again.

“That did not completely sink in until I saw Ralph, Glenn and Monroe at their crime scenes,” he said. “It is a heavy burden to take on every time you pin on a badge.”

For Beal, while there have been physical changes around the U.S. 52 and N.C. 89 interchange, he said “some things never change — the feelings I have every time I drive through there.”

Boggs, who was born in 1933 and was a Korean veteran, “grew up always wanting to be a police officer,” explained Mount Airy Police Chief Roger McCreary during a roll call of the eight fall officers.

He didn’t want to live in the big city, so he and his wife moved from the Greensboro area to Mount Airy in 1958, where they had two children, Dawn Boggs Stanley and Clinton Monroe Boggs Jr.

Boggs had served with the Surry County Sheriff’s Office before taking a position with the Mount Airy Police Department, where he was later promoted to detective, McCreary said.

“On Feb. 25, 1971, Monroe was not scheduled to work, but he volunteered to work on a special case that night that was stumping his fellow officers,” McCreary said.

During the course of the night, he spotted a stolen vehicle traveling on U.S. 52 and he pursued it. After a short chase, it stopped near the intersection with N.C. 89, where the suspect got out of the vehicle and shot Boggs multiple times.

“The Mount Airy Times a few days later quoted Chief Joe Simmons as saying about Monroe, ‘I don’t recall him ever using profanity or saying anything demeaning or critical of anyone,’” McCreary said. “His daughter, Dawn, said, ‘He died that night doing something he loved doing for a town he loved.’”

“When I received the call at my home shortly before 11 (p.m.) that Monroe had been shot, I followed SBI procedure,” Beal recalled.

After calling his supervisor in Greensboro and the North Carolina Highway Patrol dispatch, Beal headed to the scene of the incident to assist with the investigation, while other officers went with Boggs to the hospital.

Then something different occurred, Beal said. “All agents in the North Piedmont District had been instructed to report to Mount Airy immediately. It was the first time in the history of the SBI that an entire district had been called out to investigate a death in their district.”

Beal also knew “the best criminal investigator in Surry County would not be able to help us,” because Chief Joe Simmons, who had been instrumental in the investigation in Pilot Mountain, “was to keep his department running and be with Monroe’s family.

“I promised him we would make an arrest before Monroe was laid to rest,” Beal said. “In Virginia on a small dirt road that is a segment of Upper Bear Trail, the Virginia State Police learned the suspect was headed deeper into the woods.”

Everyone headed to Virginia to assist in the hunt for the suspect. Beal was beside Virginia State Police Officer McAlexander. “When I saw McAlexander draw his revolver, point it into the woods and cock the revolver, I thought he was going to shoot. All of a sudden, the suspect jumped up out of the brush and was taken into custody,” Beal said.

“A message was sent to Joe Simmons at Monroe’s funeral service before he was laid to rest.”

Beal said Boggs wouldn’t have wanted the attention he was given Saturday. “The Monroe we knew was quiet, dedicate and loved the job and accepted the risk.”

“It’s an honor to be here. For them to memorialize my father and his service and life, it means a lot to me,” said Dawn Boggs Stanley after the service. “It is a great honor to be here in my father’s stead.”

She was grateful to Chet Jessup and to the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners for approving the resolution to have the bridges named in her father’s memory.

“I’ve been coming to the memorial services since Chet started having them, and last year he said he had the bridge dedication in mind. I said I thought that was very appropriate to do that for my father,” Stanley said.

Stanley was 9 when Boggs died, and her brother, Clinton Monroe Boggs Jr., was just 7. “I think I have more memories than my brother. I remember that night, but my brother remembers when the officers came to the house. I don’t remember that because it was the middle of the night.

“I have very vivid memories of the news, going to the funeral home and going to the funeral,” she continued.

But the memorial and dedication service this weekend is something she hopes will make a new memory for her and her daughters. “I think that for my daughters to be able to see this and understand the sacrifice he have and what their grandfather stood for and believed in and for that legacy to go on,” she said, explaining what the day meant to her.

Stanley and her brother were presented with framed copies of the North Carolina Board of Transportation resolution honoring Boggs’ service and life and naming the bridges in his honor. They, as well as a couple other family members, unveiled a copy of the two signs that now mark the bridges on U.S. 52.

Also during the service, stories behind the life and death of each of the eight fallen officers were shared with those in attendance.

The other fallen officers remembered are:

n Sheriff J.E. Zachary of Yadkin County who was searching for an alcohol still in 1920 when he was shot and killed.

n Officer Henry Dow Kennedy of the Mount Airy Police Department who was killed in an automobile accident in 1946 during a chase of a vehicle suspected of carrying illegal liquor.

n Deputy James Billups Trevathan of the Surry County Sheriff’s Office who died after being shot by a suspect in a hit and run in the Flat Rock community in 1963. Despite being fatally wounded, he returned fire and paralyzed the suspect.

n Officer James Thomas Jr. of the Pilot Mountain Police Department who was killed when a prisoner in a holding cell took his revolver and shot him in 1966.

n Officers Ralph East and Glenn Branscome, both of the Pilot Mountain Police Department, who had stopped a vehicle suspected of armed robberies when they were both shot and killed in 1969.

n Sgt. Gregory Keith Martin of the Jonesville Police Department who was killed during a traffic stop on Interstate 77 on Oct. 5, 1996. His is one of only three unsolved murders of law enforcement officers in the state.

Following the service, the VFW Honor Guards from Post 2019 and Post 9436 presented a 21-gun salute and “Taps” in front of the church.

Contact Wendy Byerly Wood at wbyerly-wood@mtairynews.com or 719-1923.