“The answer is always ‘just not me, just not me.’ And, folks, I don’t want to do this. None of us like this, but we have got to do something.”

Josh Wagner, chairman of the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education, after presenting a consolidation plan that includes closing Faith Elementary School as the district grapples with rising maintenance costs and shrinking enrollment.

“Nothing can happen until the fat lady sings, I guess.”

Tim Williams, a former Faith mayor who has helped organize opposition to plans to close Faith Elementary, asserting that a decision on the school’s future is not final

“There’s no winners in this courtroom. The families behind me, everybody’s hurt.”

Meaco Rucker, brother of Lacynda Feimster, speaking in the courtroom Wednesday after a jury convicted Lina Abbitt and Daniel Real Abarran of murdering Feimster as she held her 3-year-old son and her mother watched in the family’s Salisbury apartment in 2016

“God held me in his hand. … When I think on it, I have tears in my eyes.”

Eunice Gladey, a native of Nigeria who recently became a U.S. citizen with the help of Char Molrine of Salisbury, who offered a place to stay and helped Gladey get a job after she moved to Salisbury

“We were prepared. It just didn’t happen how we wanted it to happen.”

Dayjuwon Cooke, a senior on the North Rowan High School boys basketball team after a 43-40 loss to Bishop McGuinness last weekend in the 1A West Region finals

“My daddy flipped pancakes, and my granddaddy flipped pancakes. I had a legacy to uphold.”

Nan Zimmerman, who helped at the griddle for the 62nd annual Kiwanis Pancake Festival that served the usual crowds last weekend