Steven Rader files for School Board District 6 | Eastern NC Now

Press Release:

    WASHINGTON     Beaufort County Board of Education District 6 member Steven P. Rader has filed for election to another term on the board. He is a resident of Washington, residing on Harvey Street in the city's Historic District.

    "My goals are to enhance the learning experience in our schools, maintain a safe and secure environment for students, teachers, and staff, and to emphasize eastern North Carolina values instead of the "woke" agenda in our curriculum," Rader pledged. "My background in government, in law, and in education give me the skill set to continue to be an effective board member to help achieve those goals, and I am a firm believer in local control of local schools."

    "On curriculum issues, I have already successfully spearheaded revisions of our curriculum process to eliminate DEI and radical gender ideology, and to enhance the board's role in curriculum review and adoption," he related. "I strongly believe that students should be taught how to think, not what to think, and to that end I am currently working to see that all sides of controversial topics are included in our curriculum so that students can make up their own minds."

    Prior to joining the Beaufort County Board of Education, Rader has held a number of positions in state and local government, beginning with a term on the City of Washington's Human Relations Council in the early 1980s . During the administration of Governor Jim Martin, he served for five years in high level management and legal positions in the Department of Health and Human Services, the state government department that had the most education-related programs other than DPI. The department was the largest in state government, with 18,000 employees and a $2 Billion budget. Rader served as its General Counsel (chief lawyer) and a member of its management team.

    Rader was also appointed by Governor Martin as North Carolina commissioner to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, on which he served for eight years. That body negotiates among states proposed uniform laws such as the Uniform Commercial Code and the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. He served on the review committee for amendments to the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of [child] Support Act.

    After the end of the Martin administration, Rader was appointed by NC House Speaker Harold Brubaker to the North Carolina Rules Review Commission, and was subsequently elected by its members as its vice chairman. The commission reviews and approves the administrative rules adopted by state government departments and agencies. He was also elected in the 2000 presidential election as a Presidential Elector from North Carolina and member of the United States Electoral College.

    Rader has also held many offices in the North Carolina Republican Party, serving four years as Beaufort County Republican Party chairman, seven years as First Congressional District Republican chairman, and six years as a state Republican Party officer, as well as over 40 years as a member of the NC state Republican executive committee. He has been inducted into the North Carolina Republican Party Hall of Fame.

    "One of my inspirations for my interest in education was my great-grandfather William Cornelius Crisp, who my mother spoke of frequently as I was growing up," Rader related. "Crisp got into the education field as a teacher in the 1860s and served as teacher or headmaster in schools in Caldwell County and the city of Lenoir until the 1920s, when he was in his 80s. He inspired his elder daughter, my grandmother, to follow him into teaching."

    "My wife's family was also heavily involved in education," Rader continued, "Her father and mother both made a career in education, her mother as a French teacher, and her father as a math teacher. Her father was the author of two middle school level math textbooks which were published and finished his career as a school superintendent."

    Rader's own teaching experience was in serving as a part time instructor at Beaufort County Community College teaching a Political Science course in State and Local Government. He also ran training seminars for newly elected local government officials in the Republic of Moldova.

    A graduate of Duke University with a BA in Political Science and of Wake Forest University Law /School with a JD in Law, Rader passed the Bar in 1978 and began practicing law with the Washington firm of Wilkinson and Vorsburgh as an associate attorney the same year. He later went into solo practice before joining the Martin administration. After the end of the administration, Rader joined the new law firm of Wilkinson and Rader as its managing partner. In 2007, he was recruited by the International Republican Institute to serve as its Resident Country Director in the Republic of Moldova.

    When Rader arrived in Moldova, it had the last remaining Communist government in Europe, and IRI was working with the pro-western parties to try to change that. The effort was successful in the July 2009 parliamentary election, and Rader's role expanded from party building and political advice into a broader role in assisting with governance. That included a major project working in cooperation with the new Moldovan government to tackle corruption within the country's bureaucracy. Rader was also one of two foreign citizens who were among those appointed by the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Moldova to its Working Group on Political Party Finance Reform.

    After the completion of IRI's project in Moldova, Rader returned to the United States at the end of 2012. He was called back, however, to head a project funded by the US Department of State's FFF program related to the 2014 parliamentary election in Moldova. Rader has since been involved in political consulting as well as a part time practitioner of law.

    Rader is married to Victoria Rolinsky Rader, and they have one son, Tudor, and one grandson who is a student at the Early College High School of Beaufort County Schools.


   Contact: Steve Rader
   Phone: (252) 940-8702