A Field Of Screams was a joint venture between the Surry County Parks and Recreation and the volunteers of the Dobson Rescue Squad Inc. The thought was “what could be done to utilize the parks great trails and give the people of Surry County something to do with the whole family?” Some of the people that live here in Surry traveled to near by towns to have a scare at other haunted attractions, but then again some couldn’t afford it. SO the Dobson Rescue Squad along with a lot of long discussions decided to venture out with the idea of a haunted trail fund raiser.

The first year of 2003 we had to come up with ideas on how to get started. The one topic that was on every ones mind (Dobson Rescue and Surry County Parks) was, we have got to make it affordable for everyone to attend. With that in mind we came up with an admission fee of $5.00 per person. Next step was if we are going to charge the public only $5 we are still going to do our best to give them a $20 show! The Rescue Squad sat down every night for weeks coming up with ideas for costumes, props, scenes and then enough volunteers to make it work. We had, as always the men and women from surrounding departments willing to help us out. (Central Surry Fire Dept.)

It all came together and on Wednesday October 29th, 2003 we went live! The first night we had around 25 people but we kept our heads up high. We also had Angela Schmoll with Mount Airy News come by and she did a super article on the event (thanks Angela). The next night we had around 50 people come out to our attraction. On Friday night we got blown away when a whopping 179 people attended and seem to be having a great time (except for a couple that passed out and numerous ones that ran back out the entrance crying). Hey, as bad as we hated to see some not complete our haunted trail it did get the crowed fired up when some one came back out screaming. The last night which was Saturday we had just a little over 250 come through. Well, instead of no customers to scare or being a first year flop it seemed to be a great success.

In our 2004 season we went live on Wednesday October 27th and ran it four days straight ending on October 30th. Well, the first night we only had around 50 victims. But that was great due to the rainy weather. But, hold onto your hats, we had people waiting in line Friday and Saturday nights for an hour to two hours. (The wait wasn’t because we wasn’t doing our best to move the victims down our trail, we just had more victims than we ever imagined) We had a few celebrities come up to help entertain the crowd like Freddy, Michael Myers, and some crazy man, none of us knew, with a mean sounding chain saw. And does anyone know who that maniac was that came out of the house and dragged that screaming girl back in, our security guard and even I got caught off guard by that act. We had a lot more help this year Central Surry Fire Dept, Mount Airy Rescue Squad, Skull Camp Fire Dept, South Surry Fire Dept, Mountain Park Rescue Squad, Pilot Mountain Rescue Squad and Surry County Sheriff’s Dept. A lot more of our family and friends made this all possible. But at the end of the 2004 scare fest we had scared over 1,200 victims. Can we say the people of Surry and surrounding counties have spoken, they like being scared by our group and our price. So we will be back in 2005!

To all that came to see us THANK YOU! We promise this year will be Bigger and Better than ever. We will continue to try to get you all in as fast as we can, just continue to be patient. Who knows, this year with an extra night can we say over 2,000 VICTIMS, we hope so!

The Dobson Rescue Squad Members put a lot of work into this please sign the guest book, to let them know what you think of the show and the work they do for our community.

Sincerely,
Chief Russell Cockerham “870”