Betty Belle (Perry) Boyd

On December 12, 1938, a baby girl was born at Grace Hospital in Morganton, NC to Clay and Bessie Marie Perry of Zionville. Initially unable to care for the baby girl due to her illness and subsequent death, the sweet baby girl, Betty Belle Perry, was lovingly cared for by the nurses at Grace Hospital and then taken by her father to be reared by his beloved sister and her husband, Emory and Margaret Mitchell and their mother, Rosa Belle Perry. Her Mother and Daddy lovingly took her in and gave her a wonderful life after an unsure start. While she was raised as Betty Belle Mitchell, her birth name was never legally changed.  “Daddy Perry” as she always knew and referred to him as, continued to be a part of her life as well as her older brothers and sisters and his wife, Ola along with the eight half-siblings from their union.

In her Christian upbringing, she attended and was a life-long member of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, accepted Jesus as her personal Savior and was baptized in His name. She recently told her 8-year-old great-grandson, Brantley that his decision to be saved and baptized last summer was “the best decision he’d ever make in his life". She was a wonderful piano player and had a beautiful singing voice and used her God-given talents both in church as a choir director at Pleasant Grove and in public services.

She attended Mabel Elementary School and then graduated from Cove Creek High School, a year earlier than her class of 1956, by attending summer school. There, she was a cheerleader for her beloved Red Raiders including the state championship boys’ basketball team. Emory and Margaret instilled a strong work ethic in her and her first public job as a teenager was at the Crest Five and Dime Store in downtown Boone as well as helping her Daddy and Mother who ran the Coble Dairy in Cove Creek. She went on after high school to attend trade school at the IBM School of Business. As a young bride and mother, she worked as a church secretary in Rutherfordton and then back in Boone at Grace Luthern Church. In the early 1960’s, she was hired by Dr. John Martin, the only veterinarian in Boone, to be his office manager and vet assistant. Here, her love for animals was cultivated, bringing home numerous abandoned pets including cats, dogs, and a parakeet which added joy to the lives of her four young children. After leaving Dr. Martin, she began working night shift at IRC/TRW but was quickly transferred to become an administrative /executive secretary to Johnny Austin. She also filled in at Watauga General Hospital (now Watauga Medical Center) as switchboard operator in the early 1970’s. In 1974, she met a widower named Wilbur Boyd and they married on April 6, 1975. After marriage, they moved to Albuquerque, NM, where she began her career as office manager at Albuquerque Orthopedics which later would become New Mexico Orthopedic Association due to their growth and expansion to numerous offices. Even after her retirement in 1998, she remained as a consultant for them to assist in a smooth transition. She and Wil returned to her beloved home in the NC mountains in 1999 and made their home in Mountain City, TN. She quickly became involved with Cove Creek Preservation and Development, joining the Board of Directors as treasurer for over 20 years. Along with a few others who had the same love for the building and its meaning, they worked together to ensure it became placed on the National Register of Historical Places. Seeing her beloved alma matter preserved was very important to her and she worked tirelessly along with the other board members by helping to start bringing in business occupants to include the Sugar Grove Day School, Jung Tao School of Chinese medicine, the Doc & Merle Watson Museum and preserve the old cafeteria to be used for community events. She assisted in the fund-raising efforts both with meticulous detail and her Red Raider spirit, working hard to recruit others to have interest in the beautiful building. She freely gave thousands of hours to the Doc Watson Appreciation Day (now Doc and Rosa Lee Music Fest in Sugar Grove) Farm Heritage Days, as well as numerous other fundraising events and seeking out private donations. During her involvement with the Music Fest, she made numerous friendships with both artists and attendees. Her duties for many years were assisting with the artist bookings and their hotel needs and gate packets, ticket and reserved seating sales (which she hand drew out seating grids and assigned and mailed the tickets to each and every pre-purchased ticketholder), lining up the vendors and assigning their perfect spots, working with the companies who managed the main tent/stage set-up, and the merchandise tent. Her unique yearly festival logo designs were lovingly hand-drawn for several years to send to the screen printers that would become the annual poster and t-shirt. She was very detail oriented and if people weren’t happy with their seat location, she would do whatever she could to ensure their seats were made better and everyone’s festival experience was enjoyable. She maintained the list of the people who had their “preferred seats” and if she hadn’t heard from them (by phone before online ordering became available), by a certain date after the sales were advertised, she would “reserve” them anyway and place a call to see if they were coming. Each year, these people would make sure to stop in and give her a hug and often bring her flowers or other treats. One such frequent attender, lovingly referrers to her as “Triple B”. She was sad when due to a traumatic accident in 2014, she had to relinquish her major role in Music Fest. She did however continue with the Board of Directors as long as she could and until her caregiving was needed to her beloved Mother Margaret and then to Wil, as his dementia progressed. She wanted to make sure CCP&D continued and the building, a Works Parks Administration Building, was preserved to be a use to the community for generations to come.

Betty was blessed with a gifted talent as a seamstress and made many beautiful items, mainly without a store-bought pattern, including her wedding dress, beautiful clothes for herself and her kids and even fashion-forward swimsuits in the late 60’s and early 70’s. She had become an expert quilt designer and maker. Her passion and love were in each stitch she put into all the quilts she lovingly made for her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, sister, great nieces and nephews. They are full of vibrant, beautiful colors. They are her own meticulous hand sewn designs and hand stitched with love (never by sewing machine). These quilts are now cherished heirlooms to be passed on from generation to generation. Her most recent project was the quilt she was designing and working on for Nick and Reilly for their wedding guest signatures. She was busy for many hours every day trying to get all the squares designed and made. Most of them were complete and she was preparing to sew them all together to become a beautiful reminder of their special day.

She and Wil loved to travel and took trips to Hawaii, Costa Rica, Portugal and throughout the US to visit family in Arkansas, North Dakota, Idaho, Colorado and always a trip her “home” in North Carolina. Those trips were mainly by car, motorhome and Wil’s private airplane. One such trip, a fast-moving storm forced him to land his Cessna in a corn field. In her years after Wil’s passing, she enjoyed the yearly annual Family Christmas Gatlinburg trip with Darlene and her family. In April of 2023, she experienced her first ever cruise to the Caribbean with Darlene and Jeff and took one more with them in 2024. Her last trip is the best of all, to her eternal home in Heaven.

In addition to her loving Mother and Daddy, Emory and Margaret Perry Mitchell, birth parents, Clay and Bessie Marie Perry, she was predeceased by her husband, Wil Boyd, full sisters and brothers, Helen Perry Beach, Louise Perry Gragg, and Johnny, Grady and Estele Perry, half-brothers Carlton and Jackie Perry, “bonus son” Barry Boyd and “bonus grandson” Jake Martinez.

Left to cherish her legacy of faith, fervent prayers and deeply miss her, are her son, Ronald Gore (Cindy) of Zionville, daughter, Darlene Greene Caudill (Jeff) of Deep Gap, “bonus children”, Kathy Greene Jones (Phil) of Garner, NC, Karen Greene Lerch (Bert) of Sugar Grove, Roxanne Boyd Martinez of LaRue, Texas, Gary Boyd of her home in Mountain City, TN and Suzanne Boyd Martinez (Tino) of Sterling, Colorado. Additionally, she had four grandchildren, Kelly Gore, Ronnie Gore, Josh McMillan (Akesha) and Nicholas Caudill (Reilly). Great grandchildren, Danielle Gore (Mike Mills), Amelia Gore, Seth and Brayden Sund, Brantley and Declan McMillan and great-great grandchildren, QuennaBelle Margaret Mills and Sunny, Liam, Nova and Theodore Sund. Bonus grandchildren, Bill Jones, Kenny Bowen, Kinsey Bowen de Armas (Asa), Sarah Bennett, Allison Collins, Andy Martinez (Haley), Clarissa Vawter (Monte), Carlos Martinez (Amanda), Rita Martinez (Marc), Eric Martinez (Sara) and Tommy Martinez (Ashley), Jessica Martinez (wife of Jake) and Tiffany Martinez.  Bonus great grandchildren, Brooks and Griffin Bowen, Susan Jane, Asa, Ridge and Rafael de Armas, Jaylon Williams, Isaiah and Mary Bennett, Aaron and Luke Martinez, Georgia and Silas Martinez, Loretta, Levi and Jimmy Vawter, Sierra and Alyssa Martinez and Molly Nelson, Saydie Brown, Kyser Martinez, and Caysen, Lauryn and Camdyn Kracht, Sage Lopez, Matt Stanley, Cash Nabb, and Willow Martinez. Cooper and Brooklyn Martinez and bonus great-great grandchildren Elizabeth Williams, Suede Lopez, and Grayson Stanley. Also, beloved nephew, Eric Greene.

Her sister, Louise Mitchell Goad (Landon) of Naperville, Ill, Perry half-siblings, Bob Perry (Pat), Jerry Perry, Allen Perry (Kay), Larry Perry (Sherry), Peggy Jean Perry Hagaman (Mark), and Dora Dean Perry Mays as well as numerous beloved cousins, nieces and nephews.

Services will be held at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Zionville, NC on Saturday, May 30th with family visitation 12:00-1:00 pm and celebration of life to follow at 1:00 pm with officiant Pastor Steve Liashomb. Interment will follow at Mount Lawn Memorial Gardens in Boone.

While she loved the beautiful flowers of God’s creation, her desire for her vision and the continued work to keep the Historic Cove Creek High School useful, donations would be greatly appreciated to help with its maintenance and upkeep. Please send to: Cove Creek Preservation & Development, PO Box 344, Sugar Grove, NC 28679 or online to www.docwatsonmusicfest.org/donate.

Online condolences may be shared at austinandbarnesfuneralhome.com

Austin & Barnes Funeral Home and Crematory is serving the Boyd family.

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