An Election Night in Shelby

An Election Night in Shelby

By Wake Bridges, Record Associate Editor

The Hickory (N.C.) Daily Record, circa 1980

“Attending election returns events is not the fun I found in my first such experience,” I said to Dan Goosefellow.

“Why not?”

“Now I have to work, though I still find such events a certain amount of fun.

“After I got interested in newspaper work as a youth, I talked Dad into taking me and a neighbor boy to attend election returns at the old Shelby Star in Shelby.

“Late in the night Dad decided it was time to return home and hit the sack, but I was so fascinated and thrilled I talked him in letting me remain, and the neighbor boy, Byron Bailey, agreed to stay with me.

“We figured the paper would remain open all night, but unfortunately for us, the last returns were received in early morning and the doors of the Star were closed.

“Byron and I didn’t have a dime between us and no place to stay.

“Somebody, upon learning of our plight, told us the police station was open 24 hours a day, so we went there and asked permission to hang around until daybreak, which was not nearly as much fun as watching the late Lee Weathers and the late Renn Drum of the Star, race around helping tabulate the election returns.

“It was particularly boring for Bailey, who had no interest in the newspaper field.

“Bailey and I ran into more bad luck when daylight came. A hard rain had started falling and the only way we knew to get back to our homes was to try and hitchhike, which we had never done before.

“We were soon as wet as drowned rats and nobody wanted two rain-soaked youths in his car.

“Fortunately, after we had walked several miles Dad appeared in the family Ford to pick us up.

“’You can have your election returns thing from now on,’ Bailey said.

“Before too many years I began helping with election returns as a reporter for the Record, still finding it fun and fascinating which has never completely worn off.

“While helping compile returns in Morganton of the recent primary election, a man walked up to me and asked if I knew him.

“I didn’t at first, then recognized him as Yates Bailey, a younger brother of Bryon.

“He said Byron had died in recent times of a heart attack, which tended to sadden me in that he had shared with me my first election returns experience.”

Reprinted with permission from The Hickory Daily Record. Copyright owned by The Hickory Daily Record.

Editor’s note: Wake Bridges was the son of Roscoe Bridges of the Trinity Community. He was a brother of Wade Bridges, a mail carrier known to many in Cliffside, and a cousin of Reno Bridges, after whom your webmaster was named.