Local candidates host cookout at the polls

Published 6:46 pm Friday, November 2, 2018

: (Mike Voss/Daily News)

UNITY: Voters and others were treated to free hot dogs and iced tea Friday at the Beaufort County Board of Elections office in Washington. In a “tripartisan” effort, several local candidates from the Constitution, Democratic and Republican parties pooled funds to pay for the event, the third of its kind in the past two years. Several of the candidates said the free lunch is a way to unite community members and candidates even though they have different political philosophies. Keith Kidwell, Tony Keech, Al Whitney, Randy Walker, Jerry Langley, Frankie Waters and Sarah Homes are the candidates who paid for the hot-dog celebration. Friday morning, some of the candidates and their supporters took part in a prayer time in the parking lot at the Board of Election.

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.