ROCKWELL — Write-in candidate Bobby Moore put up one sign for the Rockwell alderman race.
But the measure drew 42 votes for Moore, enough for the fifth seat in an election with 8.5 percent voter turnout in Rockwell Tuesday night.
The other four candidates — Chuck Bowman, Bill Earnhardt, Chris Stiller and Charles Wingerson — were elected to the board. Mayor Beau Taylor ran unopposed and was re-elected to the top seat.
When reached by phone Tuesday night, Moore said he was surprised by the results.
“People were talking for me, spreading the word around,” he said. “I put one sign down at the polls today. I wasn’t expected a whole lot of votes.”
Moore, 72, is a member of the Rockwell planning board and said he grew interested in the fifth seat after only four candidates filed.
“I seen that they didn’t have enough people to cover all the seats and nobody else was coming forward,” Moore said, “I figured the civic duty would be to see if I could fulfill the seats even if I didn’t get a lot of votes.”
Moore is a graduate of the former China Grove High School and retired from Duke Energy after 30 years. He and his wife Diane have been married for 49 years and have one son, Eric. They attend Sloan Lake Community Church on Old Concord Road.
Moore said his top priorities coming into the board will be to boost job growth in the town.
“I’d like to see Rockwell increase factory jobs. We need more factories down here to get more people employed and kind of boost the economy up,” he said.
Moore said he’s also interested in focusing more attention to the safety of Rockwell’s roadways, citing some examples of hard-to-see turns in downtown areas and around Rockwell Elementary.
According to the unofficial results, the votes were:
• Charles Wingerson, 106 votes, 22.08 percent
• Chuck Bowman, 105 votes, 21.88 percent
• Bill Earnhardt, 90 votes, 18.75 percent
• Chris Stiller, 84 votes, 17.50 percent
Contact reporter Nathan Hardin at 704-797-4246.