By John Brice
Correspondent
Political candidates running for local office in the upcoming March 5th Alabama GOP primary were given the opportunity to address voters at a public forum hosted by the Chambers County Republican Club in the Chambers County Farmers Federation Agricultural Center at the ALFA building in LaFayette during the early evening hours of Thursday, February 22nd of 2024.
In the first question and answer session, incumbent Chambers County Probate Court Judge Paul Story faced off against his challenger Troy Davis. Dr. Sharon Weldon faced off against incumbent Chambers County School District Superintendent Casey Chambley in the second question and answer session. Alfa Insurance agent Steve Wheeler acted as moderator for the event and CCRC Chairman Kristen Nelson took on the role of timekeeper for candidates to manage the length of their statements.
CCRC President O’Neal Shaw welcomed the attendees by stating “Good evening everyone and thanks for coming out for our forum. We appreciate all of you who show such interest in your community and realizing that the best way to move forward in a community is to be an informed community so that you can make good decisions in the voting booth for leadership that will be leading us for the next four to six years.”
After recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation, President Shaw introduced the candidates by name before turning the microphone over to Mr. Wheeler. Wheeler introduced himself and greeted the audience, remarking “For those of you who don’t know me I am the ALFA agent here in town and I was also the general manager of WCJM for many years and I am glad to be a part of this. I want to thank the Chambers County Republican Club for allowing us to be here today. Also, on behalf of the Chambers County Farmers Federation, I want to welcome you to our building tonight and again thank you for being part of this.”
Explaining the rules of the evening, Wheeler commented “We are going to give each candidate two minutes to introduce themselves and we will start with the probate judge race. When we start asking questions we will be asking questions that are submitted by the candidates. When I ask a question submitted from one candidate, their opposition will be the first to respond.”
Judge Story and Mr. Davis took turns answering a series of questions, with Story responding to a question regarding what had inspired him to seek public office by noting “I would like to start off with the fact that I was brought up in a home where my mother and my father took the time to give back to the community. My father served in law enforcement, he served through city manager, circuit clerk, through his ministry in music. I have seen my mother work in the water board and of course East Alabama Water for years, helping individuals that came through that office. It was instilled in me to give back to the community.” Following that Mr. Davis and Judge Story gave their closing comments which completed the first segment of the evening’s forum.
Next up were Dr. Weldon and Superintendent Chambley taking turns to answer questions and in response to an inquiry in regard to improving grades for Chambers County schools in report cards released by the State Department of Education, Weldon remarked “I think that that has got to be a huge priority. When the state report cards were released, we ended up with five schools that were priority schools. To put it in perspective a little bit, we have eight schools that received scores. Seven of those schools, the report card grade went down. Five of those schools were labeled as ‘priority schools’. I think that is a really big concern. A ‘priority school’ for those that don’t know, took the place of the term ‘failing school’ in the Alabama Accountability Act. It broadened what it took to be a priority school and that is a school that receives a D or an F.”
Asked about the dress code policy, Chambley responded “When we started to address this issue with the dress code, it is not really a uniform policy, it is more of a stricter enforced dress code. We had to stop our kids from coming to school in pajamas. We had kids coming to school in pajamas. We had kids coming to school in blue jeans, the holes would come up the leg, up to the pocket. We had girls wearing things and halter tops. Male teachers were having issues trying to work through that with different female students. It had really gotten out of hand.”
He went on to continue “When we lower the standard in our profession, you are not making things better. You are not having less disgruntled people. You are not fixing the problem. What you are doing is you are reducing the level of service that our community gets later. When we lower our standard in education, that is what happens. Because the people we are educating are going to be the ones that are serving in our doctor’s offices, changing our tires, serving us at restaurants.”
During his closing remarks, Chambley accused Weldon of being at fault for Valley High School and LaFayette High School being graded as priority schools due to what he characterized as errors in data certification that occurred during her time working as an administrator in the central office.
As Chambley leveled the shocking accusations, Dr. Weldon interjected, “I can’t be quiet because that is not true.” Chambley also chastised Weldon for what he claimed were instances of her making statements that were not supportive of the Valley location being chosen for the new consolidated high school. With the forum segment of the evening having ended, attendees were provided thirty minutes of open time to speak with candidates directly before going home.