ROANOKE RAPIDS — Wednesday, Dec. 9, will mark a significant change for the city of Roanoke Rapids. The sun will rise for the first time in 50 years over a city not being served in some official capacity by Drewery Beale.

Roger Bell | The Daily Herald Outgoing Mayor of Roanoke Rapids Drewery Beale works in the woodshop at his home. Beale’s life of official public service to Roanoke Rapids, which began in 1959, ends Tuesday. Advertisement

 It began in 1959 after Beale got out of the U.S. Air Force. He’d been born and raised in Roanoke Rapids and returned following his military service. He joined the city police department. Eight years later, he was chief of police. In 1998, he retired as police chief and became a member of City Council. He’s been mayor of Roanoke Rapids for the past seven years.

 “I’ve seen a lot of changes and I’ve been involved in a lot of things no other mayor has been involved in,” Beale says. “It’s been a roller coaster ride.”

“We did bring some jobs to the community through Premier Landing,” Beale says when asked what he’s most proud of in his decades of service. “I’m proud of the (Roanoke Rapids Theatre) too, and proud of being able to obtain and provide funds for the Canal Museum.”

Beale is also proud of the fact he managed to get city employees a Christmas bonus in these tough economic times, and he and his fellow outgoing councilmates Ed Deese and Jon Baker helped raise the city’s fund balance — a cash reserve for city operating expenses — to $2 million.

 You would think a man who’d served so long might feel bitterly toward the issue, which swept him from office — the Roanoke Rapids Theatre. However, Beale steadfastly believes the theater will turn out to be an asset to the city.

 “The entire city council went into that project (the theater) with all hopes it would develop like it was supposed to develop,” Beale recalls.

 “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We were trying to do things to get people’s interest up and it just didn’t work.”

“When Randy (Parton) went out, if we had just gotten a strong theater manager to run it we probably would have been OK.” Beale adds monetary concerns at the time prevented the hiring of a manager specifically for the theater. “I have no regrets about the project,” Beale contends. “I would do it again and I believe it will succeed.”

The outgoing mayor feels keenly aware this issue might very well have ended his decades of official service to the city. “The election’s over,” he says.

 “The people spoke; it was evident they were dissatisfied with the way it (the theater) was handled and they showed it at the polls.”

As for his aspirations for the city, Beale remains consistent. “They are the same I’ve always had,” he insists. “I want to see this community prosper with jobs coming to us and I believe those things will happen. We’ve got the best economic development director we’ve ever had and I think time will prove that to be the case.”

Though he’s leaving office, Beale still is thinking of the taxpayers. “I would like to see something develop where we have an additional source of income not on the backs of the taxpayers.”

With such a long term of service behind him, Beale’s schedule will lighten up some, but he still has plenty to fill his plate. He and his wife own 20 rental properties, “there’s always something to do with those,” Beale says.

 He also has a well-equipped woodworking shop where he makes some of his own furniture and creates items for his rental properties. “I do most of the woodworking myself,” he states.

 Additionally, Beale has other service-related things to do. “I enjoy being on the hospital board,” he says. Beale also serves on the North Carolina Training and Standards Board in Raleigh, a body overseeing law enforcement activity in the state. The outgoing mayor also continues to serve on the Northeast Commission.

 With so much behind him, Beale doesn’t find it easy to pick highlights from his service to the city. But when he does, they are all from his time as police chief.

 “One of the highlights was when we had a terrible crime,” Beale recalls.

 That crime was the kidnapping and murder of James and Shirley Shary, taken from a grocery store parking lot. “It took us three years to solve that case.”

Beale also cites the night he went to the “sewing facility on 11th Street” and removed Crystal Jordan, a friend of his since high school, from a table where she was leading a call for a union at the shop. The moment was immortalized in the movie “Norma Rae.”

“We ended up confining her that night,” Beale remembers. “I knew Crystal.

 When the union started here, it split families.”

Beale also considers being sent to the FBI Academy in 1972 to be a career highlight. “I was the second person from Halifax County to ever attend that academy,” he says. “To my knowledge there have only been three to this day.”

He still wears his ring from the academy.

 His saddest moment during his time in service also comes from his days as police chief. That came in the early morning hours of May 10, 1977, when Beale had to give the worst news he had to give.

 “I had to tell Son Vaughn’s widow he had been shot on the job and wasn’t coming home the next morning,” Beale recalls.

 Lt. Willard “Son” Vaughn of the Roanoke Rapids Police Department was 64 at the time of his murder; he was three months from retirement. His killer, Lawrence Easter, is serving a life sentence, and Beale has worked to prevent Easter’s parole every time the issue has arisen.

 “Thanks to the efforts of myself and (Vaughn’s) niece Joyce Gibson, that man (Easter) remains in prison now,” Beale says.

 Beale has high hopes and best wishes for those now charged with the city’s future. “I wish the new council members and mayor well and I’m sure they will act in the best interests of the city.”

His term of service is ending, but Beale will always care about the city, and he’ll feel proud to have served. “I had a good tenure,” he says. “I have no regrets.”