By Roslyn Ryan
Editor

“It is like always being on dress parade — one can never relax. It is a great strain…People are more aware of you, more critical, and they have no pity for one’s mistakes and stupidities…They seek your company because they expect something particular from you, and if they don’t get it, they drop you. They are always intriguing and caballing; one must be very alert. They are sensitive and easily become enemies. But it is never dull.”

I recently came across these lines, written by the author T.S. Eliot in a letter to his brother in 1919. Eliot was referring to life among English nobility, but I couldn’t help but connect the words to what must certainly be the day-to-day experience of those elected to public office these days.

We ask a lot of our elected officials, after all, even those new to the game. Much like baseball umpires, they are expected to begin perfect and improve from there.  They are asked to make big things happen with little (sometimes nonexistent) funding and stand firm when the popular choice and the ethical one are no longer the same.

As the new Board of Supervisors is sworn in on December 16, we here at Powhatan Today applaud our newly elected leaders for taking on the challenges of running a county under trying financial circumstances.

They certainly won’t please all of the people all of the time. But we trust—at least until they prove otherwise – they will serve honorably, and with the best interests of their community always at the forefront of their minds.