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Charles Hickman is very well qualified and has been a voice of sanity on the school board. He has run his own small business, taught in the Beaufort County Schools, and served as an Army Intelligence officer. He has paid his dues in the Republican Party, having served as Beaufort County GOP chairman, congressional district Republican chairman, and many other party positions.
What has Garrison done? Is he employed? Does he have a college degree? Has he ever had any experience in the education field? Has he ever served in the military? All he seems to have done is shown up and done some work in the local GOP over the past year or so. Is someone else pulling his strings to get him to run for this position?
Commented: Saturday, March 29th, 2025 @ 11:35 am
By: Victoria
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That explains a lot. Reminds me of something I heard awhile back. Some of the out in the county people that were volunteering for the Washington municipal elections had an interesting encounter with this person that was then an officer of the local Republican Party. She was holding forth about how something had to be done about the three newly elected Republicans on the school board in 2022. Unbeknownst to her some of the listeners lived in Hickman's district. One of them told her they supported the new members. At that point she stormed of in a huff. Evidently, Ms. Forrest has issues with conservatives. I hear she is also close with the superintendent. Looks like the RINOs found a yes man prospect for the superintendent.
Commented: Saturday, March 29th, 2025 @ 9:03 am
By: Van Zant
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It figures. The Democrats and communists are in bed with each other in their jihad on Tesla.
Commented: Saturday, March 29th, 2025 @ 7:23 am
By: Rino Hunter
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Glad to see this. Democrats have been destroying our history.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 6:16 pm
By: borderhawk
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What Austin Garrison supposedly wrote sounds just like what comes out of Jody Forrest's mouth. If he wrote it at all, he was probably taking dictation from her. Jody Forrest is lined up completely with the Cheeeseman groupies on the school board.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 3:02 pm
By: Rino Hunter
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Commented on A CONVENTION, BY NO MEANS CONVENTIONALChoppy seas indeed.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 2:29 pm
By: The Agitator
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Washingtonian: Now that I think about it, I have made probably 4 to 6 official (publicly requested) public records requests in public meetings filmed, as I have already mentioned many times; and did motion in the last commissioners' meeting as an official request by the Beaufort County Commission; however, it lost to the Center-Left Coalition's desire to limit transparency.
I plan to make more requests in public session as an elected representative; that is my job. People or the press can make public records requests, while I continue to do what I am elected to do. You, yourself, could do such as well as citizen with impeccable standing. What I do in open session is what I know to do to govern, because government is best done in public, which shows to all a preponderance to discover the truth or to not discover the truth. In short, I am NOT the problem here.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 12:24 pm
By: Stan Deatherage
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Austin Garrison did absolutely nothing in the fight to save Snowden but now wants to be an armchair quarterback. If he really cared about Snowden, why did he do nothing to work to save it? Garrison is just playing politics in the most deceitful way.
Charles Hickman, on the other hand, engaged in the fight. He made multiple visits to Snowden to get the facts first hand, the only school board member to do so. He participated in community meetings on saving the school. He spoke out for Snowden at multiple school board meetings. When it looked like a shortage of teachers there could give Cheeseman an opening to close the school, Hickman even volunteered to renew his teaching license, come out of retirement and teach there himself to prevent closure. Charles Hickman has fought for Snowden. Austin Garrison has been Missing in Action except for running his mouth after the fact without knowing what he was talking about. Austin Garrison was defeated less than a week ago for second vice chairman of the Beaufort County Republican Party. He seems to be grasping at straws to try to keep himself relevent. What else will he run for after he loses this one, too?
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 11:56 am
By: John Steed
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Yes Bubba...WHY dont they?
My reply to Commissioner Deatherage is that there is sometimes a thin line between a lie & an excuse. (Trump's motto: "Fight, Fight.") I'm just saying that your excuses dont pass the smell test. There is no "standing" when it comes to who can make a public records request. The govt doesnt even request an I.D. much less a photo I.D. So a person's request is practically anonymous, except that to get a digital reply, one needs an email address. A new email address is easy to get. I just cant understand why a commissioner who says he is fighting for us, wont do whatever is necessary to simply make a public records request. And then if they dont get a reply, report it to tipline@ncauditor.net.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 11:42 am
By: Washingtonian
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This Garrison dude is a typical young "vineyard vines"-wearing cookie cutter RINO. He's 21 years old, has no experience and is definitely being told what to say.
Mr. Charles (Hickman) knows what time of day it is and takes pride in his service to Beaufort County. He's worked hard for it and it shows. This Garrison kid is just as lost as an Easter egg. A little Sun Tzu would put some hair on his chest.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 11:08 am
By: John Valley
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Charles Hickman has been one of the real heroes on the school board. He richly deserves reelection.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 10:07 am
By: Bubba
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When I see that Austin Garrison character banging on about Snowden, I wonder if he is just ignorant or if he is deliberately lying for his own political benefit.
Cheeseman has been in a slow motion project to close Snowden for a while. It is part of his pushing the liberal agenda of school consolidation, just the second move on that after his Washington elementary school consolidation bungle. The problem on the school board is the clique of Cheeseman lap dogs who will follow Cheeseman in anything he tells them to do. This time he told them to close Snowden and they said "yes, master". Those are Allen, Williams, Booth, Walker, and now apparently Hudson. Of course, Cheeseman also has a bent for political interference. He engaged in that twice in the last election, which would have given a conservative majority grounds to fire him for cause. A second motivation for Cheeseman's move on Snowden may well have been a political attack on Hickman, because he wants another lap dog in that position, something this Garrison character would seemingly fullfill. The only one who tells school board members what to do is Cheeseman. We have four independent minded board members now and do not need another Cheeseman sock puppet. These idiots in the school board majority are too stupid to figure out that Cheeseman is their employee, not their boss.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 10:21 am
By: Conservative Voter
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Charles Hickman has been one of the real heroes on the school board. He richly deserves reelection.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 9:49 am
By: Bubba
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The fact that his announcement ignores two big issues in front of the school board, curriculum and the new school construction boondoggle, tells the voters that this dude Garrison is NOT a conservative.
Ever since parents were outraged during Covid when the instruction at home regime allowed them to see the woke crap their kids were getting in the classroom, getting woke out of the curriculum has been the driving issue for conservatives in school boards races across the country, around the state, and here in Beaufort County. The "business as usual" crowd is being kicked to the curb all over the country. Garrison is either a liberal or he is clueless. Then there is the new school construction boondaggle where a series of blunders by the school administration, meekly rubberstamped by a yes-man majority on the school board has created a real mess. It would appear that Garrison wants to join that yes-man majority that considers itself subservient to our liberal and domineering superintendant.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 9:17 am
By: Concerned Taxpayer
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Austin Garrison is a protege and tool of Jody Forrest, the vehemently anti-conservative former vice chairman of Beaufort County GOP. First Forrest tried to run him for the position she was retiring from in the county party. That failed. Now she is trying to run him for the school board because she hates its conservative members whom she tries to badmouth every chance she gets.
Austin Garrison would be just another flunky of Cheeseman. Beaufort County schools have too many of those already.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 7:38 am
By: Rino Hunter
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I happen to know that Charles Hickman is the only school board member that even goes to Snowden. This Garrison dude is spreading false information.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 6:18 am
By: Van Zant
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The public and their Free Press, represented by their elected representatives in open session, have a greater standing to request a freedom of information act for that elusive title search, when their conscientious elected officials, in the minority, are politically shunned by those in the majority acting as a coalition of thoughtless and non representative politicians.
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 5:47 am
By: Stan Deatherage
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Why doesn't someone at the Observer do a freedom of information act request of the school system for all of their records on this school project? They may try to stall you, but they will have to give up those records sometime.
Commented: Thursday, March 27th, 2025 @ 7:20 pm
By: Bubba
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My good Conservative friend, Charles Hickman, is one of my most cherished foxhole buddies, as we both navigate the strange local politics of Beaufort County.
For some unremarkable purpose of incredible opportunity, RINOs, the most committed Beaufort County kind, have gained a significant foothold in local politics, with their pseudo governing style of bipartisan idiocracy. These RINOs, long supported and celebrated by the Beaufort County GOP, are why your taxes will rise here in Beaufort County in this fiscal taxing season, and they are also responsible as to why your children's education in our public schools is foundering, and in great jeopardy. Since I possess a logical mind, I would proffer that supplanting a local man, Charles Hickman, born and raised on the south side of the Pamlico River; of high integrity, with a great understanding of the wise projected prudence of a natural elected official, is unwise at this time. When good men and women of Conservative values are abundantly needed, and yet, there are so many Republican interlopers lacking the capacity for local leadership in the political class, we must have good men of high merit like my good friend, Charles Hickman. I will support Beaufort County School Board member Charles Hickman with great vigor, and abject sincerity just as long as I keep the Conservative responsibility of high purpose to do so; including, and up until the last moment, I draw the good breath to offer my significant strength to do so
Commented: Friday, March 28th, 2025 @ 5:25 am
By: Stan Deatherage
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These judges did nothing to stop Biden's rampant abuse of our immigration laws to let Tren de Aragua into our country through his open border or to stop MS13 from bringing in lots of new gangsters, often as "unaccompanied minors" across that lawless open border. Now they want to stop President Trump from using a law duly passed by Congress, used by four presidents in the 20th century, and approved by the US Supreme Court in 1948 to kick them out. That is just unacceptable.
Commented: Thursday, March 27th, 2025 @ 8:50 pm
By: Rino Hunter
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Washingtonian: Would you prefer that I lie to you?
Commented: Thursday, March 27th, 2025 @ 6:57 pm
By: Stan Deatherage
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That is a very strange response Stan.
Commented: Thursday, March 27th, 2025 @ 6:18 pm
By: Washingtonian
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The title search problem is really an out-of-town attorney problem. Normally, in a government development project of this size, government attorneys ride herd on these things, including title searches. However, with an out of town attorney, two hours away each direction, it appears that the central office staff tried to play attorney and substitute for a real attorney, and this fiasco on the four acres is the result. It took $250,000 that could have been used for other things out of the school budget as well as setting county taxpayers back another $250,000 out of the county budget.
Practicing law without a license is a criminal offense in North Carolina, and screwups by unlicensed persons like this is the reason why. Maybe the school system is stonewalling because someone may have some criminal liability in this disaster. Those four commissioners are in full coverup mode. If there had been a legiitimate professional title search done in a timely manner, they would have no reason not to provide it. The fact that they are stonewalling speaks volumes by itself. Most school boards have local attorneys engaged as their school board attorney. In Beaufort County's case, the superintendant convinced them to hire someone who is part of the state education establishment. He may see that as protection for him over public demands on curriculum, but it has screwed the school board, the county, and the tazpayers on the bumgling of this school project. This boondoggle ought to wake up a majority of the school board to the fact that we need someone local as our school board attorney.
Commented: Thursday, March 27th, 2025 @ 6:22 pm
By: John Steed
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