| 118th Year, 11th Issue | Thursday, October 26, 2006 | Sparta, North Carolina |
INDEPENDENCE, Va. - A minor league baseball pitcher with Wilkes County, N.C. ties remains missing after his canoe overturned in the New River about 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
Rescue crews planned to resume their search Monday for Erik James Walker of Clemmons, N.C., who was a star pitcher at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and at West Forsyth High School. Walker also is a member of the UNC-Charlotte softball team
Walker, 23, is the grandson of Halley and the late Deretha Walker of Hays, N.C. His maternal grandparents were the late Roosevelt "B" and Nora Wiles of Hays. His father, Larry Walker, is a Wilkes native who now lives in Clemmons.
Among Walker's numerous relatives in Wilkes is first cousin Landon Walker, an East Wilkes High School football standout who was selected to play in this year's Shrine Bowl All-Star Football game.
Walker and a female companion, identified as his girlfriend by searchers at the scene on Tuesday were canoeing down the New River near the North Carolina-Virginia line when their canoe flipped over.
The incident occurred in or just before a section of rapids called
the Molly Osborne Shoals in Grayson County, Va. According to Jason
Harris, a Virginia game warden on the scene of the search, "The canoe
capsized (and) they were able to get back ahold of it. They were
waiting with the canoe and they encountered deeper water. Mr. Walker
lost his grip on the canoe." According to media reports and
relatives, Walker's girlfriend, was still with the overturned canoe
when she saw Walker go under the 45-degree water and not resurface.
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