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No matches found.Beaufort County businessman to challenge Butterfield for House seat
Beaufort County businessman Ashley Woolard told the Republican Men’s Club in Chocowinity on Thursday that he will seek the 1st District U.S. House seat now held by Democrat G.K. Butterfield.
The district includes parts of Craven and Jones counties.
Woolard said in a press release that his campaign will focus on securing jobs and training for jobs to help eliminate poverty and crime.
“Kids will stay in school if they know that a job is waiting,” he said. “More of them will stay out of trouble if they know that staying straight will allow them access to jobs.”
Woolard, a graduate of Washington High School and East Carolina University, is vice president of a family-owned insurance company in Beaufort County.
“Five years ago, when my opponent was elected to congress, we had an unemployment rate of 4 percent,” Woolard said. “Today it’s better than 11 percent. That’s going the wrong direction and it’s getting worse.”
“More than one-third of our incoming freshmen drop out before graduation, virtually guaranteeing themselves a life of poverty and an invitation to crime,” he said. “I’m looking at an environment for my children far inferior to the one in which I was raised.”
The lack of a trained workforce and the highest corporate tax rate of an industrialized country make it difficult to attract good, new jobs, he said.
Woolard lives with his wife Jessica and their two sons in his family’s old homeplace outside Washington, N.C. He is active in civic and political organizations and a former chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party.
He announced his plans to file for the 1st District seat assumed by Butterfield following a special July 2004 election that replaced Frank Balance, who resigned and was imprisoned for misuse of funds.
Butterfield, a Wilson native, Army veteran, and former judge in N.C. Superior and Supreme courts, has been elected to three full terms. He now serves on the energy and commerce, and house ethics committees, and the Helsinki Committee.
