The Boykins Candidate Forum on Wednesday, Oct. 23, offered a prime opportunity for citizens to learn more about town mayoral candidate Clete Lassiter and five of the seven Boykins Town Council candidates, with brief summaries offered for the two who were not able to attend.

Held at the Boykins Volunteer Fire Department, the forum was sponsored by the GFWC Tarrara Woman’s Club, The Coard Foundation and the town of Boykins.

Boykins Mayor Jackie Robertson opened the forum in prayer, and Town Clerk/Treasurer Victoria Edwards served as moderator.

The five council candidates who were able to attend included Laura Parr Baldwin, Janice Boone, Linda Beatty, Dee Modlin Clary and Nickolas B. Zinn. Those not able to attend included Freddie Felts and Robert “Chet” Poland.

Edwards first introduced Lassiter.

CLETE LASSITER

“Clete was born in Boykins and is the son of the man we all knew as Buck Lassiter,” Edwards said. “Clete left Boykins for a brief time but came back to make his home right in the same place his father lived. Clete, please say a few words about your campaign for mayor.”

Lassiter said, “I was born and raised right here in Boykins, been here my whole life except for a short period of time when I left and found out it was very cold up north and decided to come back home. So I’m living in the same house I grew up in.”

He noted that he retired from Union Camp Corporation.

“When they shut the paper mill down in 2010 was the last time I worked there, and I worked here in Boykins at the seat belt plant for three years until I retired completely,” he said.

He has been a member of the Boykins Volunteer Fire Department for 42 years, starting in 1982. He currently serves as the department’s president and line officer, also known as fire lieutenant.

Lassiter has also been a member of the Boykins Masonic Lodge for seven years.

He was joined at the forum by his son and daughter-in-law and wife.

“There’s a lot of things I want to do for the town of Boykins,” he said. “I’ll just talk about a few of them.

“The most important thing is I want to make sure Boykins is a safe place to live,” he said. “Not that it isn’t now, but I want to make sure that I can give Sgt. (George) Brozzo all the tools he needs to do his job and to make it so people want to come here, and they don’t have to worry about going out on their porch at night or their kids riding bicycles around the block after dark.”

He added, “This is how we grew up, and my mom would come out the back door and holler when it was time to come in, and we didn’t have to worry about crime. But nowadays big-city crime is everywhere, it’s not just in the big city.”

He said he wants to work closely with the Southampton County Sheriff’s Office and Virginia State Police and “make sure that we have somebody patrolling at all times of the 24 hours a day.”

Next, Lassiter addressed the presence of several houses in town that he said are in disarray.

“They’ve been empty for — a couple of them — 25 years,” he said. “Nothing’s been done to them, and I want to work with the county, and either we need to fix these houses, or we need to tear them down and make it a better looking place to live. You ride down Main Street, and there’s several houses that need work, and they haven’t had anything done to them. I want to work on that.

“I want to continue doing the good job that Mayor Robertson has done over the last four years,” he added. “I tell you, he’s a heck of a man, and if I can do half the job that he’s done over the last four years, I’ll be satisfied, I really will.”

LINDA BEATTY

Edwards next introduced Beatty.

“Currently the senior member of the Town Council is Linda Beatty, who was the first woman ever to be elected to serve on Town Council and then the first woman to serve as vice mayor,” Edwards said. “She was first elected to council in 1982 and as of this month will have served on council for 40 years.”

Edwards said Beatty was born and raised in Boykins and has been a lifelong resident.

“She’s served as president of both the Junior Woman’s Club and the Tarrara Woman’s Club several terms and also held the office of president of the Virginia Federation of Women’s Clubs from 2004-06,” Edwards said. “She was one of the first women to become a member of Boykins Lions and then served as president and currently as treasurer.”

Edwards added that Beatty is a director for The Coard Foundation and lifetime member of Boykins United Methodist Church.

Beatty said, “My platform is simple: I want to help the community where I was born and raised through community service, and I view sitting on Town Council as a good way to do that, and that is why I have continued to run every single election.”

She listed some of her past accomplishments on council, like helping to lower the town’s monthly light bills.

“The uproar from that was almost as loud as when we held a dog leash law many years later,” she said. “I voted ‘yes’ to the leash law that was crafted by the mayor’s wife, Inga Francis, because it was less harsh than the one that had been presented. Then a couple years ago, that issue came up again, and I voted ‘no’ because it meant that every single time a dog went out of the house or his cage, he had to be on a leash, even if he was trained by his owner by voice commands.”

She noted that she enthusiastically voted “yes” for the opportunity for Boykins to obtain funds to obliterate the blight that was a scourge from the outskirts of the town on Route 186. 

She said she diligently worked with a past mayor to make changes to the town charter to make it more in tune with the times, and she personally delivered it to the legislator to have it voted on. Later she worked to help re-codify town ordinances.

“Making Boykins more beautiful has always been a goal of mine,” she said. “We have upgraded the signage at the entrances, worked on setting rules for the cemetery and purchased Christmas lights for the electric poles.

“For the past few years, I’ve worked with Martha Felts to conduct in-house audits for our clerk’s books after I voted with other council members not to hire a CPA firm because of the exorbitant fees they were charging,” Beatty continued. “I voted ‘yes’ — as we all did — to hire Victoria (Edwards) after Pat’s death, and it has been a true blessing for this town that she said ‘yes.’ Martha and I found her books to be in good order and her grasp of the various aspects of municipal government responsibilities to be outstanding.”

Beatty said one of the things she did to help the budget process that the town has to go through annually was to design an Excel spreadsheet to put the numbers in from the previous year to see how the town did and what it might need to do for the next year.

Beatty also worked with the previous town clerk to make changes to the monthly financial report so that numbers reflected a true balance of funds on hand.

“After being appointed by the mayor to represent Boykins on the Litter Control Council for Southampton County, I served for several years and was able to put together several clean-up dates for citizens to join the council and mayor to help clean up our town,” Beatty said. “The most controversial issue I dealt with was when we dealt with the mandatory trash and ended up in court on that matter.”

She said over her 40 years of her services, she has largely been a team player, “because I know that is the best way to get things done.”

She said, “During three different terms of office, I was elected by council to serve as vice mayor, and for many months, I sat in the mayor’s seat when Spear Edwards’ health prevented him from performing the duties and have presided at council meetings, signed checks and made decisions about issues that came up.

“Based on my past 40 years of service, I would ask that you mark my name on the ballot again to serve on Town Council because I love this town I was born in, and I want to continue to serve through my church, my civic organizations, on Town Council to make Boykins a better place to live, work, raise families and have fun,” she said.

DEE MODLIN CLARY

Edwards noted that Clary was born and raised in Boykins but moved away when she married. She later moved back to town and lives across the street from where her parents used to live.

Clary was selected in April 2022 to fill the vacancy on Town Council of Jerry Rice when he passed away. At the end of this term, she will have served for two years and nine months.

“She is in the insurance business and brings that expertise to the council table,” Edwards said.

Clary reiterated some of what Edwards shared and noted, “I was blessed enough to have both sets of grandparents either right across the street or up the street from me, so my roots run deep in this town also.

Clary said, “My mother was mayor at the time of her death in 2020, and I want to carry on her legacy, so when an opening became available in 2022 and I was asked to fill that role, I gladly accepted.

“Like Victoria said, I’m a property adjuster for Erie Insurance, and in my two years and nine months, I have been so grateful to work with both Victoria and Jackie and my other council members — I think we all bring something special to the table,” Clary added.

She noted that she also serves on Southampton County’s Litter Control Council.

“Along with Ms. Beatty, we’re always there to organize pick-up days,” she said. “Whether it just be in Boykins or whether it be across the community, those clean-up days are important, and they’re important because we take pride in our home and our town. And that in turn goes across the board — if everybody would do that, our town would look so much better. 

“And so we want to encourage everybody else to take that sense of community service and become involved in making this better,” she added. “And I want to be able to represent you on Town Council to do that. So I would appreciate your vote very soon.”

JANICE BOONE

Edwards noted that Boone is the newest member of Town Council.

“She and her husband Daniel lived in Boykins for many years, and following his death, she remained in their home on Deloatche Avenue,” Edwards said. “She is a part of the Busy Bee Squad, who assists the town clerk with tasks like distributing flyers and newsletters to residents of Boykins.”

Boone greeted everyone in attendance and said she was “giving honor to my lord and savior Jesus the Christ, who is the head of my life.”

She said she has lived in Boykins for more than 50 years and is glad to live in a small town.

She noted how people have come and gone in town.

“We all are pilgrims traveling through this land,” she said. “We see a lot of new faces. Do we welcome them to our neighborhood? Do we smile and say, ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good afternoon’ to them? That is the question we have to ask ourselves.”

She recalled how Robertson asked if she would accept a position on the Town Council that was made vacant when another member announced he was moving outside the town limits.

“My answer to that question was ‘Yes,’” she said. “I thank all of my council members for accepting me to serve with each and every one of you to my ability to help make the decisions for the town of Boykins and its residents.”

She said she is looking forward again to accepting the challenges and changes involved in being a member of the Boykins Town Council.

LAURA PARR BALDWIN

Edwards then introduced the two new candidates for Town Council starting with Baldwin, who she said moved to Boykins in 2011.

Baldwin and her husband have two children and are notably involved in their children’s school and sports activities.

“Laura partnered with myself to bring back the little league games to Boykins, which is still active,” Edwards said. “She attends Boykins Baptist Church and works at Smithfield Foods. On several occasions she has attended council meetings and participated in town projects, like the Pumpkin Festival and the parade.”

Baldwin noted that her name appears as “Laura A. Parr” on the ballot, and Baldwin is her married name.

“I’ve been deeply involved in our community,” she said. “I’m an active member of the Boykins Baptist Church, where I work in the nursery nurturing our youngest members, and I’m currently serving as a deacon.”

She said she is a proud member of the GFWC Tarrara Woman’s Club and served before that as a member of the Sedley Woman’s Club.

“I serve on the Parks and Rec Committee where I work with Victoria Edwards and other community members to help bring back the baseball to Boykins,” Baldwin said.

She has helped coach T-ball players and older children at the coach pitch level.

“Also as part of the Parks and Rec Committee, I’ve helped with Easter egg hunts, the trunk-or-treat and movie nights in the park, helping to foster a community spirit inside of our community,” she said.

Baldwin explained that in the course of attending Town Council meetings, she highlighted the importance of having the flashing speed limit signs in town, reminding motorists of their speed and helping ensure they slow down to keep the town’s streets safe.

“Growing up I remember going to events with my grandparents,” she said. “They served on different organizations and clubs, from the Rotary to the Lions. That instilled in me at a very early age a heart of service, and I, in turn, want to instill that in my children, and that is one of the reasons that I want to be active and involved in my community, and no matter what level it is.”

NICKOLAS B. ZINN

Edwards noted that Zinn was on the ballot last term but for the position of mayor.

Now running for a council seat, Zinn has been a resident of Boykins, with his family, for several years and operates a business there.

Zinn explained that he has been in Boykins for almost as long as Baldwin. He said he has several adult children who have been a part of the community and others who have been growing up in it.

He said he loves that Boykins is growing more together as a community.

“But I still feel that we need more involvement with our youth,” he said. “Victoria and Laura have done a wonderful job, and Linda, in developing it and starting it, but we need more. We just don’t have enough as far as connection between (our youth) and our older generations.”

He noted that young people do not know the vibrant history of the town that is evident everywhere, lining the walls of the buildings within it, and he aims to bridge the gap between generations.

“I’d love to work personally with Parks and Rec, I’d love to be able to develop a new legacy so that (the youth) can commune with the older generation, where they both get together and they teach each other different things,” he said.

Zinn also noted that he would like to see events offered for the town’s teens, young adults and 30-somethings.

“I have a heart for this town,” he said. “We’ve been here this long, and we have roots here now, and we want to continue to be here and assist with it.”

FREDDIE FELTS

Edwards noted that Felts could not be at the forum, but she shared some information about him, noting that he first sat on the Town Council in 1984 when he was elected to fill a vacancy. He served through 1988 and later came back on council for a two-year term in 1992. He ran again in 2010 and has been on council since then, amassing more than 20 years on the council.

He and his wife live in Boykins and raised their children in town.

Edwards said Felts holds a prominent position in the masons and for many years was a member of the Boykins Lions Club.

ROBERT “CHET” POLAND

Edwards noted that Poland’s job required him to be out of state at the time of the forum, but she said he expressed his regrets.

She gave some background on Poland, explaining that he currently serves on the council. He was selected to fill the vacancy created when Robertson moved from council member to mayor in April 2021. At the end of this current term, Poland will have served three years and eight months on council.

Edwards said Poland was born and raised in Boykins, and he and his wife live in the Pinecrest area of town and raised their two sons in town. He just recently became a proud grandfather.

“He is manager for Koppers in Newsoms and has many times shared equipment, resources and expertise to help our town,” Edwards said.