ROCKINGHAM — Three candidates were on hand for a meet-and-greet with county commissioner hopeful Tavares Bostic at the Willie Wright Center Thursday night to talk about their platforms and to take questions from the audience.
“This is an opportunity to meet some candidates that you might not be familiar with,” Bostic said to those in attendance. “If you’re here, then you’re against the status quo.”
ANGELA J. CARTER
Angela J. Carter is running for district court judge for District 16A, which is composed of Richmond, Scotland, Anson and Hoke counties. Originally from Hoke County, Carter graduated law school from the University of Virginia in 2004 and has been practicing law ever since. She is licensed in both Virginia and North Carolina.
Carter said this is the first time this will be a four-county race, and she is running for the seat currently occupied by District Court Judge Michael Stone of Raeford in the nonpartisan race.
“I’m here because God directed me on this road,” she said.
Carter called herself a “military brat” as her father was in the military for 27 years and her family moved around a lot. She was accepted to Harvard, Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before deciding on Virginia. After having her third child while in law school, she said her perspective on life changed. Originally she said her life goal was to make a lot of money.
Now, she genuinely wants to help people.
“Anytime someone walks into my office, that’s an opportunity,” Carter said. “The people who appear in front of you , as a judge, they need an opportunity. We need to have somebody on the bench that has perspective. A lot of people up there never struggled. My job is to enforce the law, but every person who appears before me is gonna have a different story.”
Carter will not be on the primary ballot in March but will appear on the Nov. 18 ballot for the Stone judicial seat.
DANNIE MONTGOMERY
“I think about the representation we have right now — a silent voice,” Dannie Montgomery said Thursday night. Montgomery, a Democrat, is running for North Carolina Senate District 25 against Republican incumbent Tom McInnis in November.
As a teacher at Anson Middle School, Montgomery said she sees the struggles that students have on a daily basis with schools being underfunded and overcrowded.
“We deserve to give them so much, and we owe them so much more,” she said. “These children go home, and they have to deal with poverty. This is what the General Assembly has given our younger generation. We don’t know how this is going to affect our children because they’re not going to tell us.”
Montgomery said when the new semester started in January, she was given 224 students and no classroom. Once receiving a room, there were not enough computers, tables or even chairs.
“I didn’t get it,” she said. “I went to the school board, and they told me if I didn’t like it to contact my legislators. So, first you created poverty, second you allowed all these health care issues to grow, third, you didn’t take care of the environment, and you stole our children’s future. Now you’ve got me up against the wall.”
It was because of these issues that Montgomery decided instead of talking to legislators, she would try to become one. And if she goes to Raleigh, she said she’s not going quietly.
“I’m gonna fight. I’m gonna help make the community strong. I don’t get afraid,” she said. “If you give me a rod, I’ll part the Red Sea. If you give me a slingshot, I’ll slay Goliath. I will always come back to this community. I will always be responsive. I still believe in people, and that’s worth fighting for.”
CHRIS REY
Chris Rey is running for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination and will be opposed in the March 15 primary by Ernest T. Reeves, Deborah K. Ross and Kevin D. Griffin. Rey is currently the mayor of Spring Lake, a military town outside Fort Bragg.
He attended Spring Lake public schools and graduated from Pine Forest High School as a track and field All-American in 1995. He then earned a full athletic scholarship to East Carolina University. Rey thought he had his future all figured out.
Rey then said he met former U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton, and it changed his life. Clayton introduced him to public service, and he said she told him, “The talents that God has given you are not for you, they’re for the world. You have a responsibility to change the lives of other people. When you do that you live a life that is totally different than you could ever imagine.”
After leaving East Carolina University as a senior to enlist in the U.S. Army, Rey became a second lieutenant after only two years. He continues to serve as a major in the National Guard, focusing on cybersecurity threats. Once being honorably discharged from the Army, Rey began studying law at William & Mary School of Law and after graduating worked for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Rey moved back home to Spring Lake after law school because the town had some challenges.
“Our police department was full of corruption, our economic infrastructure was falling apart, our economic growth was super slow — but the biggest reason why I came back was our police department,” he said. “The FBI had snatched away all our power, and so the sheriffs were actually policing our community. So I came back home and got involved and decided to run for mayor.”
Up against a 30-year incumbent as a city councilman for 20 years and mayor for 10, Rey knew it was uphill climb.
“When I came back, everyone laughed at me,” he said. “But I got in a room with a group of people just about this size, and I shared with them my vision of what I thought Spring Lake could be and what could happen if a group of people come together and really took back their community. I’m now serving my third term as mayor of the city and in four years, we have one of the best police departments in the state of North Carolina.
“So now I’ve decided that I want to run for the United States Senate. The first thing I said to myself was ‘Normally people that look like you don’t do well in races like that. You can’t raise the kind of money, you won’t have the ability to really reach people because the status quo is you raise a lot of money, you send out mailers and you get on television.’ That’s the politics that we have for today. So I decided to do something a little different. What if I actually took this to the people?”
Rey talked about the swelling grassroots campaign that has recently accompanied him over the last four months when he decided to run. His campaign’s motto is “We Believe” and Rey is looking to people power to garner him a win come March.
“It’s real what we’re doing, because I’m doing this every single day,” said Rey. “I’m in community centers, I was in a restaurant this morning at 8 o’clock in the morning in Union County, I was over in Salisbury this afternoon with a group of bishops. What we were doing is making sure that they understood that if you want to have an individual that’s going to represent everyday people, then you need to send an everyday person.”
Reach reporter Matt Harrelson at 910-817-2674, follow him on Twitter @mattyharrelson and listen to him at 12:10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays on G-104.3 FM.