Dear Editor,
For several months, I have listened to rumors, gossip, half-truths, and read newspaper articles concerning my husband, the FORMER MAYOR of GRAHAM, and our son, Ryan.
“Thank God! A blessing in disguise!”
I ask myself, “What would Jesus do?” He says to turn the other cheek, pray for your enemies and those who spitefully use you!! My cheek feels like bloody cubed steak, and I have prayed, but the way I feel in my heart about some of this I’m sure they haven’t gone to the ceiling. Lonnie has been elected four times as mayor by the people. Every election he has had the same opponents. Needless to say, they have been unable to beat Lonnie. If you can’t beat a guy at the polls…go another route…so that’s what they did. Start spreading rumors and lining up lots of help from some more of their associates. From the very first council meeting in January of this year, some of the council members, namely Lee Bass, John Fogarty and Jessie Conaway, started chewing on Lonnie’s butt. It didn’t matter what Lonnie said they were against it. Their only agenda was getting rid of Lonnie. They hired a city attorney, this one happens to be cousins to one of Lonnie’s former opponents. How convenient!
Lonnie didn’t have a snowball’s chance in purgatory. At any given time, you could ride by some of his opponent’s houses and there they would be - Pit Bulls – some of the council members plotting, looking, and scheming for their next move. I believe Fogarty stays at one of their houses more than he does his own house. I always honk my horn at them. You know the old bumper sticker, Honk if you love Jesus. I love Jesus, but they make it hard to love them. Lonnie has had three major strokes and in January and February of this year he was taking radiation for prostate cancer all the while these fine citizens were attacking a sick man. They prevailed and he has been thrown out as the Mayor. THANK GOD!! A BLESSING IN DISGUISE!
This John Fogarty is a transplant from Florida. According to The Florida Times-Union and I quote “He is not your typical chief municipal executive. He prefers t-shirts, jeans, etc,” end of quote. That was an understatement…I won’t elaborate.
Now I ask the question, do elected officials have to pass a drug test? I’m afraid if they do, we may have a whole lot less elected officials. I would like to see elected officials have to take one. If they did, we may have to have a special election for some seats besides the mayor’s!
Now, let’s talk about our water system. Fogarty talked about how Lonnie had done this and that, how you could water your big gardens, fill up your swimming pools, etc. What he failed to mention in his interview was that some council members had not paid their water bills in years, not months, but years!! Fogarty said that was to make voters happy. There were lots of voters who had not paid their water bills, and trust me they were not all Lonnie Crosby supporters. They implied that Lonnie had something to do with city hall burning, that he was trying to cover up financial records. Sounds like to me, they may have been glad those financial records burned.
If I had been mayor, there would have been a lot of nasty and thirsty folks, but Lonnie being the old good guy he is, he wasn’t too good at collections. All I can say is the present elected officials have their work cut out for them. Good luck!
Even when we ran our small grocery store for 30-plus years, we lost lots of dollars because people would tell him sad situations and he would feel sympathy for them. He was and still is good to the people of Graham, and they are good to him. I would dare to say, if he ran for mayor, he would win again. Maybe now that Lonnie has been thrown out, his opponents may have chance to realize their long lost dream, to be Mayor, but not by my vote!
Now, they also trash our son, calling him a convicted felon every time they write their articles. Now does everybody understand, Ryan Crosby is a convicted felon? I come from a long line of convicts, but I love each of them! It’s a family tradition. Remember the old song? The only reason some of them and their sons and daughters and family members are not convicted felons is because they haven’t been caught yet? Or either, they are snitches or as the law calls them “Confidential Informants”. They need to be careful. Their names may be in the newspaper next.
The city attorney and the council members had plenty of time from February until city hall burned in April to look at all the financial records they wanted to. So that rumor about Lonnie having city hall burned to destroy financial records, trust me, Lonnie nor our son has not destroyed anything at city hall.
Now, some of these folks who trash Lonnie and our son, they have their Saturday night parties, get drunk, smoke their dope, do drugs whether it be prescription or street drugs, commit adultery, fornicate, and other lewdness.
Where are we come Sunday morning? We grace the pews of our local churches. We act so righteous. Some of us are deacons, Sunday school teachers; sing in the choir, lead youth groups and some of us just warm a pew.
The preacher preaches and we get under conviction, I hope. We whisper a little prayer that we are going to try to be more like Jesus. But then come Monday morning, we are down at our local convenient stores, on the corner, on the phones, at Wal-Mart or the mill, and at the work place trashing our neighbors, friends and elected officials. At least Lonnie and our son are not pretending to be something they are not!
Now where is the former mayor? He is sitting under his big oak tree watching the cars go by and minding his own business. He certainly is not gossiping about his neighbors and friends. He leaves that to me. He may have done a lot of things, but gossiping is not one of them.
Neither do I believe he is a crook or a thief. Has he done everything right? Certainly not! Lots of these rumors and lies have been nothing more than politically motivated. Like I already said, when you can’t beat a guy at the polls then go another route and trash them all you can!
I’ll close by asking, “Do you remember the old song where the ill reputed woman addresses the Harper Valley PTA?” I think that those who trash Lonnie and our son are a bunch of Harper Valley (Graham) hypocrites.
I know this is not what Jesus would do. But forgive me, Lord. It has been very therapeutic for me to get it off my chest.
The former mayor’s wife,
Beverly Crosby
Lonnie didn’t have a snowball’s chance in purgatory. At any given time, you could ride by some of his opponent’s houses and there they would be - Pit Bulls – some of the council members plotting, looking, and scheming for their next move. I believe Fogarty stays at one of their houses more than he does his own house. I always honk my horn at them. You know the old bumper sticker, Honk if you love Jesus. I love Jesus, but they make it hard to love them. Lonnie has had three major strokes and in January and February of this year he was taking radiation for prostate cancer all the while these fine citizens were attacking a sick man. They prevailed and he has been thrown out as the Mayor. THANK GOD!! A BLESSING IN DISGUISE!
This John Fogarty is a transplant from Florida. According to The Florida Times-Union and I quote “He is not your typical chief municipal executive. He prefers t-shirts, jeans, etc,” end of quote. That was an understatement…I won’t elaborate.
Now I ask the question, do elected officials have to pass a drug test? I’m afraid if they do, we may have a whole lot less elected officials. I would like to see elected officials have to take one. If they did, we may have to have a special election for some seats besides the mayor’s!
Now, let’s talk about our water system. Fogarty talked about how Lonnie had done this and that, how you could water your big gardens, fill up your swimming pools, etc. What he failed to mention in his interview was that some council members had not paid their water bills in years, not months, but years!! Fogarty said that was to make voters happy. There were lots of voters who had not paid their water bills, and trust me they were not all Lonnie Crosby supporters. They implied that Lonnie had something to do with city hall burning, that he was trying to cover up financial records. Sounds like to me, they may have been glad those financial records burned.
If I had been mayor, there would have been a lot of nasty and thirsty folks, but Lonnie being the old good guy he is, he wasn’t too good at collections. All I can say is the present elected officials have their work cut out for them. Good luck!
Even when we ran our small grocery store for 30-plus years, we lost lots of dollars because people would tell him sad situations and he would feel sympathy for them. He was and still is good to the people of Graham, and they are good to him. I would dare to say, if he ran for mayor, he would win again. Maybe now that Lonnie has been thrown out, his opponents may have chance to realize their long lost dream, to be Mayor, but not by my vote!
Now, they also trash our son, calling him a convicted felon every time they write their articles. Now does everybody understand, Ryan Crosby is a convicted felon? I come from a long line of convicts, but I love each of them! It’s a family tradition. Remember the old song? The only reason some of them and their sons and daughters and family members are not convicted felons is because they haven’t been caught yet? Or either, they are snitches or as the law calls them “Confidential Informants”. They need to be careful. Their names may be in the newspaper next.
The city attorney and the council members had plenty of time from February until city hall burned in April to look at all the financial records they wanted to. So that rumor about Lonnie having city hall burned to destroy financial records, trust me, Lonnie nor our son has not destroyed anything at city hall.
Now, some of these folks who trash Lonnie and our son, they have their Saturday night parties, get drunk, smoke their dope, do drugs whether it be prescription or street drugs, commit adultery, fornicate, and other lewdness.
Where are we come Sunday morning? We grace the pews of our local churches. We act so righteous. Some of us are deacons, Sunday school teachers; sing in the choir, lead youth groups and some of us just warm a pew.
The preacher preaches and we get under conviction, I hope. We whisper a little prayer that we are going to try to be more like Jesus. But then come Monday morning, we are down at our local convenient stores, on the corner, on the phones, at Wal-Mart or the mill, and at the work place trashing our neighbors, friends and elected officials. At least Lonnie and our son are not pretending to be something they are not!
Now where is the former mayor? He is sitting under his big oak tree watching the cars go by and minding his own business. He certainly is not gossiping about his neighbors and friends. He leaves that to me. He may have done a lot of things, but gossiping is not one of them.
Neither do I believe he is a crook or a thief. Has he done everything right? Certainly not! Lots of these rumors and lies have been nothing more than politically motivated. Like I already said, when you can’t beat a guy at the polls then go another route and trash them all you can!
I’ll close by asking, “Do you remember the old song where the ill reputed woman addresses the Harper Valley PTA?” I think that those who trash Lonnie and our son are a bunch of Harper Valley (Graham) hypocrites.
I know this is not what Jesus would do. But forgive me, Lord. It has been very therapeutic for me to get it off my chest.
The former mayor’s wife,
Beverly Crosby
Loving and forgiving others IS a virtue, true, but I really hope this is meant as sarcasm, because it seems to me that you pride being a convicted criminal above telling the truth - or as you call it, "snitch[ing]".
Second, back to me being known for trouble, I was in Graham one night in a place I should not had been and ended up shot! I drove to you guy's country store, Mr. Lonnie immediately took me inside and started taking care of me. I thought for sure he was going to be mad at me because I was bleeding all over the store. Mr. Lonnie never said a word about even though I kept apologizing he told me to quit being silly and held my hand till the police arrived! For that I will have a place in my heart for Mr. Lonnie, He treated people the way he wanted to be treated and it rubbed off on your wonderful daughter. God bless
Joshua Reagin
US ARMY,Kunar Provence, Afghanistan