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LIGHTNING RECOMMENDS: Whitmire for state House

Chris Whitmire makes a point during a League of Women Voters forum last month.

By Bill Moss, Published: November 1, 2012

George Alley of Columbus and Chris Whitmire of Brevard would do well in one of those surveys that asks which candidate you'd want to share a beer with.

They've been decent to one another and respectful of the audience, and for that they deserve thanks and praise.
Alley has been a Red Cross manager, recreation director and, he likes to point out, middle school soccer coach. His background just does not compare with that of Whitmire, an Air Force Academy graduate and 26-year Air Force veteran who is currently a lieutenant colonel in the reserves and a real estate agent. More relevant to politics, he's chairman of the Transylvania County School Board and a strong advocate of public schools.
We recommend voters in the 113th District choose Whitmire.
The father of children in the third, seventh and eighth grades, Whitmire knows schools from the board policy level to the PTA, school lunch and homework level. He promises to be a voice for policies that make the most sense for classroom teaching and to resist conservative orthodoxy that would benefit the few at the expense of many.
"Until our traditional public education system is adequately funded, you're going to get a lot of pushback from me with vouchers," he said in a forum on Oct. 18. "Public education (serves) 87 percent of North Carolina children. We have to make sure that it is well-funded."
Whitmire, from an eight-generation mountain family, traveled across the world and across the country for 17 years "always longing to move back to what I think is the best place in the world to live," he says.
He proved his political chops by defeating incumbent Trudi Walend in the Republican primary in May.
We recommend voters give Chris Whitmire a chance to work for the three counties of the 113th District in the state House Raleigh.