The leaders of Alamance County’s GOP have tapped Burlington businessman Sam Powell to serve as a temporary successor to the late county commissioner John Paisley, Jr., who passed away in February with nearly three years left in his term on the county’s governing board.
During a closed conclave on Saturday, the party’s executive committee selected the 73-year-old Powell to fill Paisley’s old seat until this fall’s general election, when the county’s voters will pick someone to complete the final two years of Paisley’s four-year term.
Dr. Sam Powell before the county commissioners in 2023.
The executive committee has also named Powell as its standard-bearer for this special, two-year position, which will be contested by a nominee of the Democratic Party when it appears on the ballot this fall.
[Story continues below photos of Sam Powell.]
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Powell, who as a member of the Sons of the American Revolution often appears in colonial attire, here with then-Burlington mayor Jim Butler in 2022 at a Burlington city council meeting.
Powell, last December with the late county commissioner John Paisley, Jr., who was recruiting Powell to be a potential successor as he contemplated a possible resignation from office due to his declining health. Paisley died in February.
Earlier this year, Powell, who was co-chairman of the county’s 1999 Sesquicentennial Committee, addressed Graham’s city council about preserving the Sesquicentennial Park on the northwest corner of Court Square.
Under state law, the political party of a commissioner who makes a mid-term departure has the right to propose a temporary successor until the next countywide vote. The remainder of the county’s governing board is obligated to install the party’s choice for this seat-warming role – which, in Powell’s case, will presumably occur when the commissioners convene their next regularly-scheduled meeting on Monday.
Prior to Paisley’s death, the late county commissioner had approached Powell as a potential successor as he contemplated a possible resignation from office due to his declining health.
A 12-year-veteran of Burlington’s city council, Powell had previously served on the board of commissioners from 1998 until 2002. Since then, he has done turns as a trustee for Alamance Community College and as a member of the North Carolina state board of community colleges.
In his professional life, Powell presently serves as the CEO of Burington-based Powell Enterprises, and he had once been CEO of MEDTOX Diagnostics, which was bought out by another company in 1986. A graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, the Burlington native went on to obtain a master’s degree from Old Dominion before he received a PhD in biochemistry from Loyola University in 1982.
In addition to his professional interests, Powell is an active member of the Sons of the American Revolution and makes frequent appearances in a period uniform to promote local history.
Democrats will presumably select their own candidate to be on the November ballot for the abbreviated, two-year term.
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