Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
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Martinsville, Virginia 24115
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| 16-year tenure ends |
Iriswood District Supervisor Paula Burnette casts her last vote as a supervisor to adjourn her final board meeting on Dec. 15. (Bulletin photo by Mike Wray) |
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
By DEBBIE HALL - Bulletin Staff Writer
When Paula Burnette made a motion to adjourn the Henry County Board of Supervisors meeting recently, it marked the end of her 16-year tenure on the board.
“I don’t think I ever expected to go beyond one term,” said Burnette, who announced earlier this year that she would not seek a fifth term.
Burnette first was elected to the Iriswood District seat on the board in 1993.
“I filed on the last day,” she said. After leaving the Registrar’s Office, she immediately went to a pay phone in the lobby of the Henry County Administration Building. She called incumbent supervisor Bob Whitener and challenger Mary Trimpey.
“I told them who I was and that I was looking forward to a good campaign,” she said. “And it was a reasonable, civil” contest.
Burnette campaigned on three building blocks that year: Ability, balance and commitment.
“I wanted people to be able to count on me. I knew I wasn’t going to be the genius on the board, but I’m smart enough to understand and get work done. I believed I’d bring a balance among the board and help the board to settle down,” she said.
That settling down was illustrated by an editorial headline in a January 1992 edition of the Martinsville Bulletin that stated, “Split board bad news,” Burnette read. “I was collecting this before” deciding to seek office in May 1993.
Retrieving a February 1992 Bulletin article from a file folder, she read a quote from then-chairman R.J. Frye, who said the supervisors “may have gotten out of control” and members “were having a hard time getting along with themselves and others.”
When “you’re dissatisfied, this is where it gets you,” she recalled during a recent board meeting.
Still, during that first election, “I prayed a lot” about whether she was doing the right thing in seeking the post, Burnette said. Winning 52 percent of the vote in the three-way race “was confirmation.”
Restoring civility to the board was a primary concern that first term.
Whether in a family or on a board, “you can’t get anything done” without civility, respect and a willingness to ask questions and learn, Burnette said.
She also worked to foster working relationships with individuals, neighborhood groups and others in her district, the county and throughout the state.
“No one of us gets anything done on our own. We all have to have someone else,” she said. “I saw that concept really come to life in Sandy Level, where the people were committed to making their community a better place.”
Although drugs were a huge problem in Sandy Level at the time, Burnette recalled that a community survey showed that water was the biggest need.
Residents, she said, “had learned how to live around the drug activity. They didn’t like it, and they didn’t want it,” but they understood that wants differ from needs, she said. “They understood what real need was. You can’t live without water.”
Several projects were tackled in that community over the next few years, from a water line and housing rehab to a concerted effort by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to combat drug activity, she said.
“Sandy Level emerged from all that as a far safer, cleaner, prouder community than it was ... I was only a part of that,” Burnette said.
She shared an analogy that showed her role: Sandy Level residents were a lamp, and Burnette was the plug, she said. County and state funding/services for the projects served as the electrical outlet. Her role was plugging the lamp into the right outlet or source, she added.
That analogy has played out many times during her tenure on the board, Burnette said, citing other projects such as an Axton Community Watch group that formed after several larcenies occurred in the neighborhood. Teams of two or more took turns patrolling neighborhoods overnight.
“I took my turn riding shotgun” on patrols, she said.
Cleaning up an illegal tire dump on Stoney Mountain Road was another project that “everybody said couldn’t be done,” Burnette said. “Don’t tell somebody they can’t do something, because they will find a way to do it.”
A monument to Patrick Henry also was cleaned up with help from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and a stoplight finally was placed near the old Byrd’s Store on U.S. 58, at the intersection of Virginia 620 and 648, she said.
There were many other projects undertaken and/or completed on Burnette’s watch, and the depressed economy of the last several years has created new perspectives.
Residents and local governing officials alike “now see Martinsville and Henry County as part” of the bigger picture, she said.
The economy also underscored the importance of education, and residents also have returned or sought higher education, she said.
“We still have a long way to go, but there has been a dramatic improvement in education” with many in the work force enrolling in Patrick Henry Community College or the New College Institute to seek higher education and retraining, she said.
The relationship among board members also has improved.
“I think we have a good working relationship with city council now” and with each other, Burnette said.
That relationship was apparent Dec. 15, as other supervisors praised Burnette’s service at her last meeting.
Ridgeway District Supervisor H.G. Vaughn said he learned “very quick” that Burnette “will let you know what’s on her mind. Whether I agreed or not, I always valued her opinion.”
If records were kept of the number of hours supervisors work for their communities, Burnette’s name “would be near the top of that list,” Vaughn said.
Jim Adams said Burnette was the first supervisor to contact him and offer to help after he won the Blackberry District seat on the board.
Burnette’s public service “has gone well above and beyond,” Adams said.
Reed Creek District Supervisor Tommy Slaughter said that while he has served with Burnette only a short time, “it has been a pleasure.”
Board Chairman Debra Buchanan, Horsepasture District supervisor, said Burnette was “dedicated, active and we will miss working with you.”
“I’ll be back, sitting in that seat sometime,” Burnette said, as she gestured to the seat now to be occupied by Milton Kendall, her successor.
She also will continue serving the community in other ways. For instance, she is a member of the Blue Ridge Regional Library Board of Trustees. And, in the short term, Burnette and her husband, Phil Burnette, plan to visit their children and enjoy their grandsons.
Long term is anyone’s guess, she said.
“Our theme song is ‘Moon River,’” Burnette said. “Maybe we’ll be off to see the world.” |
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