A mother’s timeless advice

Remember Who You Are.

My mother died 25 years ago while I was in college at the University of North Carolina. She wrote me many letters during the last years of her life before she succumbed to cancer.

At the end of each letter she would close with the phrase “Remember Who You Are.” I have held this phrase close to my heart over the years.

This is also a phrase that the members of the Association should hold dear as we move into our second century of existence.

We will soon be in Craven County celebrating 100 years of our Association – 100 years of counties working together to find solutions jointly to problems that separately would be impossible to solve. A century of banding together as one voice, one idea and one organization to lobby for bills that are important to our citizens. One hundred years of county commissioners, managers, staff and affiliates sharing ideas that we can then take back and use in our own counties. One hundred years of building trust, camaraderie and friendships that cannot be broken.

No doubt, there have been crises over the past 100 years that threatened the core beliefs of our Association. No doubt, there have been times when partisan issues have made tensions so great one would think the whole organization would falter. No doubt, there have been issues that pitted small against large, metro against rural, east versus west – issues that under normal circumstances would and do tear most organizations apart. No doubt, racial issues, gender issues and equity issues have crept into this Association in the past 100 years – issues that had many believing our group would not survive another day, much less another 100 years.

But above it all, this Association – our Association – has survived. Not just survived, but thrived. Our founding father, Commissioner C.E. Foy of Craven County, would be proud of our progress.

The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners has seen its challenges but has always overcome them. We have worked to maintain a balance on our board of political ideologies, gender, geography and race. We sacrificed the benefit of a few counties for the greater benefits of all counties. This is only possible because the membership is committed to the ideal.

It happens because we, as an Association, value group rewards over individual gains.

As this is my final President’s Perspective column and in fact my last year as being a county commissioner, and thus an active member of this Association, I leave you with these parting thoughts. There continues to be much to achieve in the next 100 years. We can never achieve our lofty goals if we do not work for the common good and success of all our membership. Although we have much to accomplish we cannot forget the work done to get us to this point. So I close as my mom did with all her letters – Remember Who You Are.

God Bless!