The 'enigma' of Southport: How a local celebrity brings city's past to the present
It’s Sunday afternoon, and about a dozen people are gathered at the docks in Southport’s Yacht Basin.
The people are set to take Southport Water Tours' “Jody Tour.” This will be the second “Jody Tour,” as the first one, held the previous weekend, sold out shortly after it was announced. The tour is named for Jody Wilmoth, whose outgoing personality and loquacious nature have made him something of a celebrity around town.
About three minutes before the tour is set to depart, Wilmoth strolls up.
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“Are y’all ready?” he asks the group. “We’re going to leave you if you don’t get on the boat.”
As soon as he boards, he strikes up a conversation with a child, talking about everything from fishing to school.
While the boat eases into the Cape Fear River, Wilmoth begins regaling passengers with the story of how the city's iconic Yacht Basin − now a popular tourist spot − was formed. As he talks, people are engrossed in his narrative, told in a slow, Southern drawl, and Wilmoth himself becomes a symbol of Southport, bridging the gap between its past and present.
“Let’s get rednecked up in here,” Wilmouth says as he turns his hat backwards and faces the crowd.
From ‘youngin’ to ‘old-timer’
Wilmoth is something of a rarity in he was born and raised in Southport, and for most of his 54 years, he has called the city home. When he was a child, Southport had yet to become the popular tourist destination it is today. Back then, it was just a small fishing village.
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“When I was young, in the afternoons, all my neighbors ended up talking to my parents on my front porch,” he recalled. “You just don’t see that anymore.”
He added these days, even with the houses being inches away from each other, you might not know your neighbor.
“They will not associate with you unless you do it initially,” he said. “I’ve got great neighbors in the neighborhood I live in — don’t get me wrong, but it’s just like people have gotten out of wanting to associate with other people.”
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Wilmoth said when it comes to talking about how Southport has changed, that’s one of the biggest differences.
“Yeah, we talk about all the old timers, what they did, and how they took care of the town and didn’t want change, but guess what?” he said. “We’re becoming them old timers. We’re running out of people that’s originally from Southport. If they ain’t dying off, they’re getting old and getting close.”
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But unlike many of the “old-timers” who lament the city’s physical changes, such as the possibility of three-story buildings downtown and proposed roof-top bars, Wilmoth believes those things aren’t that important.
“It’s not about the town changing as far as structures,” he said. “It’s about the people. The people have changed so much. If they’re not at a bar drinking, they don’t socialize. They don’t go and sit on their neighbor’s porch and talk to their neighbor. You just don’t see it.”
A friendly character
It’s hard for someone not to associate with Wilmoth. Whether it’s with his work, or when he’s out on the weekends, he is always talking to people. For many years, he didn’t have a car, and he walked wherever he needed to go — work, the bank, Walmart, wherever.
He recalled one day he walked from his home in downtown Southport to Walmart and returned home only to realize that he needed another item and had to walk back to the store. He made four trips to Walmart on foot that day.
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“That’s four miles round trip,” he said. “There’s a reason at 54 years old my knees are shot. If you had the walking miles I had put across these knees in Southport, I could have walked this country five or ten times across.”
But these days, Wilmoth is giving his knees a break. About a year ago, he purchased a black Ford Ranger for $3,900 that he now uses for his Walmart runs and cruising around Southport. Bill Delaney, Wilmoth’s long-time friend and former boss, recalled the truck was "pretty old," and the man who owned it would have taken less for it, but Wilmoth insisted paying full price.
Delaney added Wilmoth was so proud of the purchase, he asked Delaney to display the sticker with the price on the wall at his shop, and he gladly did.
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"And it's still there today," Delaney said.
Though he's no longer on foot, Wilmoth still gets out and about quite a bit; these days, he said he gets where he’s going “much quicker.”
He believes one of the best parts of living in Southport is being able to meet and talk to so many different people. When it comes to recalling his favorites over the years, that’s not something he wants to do.
“Of all the people I’ve met over my life span, every one of them has been important,” he said.
It would seem the people he’s met feel the same way. He celebrated his 50th birthday back in 2017, and longtime friend and neighbor Kay Jolliff helped organize a birthday party for him at the Southport Community Building.
People showed up from Southport, Oak Island, Boiling Spring Lakes, and St. James to celebrate Wilmoth, and it was standing-room only.
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"To us, Jody is Southport," Jolliff said. "It was amazing how people came out for the 50th birthday party. Everybody loves him; the animals love him, people love him. He's just part of what makes Southport such a special place."
Delaney also understands why people love Wilmoth.
“He’s just an enigma,” said Delaney, comparing his popularity to that of Elvis. “Everybody’s heard of Jody. He’s one of the last Southport characters.”
At one point, there was even a T-shirt in the local shops depicting Wilmoth — clad in his trademark white fishing boots with a fishbone in hand — bearing the slogan “Air Jody.”
Delaney also referenced Wilmoth’s home — a home that Wilmoth himself describes as “dilapidated”— which is sandwiched in between million-dollar homes in downtown Southport.
“Nobody gives him a hard time,” Delaney said. “Everybody’s proud to live by him. He’s like a landmark.”
Wilmoth’s “never-met-a-stranger” attitude is what brought him and Delaney together. Delaney considers Wilmoth family, and he recalled when he first met Wilmoth about 40 years ago, he was a teenager down at the Yacht Basin.
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“He was just another local fisherman, and I was a newcomer,” he said.
Delaney hollered over to Wilmoth, talked to him for a moment, and as he turned to leave, he noticed he was wearing a mechanic-style work shirt with the name “Earl” on it.
“So, I called him Earl,” Delaney said.
Eventually, he learned Wilmoth’s real name.
“I had been calling him Earl for weeks, and he never said anything,” Delaney said. “Then one day, he said, ‘Well, you can call me Earl, but my real name’s Jody.’ I asked him why in the world he was wearing a shirt that said 'Earl,' and he said it was because his momma had bought a bag of Earl shirts at a yard sale for a quarter. So, Jody wore an Earl shirt every day.”
Southport pride
Wilmoth worked for Delaney in land surveying for nearly 25 years and loved surveying work.
“I loved the mathematics of surveying and the history of the maps,” Wilmoth said.
But he said after a while, walking on uneven ground became too much for his knees, and he was offered a position with the City of Southport’s building and grounds department. While the work is difficult, he finds it enjoyable.
“I love the job I do for the town,” he said. “You couldn’t ask for a better group to work with.”
He said the people in the public works department are like a family.
“We cut up and have a good time,” he said, adding that when it comes to their discussions, it’s like Vegas. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
While Wilmoth has never met a stranger, those who don’t know him well, don’t always know how to take him. He likes to joke around.
He recalled that he was taking a water break while working in Old Smithville Burying Ground one day when a woman walked by and asked what he was doing.
“I picked my head up, looked right straight in that cemetery and told her, ‘I’m watching this cemetery to make sure that these dead people don’t get up and run away. They get up and fraternize on this full moon stuff, and I gotta keep them in the cemetery. If not, they’ll jump in the river, come out on the end of main street and want to fraternize with all the live people.”
Wilmoth didn’t know the woman and believes she took him to be serious.
“She ain’t said another word to me,” he said, adding that she often walks the other way when she sees him coming.
The ‘most important thing’
When many people think of Wilmoth, people think of many things: his white fishing boots, his love of hunting, his ability to find the doormat-sized flounder, and of course, Air Jody.
But if there’s anything he wants people will remember about him, he hopes it will be that he was on the back row at Southport Baptist Church every Sunday, clad in his jeans, T-shirt and work boots.
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“My momma didn’t raise no dummy,” he said.
Wilmoth admits after his father passed, he had a difficult time going to church. But friends helped him through his grief, and now, he’s happy to be back where he belongs.
“I like sitting in that back row,” he said. “But I will switch around every now and then for a different perspective.”
He even hopes he can do a sermon someday.
“But I wouldn’t do it from the front of the church,” he said. “I’d preach from the back.”
Because he loves what he does, it’s hard for Wilmoth to think about ever retiring. He likes to stay busy, and he doubts he will slow down even if he does retire.
But for at least one Sunday on the Cape Fear, thoughts of retirement are far away. He's just content telling stories of pirates, Southport's old jail, and the way you're sure to catch a flounder for dinner.
“I’m gonna keep going until the good Lord takes me to the great beyond,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: How Southport's beloved character has also become a local celebrity
