BLADENBORO – After being around Bladenboro all of his life, David Hales has saved the best ‘till most recent as he has been the mayor for four years and his term is up in 2025 so he will have to make a decision whether to run again.

No stranger to local government, he served on the town board for 28 years.

“I got elected in 1984,” Hales said. “I have served seven terms. I stepped out one time for two years when my first child was born and then jumped back on. I could have stayed on for two more years and get to 30, but I wasn’t going to get a pension, my kids were playing ball and I decided to take a little time off. People started beating on my door and calling me to come back.”

The previous mayor, Rufus Duckworth was not going to run again and after carefully considering it, Hales decided to throw his hat into the ring.

“I thought about it and thought about it and actually went to the board of elections on the last day,” Hales said. “I thought I’d give it a try. Here we are… and we’ve had what I would call three very productive years in Bladenboro. We have been finishing some projects that have been in the works and we’ve been starting some new projects.”

In the past four years, Hales has seen a lot of growth including vacant buildings refilled with businesses and a rebuilt downtown.

“There’s been a lot of change, and hopefully, it’s not over with,” he said. “As long as the funding is still available to us, we plan on progressing.”

Bladenboro has seen more than its share of devastating storms including hurricanes Matthew, Florence and Tropical storm Debby which literally cut off the city and caused mass evacuations. The town had a will to rebuild and a spirit that would be as they quote from II Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…”

“Hurricane Florence was the big one,” Hales said. “We actually had water probably three feet deep right in the middle of town. It was more or less a lake. We’ve had several of those in the past and this one made everything that in the past was salvageable… unsalvageable.”

The town rebuilt from the downtown drains to other infrastructure to new buildings on an elevated site. The town at the time, according to Hales had the old terracotta drains installed back in the ‘40s and all of those were replaced with new 24” piping.

“Looking back, we lost our major industry (Bladenboro Cotton Mills) decades ago,” Hales said. “Most towns that have that happen commercially, pretty much disappear. What we have in Bladenboro is a great bunch of business owners here that are very set on staying and working in town. Nobody comes to Bladenboro to come to town to get rich. I can assure you of that. But you can make a good living here and a friend called us a social mecca of Southeast North Carolina. We’ve got a lot of quality people in this town and if you don’t believe that, check when we have a fundraiser. We have a committee over, ‘The Bladenboro Benefit Committee’ here raises money for people in need.”

On occasion, the town has raised close to $50K on a weekend according to Hales and he mentions that he doesn’t remember any that have raised less than $10K. The town has a philanthropic heart and when they come together, special things begin to happen.

A recent example of the kindness and giving nature of the local businesses was on Christmas Eve when a local restaurant, ‘Aunt B’s’ put together a free Christmas dinner at their diner for people who were alone or needed a good home cooked meal for the holiday.

“It was laid on our hearts, now that we are in town, we can see there is a lot of need here,” Shannon and Bridget Todd said. “There is a lot of people can benefit from what we are proposing. We are going to have our family here, it’s going to be a homecooked meal and it’s for anybody that needs it, or handicapped or simply doesn’t want to spend Christmas alone.”

Other events that rival some of the bigger, surrounding towns in scope are the annual Christmas parade and “Beast Fest,” which is one of the most recent “magical events” that happens each October named after a legendary and actual event that once upon a time transpired in that community.

According to boosttheboro.org, “In the small, southeastern community of Bladenboro, North Carolina, a series of vampire-like killings of pets and livestock was happening. The creature doing the killings was described by witnesses as a ‘large-like cat creature somewhere between 4 and 5 feet long.’ “Some said it resembled a bear—-Some claimed the creature’s cries sounded like a baby or a woman crying, but much louder. Whatever it was, it was very frightening to the community. So much so that the locals became afraid to leave their homes after dark. “Parties of armed men were organized. Over 700 hunters and trappers converged on the community of Bladenboro, vowing to either hunt down and capture the vampire beast or better yet KILL THE CREATURE on-site.

“Sure, there are those who say this was all just a hoax, but many residents who lived in this small community during those years still claim this to be true. Either way, for over 65 years, the creature commonly referred to as “The Beast of Bladenboro” remains an unsolved mystery for the Town of Bladenboro and we may never know the truth.”

Hales is fond of the fest partially because he was the one who generated the idea.

“I am the one who came up with the idea to have a Beast Fest,” he said. “When we first started the ‘Boost the Boro,’ there was several of us involved. Back then our ramrod leader was Hiram Hester who is no longer with us. He had a private business going, but he wanted to see Bladenboro move to another realm. We were talking about having some type of folk festival. You look around and see butter beans, peanuts, cotton, flower festivals. We could have tacked a name on like that and it would have been admirable, but I said, ‘Every time I look on my computer and type in Bladenboro, the first thing that pops up is the Beast of Bladenboro.’ It’s the only thing, really that stands out on a search engine.”

The committee loved the idea and decided to call the festival “Beast Fest.” The town hosts thousands of both tourists and locals every October for the festival. In fact, the population of the town is minuscule compared to the traffic and the people that come into town to help Boost the Boro.

As for Hale, he’s always been a part of Bladenboro. His father who grew up just outside of Bladenboro was a blueberry farmer in the area for many years and he also had an insurance business. His father worked mainly in Brunswick County which was where the family would go every summer.

“As a child, the day that school would get out, we’d pack everything up and we’d move down to Ocean Isle Beach where we had a house on the waterway,” Hales said. “It was a little shack, cinder block house and we would stay there until Labor Day and then started back. I loved those summers as a boy, playing in the mud of the intercoastal waterway and catch crabs and sell them to the local seafood market.”

After high school Hales had a desire to become an architect because of his love for drawing sketches and making plans, but the “Master architect” stepped in and sent him a different direction. He went to work for the Department of Agriculture after which he wore many hats and learned many trades. He also had a way with people and gave him much experience for his work as a mayor.

“I was born in Lumberton, but have never lived anywhere but Bladenboro,” he said. “My wife’s a Bladenboro girl too – moving here when she was young. She is a retired preschool teacher who earned her masters in early childhood education and is certified for pre-K.”

Hales met his wife at her father’s car dealership in Bladenboro.

“I met her for the first time when I bought a car from her,” he said. “It was a Nissan 300 ZX. We started talking during negotiations for the sale. I thought, working in the pawn business I was a pretty good negotiator, but I can tell you, when you’re the daughter of a used car salesman, you got pretty good skills too. After a few years we just decided to get married.”

The negotiation was successful.

Christy Hales taught in both Bladenboro and in Elizabethtown for 30 years. The couple were married in Feb. 1991 and as Christy was teaching, David was heavily involved in Real estate and also was in the Pawnbroker business and began with Pawn USA out of Wilmington.

It’s been a busy life for Hales, and should he retire from being the mayor one day, he says that he has a “to-do” list a mile long. Along with being mayor, he works with the used car company in Bladenboro, helps out at the funeral home, and works with his “soon-to-be” son-in-law at his landscaping business. He will also have a half-century of service with the local fire department next year. As if he doesn’t keep himself busy enough.

“The last 15-20 years has changed a lot for me,” Hales said. “I was baptized as a child, but I never knew what it was like to walk that walk when I was younger. It took me until 15 years ago to finally realize what it really was all about and to know what it was. I give all the credit to Jesus Christ. Everything that I have accomplished, everything I have attempted to do – it’s all by Him. Hopefully most of it was for Him. I can say I’ve been a blessed man. Very blessed.”

A deacon at First Baptist Church in Bladenboro, Hales said that God is the stability and consistency in his life now.

“Our priority here in Bladenboro is the well-being of the residents,” he said. “As a mayor, the proudest moment has to be our finishing up of the town square project. When I became mayor, I told people that the downtown lot will be done before I get off of this board. Whether it’s by death or next election, we are going to get that project finished. And we’ve done that. We’ve also made significant progress from that starting point. That is phase one and so far, we are talking and planning up to a phase four. Next up for us is putting in extra parking and a green space in town which will be a small park-like area.