Johnson Jay Anderson

Year Inducted: 2023

Highly regarded Wilkes County historian, Jay Anderson, was born May 31, 1915 to Annie McNeil Anderson in North Wilkesboro.  Growing up on C Street, he attended North Wilkesboro Elementary School and graduated from North Wilkesboro High School.  An outstanding student, he furthered his education at Wake Forest College, receiving his B.A. degree in music, while at the height of the Great Depression.  As a student, he took a job as a pianist and music director at Beck’s Baptist Church in Winston-Salem.  After graduation, he went to South Carolina and sold Hammond Organs.  He attended Furman University, then later attended Appalachian State University, where he obtained his M.A. degree.

Anderson served in the United States Army during World War II, then studied at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey.  As a member of the choir, he performed at Carnegie Hall with Eugene Ormandy, the Director of the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra, and with Leopold Stokowski, the director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Jay came home after his first year in New Jersey to care for his mother, who was in poor health.  He briefly worked as an announcer at WILX radio station in North Wilkesboro, until it ceased operation.  He then returned to South Carolina to demonstrate and sell organs.  He played in hundreds of churches, schools and funeral homes, as he was an accomplished organist.

In 1953, he returned home to take a teaching job at Clingman Elementary School, where he served simultaneously as principal.  After 5 or 6 years, he was transferred to Pleasant Hill School where he was principal until the mid 1960’s.  Dr. Howard Thompson, the first president of Wilkes Community College coaxed Jay into joining him at the college.  Thompson said “I had known Jay since 1953. He was a remarkable person.  I think that the college got a valuable asset.”  For 15 years Anderson taught World History, Psychology, Music and Art Appreciation and American History.  He also served as the organist for the First United Methodist Church of North Wilkesboro.  He kept this post for over 20 years.  This led him to writing One Hundred Years: First United Methodist Church North Wilkesboro, NC in 1982. 

Anderson’s passion of preserving Wilkes County history started the summer he came to the college, where he began offering local history courses.  After his retirement, he continued preserving Wilkes County history through video and oral history interviews with some of Wilkes County’s outstanding leaders.  Many of these interviews are available on www.digitalnc.org.  He wrote a weekly column for the Wilkes Journal Patriot with interesting bits of Wilkes County history that were later printed in the book Wilkes County: Odds and Ends.  Another publication he wrote was Wilkes County Sketches (1976, 1978) that gave “sketches” of events in Wilkes County history, as well as Wilkes: A Disjointed History in 1982.  He was commissioned by the town of North Wilkesboro to write its 100-year history.  This resulted in North Wilkesboro: The First Hundred Years 1890-1990.

J. Jay Anderson died November 5, 1995 leaving behind a rich legacy of Wilkes County history for past, present and future generations.  His collection was left to the Wilkes Community College Pardue Library.