Blue Ridge Homeplace

This is Sam from the Mask on Journey Podcast, and our goal with the podcast has helped you to try to find your way in this difficult world. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Tell everyone what you're looking at real quick. I'm looking at the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the southern Appalachian.

It's called Squirrel's Fur and just over the top of the mountain is the famous Appalachian Trail, which lots of people have traveled on. It's a beautiful scene here like none other in the world. We saw cousin Joey. We went to a bunch of the different houses that you've restored. A lot of military ministries happening up here. A lot of folks have come up and found Christ.

There's the Prayer Mountain. There's a lot going up here in Ararat, Virginia, the home place, the birthplace of your brother who got you into radio, Ralph Epperson, right? This is where it all started for radio. Ralph came home from college and after working at the Naval Lab in 1943, and he put electricity into the house for the first time, indoor plumbing, and we had a bathroom and it was just a miracle. And then he built a little radio station upstairs and suddenly we were the most popular house in the whole community because people came in to talk on the radio and play the fiddle and banjo and a lot of preachers came and, boy, they preached.

And they would have some great preachers out of these mountains talking about Jesus and the gospel of Jesus. And so I tell you what, I fell in love with radio right here in this house back in 1943, 44. Now, the progenitor of your family, the patriarch, one of the many, but Harry A. Epperson, your dad, my granddad, who's now with the Lord, lived to be 96. He built this house. He was the local undertaker, farmer, really a Renaissance man, musician, clockmaker, worked and built organs, pianos.

Talk a little bit about him and what you think about him as an 84-year-old man sitting here on his porch that he built, Harry built. Well, he went off to the, born in 1888 in April, and his family had a sawmill and he lived about two miles from here, born there in a cabin. And he came here and he went off to the army, World War I. He got the Spanish flu in 1917 and stayed in the tent hospital on a cot for a long time, but he survived. And most of the people there didn't survive, but he actually survived.

And you know, he never got the flu again his whole life. And then he came back here in 1918 and he had been going to see my mother, Lula Watson, who lived just past Unity Church in the Gidd Watson house. And they had moved here in 1913 from North Carolina down near Westfield. And so she promised to wait for him, so he finally came home and he built this house. He sawed the lumber and then built a house. And one of the biggest things that he had to locate was nails to build it with.

So I believe he actually bought an old house from somebody and got the nails out of it and built this house. They got married in 1918 and had their children all born in this house and the land around that we farmed and we grew what we ate. And we got flour sacks to make shirts and that sort of thing.

So it was a great life, very hard work. You canned the food for the winter out of the garden and you used horse manure for your fertilizer. Many a time you would clean out the barn, put it on the wagon, and then we'd drive across the field with a pitchfork. And so we'd scatter the horse manure. You know, we got six or seven bushels to the acre.

Now they get maybe a hundred. So your definition of running water was what in those early 1900s? You ran down into the woods there to a little spring and you got water. You got a bucket of water and you brought it back.

Wow. Always had cold water and then they dug a well out the other side of the house and put a pump up and down. And so it was a hard life, but we didn't consider it hard.

Nobody considered it hard. It's just that we didn't have any money to spend except selling a little tobacco. And sometimes you were just blessed if you got enough to pay for the fertilizer. Tobacco required a lot of fertilizer. It required a lot of work and sometimes you'd work the whole year and get nearly nothing.

One year it sold for one penny a pound, one cent per pound. And they had such a big crop that the market was bloated. And they said, one time we worked on Sunday to get the crop in. And they said, as a result of working on Sunday, the Lord made the price a penny a pound and made nothing. Went through the whole year and had absolutely no money coming in. That was the money crop. You didn't make money from tobacco.

You did not make money. This era would have been what in American history? What years would this have been, 19? It was the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.

In 1947, 1948, my brother built a radio station in Mount Erie and opened on Groundhog's Day, 1948. Christ was the center of our home. And in 1922, my father and his brother sought out the lumber and the community got together and built Unity Church.

He was the carpenter along with Uncle Jim, his brother. And they built the church, put a bell in it. The whole community got involved in raising enough that by that I mean they gave chickens and they gave an egg. Everybody gave a dozen eggs. And some people gave four or five chickens to take to the store and sell. And some people gave a couple of pounds of butter.

It was amazing. And some people gave, you know, stuff from their garden and were able to sell it and they built the church, Unity Presbyterian Church. And we went there every Sunday morning. My father was the Sunday school superintendent.

There weren't very many men involved. In fact, for a while he was the only man involved in the church and then a few other people got involved. And we always prayed before the meal and we read the Bible every day. And Sunday was the day we did not work and how did we look forward? Oh, how we looked forward to Sunday.

No work on Sunday except feeding the livestock and getting up the eggs. Your mom was a big part of that spiritual life, a real prayer warrior who pushed all of you to the Lord, right? She witnessed everybody that came walking along this road. I'd sit on this porch and people would walk by and I noticed sometimes they would try to get on the other side of the road to avoid being seen by her. But she always saw them. And she said, so-and-so, why don't you come to church and have you ever accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?

Mrs. Lilla, I'll be out there Sunday. But they never showed up. A few of them showed up.

But she witnessed to them every single one. But she made sure all the kids were in church and that would have been, the oldest would have been Ralph. Ralph was the oldest.

The radio patriarch, got us all on radio. Ralph was curious about things. He asked questions. He was a prodigy. He was extremely smart. He was always getting things in the catalog because you had two weeks to return it and get all your money back. So he ordered things like a high-powered telescope and went out on the hill and invited everybody to come by and see the stars and the planets.

And it was just amazing. But he was always curious. He went off to John Brown University. First he went to Brevard and they convinced him that he should become a communist in one semester. And he came home and told everybody in the church, look, I just went to college. I learned that the Bible's not true. You're worshipping a false god.

And it just about broke everybody's heart in this community. But then we heard on the radio John Brown, Sr. He said, if you get out here, we'll teach you about the Lord. And if you get out here, we'll give you a job and you can go to school. Ralph said, that's where I want to go. And so he hitchhiked out there with homemade clothes.

How about that? And they gave him a job because you're from the farm who gave you a job in the barn. He said, no, I want to be in the radio. So they put him in the radio station and it was a love affair. He graduated and then he was a valedictorian at John Brown University.

Then Arlo went out for school and he served in the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded in the knee. That's a whole story to that. And he came back and he and I were very close, my brother, older brother. And then there was Lucy, my sister. She adopted me when she was, I was born, she was 10 years old. She was a second mother to me.

Extremely close, extremely. Everybody needs, everybody needs someone who loves them and believes in them. And she really believed in me. And then there was Roy. He was a successful farmer here. He came, he was a bootlegger for a long time. And I kind of joined him in that trade back in 1952, 53.

And then he became a Christian later and really, really became a pillar of the church out here, Unity Church. And his kids all went to John, to Bob Jones University as I did. And so you came to impasse in your life where you got a little wild there and you had a choice. You're going to go to the penitentiary or to go to Bob Jones University.

You're still trying to figure out which one was tougher, huh? Well, I did at that time, yeah. But God used Bob Jones to really form your spiritual life. And you met a wonderful woman there, I guess, too, who's my mom. It was a miracle place for me.

Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina. I met Nancy, my wife, she was born in Hawaii. And God just worked in our life in a wonderful way. And it's been a dream life. Yeah, we've had struggles, we've had problems, we've had challenges. But God has been there all the time leading us and guiding us.

And he's still doing that today. And so I'm just so thankful for Jesus coming to my heart back when I was 10 years old. Your challenge to everyone is you're an 84-year-old man sitting on the porch of the house you grew up in, you were born in. Looking back now about life and about Christ, what's really important?

What would you say your passion is right now just in a sentence? I would advise you to do what God wants you. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he's near. Seek the Lord. Study the Bible. Get serious about it. Don't be a casual believer. Don't be a casual Christian. Be a true blue sold out to the Lord and study the Bible.

Be a Bible student the rest of your life. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. On the porch of the home place, looking at the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains with my dad, Stu Everson, Sr. I'm Stu Everson, Jr. And I'm in radio today because he had a big brother who brought a radio kit back from college and started one of the first radio stations, I guess, in North Carolina.

Maybe in the country, WPAQA, I'm 740, got it started right up here in the attic of this house. And people came from all over, preachers to preach. And people would haul in a covered wagon, their music, their different instruments to play and sing. And you grew up in that as a little guy, huh, Pops?

I sure did. He started this back in 43. Put electricity in the house and Ralph started that. He started in the bedroom upstairs, the same room where my dad used to store a coffin or two under the bed. He was the undertaker and he kind of built everything. He helped build all kinds of things, had a sawmill, did some mining. He did a little bit of everything, didn't he, your dad? He had a package funeral home. He operated out of the house. Not a good idea, by the way. So he gave it up when they required a $35 license. And he said, look, that's just too expensive.

I can't afford that. I'm getting out of this. So you see these kids walk around with their phones listening to an app or listening to a radio station on their phone. All you had back then in the 40s was AM radio and everyone had it and that was the thing. What's it like for you looking back at what was and how complex it's gotten? It's fascinating, isn't it, the changes? It has. Radio has never died.

It's been there all along the way and it still has a lot of life left in it. With my brother-in-law, Edward Atzinger, who's a visionary, really, really a great thinker, led by the Lord. He came to Bob Jones.

He came to the Lord early in life at high school. And he came to Bob Jones and together we started this. We have about 100 radio stations now all over the country. Salem Media is the name of the company. Salem Media Group, we're a public company on NASDAQ and our goal is to provide, build a platform, build a radio station platform. Now the internet platform for the preaching of the gospel and the teaching of the ethics of the Bible, the Judeo-Christian tradition.

That's our goal. We just met, we just spoke with Steven, one of your nephews, my second cousin, whose granddad is the one, his granddad Ralph is the one that got us all going on radio. And we told him about the greatness and the legacy and the opportunity to carry on that name and just how God used him in your life.

God's used you in my life and now I'm trying to get my kids involved. Now I want to jump up to modernity here as I'm sitting on the, let me set the scene for everyone one more time. Beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. This is a view that's just breathtaking. We've got baled hay and all these sprawling fields. We're recording this in the summer right now. Dad's 84.

I'm 49. We're looking at this mountains. This is just beautiful. And this is, these are, I guess these are the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains right southwest Virginia, Ararat, Virginia, right near Mount Airy, North Carolina. A lot of folks know that better, right?

Southern Appalachians. So your oldest brother, Harry and Lulu, mom and dad are off in heaven. And the rest of your siblings, you talked about Ralph, Arnold, Roy, Lucy. Now Mary Lee, she's still living as of the day of this recording. We call her Warmly Aunt Gizzard.

Talk, say something about her real quick. She's a special lady. That was her favorite part of chicken. And that's, she got the nickname in an honest way. And so she's, she was a child prodigy with a piano. She started thing at the church here, Unity Church. When she was 10 years old, she's still the pianist there. So that would be, she's 90 years old. And she's still substitute teaching in the Mount Airy public schools. So she's just an amazing lady. And I'm so thankful for her. She's a Christian, sweet Christian lady. Very careful with her health, of course, which you have to be when you're 90. Otherwise you don't stick around a lot.

That's right. Mary Lee Gizzard, and all the kids of the siblings that you mentioned, your siblings are wonderful cousins of mine. They're all carrying on in different ways in ministry and education, in radio.

A lot of Epperson's are in radio or relatives of Epperson's are in radio, making a difference that way. Dad, looking back, you and Ed hooked up there. You met mom at Bob Jones University. Did you have any idea that asking her to borrow a nickel for a soda pop would turn into a date? Now how, I probably messed that story up, but take us there real quick. Well, she walked up to me in the bar there, snack bar. She asked for a loan of 25 cents to buy a butterscotch sundae. And so I said, I will, if you will, date me on Sunday for church.

That's what we did. That was a big date. Oh, wow. Dating time at Bob Jones University. That was church, okay? And so she agreed to, and then we got very well acquainted. And then I was just leaving my last semester. Her first semester I left, and she dated someone else now for about three years. And then they broke up. Meanwhile, I went to, I left and was living in Roanoke in the YMCA.

And I had a little business up there, a radio station in Vinton, Virginia. And so she sent word that she had broken up with her boyfriend. And so I went down to see her, and then we got married, 1963. So this was a wonderful relationship, a dream come true. She's been the love of my life. I don't know how I would have been successful at all in life or as close to the Lord. She memorizes Scripture, knows several books of the Bible, and she's taught you some of them, I believe, Stuart.

She sure has. We had a lot of Scripture in our home and our family. And so far, so far everybody, our 21 grandchildren and our four children and their wives and husbands are living for the Lord. And I think to give professional faith in Jesus Christ, and I'm so thankful for that. One of your legacy points, Stu Everson, Jr., talking to Stu Everson, Sr., about his life, his passion for Christ, his getting into radio.

We're sitting in a very significant place in his life. This is where you were born. And were you actually born in this house, or were you born in a local hospital? I was born here in this house, and the midwife was my grandmother, Margie Arnold. Her daddy had been a doctor, and she became a midwife.

And she was professional at delivering babies. So she delivered a number of my siblings. And she died when I was five years old. She was so close to me. She died in this house, in Granny's room. I spent every day in her room.

And when she died, it was just a moment in my life I'll never forget. So you grew up in this house, got into radio, went to Bob Jones. God used you, connected you through your marriage to Mom. Her brother, Uncle Ed, you guys started Salem.

A lot of, obviously, narrative to fill in, but just to give the big picture view. And God's brought you here back home now. And you just told me on our bike ride, Dad, that your passion for this place has never been warmer, has never been stronger.

Because you have seen, just for Prayer Mountain, for example, I see two things that have happened in these years of your life. One is your passion for mentoring fatherless kids who have no dad. And you've tried to be a father to the fatherless. You've encouraged all of us to be that. You've helped mentoring all over the country.

It's been amazing. And then your passion for getting people up here to the farm to Prayer Mountain to find Christ. Who would have thought that a junky old house that you drove by and didn't even think about, you know, 50, 60 years ago, would be a place where families come together, where our military guys come from Fort Bragg with their families and get healed and find Christ. Well, I tell you, I drew up, I had a mother and a father here. They were not educated, but they had God in their life and their Bible, and they were determined their kids were going to grow up to love God.

And that was their chief goal, okay? There were basically, I think, three families here where the husband left, okay, just left. And I saw the family's kids grow up, and it was not a pretty picture, okay? It was a little bit of success now and then, but mostly it was bad success.

It didn't end well. And I tell you, all my life I've known intuitively and now statistically that if you're not born in a family that's married, you're 75% more likely to end up in poverty, an unsuccessful person. 75% if you're not born to a married husband and wife. So that's why marriage, God ordained it. You can't break God's rules and hope to be successful.

God ordained marriage as holy, as acceptable, and even the marriage of the lamb as the church is coming back. So to God be the glory. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Stu Everson Sr. at 84 is busier now than he's ever been. He's got, he's riding his bike 20 miles at a time. I can't even keep up with him.

I'm tired. I'm hoping this interview will go longer so I can rest more because we're recuperating on the porch of his family home he grew up in in Ararat, Virginia. Looking at the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm Stu Everson Jr. And I'm in radio today because he had a big brother who brought a radio kit back from college and started one of the first radio stations, I guess, in North Carolina, maybe in the country. WPAQAM 740 got it started right up here in the attic of this house. And people came from all over, preachers to preach.

And people would hold in a covered wagon their music, their different instruments to play and sing. And, Dad, talk about what you're involved with now. You touched on mentoring fatherless kids, helping the widow, helping the orphan. You're involved in that a lot, aren't you? Just trying to love these kids and give them a meaning and give them a purpose.

Buy them an ice cream, a soft serve, just to take an interest in them. Well, involved with Kids Extreme, which goes into neighborhoods with poverty kids, with single parents, and teaching them the Bible, trying to also teach them some basic skills in life, very little kids. And we need volunteers for that, Kids Extreme.

Working with Ron Pegram and Jackie Pegram, who is the greatest person I've ever known for young people, little people, getting them excited about the Lord, telling them about Jesus. And then we have Christian Association of Youth Mentoring, which is a national organization, caym.org, maybe 5,000 kids being mentored. One kid at a time is a great slogan, isn't it? One kid at a time, think small, just get involved with one kid. You can't change the world, but you can change one kid. You can change one kid, believe me. And no matter, I'm 84 and I still find that a kid who doesn't have a daddy enjoys talking with me.

I'm a little surprised at that, okay, at 84 years old. Just some attention, talking about the Lord, encourage them, grab lunch, get them plugged into church. But they're waiting and we're walking by getting political and this and that. How about just taking a kid and loving on them like Jesus did? Oh, amen, just take that kid aside and talk with them and get acquainted with them. You'll be amazed at how they'll cling to you because these kids without fathers, many of them have never talked to an adult male, okay? They have nothing to pattern their life by and a lot of them end up in prison, on the street, murdered, criminals. It's just a shame and we can cure this through the power of God and the Holy Spirit.

We can cure this by getting involved with one kid at a time. Up here in Ararat, Virginia, there's a bunch of farmhouses and a bunch of, I'll pull up here on a random Saturday night and there'll be a big bonfire and a bunch of special forces guys around the fire with their wives and a man of God bringing them a message and guys will go up to Prayer Mountain and pray to receive Christ or rededicate their life to Christ. Tell everyone a little bit about your vision for this area, how God didn't just use this area to shape Stu Epperson, Sr., but he's using now this area, Stu Epperson, to involve this area to shape others for Christ.

What's your vision? Well, Larry Ledford called me one day and said, You got some farmhouses and you got some land. Can we come up and bring the chaplains of Fort Bragg and other places? Want to bring people back from the Middle East?

This is a number of years ago and so I said, Well, sure, bring them up. And so we found that those soldiers coming up here, this became their favorite place to come. They want to come. Right now it's shut down kind of because they got to stay within 30 miles of the base, Fort Bragg. But they came up here and a lot of them found the Lord up here and a lot of them got their lives together. About two months ago, a highway patrolman from California, he was in the special forces at Fort Bragg. He was in California, highway patrol. His life was falling apart and his wife was going and his kids were going and he was suicidal. And his counselor said, You need to get away somewhere. So he called his chaplain at Fort Bragg and he said, Well, let's go to Air Red, Virginia.

Spend some time. So they came up here a few days talking and walking conversation. And then when he was ready to leave, he said, Now I'm ready to talk about becoming a Christian.

Tell me how to become a Christian. And so he prayed to receive Christ. In the last report, his life has turned around.

His wife and he are getting back together. And his kids, it just made a big difference. So sometimes if you get alone with God in a private place like this and you see the wonder of nature, what God has created, and you start thinking about God in a very serious way, okay, get away from it all. So that's why we have this here. If anybody wants to come to get away, call us.

We'll try to work it out, okay? And we'll talk about Jesus while you're here. And that's what he does now. He's got a little cabin and whenever youngsters want to come fish in the big pond or they want to go swimming in the big lake, what's the requirement, Mr. Epperson? I go down and say, Look, hey, how you doing, man? I'm glad to see you.

I just have one requirement for you to fish here, swim. And they say, What's that? I say, We've got to talk for about 10 minutes and we've got to talk about Jesus.

Have you ever heard of him? And so I go through the whole plan of salvation, how Jesus came and everything. And so far everybody has accepted that condition. Many of them are Christians already. I encourage them to get closer to God. One guy on Saturday night came up and he said, Hey, you already talked to me. I said, Well, do you believe in Jesus?

Are you in? Are you born again? And he said, Yeah, yes, I am. Thank you.

So they're fishing for whatever the catch of the day is in that pond, but they don't know they're being fished for themselves. Right. So Stu Epperson, Jr. here interviewing Dad, an honor to sit on the porch. This is one of the most relaxing views, isn't it, Pops? And we're wrapping up. But, Pop, tell me this real quick as we wrap up. For your grandkids, you already have a great grandkid.

My daughter Hope and Harry, her husband, have a little fella and he's precious. And you got more coming, Lord willing. God gave Stephen, who we read about in Acts, maybe he was only 25 years old or so. He was a young life, but God gave him a short life, but a very powerful life. And he had one more sermon to preach in Acts 7.

We have it recorded there. And then he died and went straight to heaven. And God's given you eight decades plus an eight and a half.

You know, an 84 may give you another decade or two. You know, you've got the Epperson gene. What's your final sermon? If we hand you the mic and say, you got one more sermon before you go on home, what do you say to everybody, Pops? I'd say look to Jesus. Get your Bible out.

I'm looking down at a store right now run by Amos Beasley many years, many years ago. My mother invited him to church, invited him to read the Bible, quoted scripture to him. It never touched him. One day he got sick. He went to Mount Airy doctor and they said, no, you got to go to Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem and take a look. And he went down there and they did X-rays and examinations. And they said to him, they said, he told me this story.

He said, Amos, you know, you've got leukemia and you're going to die. Amos said, I rushed out of that office. I got in my car. I burnt the road up coming home. I ran into the house.

I got through Mount Airy. I came to right here to Ararat. I went into the store, which I'd been running, and I went into the bedroom and I'm looking all over the house for a Bible. He said, I got that Bible out.

And I started reading it. And he said, Stuart, I read that Bible. And he said, I read John 3.16 and Nicodemus came to Jesus. And he said, I asked Jesus to come into my heart.

And I'm saved. And he says, I'm going to heaven when I die. And he said, I'd love to hear you preach. And so we were out here at Unity Church and they didn't have a preacher. And they said, would you say a few words? So I went out and preached. And there was Amos sitting with his wife.

And he died a little later. And praise God, when you get desperate, you will turn to the Lord. But why wait till you get desperate? You're desperate now and don't know it. We're desperate for Jesus.

OK, we're hungry. So seek the Lord while he can be found. Call on him while he's near. Get your Bible out and start reading it in a serious way, rather than just a casual way. And so I read a chapter today. So what? May not even be thinking about it when you read it. But think about it.

What does it mean? And especially 1 John, the first chapter, and also the book of John. Those are the good entry ways into the Bible. Very good. Dad, thank you for sharing that. Stu Everson, Sr. with Stu Everson, Jr. We're about to get back on the bicycle and ride down the road to some beautiful country here in Ararat, Virginia.

And I love the challenge, the way he left it, just to reiterate. You're driving down the road, maybe, just listening to a radio station here in this program, or you hear some random preacher on another station. Take seriously the word of God. This could be your moment to turn to him and trust in the Lord and be saved.

It could be your last opportunity for that. So thank you, Dad. God bless you. Thanks for being an awesome pops in my life. You've been my hero all these years, and I'm honored to call you Dad. Well, thank you. Are you sure you mean that? What you say next is very important to my self-image, Pop, so you better choose your words carefully. Well, listen, I've always been proud of you, Stuart, that you have Jesus as your guide, as your Savior, and the Holy Spirit in you. And I just pray God through the Lord Jesus Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Bible, you will do greater and greater things, much greater stuff than I've ever done for Jesus Christ. So I pray for you every day that that'll happen.