Scott Epperson was always just Barn to me. He sometimes made audiences go into spasms of laughter. He worked longer and harder than any other man I knew and his wife Mel worked just as hard sometimes beside him. Barney died recently at the age of just 57. Maybe you knew him as Detective Scott Epperson of the Dunn, North Carolina Police Department. He retired from police work just a few years ago. You might have met him as Lee Michael, who worked in radio around Benson and Dunn and for years earlier around the Winston-Salem area. Barn’s health gave out on him suddenly last week and I lost a guide, a mentor and a friend. He introduced me to my first role as Andy in the play, “Remembering Mayberry” in Benson. We did the show in 2012 and 2013 and were planning to do six shows in January, February 2014 but “Remembering Mayberry” without Barn would not be a show at all. He was the main man, the glue that held the whole thing together. Barn would hit the road when it got warm enough for a State Fair and bring happiness and laughter to thousands of people all over the United States. He must have written out a zillion bogus parking tickets and he nailed every mayor along the route. We’ll miss him a lot.
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