Hazelwood

Mary Ann Enloe has had her share of pain, though she doesn’t talk about it much. In the span of five years in the 1970s she lost her father, her mother and her husband. In 1977 after her husband died, she was a single mother of a 6-year-old working as a purchasing agent at Dayco.

Her father had died in office in 1972, leaving the town in good shape. By 1982, though, problems had arisen. A woman called Enloe and pleaded with her to run for mayor.

“I knew I would do it (run for office). I had grown up in it. What actually made me do it sooner — I had not planned to do it until I retired from Dayco — was the situation the town was in,” she said.

So Enloe ran for office and won in 1983. She reviewed the town’s books, called the district attorney to look at some problems, and an SBI investigation was started. A former town clerk ended up in in jail for embezzlement.

“It’s not something people want to hear about now,” said Enloe. “It’s hurtful in a small town like this.”

For the next 12 years — until 1995 — Enloe ran a town that was undergoing fundamental change. One by one the industries went away, and those that remained shrunk their workforce. The town’s tax base dried up. Its infrastructure deteriorated. Many began to suggest that merging with Waynesville was a good idea. Though six referendums on the issue failed, each time the margin narrowed.

Then the town’s finances came under scrutiny when it was reported in the media that Powell Bill funds slated for road improvements were being used to pay operating expenses. The transfers had been audited and given the OK as long as the Powell Bill funds were paid back. Still, many saw that as further evidence of the town’s inability to pay its way, and Enloe sometimes is still blamed by old-time residents for the town’s de-mise.

“Hazelwood was full of people like me — retired, no income. We could not tax people enough to provide the services they were entitled to when there was an another alternative,” said Enloe.

As she does often in political conversation, Enloe deferred to something her father had told her.

“It (the 4-1 vote to merge the towns in 1995) broke my heart. No one will ever know how much. Daddy told me before he died that there would come a time when it would make more sense to merge rather than tax our people to the poorhouse,” she said.

“No one had more to lose than I did, but I was the person at the place in history to do it,” she said.

A new political life

After the merger, and after Dayco closed in 1996, Enloe went to work as a substitute school teacher.

“I thought I would never run for office again after the merger. I was under the opinion that I had done what I had been sent here to do,” she said.

But she missed it, missed the excitement, missed the interchange with constituents. Once again, the encouragement of friends and supporters helped convince her to run for county commission in 1998. She jumped into a field of 18 candidates and ended up the top vote-getter.

That convincing win, along with her experience, led her to seek the chairmanship of the board. Jim Stevens, however, garnered the votes from board members despite getting fewer votes from the public.

But Enloe didn’t waste time fretting over that setback. She supported an agenda of procedural changes, voting to change meetings to the evening so the public could participate, a move the board tried for three months and then rescinded. She asked that meetings be videotaped, but her fellow commissioners did not support her proposal. Both of these proposals were issues in the recent campaign in which she finished fourth .

“I really regret that I’m not going to be able to sit on a board where I would have the votes to get these things done,” said Enloe.

She also made a stab at state politics. In 2000 she ran for the 52nd House seat of retiring Liston Ramsey, a giant in WNC politics whose health was failing. Again, she says her decision was in part due to encouragement from supporters.

“I would not have made that try at that time if people had not come to me and asked me to,” she said.

A bitter primary against two other well-known Haywood Democrats — architect Rick Lee and retired principal Charles Starnes — split the Democratic Party. After winning the primary, Enloe lost the general election to Rep. Marge Carpenter (R-Waynesville).

“I was not supposed to win that primary. When I did, some folks had trouble switching their allegiance, but I have only good memories. I met wonderful people all over the district who are still my friends,” she said.

From there, Enloe and the board became embroiled in a very public and controversial debate about Haywood’s proposed justice center, jail and parking deck project. The original price tag was $36 million. Problems with that project dogged each of the five commissioners over the last two years, and the incumbents running in 2002 — Enloe and Wade Francis — both lost their seats. Stevens did not run. Enloe still believes that the building as designed won’t work in downtown Waynesville and that its expense will keep the county from funding other needs, particularly in education.

“I think it will change the ambiance that DWA (Downtown Waynesville Association) has worked for 15 years to promote. That is my personal feeling, but if 8,300 people (the vote total of project supporter Kirk Kirkpatrick who won a seat on the board) had come to me and said they disagreed, said they do think this building is needed, that we need a building twice as large as the historic courthouse, then I would have supported them and put my personal opinion on the back burner,” said Enloe.

She also voted against this year’s budget because she thought citizens deserved a tax rate cut coming off a property revaluation.

“It could have been done and it should have been done,” she said.

Now, as in the past, Enloe has found solace in her life’s mainstays: her antique-filled home, her family, her music, her church, and the kind words of friends and supporters.

“I just can’t get over the wonderful calls and notes I’ve received,” she says, smiling.

And then, without hesitating, she recalls the words of a trusted Methodist minister: “He gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever been given: ‘Mary Ann,’ he said, ‘don’t ever lock a door behind you and throw away the key. You may want to go back through it some day.’”