John Shelton, longtime emergency services director for Surry County, was remembered Monday for his professionalism and his dedication to his work.Â
Shelton, 67, died Sunday. His cause of death has not been released publicly. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.Â
County Manager Chris Knopf and Mark Marion, the chairman of the commissioners, could not be reached Monday. Nathan Walls, a spokesman for the county, said the commissioners will meet Tuesday and will make comments about Shelton. Bill Goins, vice-chairman of the commissioners, declined to comment on the cause of death. Walls said in an email that county officials are respecting the privacy of Shelton's family.Â
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"Johnny was perhaps the best paramedic I ever knew," said Wayne Ashworth, who first hired Shelton years ago as the county's emergency services director. "He was completely engrossed and dedicated to his work."
Ashworth was Surry County's emergency services director from 1979 to 1986. Ashworth left for a job in Salisbury and recommended that Shelton take his place.Â
Shelton came from a well-known family in Surry County.Â
A family emergency propelled Shelton into his life's work. According to a Winston-Salem Journal article in 1990, Shelton had been working in 1976 at his father's business, J.Q. Shelton Auto Parts and Sales in Mount Airy. He was 23 at the time and his father suffered a heart attack.Â
"Our family has always been extremely close," Shelton said in the 1990 article. "And when that happened, I didn't know what to do. For the first time in my life, I felt that I didn't have control over what was going on. Here was a man that I loved dearly, and there was nothing I could do to help him."
Shelton's father survived, but the doctor told Shelton that his father would continue to have heart problems. Shelton told the Journal that he wanted to prepare himself for future problems his father might face and that led him to take EMT classes at Surry Community College. He finished in 1977 and he eventually joined Surry County Emergency Medical Services.Â
Ashworth said emergency services workers had gone on strike. At the time, Surry County contracted out emergency services, he said. The Surry County Board of Commissioners ended the contract, resulting in the firing of emergency services employees.Â
The county, he said, decided to start its own emergency services agency. Shelton was among the first to join the county agency, Ashworth said.Â
"He was one of three shift supervisors at the time I was there," he said. "He was very impressive from the start, as were some others."
Shelton showed an immense dedication to the job.
"It was his life," he said.Â
Shelton had a commitment to detail, including making sure the ambulances were clean.Â
"His term for the cleaning ....(was) the unit had to be tight," Ashworth said. "That was his word. It was like it rolled off the showroom floor."
Bill Goins, vice-chairman of the Surry County Board of Commissioners, said he has known Shelton for more than 20 years. Goins got to know Shelton while he was principal of three different schools over 17 years.Â
When he said if there was anything he could do for you, "he meant that," Goins said. "When my dad passed, Johnny was one of the first people who sent me a text."
Shelton was also a passionate advocate for emergency services, Goins said.Â
In addition to being the county emergency services director, Shelton was also the county's chief medical examiner, a rare arrangement in North Carolina, Ashworth said.Â
Shelton, Ashworth said, was a private person and he could come off as abrasive if he didn't feel like someone didn't measure up to his standard for service, but he was always professional and always reliable, he said.Â
"If there was a job to be done and assigned to him, forget it. It would get done," he said.Â