ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 17, 1997 TAG: 9704170077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WAKEFIELD
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jim Gilmore, Don Beyer, Mills Godwin and many more were there to be seen and to network, but not to eat the fish.
The good old boys are long gone, but the politicians keep coming back to rural Sussex County each April for the annual Shad Planking.
The two gubernatorial hopefuls, Democrat Don Beyer and Republican Jim Gilmore, were among the statewide candidates who showed up Wednesday for the 49th event to shake hands, get some press and joke about the bony, oily fish on the menu.
Shad planking is an Indian tradition that was picked up by the colonists. The fish are filleted and nailed to oak planks propped up next to smoldering fires. The fish are basted with a sauce from a secret recipe and smoked for seven hours.
Asked whether he would partake of the shad, Beyer said: ``Do I have to?''
``I ate it once,'' offered Gil Davis, who is seeking the Republican nomination for attorney general. ``It was an experience.''
The cookout once was the leading springtime political event in Virginia, where conservative, white male Democrats who ran the state government gathered to evaluate the next crop of would-be leaders.
``They used to bring in some ambitious politician to speak, and they would talk a lot and eat shad,'' said Guy Friddell, longtime columnist for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper in Norfolk. ``It was a pretty heavy serving of old-boy culture.''
The planking is no longer the king-making event it once was. But politicians keep coming to the piney wood grove just outside Wakefield because tradition dies hard in Virginia, said Larry Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.
``It's inertia,'' he said. ``Inertia is the greatest force in Virginia. In other places, gravity is the greatest force, but in Virginia it's inertia.''
The candidates who were politicking here Wednesday disagreed.
Gilmore said he has been coming to the planking for 20 years and wouldn't think of missing it. ``It's a rite of spring in the political season,'' the state attorney general said.
``I can spend a couple hours here and meet a lot more people here than I could going door to door,'' said Jerry Kilgore, another contender for the GOP nomination for attorney general.
The featured speakers were Republican Gov. George Allen and former Gov. Mills Godwin Jr.
``I see such optimism across the commonwealth of Virginia,'' Allen told the crowd as he spoke about Virginia's welfare reform and attempts to reduce crime by eliminating parole.
Godwin said there has been great interest in economic development in Virginia over the last 60 years, and that the state has taken a lead in the resurgence of the South.
Godwin also joked that his wife was upset when she found out he was coming to the planking. ``She thought I'd been here enough,'' he said. ``I got out without any scars.''
About 3,000 tickets were sold at $12.50 to $15 apiece. That's twice the population of Wakefield, which was overrun Wednesday by campaign signs that popped up on telephone poles, lawns and roadsides.
The Wakefield Ruritan Club sponsors the event, which raises money for its youth baseball and rescue squad support programs.
The club also donates money to help restore shad to Virginia waters.
The state's shad population is so low that there is a ban against taking shad in the Chesapeake Bay and its Virginia tributaries. The 2,250 pounds of shad for Wednesday's event, as in recent years, had to be shipped in from elsewhere.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Attorney General Jim Gilmore (left)by CNBand Lt. Gov. Don Beyer, the expected foes in the gubernatorial race,
grip and grin for the crowd. KEYWORDS: POLITICS