my brother there in April, he joined two centuries of my relatives whose final resting places are scattered across the district.
Anson County shaped me. I entered school with the first fully integrated class in Anson County history. At eight years old, I was selling newspapers for ten cents each on the streets of downtown Wadesboro, making a nickel for each one I sold. I played Little League baseball and learned to shoot basketball on a dirt court with neighbors who are still part of my life today. I caught bass in ponds, shad behind the powerhouse at Blewett Falls, and catfish on trot lines in the Pee Dee River. I hunted dove in cut-over fields and climbed tree stands on cold winter mornings where I found that I was a terrible shot. I learned to drive on country roads and developed a life-long love of old pick up trucks.
It’s also where I learned that politics is supposed to be more about public service than about power. For more than 25 years, my father served as a judge in four of the counties in the Eighth District. His brother represented Anson and Richmond Counties in the legislature in the 1960s and 1970s. A plaque in the Old Capitol Building in Raleigh lists Absalom Myers, my great-great-great grandfather on my mother’s side, as representing Anson County in the state Senate in 1840, the year that building was completed.
The county is so much a part of me that my son’s middle name is Anson because I always want him to know where his people came from.
But it’s not just Anson County. I know the rest of the district as well. I caught the train in Hamlet. I spent days and nights with friends in Laurinburg. We visited the Town Creek Indian Mound in Montgomery County where we could see the bones of ancient residents. On my birthdays, my father took me to the qualifying rounds at the Rockingham speedway back when the pits were open and drivers and their crews mingled with fans like us. For first run movies, we went to Monroe and when we went to the beach, we drove through Maxton, Rowland, and Fair Bluff. I learned to water ski on Lake Tillery, I hiked at Morrow Mountain in the Uwharries and my dentist was in Albemarle. My sister-in-law is from Salisbury and when my great-great grandfather marched north to die at Gettysburg, he left from Concord, leaving behind his infant daughter, my great grandmother.
There’s very little of that district that I don’t know, but it’s much different today than when I grew up there. Back then, the district was a patchwork of small towns with healthy business districts fueled mainly by textile mills and cotton farms. Today, the western edge of the district benefits from its proximity to Charlotte, with former mill towns transforming into suburbia. Towns like Concord, Kannapolis, and Salisbury are growing with new neighborhoods and new businesses. Much of the rest of the district is struggling. The mills moved out, the Walmarts moved in, and the towns dried up. To add insult to injury, NASCAR moved the races out of Rockingham, leaving the famous track idle and falling into disrepair.
Over the past quarter century, much of the 8th Congressional District has been sold out by government and slapped down by the invisible hand of the free market. Unfair trade agreements sent the manufacturing jobs that sustained the district to other countries. Profits from those deals went to investors and Wall Street, not to the infrastructure needed to attract new industries. Several counties are losing population and many still suffer from high unemployment—and have since before the Great Recession. If people have lost faith in government and corporate America to help them solve their problems, who can blame them?
The Eighth District has a proud history — but much of it’s being left behind. The road to recovery is long and uncertain. Solutions will take commitment, ideas, infrastructure, and money. The district needs leaders who will honor its past and fight for its future. I’ve never backed down from a fight.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
You never say which party
Good Morning Thomas, proud of your accomplishments. I graduated from Bowman High School with your oldest brother in 1978. Can I encourage you to become a member of the Anson County Historical Society? Email me at genealogy1959@yahoo.com so we can continue the discussion about membership dues & the mailing address. Your parents have been members for years.
Nice column, but you’d think, after all those years there, he would have learned how to spell Albemarle.
You are right to say that it is about public service not power. You do not say what your polices are. The nihilism, defeatism, cynicism along with hypocrisy and its accompanying self satisfaction locally to where you live nearby my office is something only a willingness towards the corny of those in the counties who are deluged with imagery of anger and depression spawned of it all turned inwards and no point of reference to pin down whom even to throw out of their seats means nothing but the old time “religion” will make hands clapping turn out votes and push you forward with the rush into an awed victory.
I can learn from you, and therefore would like to meet again.
The GOP is the C.S.A. The Democrats want a big hat authority ignoring any voices of experience. Well captured they are seemly unwilling to again think for themselves about horrified by the man with grit under their fingers and the black of oil in hardened hands.
Economics is finally just the struggle of the people of the nation to somehow regulate the greed of the man with the deed.
We got nothing for becoming the reinsurers of the reinsurer and now someone like Trump tells those who are already great, they must wait again to be made great.
I must look at the map of the district you aim to run to represent.
I would ask you to ask the engineers what it would take to make your district prosperous.
Great leaders give their engineers great, grand missions. What missions for your people would you demand be put in flywheel motion?
Why are you not registered on the ActBlue site?
Thanks Thomas. Best of luck. You’ve got my vote.
Thomas, I know of your family’s proud heritage and I know you will represent us well. You are one of us with a deep and sincere appreciation of our history, culture and our needs.
Great news, Thomas!! I really appreciate PoliticsNC.com, comes me informed.
Thanks for the “Stare Down!” I too wish I could vote for you but I’m happy to help you win!!
Good luck!
I’m sorry..doing too many things. I meant keeps me informed.
Best of luck! Wish I could vote for you. I’ll tell my friends in your district.
Thomas: You were born and raised to represent the voters in the 8th Congressional District. What a interesting political and governmental legacy your Anson County generations have given to you! Make the most of it.
Thomas, good to see this. Let me know if I can be of any help (graphic design wise).
Thanks, David. Good to hear from you.
Thanks for entering the fray and putting your neck on the line. I wish you well.
Mr Mills,
I’ve enjoyed your commentary for the past year or so, and I’m happy to see you running for House of Reoresrntatives from my late Grandmother’s home county. She was a Gathings from Morven, a die-hard Democrat, and a school teacher in the early days of the 20th century. Blessings and best wishes on your campaign!
I was delighted to read that you have entered the “Race!”
Hear, hear !
Thanks, Diane.