Candidates wanted

Published 5:59 pm Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Calling all candidates — OK, not all, but those in Bath.

With the noon Friday deadline to file for municipal elections in Beaufort County looming, not one candidate had filed for the Bath elections as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.

If no candidates file for the Bath elections, the Beaufort County Board of Elections could extend the filing period by five days, according to Kellie Harris Hopkins, the county’s elections director. If no candidates file during an extended filing period, no names are listed on the ballot, she said. In that case, ballots would provide space for voters to write in names. If voters get to vote for two candidates, they would be allowed to write in two names, Hopkins said.

“That happened in 2011 in Aurora when no candidates filed,” she recalled.

Late Wednesday, several candidates for offices in Pantego and Aurora were filing the required paperwork to have their names placed on ballots, Hopkins said.

She expects a flurry of filings today and by noon Friday, when the regular filing period ends.

Aurora Mayor Clif Williams and Patricia Bragg, an incumbent commissioner, filed for re-election.

Stuart Edward Ricks, currently a commissioner, filed for the Pantego mayor’s post. Incumbents Mart Benson, Chad Keech and Robert F. Edwards filed for re-election to the Pantego Board of Commissioners. Reid Michael Gelderman, appointed to replace Richard S. Craig after he vacated his seat on the board, and Charles F. “Chuck” Williams filed to run for seats on the board.

In Aurora, the mayor’s seat and two seats on the Board of Commissioners are open this election cycle. Aurora voters also get to choose someone to complete the unexpired term of George Jones, who no longer serves on the board.

In Bath, two seats on the Board of Commissioners are available this election cycle.

The mayor’s seat and all five seats on the Pantego Board of Commissioners are available this election cycle.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.