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An author with roots in Stanly County will sign copies of her book Oct. 1 in Locust.
Hope Anderson will be at Locust Library, Locust Towne Center, 186 Ray Kennedy Dr., from 2-6 p.m.

Anderson, whose parents and grandparents grew up in Locust, has written “Brodie’s Journey With Hope (How a diagnosis of epilepsy saved my dog’s life).”
“It was just a story of what I went through with him,” Anderson said of her border collie Brodie. “When he was about 7, he started having seizures. He had epilepsy. About a year or so after that the epilepsy was escalating.”
She then discovered he had a heart issue and took him to N.C. State University, which is known for its veterinary studies.
It was also there that she learned he had a cancerous tumor on his back of neck.
“When bad things happen God will turn it into something good,” she said. “It is a good highlight on the veterinary college we have. They basically saved his life.
The college’s doctors were able to fix his heart, give him a pacemaker and later rumor the tumor.
“He lived another five years after that,” she said.
She said she wrote the book “to give people encouragement that good things can come out of bad things.” She also wanted to raise awareness.
“The last five years of his life he did not have the grand mal seizure,” she said. “If you can persevere and get through the medication you can get to that spot where the dog can survive and have a normal lifespan.”
The author’s mother, Margaret (Robinson) Anderson, spent her youth in Stanly County.
“When she was 11 or 12 years old, she and some of her brothers began living with wonderful foster parents, Isabel and Matthew Hathcock,” Anderson said. “Their farm was on Mission Church Road, about two to three miles from Route 200. The family attended Meadow Creek Primitive Baptist Church located on Meadow Creek Church Road (the oldest church in Stanly County, established in 1765). Mother graduated from Stanfield High School in 1941. A year later she married my dad, Bill Anderson.
“After he returned from World War II, they relocated to Charlotte, but they remained active members of Meadow Creek Primitive Baptist Church until their passing.”
As for Anderson, she was born in Charlotte, but she did attend Meadow Creek as a child and into early adulthood.
After high school, she attended Wingate College before obtaining a psychology degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
She had a career in technology and banking before retiring in 2021. She now enjoys church activities, reading and genealogy.

B.J. Drye is general manager/editor of The Stanly News & Press. Call 704-982-2123.