Bowden sworn in as clerk to board of commissioners
By Steve Herring
Published in News on January 10, 2017 10:03 AM
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News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
Carol Bowden, left, takes the oath of office as the new clerk to the Wayne County Board of Commissioners. Holding the Bible is her husband, David.
Carol Bowden, 54, has been sworn in as the new clerk to the Wayne County Board of Commissioners.
Mrs. Bowden takes the place of Marcia Wilson who recently retired after 26 years with the county.
Mrs. Bowden, a Goldsboro native, said she is an Air Force "brat," but has lived most of her life in Goldsboro.
She has also lived in Okinawa, Japan, and in California thanks to the Air Force, she said.
Mrs. Bowden said she moved back to Goldsboro in 1971 and has pretty much been in Goldsboro ever since.
She is a 1980 graduate of Eastern Wayne High School and attended Wayne Community College and N.C. State University.
"A lot of people kind of forgot because I got so tied in the broadcasting world that I actually came from an administrative background," she said. "I worked for Lane Corp., which included Lane Tree Golf Club, for over 15 years and was chief financial officer when I left. I ran three different companies under the parent company.
"I left there because of a divorce. Most people know that. I stayed on after the divorce for a little bit more than a year, but is was not something that the owner was going to let me stay at permanently."
Mrs. Bowden said she made a decision then to look elsewhere and had an offer to work for a radio station in sales.
"I thought that might be interesting, might be fun," she said. "As they say, the rest is history. I was asked to fill in for someone who was on the air. Then I became a co-host and then became the news director. I still managed to do sales. I was the top salesperson for four years.
"I really enjoyed what I did and then worked my way up through sales management and sometimes I guess during an interim they put some general management responsibilities on me."
After a little more than nine years in radio Mrs. Bowden said she needed to do something different and to get back to what she really loved doing.
"That is when the opportunity came up to interview for clerk to the board," she said. "I love my county and my city. I have worked so well with commissioners over the years as well as many of the departments heads that I am now working with on a daily basis.
"Just having an opportunity to do that after getting to know them over the years from the other side is just a tremendous honor."
Mrs. Bowden said her biggest challenge has been to slow her brain down because working in the media is an around-the-clock profession.
"For the better part of nine years I never stopped thinking, doing whether it was weather or some incident throughout the county or just something going on -- you were just constantly thinking," she said. "And now I am blessed to be able to go home and relax and watch a show and stay up until 10 o'clock at night.
"As my husband (David Bowden) said, he gets his wife back. You could be sitting at home and get a phone call of something going on and it could be 11 o'clock at night (to cover as a reporter). Things like that have been a bigger challenge for me to realize it is OK to relax."
Her last day at the radio station was Nov. 30, and she began work for the county Dec. 1. She trained for a month under Ms. Wilson.
As clerk, Mrs. Bowden said she will be responsible for recording history.
Other duties include performing research for the board, preparing a variety of detailed reports, resolutions, proclamations, legal notices and others.
The clerk schedules and coordinates meetings for commissioners and other officials as needed.
The clerk is also responsible for the county seal and retention of official records including minutes, records of county-appointed boards and committees, resolutions, contracts, agreements and leases.
"There is so much to learn, and this job is so very important because you are recording history," she said. "I take that really seriously and being sworn in was just such a great honor."
Don't expect to see much in the way of changes in how the office operates, she said.
"There might be some changes along the way," she said.
For example, commissioners arrive early on meeting days Ms. Wilson always made sure biscuits were available for them.
"So probably the biggest change is they want a different venue of where their biscuits come from," she said. "It is funny because the very first day I had that responsibility on my shoulders after Marcia retired that was their first big request -- to get biscuits from somewhere else.
"Having the opportunity to work for these commissioners and these amazing county employees that we have, I just can't imagine it being any better."