ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605090067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FINCASTLE
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
WITH ONLY FOUR CANDIDATES running for six seats, there had to be some write-ins. So, the town's 57 voters volunteered 31 neighbors.
Voting for Town Council in this little burg on a hill above U.S. 220 is a bit like playing "Secret Santa."
There are only a few names on the ballot each election, but darn near everybody in town gets at least one vote, it seems. Many never know who wrote them in.
"It's just saying, 'I like you,''' said Botetourt County registrar and Fincastle resident Leslie Kinion. "It's saying, 'Hey, how are you? I didn't see you today, so I'll write your name down.'''
Kinion's father, Lomax Breckinridge, was one of 31 people who garnered at least one write-in vote from the 57 voters in Tuesday's election. "He usually always gets a vote," she said.
Better than a third of the 31 have served on council or as mayor at one point or another.
As Mayor Willie Simmons, who has just won his second term, puts it, "Everybody takes their turn as town drunk."
With four candidates on the ballot for six council seats this year, there had to be some write-in candidates, but Kinion said it's like this every year.
Spouses are pitted against one another - eight of them this year, plus a mother and daughter. Charles and Virginia Cronise each got one vote, but Pamela Wiegandt edged out her husband, Ralph, seven votes to three.
Helen Morris, an incumbent who was on the ballot, got some competition from her husband, Abe, and his one vote.
On friendlier terms were Fincastle attorney and former Mayor Harold "Landslide" Eads and his wife, School Board member Sally Eads. Without even casting, Harold landed two votes.
"Well, I know I was one of them," Sally Eads said proudly.
Harold Eads is familiar with one-vote margins. He won his first term as mayor in what he called the most contested mayoral race in recent Fincastle history. He edged out his opponent 51 to 50, earning him the nickname "Landslide."
"That was also one of the most expensive campaigns around here," he said. "I think I spent $28.''
The only thing resembling an actual campaign this year was the presence of identical "Jake for Mayor" signs in the yards of Jake Cress and Jake Ladenheim. The signs apparently were pilfered from an election someplace else and stuck on their lawns. Each got a vote for mayor, even though Ladenheim doesn't even live inside the town limits.
The winners? Congratulate Mary Bess Obenshain Smith, with 28 votes, and Greg Stick, with 16.
Smith, an incumbent, apparently just let the deadline for getting on the ballot slip by. Kinion said votes came with Smith's four names in every conceivable fashion: Mary Bess Obenshain Smith, Mary Bess Smith, Mary Bess Obenshain, Mary Bess O. Smith, Mary B.O. Smith.
Stick, an assistant principal at Craig County High School and Mayor Willie Simmons' next-door neighbor, said his seeking a term on council was his wife's idea.
"I don't know if seeking is the right word," Stick objected. "I never actually asked anybody to vote for me."
Heckuva way to run a campaign, eh?
"I wasn't going to campaign for it," he said. He just went next door and asked the mayor if he thought it was a good idea.
"He assured me that I'd probably be all right."
Stick decided he would accept the post if enough people voted for him - whether he asked them to or not.
He still doesn't know who voted for him. But he knows one person who didn't.
His wife got tied up at the eye doctor's office and never made it to the polls.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB