Intrepid voter of the day
From Gerald Witt, our man in Rockingham County:
Edwin Stanton walked about three miles to get to vote for Reidsville City Council on Tuesday.
While he wore long sleeves and pants in 90-degree heat.
Approaching Reidsville Middle School to vote, Stanton, an elderly man, tottered around the side of the building on stiff limbs.
Reidsville Mayor James Festerman, was hanging out and greeting voters in the shade at the school, ran up to the help Stanton, who appeared as if he was about to teeter over.
"I thought maybe he had been drinking," said Festerman, a retired police chief, "but I didn't smell any alcohol on his breath."
Festerman took Stanton's arm, and helped him into the school.
"I tried to offer him a ride home, but he wouldn't take it," Festerman said.
Leaving the school, Stanton said that he walks every day because doctors told him to.
It helps with varicose veins, Stanton said, for which he wears special "industrial strength," stockings that were made in Switzerland. In the last week, he's walked about 25 miles, he said.
So the walk to go vote, though it appeared uncomfortable to bystanders who saw him walking in the heat, was just another stroll.
"I vote every time I can," Stanton said. "It's your duty."