• “My sons know Mom don’t play when it comes to school. That will get them into doors. … I want them to not be a statistic, but to do well.”

— Karen Brown, whose son Joshua Ruggs,  a junior at Salisbury High School,  hopes to raise enough money to take part in a pre-college summer program at
Harvard University

• “You know I love to cut waste in the budget, but this is more important than money.”

— State Rep. Carl Ford, who opposes a proposal in the N.C. Senate’s budget to combine some of the 100 county social services departments into no more than 30 regional agencies

• “If I can cheat death, why not?”

— David Karczewski, who is trying to raise money to travel to India to undergo a new treatment for multiple sclerosis, which he has been battling since 1998

• “No matter what it takes or no matter what I’ve got to do, I’m going to get justice for my daughter. I just want them to come forward. I want peace.”

— Shequita Woodberry, whose daughter A’yanna Allen was shot to death while she slept in her grandmother’s bedroom when someone sprayed the front of the house with bullets, a case for which law enforcement authorities will erect a billboard
asking the public for information to help find the killer

• “I still get to do about what I want in this nice little quiet place. If I had kept a diary, I would have had a good book.”

— John Yelton, a lifelong resident of Gold Hill, relating stories about the history and people of the town

• “There are a lot of people killed, a lot of people injured, a lot of people missing. And we just feel so lucky that we are all together.”

— Shauna Hardy of Newcastle, England, whose family was at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester when a suicide bombing killed 22 people and injured 59