Jerry Kilgore: Here's Your Sign!

It seems that Gate City Mayor Mark Jenkins had been approached by numerous citizens of the town.  These citizens wanted to know why the sign was still in place, considering that Jerry had quit his job as Attorney General back in February in order to campaign full time for Governor. Some were still upset that the sign had ever been placed in the first place because they viewed the placement of the sign as "political".

Mark Jenkins was quoted as saying:

One complaint I got was that the sign appeared to be a political endorsement of the town to Jerry Kilgore, which of course is not the case. One comment that was made to me was that if businesses cannot attach their name to the town sign, how can a wealthy dentist and a bingo parlor pay for a sign to be put up on it? That hit home for me.

Dentist David Templeton raised money to finance a large portion of the sign construction, along with contributions from the East Carters Valley, Manville and Copper Creek Ruritan clubs. Some of those clubs operate bingo games and are therefore funded by gambling proceeds. Willie Mae Kilgore, mother of the Kilgore twins (Jerry and Terry) who is also the Scott County Registrar of Voters is reportedly a member and regular Bingo player at the East Carter's Valley Ruritan Club.  So are father John Kilgore and assorted other relatives, including Aunt and ex-assistant registrar Betty Pendleton.  (That is,  of course, when Willie Mae and Betty aren't busy hosting jewelry parties.)

One note about this story: the sign was removed on or before Monday yet the story didn't appear until Friday in the Kingsport Times-News.  Perhaps it took the whole week to convince the newspaper that the story was newsworthy?  Or, perhaps it took the papers' editors a week to notice that such an ?important? piece of town memorabilia was missing?  Either way, it's interesting that the paper took almost a week to pursue this story.  That's an awful lot of effort for such a "minor" issue, and why are certain individuals so angry about it?  Perhaps because they realize that they no longer have control over the leadership of this small town, or the ability to direct them to their own political purposes.

For instance, just look at David Templeton's comments to the Time-News, to the effect that, although he was satisfied with Mayor Jenkins' explanation for why the sign was taken down, he disagreed with taking the sign down at the height of campaign season.  Templeton was quoted as saying:

I think the timing could have been a little better on the town's part. I just felt that the sign brought credit to the town, in showing that we have one of our own holding a state-elected office and the history connected with that. That doesn't happen that often.

Credit to the town?  One of our own?  Yep, no political motivations there.  Nope.  None at all.

One interesting addendum to this whole story  is that - believe it or not - Jerry Kilgore has never actually been a resident of the Town of Gate City, at least not that anyone can recall, although he did attend Gate City High School.  So why was the sign put there in the first place? Why not tack the "Home of...JerryKilgore" language onto the "Welcome to Manville" sign where he actually lived? 

Perhaps an appropriate time to do that would be if and when Jerry ever comes to Gate City for the Scott County Chamber of Commerce Debate he was invited to attend.  So far, however, Kilgore has refused to participate in his "home town" event, while both Tim Kaine and Russ Potts have readily agreed.  Amazing.  Tim Kaine and Russ Potts are not afraid to face the citizens of Gate City, but Jerry Kilgore is.  Perhaps Jerry, who's "one of our own", just doesn't feel comfortable in Gate City, or anywhere else in Virginia for that matter?  Now what's THAT a "sign" of, Jerry?

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