Buice column: Short stint as mayor; fine time at the fair

Published 12:00 am Thursday, October 17, 2019

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Don’t blink or you might miss John Guglielmi’s term as the mayor of Bermuda Run.

A longtime member of the town council, Guglielmi was appointed as mayor of the town in a late August agenda meeting and sat in the big chair for the first time in the September meeting after the premature departure of Ken Rethmeier.

Guglielmi won’t be there for long. Current council member Rick Cross is running unopposed for mayor in the Nov. 5 election, and Guglielmi is one of three candidates for two open spots on the town council.

So in the December meeting, when Cross is sworn in as mayor, Guglielmi will either slide back into his old council seat if he wins re-election or move on.

“I will probably not be the longest term mayor, and it is probably going to be the shortest,” Guglielmi said with a laugh after becoming mayor.

It wasn’t how Guglielmi figured the last part of 2019 would play out when he filed in July to run again for council. Not long after that, Rethmeier, who was closing in on completing his second four-year term, announced he was leaving office earlier than anticipated to relocate closer to his children and grandchildren after his home unexpectedly sold within days of being put on the market.

That created a void that Guglielmi, who was mayor pro tem, was glad to step up and fill.

During the swearing-in ceremony, Judge Jimmy Myers said, “Congratulations or condolences, I’m not sure which one it is,” he joked.

Council members welcomed and thanked him for serving in such a capacity on short notice with councilman Jerry West saying it looked like things were off to good start in that first meeting.

“I had a little bit of a misgiving with a Dookie becoming the mayor,” West, who is a Wake Forest fan, said of his Duke friend. “Given my relationship with John, I’ve very pleased with the way he conducted the meeting this evening.”

Speaking of elections, the Courier will be running Q&As the next couple of weeks for the candidates for mayor and council in Clemmons along with a general preview for the local municipalities just prior to the election.

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It’s been years since I’ve been to the Dixie Classic Fair, but with the beautiful fall weather and an opening in our schedule last week, my wife and I headed to the Winston-Salem Fairgrounds to take it all in again.

We’re glad we did.

The fair is many things to different people, but first on our agenda was the food. This was a day not to be worried about diets.

It took a long time to wade through all the choices, but I ultimately decided on a fried meatloaf sandwich (yum) sold by a local civic group, Grands 2 Grown, and my wife opted for a cheeseburger combo to support the Winston-Salem Police.

Of course, we couldn’t stop at that and ended up taking home eclairs and strawberry cake from a local bakery that set up shop there along with a large bag of kettle corn that had to be two feet long.

Our days of rides and games have passed, but we still enjoy walking through the midway and watching others get turned upside down and being begged to win some game that is probably not in our favor — despite the “everybody’s a winner” plea.

We enjoyed a visit to Yesterday Village and checking out some of the animals (couldn’t believe the size of some of those draft horses — some 2,000-plus pounds), dairy cow milking demonstrations (by machine, not hand), big pumpkins (the exhibit winner was over 1,200 pounds), all the music offerings, fine arts and crafts. … and the list goes on and on.

We even got an added bonus by going to Wake Forest’s football game across the street from the fair on Saturday night and being able to watch the fireworks show — for free.