By: S. Taylor
Sugar Grove, VA — April 24, 2025
For more than 20 years, Sarah Taylor has tirelessly advocated for one thing that much of modern society takes for granted—cellular service. Despite her sustained efforts, the rural communities of Sugar Grove, Cedar Springs, Camp, Flat Ridge, and Teas—located in the Rye Valley District of Smyth County—remain without basic cellular connectivity.
Taylor has consistently brought multiple service providers to the Smyth County Board of Supervisors (BOS) in hopes of securing service for the area. Among the companies she has contacted and presented are Crown Castle, Mid Atlantic Broadband, US Cellular, Milestone Communications, SBA Communications Corporation, and Artemis. Despite these efforts, no tangible progress has been made. These service providers have all walked away without any real accountability on part of the BOS.
US Cellular, notably, approached the Board twice over a ten-year span, only to disengage without follow-up. In 2006, the BOS passed a resolution at Taylor’s urging, acknowledging Sugar Grove’s lack of service, committing to make service available as widely as possible and urging providers to expand coverage to the area. However, little to no action appears to have followed that resolution.
Support for Taylor’s mission has come from across the community. The Sugar Grove Lifesaving Crew, District Three Cooperative, Sugar Grove Fire Department, Smyth County Sheriff’s Office (under former Sheriff David Bradley), and Smyth County Schools have all gone on record backing the need for service.
Over the past two decades, the absence of cellular coverage has been linked to multiple emergency situations where lives were endangered or help delayed. One of the most harrowing examples occurred in 2015, when teen Hayleigh Wilson was kidnapped from Surgoinsville, Tennessee, and brought to the Sugar Grove/Troutdale area. They were on the run for 3 weeks. Her abductor, Benjamin Shook, later admitted in an interview that he chose the location in Smyth County due to its lack of cell service, knowing he couldn’t be easily tracked.
More recently, in 2025, another local teen was reported missing from Sugar Grove and was found four days later. It is yet unknown whether the lack of cellular service prevented this teen from calling for help but no service was available. Numerous accidents have also occurred along Sugar Grove Mountain and rural roads nearby. In one incident, a rollover crash on Cedar Springs Road left a driver trapped in their vehicle; a school bus driver passing by used a radio to call for help. It remains unknown how long the vehicle had been there.
Over Easter weekend, a fatal incident was said to have occurred along Route 16 near Sugar Grove, requiring a heavy police response. Due to the complete lack of cell service in the area, no one could call for emergency assistance unless a landline was available. Photos documented this however, no official reports have been made available to date.
At the October 2024 Board meeting, Taylor again addressed the BOS, this time concerning the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. For more than a month, Sugar Grove residents were left without landline service—their only connection to the outside world—creating a complete communications blackout. FEMA resources were inaccessible, and critical emergency information did not reach the community in a timely manner leaving many to fend for themselves. In an emergency workaround, Taylor contacted Point Broadband after seeing a generator near the Dollar General powering a junction box, requesting they open a local Wi-Fi signal so residents could use Wi-Fi calling within limited proximity of the junction box.
In response to the disaster’s communication failure, Rye Valley Supervisor Jason Parris remarked dismissively, “If your cousin is the CEO of a cell tower company, let county officials know,” effectively directing citizens to solve the problem themselves. Chairman Charlie Atkins stated the county had offered to build a tower but couldn’t find a provider to put equipment on it—a claim for which no documented evidence exists.
Further complications arose in 2023 when US Cellular withdrew a request for a special use permit (SUP) for a proposed tower on Lead Mine Road in Sugar Grove. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed a March 23, 2023, email from Clegg Williams of the Planning Commission that in part, reads as follows: “The only potential issues with proceeding with the hearing is the site plan requirement. Once a SUP is approved, our ordinance requires a final site plan within six months. In the past, I have accepted various forms of “Proof” the project is progressing to keep the SUP valid. If they have no plans to progress on this project over the next six months, I suggest the application be pulled”.
Past officials have deflected responsibility for delays, including former Supervisor Lori Hester – Deel, who faulted the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for this request to withdraw the SUP. Current Supervisor Parris has not provided clarification or transparency on this topic.
Meanwhile, neighboring Western Grayson County has made significant progress. Working with US Cellular over the past decade, the county now boasts several active towers. One new tower in the Flat Ridge area—just six miles from Sugar Grove—is expected to provide 5G coverage spanning about 5 miles, but without additional towers to triangulate, service in Sugar Grove will remain weak and unreliable.
Stephanie Cassioppi, Senior Director of Government Affairs with US Cellular, recently pointed to the federal and state BEAD (Broadband Equity Access and Deployment) program as a potential funding source for infrastructure development in Sugar Grove. Administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the BEAD program aims to expand cellular infrastructure in underserved regions. The agency’s preliminary data indicates more than 41,000 homes and businesses lack 4G service statewide, with Sugar Grove appearing to be among those gray areas. However, Taylor points out that even this mapping overstates existing coverage. “The nearest tower is 12 miles away on the other side of a mountain near exit 45 in Marion” as noted by Taylor during many previous presentations.
Despite being made aware of these funding opportunities, there’s no record of the Smyth County Economic Developer taking action and no response to this inquiry to date. The BEAD application deadline is said to be sometime in May or June with awards potentially rolling out as early as the end of June, and whether any request has been submitted remains unclear. Taylor addressed Senator Mark Warner recently when he visited Marion about these funds, how to get them, what the timelines were, etc. and was not provided with a coherent and concise response. Instead, Warner blamed President Trump and Elon Musk saying that funds may not be there soon. The Smyth County Board of Supervisors were present in the back of the room and did not address Senator Warner. Taylor’s question was the only one that day pertaining specifically to local issues while others pertained to federal issues.
In a recent social media post dated April 22, 2024, Supervisor Parris stated that he has engaged in “numerous productive conversations” with Rye Valley citizens. He encouraged constituents to contact him by email, while also turning off public commenting on the post—an action that, according to some residents, underscores a broader pattern of unresponsiveness and lack of accessibility on his part.
After two decades of advocacy, residents like Sarah Taylor are left wondering how many more years it will take before their voices are heard, and their communities connected or receive equitable distribution of tax dollars and resources such as ARPA funds which also were not appropriated in the Sugar Grove area.
