Good luck cross country at
the NCAA Southeast Regional
Championships!
Nov. 8, 2013
Professor elected to Canton Board of Aldermen
By Burton Hodges
staff Writer
T he very essence of Brevard College is
experiential education. It’s more than
just our mission statement, it’s the means by
which we operate. Whether it’s a semester
of immersion in nature, an exercise science
course full of student athletes or a journalism
class that requires weekly submissions to the
school paper, Brevard College relies on the
world that surrounds our campus to educate
as equally as much as the classroom.
On Tuesday evening, Brevard College took
another step further in living our mission. Dr.
Ralph Hamlett, associate professor of political
communication, was elected, alongside three
other candidates, to serve as alderman for his
hometown of Canton, N.C.
Among the six candidates running for the
four vacant alderman seats, Hamlett finished
fourth with a total of 316 votes. He will join
Carole Edwards (375 votes), Zeb Smathers
(362) and Gail Mull (359) in office to help
direct the affairs of the town of Canton for
the next two years.
Bom and raised in Canton, Hamlett has
a rich history with the town. He returned
in 1996 to raise his own family inside its
comfortable mountain hollow.
Despite his connection to the community,
he described the campaign as an “uphill battle
to begin with.”
At no point was the campaign easy. He
had, as he put it, “basically zero” name
recognition. “Had I mn when I was 30,” he
said, “it would’ve been a different story, but
my father retired as the police chief 41 years
ago. His name is distant memory.
“I work in Brevard,” he added. “Brevard
College is my community, so I really had to
get my name out there.”
Hamlett’s campaign required monumental
effort in all territories. “He had to hit the
ground full throttle, and make up ground
that others did not,” said Alderman-elect
Gail Mull.
As he saw it, Hamlett was an outsider;
unlike many in Canton, he felt that his
doctorate degree, infamous red Converse
All-Stars and daily dedication to neck-ties
would distance him from the people of the
small blue-collar town of Canton. In fact,
Ralph was even told during a luncheon by a
former Alderman of Canton to “never wear
a tie again.”
Courtesy Photo
) alph Hamlett (middle) and other Canton Alderman candidates along with Mayor Mike
^Ray began their campaigns at the polls as early as 7:30 a.m.
On several occasions, the local newspaper
grossly misspelled his name or left him off of
a list of candidates completely. On any given
day this semester, Hamlett could have been
found walking the halls of the McClarty-
Goodson building shaking his head and
muttering under his breath, “This campaign
is an absolute nightmare.”
“I have taught political science all my life
and have worked on campaigns throughout
my career. I had no clue what I was getting
into,” he said.
The last week of the campaign would prove
to be one of the most trying times of this career.
While preparing for the final push eight days
shy of the election, Hamlett’s father-in-law
passed away in Kannapolis, N.C. He received
the news while commuting to Brevard for
morning class, and he immediately turned his
car around, grabbed the family and left for
Kannapolis, virtually abandoning all hope for
a last-minute push in his uphill battle.
“I would’ve taught my students that leaving
town the last week of the campaign was
political suicide,” he said, “but I did what
I know was right. My family always comes
first, even if it would cost me the election.”
Disaster would continue to surround Dr.
Hamlett as the election drew closer. While
in Kannapolis tending to his wife Susan’s
family, her grandmother suffered a heart
attack and was rushed to the hospital.
“It was a week from hell,” he said.
Susan’s grandmother would survive, but
the Hamletts did not return to Canton until
II p.m. on Sunday, just two days prior to
Election Day.
Anticipating defeat, Hamlett campaigned
as hard as he could and left the rest up to the
work he had put in all semester. The polls
closed at 7:30 p.m. and without an exit poll,
he had very little evidence to suggest any
hope.
His daughter called the election around 8
p.m. Tuesday evening. The votes then being
reported indicated he would be defeated by a
landslide, so they changed the incoming results
on WLOS-TV to watch “Supernatural.”
His mother went to sleep and his youngest
daughter Suzanne consoled him by saying, “I
still love you daddy.”
Somewhere around 9:30 p.m. he began to
See 'Hamlett,' page 12