MILL BRIDGE — N.C. House Speaker Jim Black of Charlotte traveled to Rowan County Thursday evening to serve as chief arm-twister.

But the arm of Lorene Coates didn’t take much twisting.

Coates confirmed at the annual Rowan County Democratic picnic Thursday that she’ll be a candidate for the N.C. House’s 35th District, a seat held since 1985 by Republican Charlotte Gardner. Black had heard rumblings to that effect, and he called on Coates to make it official.

“If I don’t step up, if good people don’t step up, who will?” Coates said later. “I’ll give it a good shot.”

Coates retired in March 1998 as district director of Rowan County’s Farm Service Agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that also was known as the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service. She had worked with farmers for 42 years and expressed concern Thursday night that agriculture hasn’t had a strong voice in Raleigh.

Coates’ other concerns include the Yadkin River — protecting it as a water supply — and farmland preservation.

“Are we going to pave over all of our land?” she asked.

On schools, Coates said good teachers have deserved the increased salaries, but the state also has to hold teachers and schools accountable in return.

Earlier this year, Coates had told her Franklin precinct members that she would be a House candidate in 2000. Coates managed the Rowan Democratic headquarters in 1998.

“I did that to learn a lot of people,” she said.

Black said a Democrat from Rowan County could hold a meaningful position in the N.C. House.

“This ought to be a Democratic House seat,” Black told the party picnickers at Sloan Park. “Not only do you have a good senator (Jim Phillips of Lexington), you need a good House member.”

Black’s wife, Betty, grew up in Landis. And Harry Hall of Rowan County is Black’s brother-in-law. Through the years, Black said, he has heard of the problems facing farmers through Hall.

Besides her decades of working with farmers, Coates said she was raised and worked on a farm.

“I’m going to work real hard,” she promised the Democrats. “With your help, I think we can take back this seat.”

Other picnic guests Thursday included Phillips, now in his second term in the N.C. Senate; Ed Wilson, a candidate for lieutenant governor from Rockingham County; Mike Sullivan, regional representative for U.S. Sen. John Edwards; Don Baker and Morgan Jackson, aides to U.S. Rep. Mel Watt; Clerk of Court Jeff Barger; Register of Deeds Bobbie Earnhardt; and Leda Shuping Belk, who also promised to run again for the Rowan County Board of Commissioners.

Belk criticized the all-Republican Board of Commissioners for its recent reaction to Iredell County’s presentation of a bill for $127,000 as Rowan’s 30 percent share of dam improvements for the Third Creek Watershed Project.

“For them (Iredell officials) to be treated with a lack of respect and dignity — that really reflects on us,” Belk said.

Rowan Democratic Chairman Hall Steele said the watershed project was built to control flooding so that more bottomland could be farmed.

“We need to live up to our obligation,” Steele said.

Belk, defeated in her bid for county commissioner in 1998, said she hopes Rowan voters remember the recent property revaluation, their higher taxes and “what they’re not getting for their tax dollars” when the 2000 election comes.

Sullivan reported that Edwards will be in Salisbury at 3 p.m. next Thursday at the Hefner VA Medical Center.