| |
| Jessica Hines| The
Appalachian |
| Freshman political science major
Alan M. Teitleman and junior history major Sarah
M. Craig listen to Senate hopeful Virginia Foxx
at the College Republican meeting last Wednesday
in Whitener Hall. |
North Carolina state Senator Virginia Foxx visited the College
Republicans last Wednesday night, a few months before she
is set to officially run for Congress in 2004.
“I’m always happy to come to Appalachian,”
she said.
The stop at Appalachian State University was not part of
any college tour, she said.
Foxx said the focus of her 2004 Congress campaign is to get
people to understand that she is: “the most experienced,
most conservative person running for this seat.”
Foxx refuted claims that she has a negative attitude toward
Appalachian, claims that have, in turn, caused some negative
student attitudes toward her.
Foxx said she believes such thoughts rose due to disagreements
she had with former Appalachian Chancellor Francis T. Borkowski
while she was teaching at Appalachian.
“I would tell you that I have an extremely positive
attitude towards Appalachian,” she said.
“I disagreed … over the building of the Convocation
Center,” Foxx said. “We [had] $11 million worth
of repairs that needed to be done. We [were] doing them a
million dollars at a time.”
“That got translated into people saying I’m anti-Appalachian,”
she said.
“The other disagreements I had with the chancellor
has to do with the apartments out on Highway 105,”
she said.
Foxx said Appalachian State asked a private company to build
apartments that the university would own, and she felt the
school should not have competed with private business.
Foxx also shared her political history.
Foxx was a student at Appalachian State in 1962-1963. She
transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill after she married a student who was in attendance there,
she said.
Foxx said she came back to the university in 1972 after receiving
her master's from UNC-CH and worked at Appalachian until
1985.
She took a two-year leave of absence to work for North Carolina
governor James G. Martin and returned in 1987 to teach part-time.
After leaving Appalachian State, Foxx went to become president
of Mayland Community College.
She was asked to run for the state Senate by the Republican
Party in 1994. Foxx said after she and her husband had thought
and prayed about it, she decided to run.
College Republican members said they were glad Foxx had come,
even if some did not agree with her ideas.
“Obviously, a group of people are not all going to
agree, and not everyone will always agree,” Jamie D.
Argetsinger, a junior political science major and member
of the College Republicans, said.
“We don’t always get to hear a conservative voice
on campus, especially on this campus,” Argetsinger
said.
“We really want to promote diversity and different
opinions on campus,” College Republicans president
Justin W. Moore said. “Not all republicans agree with
Virginia, but we’re going to bring other candidates
here, too.”
Foxx spoke earlier that day to the “Students for Foxx”
organization in Walker Hall. |
