Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004190569
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: WAKEFIELD LENGTH: Medium
For most of the past 40 years, the big names in Virginia politics have been invited to this Sussex County community to eat bony, oily shad at an event that became a traditional command showing on the election circuit.
The shad planking drew a crowd of 4,000 to a field of towering pines despite the lack of any serious contests this year. It is sponsored by the Wakefield Ruritan Club, though some of its members still scoff at the political overtone of the event.
"I'm not all that political," Jimmy Rogers, a 62-year-old oil-truck driver in Wakefield said as he took a break from the kitchen. "You see about 100 or 150 people listen to the politicians when they speak; the rest of them are just here for a good time.
In fact, the shad planking is a tradition that may be on the decline. Although most politicians still show up for the event to work the crowd, few intend to make news. The last big story out of the event came in 1982, when House Speaker A.L. Philpott's offhand reference to black members of the legislature as "boys" drew sharp condemnation from civil rights groups and several black legislators.
Moreover, Gov. Douglas Wilder, who was one of the first blacks to integrate the event in 1976, this year became the first sitting governor since 1974 not to attend the event in his first year in office.
Wilder, who also was overlooked as the speaker for the event, indicated Wednesday that he might come, but apparently became tied up in Richmond as the General Assembly met for its veto session.
Wilder's office insisted the governor was unconcerned that he was not invited to address the shad planking, as the five preceding governors have been in their first year in office.
Sussex County Sheriff Stuart Kitchen, a co-chairman of the event, said the same thing. "There is absolutely nothing to read into Wilder not being the speaker," Kitchen said. "Though I'm sure some people will. We hope he will come speak to us in the next year or two."
Wilder campaigned at the same event last year during his race for governor and was treated like a star.
But his absence wasn't noticed by most in the crowd that has come to resemble a tourist attraction in recent years, with curious visitors carrying cameras and wearing commemorative hats. Tickets are $12.50. The hats have sold for $5 for the past eight years. And most of those present seem more intent on sipping beer and bourbon than hearing the politicians.
Rogers sat about 10 feet away from the Ruritans' own private bar, which opened sometime after its members began lighting fires to smoke the fillets of shad about 5 a.m. Wednesday.
The shad planking began in the 1930s beside a pond in Isle of Wight County when the shad began running up the James River to spawn. Organizers cooked the fish by nailing fillets to oak boards and setting them near a smoky fire of seasoned oak.
The event was canceled during World War II but resumed in the late 1940s under the Ruritans' sponsorship.
In the 1950s, the shad planking gathered political influence as it became a sounding board for politicians coming up through the machine run by Harry Flood Byrd.
Southside was a stronghold for Byrd's organization and the shad planking was a certain place to hear his selected leaders.
"It was all-white, male Democrats," remembers Rogers. "Then there were Republicans, then a few blacks, then a few women."
The slow integration of the gathering brought headlines and attention to the gathering - and more people. In 1976, when Wilder first attended, he greeted those he met with "Fancy meeting you here."
The shad planking retained influence into the 1980s. In 1981, then-Lt. Gov. Charles Robb was ushered through the crowd by former Appropriations Committee Chairman Roy Smith and won the endorsement of the area's former congressman, Watkins Abbitt, giving Robb a legitimacy within Virginia's conservative political establishment.
Though Wilder was absent Wednesday, another governor who refused to attend the event while in office did make his first appearance at the shad planking in 20 years.
Linwood Holton did not accept the invitation to address the event in 1970 because of its exclusionary policy. And he stayed away until Wednesday, when he worked the gathering with U.S. Sen. John Warner.
"The rules were a little different then," Holton said of his absent years. "I'm glad to be here now under these conditions."
by CNB