Starling looks to unseat fellow Republican
By Matt Shaw
Published in News on May 28, 2004 2:00 PM
Willie Ray Starling hopes to unseat N.C. Rep. Steven LaRoque of Kinston in a Republican primary.
Starling, of Mount Olive, waited until the last minute before filing for the N.C. House of Representative's 10th District seat. He and LaRoque will face off July 20. The district includes all of Greene County and parts of Wayne and Lenoir.
Starling was motivated to run by LaRoque's support in 2003 for new state revenues, he said.
"We need legislators who will be true to their word, and Rep. LaRoque stopped being that type of leader when he broke his pledge not to raise taxes," Starling said.
"Spending in North Carolina is out of control as evidenced by the more than $1 billion in fraud, abuse and mismanagement of the state's Medicaid program. We need an aggressive statewide effort to identify and cut wasteful spending," he continued.
"That daunting task will only be accomplished by common-sense legislators who care more about restoring good stewardship to tax dollar spending than about which special interest feathers they may ruffle in the process," he said.
Starling has run twice before for the N.C. House. Born in Faison, Starling, 63, retired from the U.S. Department of Defense in 1993 while serving as Chief Sustaining Base Division, Deputy Chief of Staff for Information Management, U.S. Army Special Operations Command with a Special Operations top secret security clearance.
He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science. He is a member of the Wayne County Republican Executive Committee and serves as senior steward of Mount Olive's Masonic Lodge. He is an active member of Harvest Baptist Church.
He has been married for 23 years, has five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The 10th District includes parts of these Wayne County precincts: New Hope Friends Church (#14), Spring Creek High School (#15), Dudley Fire Department (#26), and Indian Springs Fire Department (#28).