Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 2, 1995 TAG: 9511020031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Long
A Christian right candidate with a controversial past is facing off against a longtime incumbent backed by most of the county's political establishment in the race for the at-large seat on the Franklin County School Board.
That political establishment, challenger Amanda Davis says, is one of the reasons she's running for the School Board in the inaugural year for board elections.
She says the School Board gives Superintendent Len Gereau - whom she includes among the county's political powerbrokers - too much room to roam. Gereau has not publicly endorsed any of the county's 12 School Board candidates.
"Occasionally, I think the School Board should seek clarification and maybe say no," Davis said.
Incumbent William Helm Jr. is proud of the county's schools and says he wants to continue to fine-tune them.
In Franklin County - which is electing every member of its Board of Supervisors and School Board, three state legislators and four constitutional officers this year - the Davis-Helm race is stirring public discussion.
Helm and Davis disagree on a hot-button issue: religion and education.
Davis says she supports Bible clubs in the schools and believes students have the right to ask adults to join them for prayer on school grounds.
Helm, a member of Morningside Missionary Baptist Church, says the board's policy - which prohibits school-sponsored Bible clubs and any visitors who might participate in them on school property - is a sound one.
"What if other groups wanted to do the same thing?'' he asked. "You could have a circus atmosphere that disrupts the educational process."
Responds Davis, whose daughter is an eighth-grader in the county schools: "I believe students, under the First Amendment, have the right to initiate whatever club they want as long as they aren't disrupting the school. What's so dangerous about a Bible club, anyway? I'm not going to chase you and beat you over the head with my Bible."
On several occasions, Davis has addressed the board publicly on the issue.
In fact, the School Board changed the policy last year to prohibit certain school-sponsored clubs - including religious ones - at Franklin County High School. Bible clubs, though, can be noncurriculum organizations started by students.
Davis says the board - which voted unanimously for the changes in public - did most of its work behind closed doors.
"Mr. Helm and the School Board tried to limit the kids' freedom with the Bible clubs all they could."
Helm said the board's policy has everything to do with fairness and nothing to do with the board's religious convictions.
During a recent interview over lunch, Helm grabs a ketchup bottle, an ash tray and a bottle of hot sauce. He begins moving them back and forth as he talks:
"Some kids are here, and some are over here, and still others are over here," he says. "But you have to face reality and tell these kids, 'Here's what you can do and here's your opportunities.'''
Helm talks about how the school system has to do a better job of preparing students for the real world earlier in their academic careers.
He's a cheerleader for the county's proposed Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration - a $6 million voter-approved school that will be on the cutting edge. Eighth- and ninth-grade students will have hands-on laboratories to back up technology-based curriculums such as robotics and computer science.
He says the county has to find a better way to keep its best educators - many of whom are leaving for more money in neighboring jurisdictions.
One way to create a more level playing field, he says, would be a state mandate requiring a uniform first-year salary in Virginia for teachers with no experience.
Helm, a retired supervisor at Du Pont, says he would be proud to be the county's first popularly elected black official.
Helm's candidacy is backed by such political heavy hitters in the county as state Sen. Virgil Goode, Sheriff W.Q. Overton and Commonwealth's Attorney Cliff Hapgood, who have signed petitions supporting him.
Davis has her backers, too.
Kitty Nelson, a licensed nurse in Rocky Mount, is voting for Davis. "Amanda is a real honest person,'' Nelson said. ``And with government anymore, we need some honest people. She's brave enough to stand up for her principles."
Overton, who has dealt with Davis in his capacity as sheriff, says the county doesn't need her on the School Board.
Davis - who now works for United Parcel Service in Roanoke - used to be a Franklin County social worker. Overton says deputies who had to work with her on court cases complained about her conduct.
During the summer of 1993, Overton says, he told the county's social services director, Ellie Ussery, that the Sheriff's Office would no longer work with Davis.
Davis was fired several weeks later.
She sued the Social Services Department and won. She was offered her job back, but turned it down, accepting a monetary settlement instead.
"They're going to try and say I'm a nut now because I stood up to them," she said of Overton, Hapgood and others supporting Helm.
The flap over her job isn't the only time Davis has crossed paths with the Sheriff's Office.
She was convicted of obstruction of justice in 1994. On appeal, a judge took the case under advisement pending Davis' future behavior.
It's a situation Davis decided to address publicly, because she says people like Overton are using it to try to ruin her election chances.
The incident stemmed from an altercation between Davis and two Franklin County sheriff's deputies on a September night last year. The deputies showed up at her house near Boones Mill at 11:45 p.m. to serve a warrant - taken out by Davis herself - on her son, who had been charged with forging checks in Salem. Overton says his deputies arrived late because they'd tried several times to serve the papers earlier in the day, but were unsuccessful.
There are conflicting reports as to what happened that night, although one of the deputies who expected possible problems recorded the incident on a cassette tape that was used as evidence during Davis' trial on the obstruction charge.
Davis says one of the deputies pushed in her door and hit her several times with a nightstick.
Overton says neither deputy was carrying a nightstick that night, and that Davis instigated the incident.
Davis filed an excessive force complaint with Overton two weeks after her arrest that night. Overton says he never acted on the complaint because "there was no basis for it."
She says the episodes in the last few years helped mold an issue for her School Board run.
"There's this sense in Franklin County - no accountability," Davis says. "When someone has power like Sheriff Overton, and it's unchecked - that's dangerous."
She says a lack of accountability plagues the School Board, too.
On a scale of one to 10, she says she would give the current board a rating of four.
Davis also supports the idea of charter schools and local control of family life curriculum.
She says she realized her past difficulties might be thrown in front of the public if she ran for the School Board but believes the campaign is something God wants her to do.
Sitting at a red light in Martinsville a few months ago, Davis says, the Lord spoke to her through a message on the side of a truck.
It was Bible verse.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?''
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB