For the past 45 years, Nelson and Georgia Campbell have been a staple in the election process for registered voters in their Lumberton precinct at the Lumberton Church of Christ on West Chance Cut-Off Road.
Nov. 18, the couple was recognized for their many years of service as election workers by the Hardin County Commissioners Court. Larry Woodall invited the couple to the meeting on the pretext of the court accepting the Nov. 5 general election canvas.
“He kind of made it like it was going to be special,” Nelson Campbell remarked. “So, it took us by surprise.”
County Judge Wayne McDaniel presented Nelson and Georgia Campbell each with a Certificate of Appreciation. Jennifer Harris, on behalf or State Senator Robert Nichols’ office, and Sonja Kelley, representing Congressman Brian Babin’s office, presented the couple with certificates recognizing their services.
Woodall, the Precinct 18 chairman, noted that the Campbells have stated they were going to retire for the past several elections; “But, they always show up,” he added. Georgia, he said, takes care of ensuring all ballots are stamped and properly filed – and, she is said to bake the best brownies, which she shares at the polls. Nelson has worked the scanner and corrects problems arising with the ballot scanner.
According to the 91-year-old Nelson Campbell, the couple were election workers in Beaumont, then continued to work elections when they moved to Lumberton in 1979. He said he saw first-hand how Hardin County switched from a mainly Democratic county to now a heavily Republican county. The change, the couple shared, began about the time Billy Caraway, a Democrat, switched to the Republican Party to run for county judge in 1998. Caraway was county judge from 1998 until he retired in 2014.
“When we moved out here, there wasn’t a lot of Republicans,” he laughed. “You could count them on one hand.”
Georgia Campbell, who will be 89 next month, said there were only five registered Republican voters the year they started working Lumberton elections. The couple said that, when they started working elections, all ballots were counted by hand.
The Campbells, still anticipating retiring from poll work, said this was their last election.
“They kind of made us feel bad when they treated us so nice,” laughed Nelson Campbell.
The couple will mark their 50-year wedding anniversary in 2025.