RSS
|
Jacqueline Hough | The Daily Herald After 38 years of service to the town of Seaboard, Mayor Melvin F. Broadnax will retire in December. Broadnax said he is looking forward to traveling with his wife of 54 years. |
He made 5 cents a shine. “Sometimes on the weekends, I would make $4,” he said. “It motivated me to move up and do something different.”
A retired educator, Broadnax has always believed in giving back to his community and said the late Martin Luther King Jr. was his inspiration. So in 1971, he decided to run for town commissioner.
“I wanted to make my community a better place to live and work,” he said. “A town is no better than the people who live in it.”
He added he truly believes in service to others regardless of their position in life. “You don’t take nothing with you when you die,” he said. “You won’t see a U-Haul behind an ambulance so you must give back.”
Broadnax announced earlier this year he would not seek re-election after 38 years of service to the town. “I feel I have made the progress I intended when I started out being the mayor,” he said.
On Saturday, Nov. 21 from 2 to 4 p.m., the town will honor Broadnax with an event at the Lions Club in Seaboard.
He started his political career with concerns about health care. “The body we have, we have to take care of it.”
In 1974, he and other concerned citizens brought health care services to Northampton County. They started with two providers. In January of this year, the Rural Health Group held a dedication ceremony for the Melvin F. Broadnax Health Center in Jackson. “I felt very good and honored,” he said. “A lot of people living in rural areas need healthcare.”
Born in Northampton County, he is the son of the late Curlear and Henry Broadnax Sr. He received his undergraduate degree from Shaw University and his master’s in Science Education from North Carolina A&T University.
He retired from the Northampton County School System in 1986 after 30 years of teaching science and math.
He has been married to Ruth Bracey Broadnax, a retired educator, for 54 years. They have one daughter, Melvetta Broadnax Taylor, who is a teacher in Northampton County.
“I feel good because she was brought up in a house with two teachers,” he said. “It was exciting to us to have her follow in our footsteps.”
He has a grandson, Ernie Taylor, who is a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“I am so proud of him,” he said. “He is going to be a doctor. I am hoping he will come back and take over the center (in Jackson) and keep my name going.”
He was a town commissioner from 1971 to 1984. He was elected as the first African-American mayor of Seaboard in 1985.
As mayor, he had a goal for more housing in the town. And with his help Seaboard has Southgate with 41 units and Cedargrove, apartments for seniors and handicapped, has 20 units.
Some of Broadnax’s other accomplishments include the town’s water and sewer system and making sure all the streets in the town were paved. He noted Seaboard is the only town in the county that has a subdivision with 110 houses.
Some of his community and civic leadership included serving on the board of trustees of Shaw University for eight years, as chairman and board member of the Northampton County Partnership for Children, president of Weldon-Seaboard Alumni Chapter from 1955-2007, chairman of the Northampton County Education Foundation, chairman of Area L Health Education Center, he received the Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Shaw University and chairman of the Rural Health Group of Directors.
The walls in his office at the Seaboard town hall are filled with pictures and awards he has received through the years. Awards such as the Outstanding Volunteer Service Award by William Easley in 2003 and the Personalities of the South.
Broadnax is a member of the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Seaboard, where he serves on the Deacon board. He said he is proud of how much progress Seaboard has made.
“When I lie down at night, I think about what good I have done during the day,” Broadnax said. “Man was born to serve and not to be served. I don’t care if you are a shoe shine boy, a doctor or a nurse, you are going to have to serve.”
And even though, he is pleased with the town, he knows there are still things to do. “Right now, we are in the process of building a new town hall and police department,” he said.
Longtime town commissioner Bobie Moss has filed for mayor. “I have a good candidate to follow me,” Broadnax said. “He has been well trained by me to be a good mayor.”
Moss has been commissioner for 12 years. He is a mortician and operates the Faison Funeral Home in town.
His plans for retirement are simple. “I need some time for myself,” he said. “We are going to do a lot of traveling.”
Comments