[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

BILL FINGER:

This is an interview with Zeno Ponder, just outside of Marshall, North Carolina, on March 22, 1974. Mr. Ponder is the titular head of the Democratic party in Madison County, North Carolina. Mr. Ponder, we're discussing North Carolina politics since 1948 and its changes in the state. But you are in a part of the state that is a lot different from Raleigh. The mountain culture is wrapped up into every aspect of things out here—religion, politics, the music—and it is hard to talk about politics without talking about mountain culture in general. In Raleigh you can talk about politics and the elections without talking about the culture in Raleigh sometimes. So the two things I would like to explore is you, your involvement in politics out here and also your views of mountain culture. Because that's influenced the way you look at politics and the activities you've had. I think a good way to begin may be to talk about your roots in the mountains and what kinds of formative things about the mountain culture have affected you.

ZENO PONDER:

Bill, I guess, talking about the roots of things that happened to me and where my roots are in Madison county and the mountains, I'd go back to my heritage, my family. I was one of thirteen children. As a matter of fact I was the thirteenth. My mother didn't give up easily, but when she saw me, that was it. We had one sister and twelve of us boys. We didn't know that we were living in poverty, so we were very happy. I guess there is a great deal of truth in ignorance truly being blissful. Because we just simply didn't know what the outside world was. When I grew up during the 20s

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over across the river west of Marshall, when school was out we worked all summer long. Not once did us children go to the big town of Marshall, just six miles away. We didn't have money to go to the show. Maybe a couple of times a year, special occasions. So I guess poverty really . . . sleeping at the foot of the bed, knowing what its like to eat beans twice a day and cornbread twice a day, to gather your own eggs from the hens' nest, and figure out whether there was enough to give one egg per child the next morning or two eggs per child. Those things motivate you to maybe not want to get cold when you get old. You want to have a little bit of something for security. And if you're built out of the right kind of stuff you want your neighbors to have some of the better things of life.

BILL FINGER:

So your father was a farmer?

ZENO PONDER:

My father was a farmer. He went six weeks to school and immediately after the Civil War. My father was 54 years old when I was born. So I practically didn't get here at all, being the thirteenth child and my father was 54 years of age.

BILL FINGER:

Did he . . . was he a subsistence farmer? Did he plant some tobacco and have a few hens, that kind of thing?

ZENO PONDER:

My father bought 32 acres of land, long before he was married. He didn't marry until he was 34. Batched on this 32 acres of land. And he did do diversified farming. And he owned his own land. He accumulated more land as he went along. When my father died at the age of 87 he owned about 8 or 900 acres of land.

BILL FINGER:

In Madison county?

ZENO PONDER:

In Madison county, all of it, yeh.

BILL FINGER:

So your father's motivation pushed him from the lowest, poorer class of people into the landed, more middle class part of the county.

ZENO PONDER:

Yes, when he died he was in considerable . . . in the upper bracket

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of the economy or economic improvement of Madison county. So he was a product of the Civil War. Born in 1866. His father, Robert Ponder, came home from the Civil War, battle of Chicamauga. Mustered out in Greenville, Tenn. and lived about eighteen months. Died with what was considered then a run down condition. I can imagine a lot of Civil War dysentery and undernourishment and he just couldn't get back on his feet physically.

BILL FINGER:

Was . . . was the family feuds and the Democratic-Republican split a lot of it rooted in the Civil War in the mountain counties. Did that have any influence on your family?

ZENO PONDER:

Well, certainly it had an influence on my family. My father, son of Robert Ponder, was one who fought with the Union, not because of the Democratic-Republican element but because he just did not believe in slavery. My grandmother, bless her heart, I guess she was destitute and being a widow with two children to bring up during that era, I don't fault her, but she married Josh Reams, who was part Indian. And he was a veteran of the southern element. He had fought for slavery and fought with Lee's forces.

BILL FINGER:

This is your . . .

ZENO PONDER:

This is my step grandfather. My father's step father.

BILL FINGER:

Your father's step father.

ZENO PONDER:

Now when my father grew up, of course his mother talked to him about what his father had done. Robert Ponder. Josh Reams, his step father talked to him about what he had done. So there was a woman who had lived and given birth to two sons of the union and, incidentally, she gave birth to two sons of Josh Reams, a Confederate soldier. The political implication as I see it, coming from . . . through my father and on down to the children, was simply that we took the view that we had very little if anything to conserve. We were liberal and the Democratic party was liberal in its views nationally, state and county. So we were for that form of government which would give us a better opportunity to involve ourselves

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and enjoy some of the goods, some of the good things of life.

BILL FINGER:

A lot of the people that were on the union side in the Civil War, they continued in the Republican tradition. Isn't that right?

ZENO PONDER:

Well, its true, and a good many of the people here in Madison county were not, up until the Civil War—they had no roots here in Madison county. They came in from the Piedmont, retreating back into the hills where they were less likely to be picked up and put in prison or put on one side or the other. So they were renegades. They were good people, they just didn't believe in fighting. You know, we had people during Viet Nam what didn't believe in fighting. We had people during the Civil War. We've had them during every war. So Madison county, I guess, was receiving maybe more than our share of people who just didn't believe in fighting, just didn't believe in the cause of the war. And they came here and they stayed after the war. And they were very strong in favor of the union forces. And then to cap the whole thing off I'm sure you've heard about the massacre (Ponder pronounces this massakree) on Laurel. And that was the stronghold of the Republican party—that was up until I became active in politics—Laurel community, five townships over there. And they can still tell you and show you right to the spot where these people were lined up and shot in the back of the head off a poplar log. Because they thought they had raided Marshall and taken some sugar illegally.

BILL FINGER:

These were union sympathizers.

ZENO PONDER:

Yes.

BILL FINGER:

And who shot them. The Civil War, the confederate troops, the militia?

ZENO PONDER:

No. I'm not too familiar with the history. I'm sorry I'm not sure. I can't recall the names. I've read it. A union captain came in and had what appeared from my reading of the articles, different articles, a stump trial you would call it. Very little military trial to it, but he

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lined up and shot these people. Some of them as deserters and some of them because they were corroborating with deserters. Some of them were children, actually 12 or 13 year old boys.

BILL FINGER:

So it was actually the union killed them?

ZENO PONDER:

Yep.

BILL FINGER:

So that heritage is actually very much a part of both families and the way children grow up, whether they end up being in politics or not. But also particularly for politicians.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, actually, Mr. Finger, the politician in my family came in more through my mother than through my father. My mother was a Ramsey, Emma Ramsey. She was the oldest of a family of some eleven children. My mother's father, John Ramsey, was Republican sheriff of Madison county on two different occasions—each a two year term. Her brother, my uncle Chaney Ramsey, who lived here, incidentally, on this same farm that later I bought. It went out of the family at his death and then I bought it back some 25 years later. He was sheriff on two different occasions, each a two year term. And he was a Republican sheriff.

BILL FINGER:

That's your uncle?

ZENO PONDER:

That's right. And my grandfather. They were both sheriffing this county. Both Republican. And little did my grandfather know, I guess, that his grandson—E.Y. Ponder, my brother—would serve 20 years as Democratic sheriff. The second one, the second Democratic sheriff in the history of the county. There was only one before him, for a two year period. That was Mack Burnett. Nobody thought he could be elected. He was plowing corn all day the day of the election. But he got elected. I should say he was plowing for corn. He was plowing the land in the fall of the year for the corn crop.

BILL FINGER:

So your mother's side of the family was really steeped in mountain Republicanism.

ZENO PONDER:

Right.

BILL FINGER:

Whereas your father was less interested in politics than in farming and trying to provide for his 13 kids.

ZENO PONDER:

That's right. He was, had very little interest really in politics and never ran for any office. He voted an independent ticket. He was registered as a Democrat but I know that he supported his brother-in-law, Chaney Ramsey, who was running for sheriff on the Republican ticket. He supported his father-in-law, John Ramsey. He supported Jesse James Bailey. I remember that very well. He signed some documents as a school committeeman at Pleasant View School stating that Jesse James Bailey was a good, forthright young man worthy and capable of being high sheriff in Madison county. So my father was really nonpartisan.

BILL FINGER:

That gives me a good feel then for some of the influences of your parents, both of them, and also the traditions of mountain politics as they affect lots of people. You, you went to high school during the depression? Or was it . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Well, yes I went to high school. I finished in 36. So when I entered high school in 32 it was right at the depth of the depression. And some very interesting memories of things that a good many kids of today just couldn't conceive of. We had no such thing as a lunch room program. My lunch consisted of two biscuits. And part of the time there was ham meat between those two biscuits; part of the time an egg fried between those two biscuits. And occasionally my mother would have enough money to buy sugar and take apple juices, blackberries we would gather, pick, and from these make jellies or jams. But that was our lunch. And I was in style, too. I ate right along with the rest of them. I had just as nice a biscuits as my desk mate did.

BILL FINGER:

Some people probably had less, didn't they?

ZENO PONDER:

Oh sure. In fact I thought my mother did a better job than most

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of those kids mothers. Some of them, they'd bring corn bread and not anything else, you know.

BILL FINGER:

But people did keep going to school. They didn't . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Well, many of us did. We had a lot of drop-outs, I guess, back then. But again, I guess ignorance is bliss. I don't guess anybody kept any records, any data. My brothers and sisters, my one sister, we went regularly to school. Now they did drop out, my brothers and sister did, except for E.Y. before they got through high school. But it was considered a necessity or it was . . . they were sixteen, they were big enough to work, hold down a job, help earn a living. My father was unable to work for that large a family. They had to help him, scratch for themselves.

BILL FINGER:

You hear and you read sometimes that the depression didn't effect the mountains like it did other sections of the country because the mountains were poor and isolated anyway. Was that . . . were you old enough to grasp those kinds of differences or were you just kind of going to school day to day . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Well of course I only know what I have read and I do know what we had in the mountains here in Madison county in particular I know about. 1907. The old cotton mill building was built on the west banks of the French Broad River, Marshall, Tennessee. There was immediately after the building of that building a survey made by the federal congress. Congress sent in men to determine whether or not there was justification for child labor. Or whether in fact the Congress should pass a bill which had been introduced outlawing child labor. And I can take you in a mile of my home here to Annie Baldwin, who married Theodore Collins, who worked in that cotton mill for forty cents a day at the age of nine years old. She worked for me last year, at the age of seventy years of age, and made $25 a day stripping tobacco, unknown tobacco.

BILL FINGER:

How old?

ZENO PONDER:

She's 70—she's 71, I believe, her birthday.

BILL FINGER:

And she stripped tobacco.

ZENO PONDER:

She can sit there and strip tobacco and do more than you and I.

BILL FINGER:

Incredible.

ZENO PONDER:

She's worked hard all her life and she enjoys working. And she doesn't look back on those years with bitterness. She was working at forty cents a day and helping keep body and soul together. And she was one of 21 children. So she came from a large mountain family. So that story to me makes me know that yes, poverty was here long before the Hoover depression, the Hoover panic.

BILL FINGER:

But it did get worse?

ZENO PONDER:

Well, yes. I . . . we had an upsurge in the economy. Maybe they were making a better brand of liquor. [laughter] Anyway, the county people here in Madison did get along pretty good.

BILL FINGER:

That's the next question.

ZENO PONDER:

They got along pretty good in the roaring twenties. Then the crash in 29, the Hoover panic, really did flatten Madison county.

BILL FINGER:

So you graduated in 1936 and then I know that the war was very influential on you. What happened between 36 and . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Well, I was fortunate. A brother older than me was in the war and was injured twice. Battle of the Bulge. Hospitalized for a long period of time. But he recovered and lived a pretty normal life. I went from high school in 1936 to Mars Hill College here in the county. And believe it or not—this is hard one to believe. I was born and reared right over there across on the west side of Marshall. Six miles. You can see the place from here. Back to the right, here, seven miles, is Mars Hill College. And so help me God I had never been to Mars Hill College until my mother took

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me up there and enrolled me in the fall of 1936.

BILL FINGER:

13 miles away.

ZENO PONDER:

13 miles away. And I was all of 15½ years old and I had never been to Mars Hill College. She took me up there and registered me . . .

BILL FINGER:

You were fifteen when you went to college?

ZENO PONDER:

Yes sir. So I attended school there two years. Managed to pass my work. Wasn't easy. I wasn't prepared. Very ill prepared for college. I had two prospective sister-in-laws during my elementary education out at Pleasant View where we had six grades in one room. And these two prospective sister-in-laws had each double promoted me. It wasn't that I was smart. They were each just trying to make real good friends with my brothers. [laughter] So I graduated from Mars Hill College in 38 and from 38 on down to North Carolina State College and graduated from there in 1940 at the age of 19. And still was not old enough to register for World War II even though . . .

BILL FINGER:

You had a college degree.

ZENO PONDER:

. . . had a college degree. I went back and did one full year on my master's degree and still wasn't old enough to register for the draft. I was 20.

BILL FINGER:

Well your mother must have had an incredible influence on pushing her children to go on with their education. Where did that . . .

ZENO PONDER:

My mother had one of the most dogged determinations of any person I've ever known. She was sweet, she was wonderful, she was good to me. And some of the things that I knew basically that she believed in . . . I didn't know how strongly she believed, I guess. Long after I was out of college my father told me, jokingly, one day a story that happened between he and his wife, Emma. Said "Zeno, I'm real proud you went on to college. Proud you finished." And said "And I don't want credit for it. I was perfectly

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willing to let you drop out at Mars Hills because you were having considerable trouble that first year there. Under the care of a doctor. We didn't know what was wrong, really. And I was perfectly willing to let you come on back home. But," he says, "Emma there told me, she says 'Zadie, he can do college work and I have buried six of my sons, four with polio, two with measles and whooping cough combination and I would rather bury him as to see him quit. I want that boy to go to college."' And I said "Well, did she mean it?" He said "You went to college, didn't you?"

BILL FINGER:

That would have been a lot of pressure if you'd known that at the time.

ZENO PONDER:

I didn't know it until years later. I knew that she was very determined that I further my education from high school. And like most teenage boys I would have been very happy to have dropped out at sixteen or seventeen. Come back and started farming. And again, I would have been ill-prepared for farming. About as ill-prepared as I was for college. But I didn't disappoint my mother. I went on through and I'm proud that I did.

BILL FINGER:

So you learned some farming skills at State. I mean, you weren't just passing time.

ZENO PONDER:

I wasn't just passing time, no sir. I was a student all the way through. I did study. And I majored in soil chemistry. Incidentally, they did away with the department. I was the last one to graduate from North Carolina State University in soil chemistry. My wife graduated from Chapel Hill in Chemistry but I had about 16 more college hours in chemistry than did my wife—even though her degree is in straight chemistry.

BILL FINGER:

Were you married at the time?

ZENO PONDER:

No, no. It was a custom that came along many years later. My wife and I were married after we were both finished college and after each of us had worked for about a year as a chemist with the Ecusta Paper Corporation.

BILL FINGER:

Ecusta?

ZENO PONDER:

Ecusta.

BILL FINGER:

Was she from Madison county?

ZENO PONDER:

No. My wife was born in South Carolina. Her father's people from Savannah, Georgia, and her mother's people were from Transylvania county near Brevard. So she was reared between Brevard and Savannah, Georgia. Her father died when she was about two years old.

BILL FINGER:

And she ended up at Chapel Hill.

ZENO PONDER:

She ended up at Chapel Hill. She went to Meredith two years and then to Chapel Hill for her last two years.

BILL FINGER:

Probably when there weren't a lot of women students.

ZENO PONDER:

Not too many girls over there at Chapel Hill and I believe we had four at State and three or four thousand boys.

BILL FINGER:

And you met her . . .

ZENO PONDER:

I met her after I had finished college and after I had done my year's graduate work. Matter of fact I came in on the midnight shift and she had been employed. I was off on a five day vacation and when I came back on the midnight shift I met . . .

BILL FINGER:

You were both working at night.

ZENO PONDER:

She had gone to work at the same laboratory where I had been working.

BILL FINGER:

And that was in Raleigh.

ZENO PONDER:

No that was in Ecusta Paper Corporation in Brevard, N.C.

BILL FINGER:

So you finally got accepted by the army, after you'd had a masters and worked for a year.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, no. Strange enough at this point . . . I was old enough and did register for the draft in Transylvania county where I was employed. I received a three months or maybe a six months deferment, I'm not sure. In the meantime Ecusta saw the handwriting on the wall, that they couldn't keep

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male employees, so they went to all female chemical laboratory analysts and chemical laboratory supervisers. And so notified all of us young men that our services would not be needed after a certain length of time—two months or thirty days. So a friend of mine who was working with me there, from Chattanooga, had understood that there was a large Hercules Powder company going up down there—TNT plant. So I drive down there with him on a Sunday afternoon, stay over for an interview, and was employed by Hercules Powder company and worked a year and a half in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the TNT plant as a TNT supervisor.

BILL FINGER:

And your wife, or your fiancee, or your girl friend . . . which was she then?

ZENO PONDER:

My girl friend remained, and as a matter of fact she took over the shift that I had on the job that I had and continued working there. We kept in pretty close contact and married about six or eight months later. After I'd gone to Chattanooga, that is. About six or eight months before she and I got married.

BILL FINGER:

So then she moved over to Chattanooga?

ZENO PONDER:

Then she came over to Chattanooga and took a job there in the laboratory. I was out at the plant, line supervisor. And soon we had enough TNT to last for about five years, it was estimated. As fast as we were producing it. Much faster than the B-17 bombers could drop it on Germany. We had every igloo that we had filled to the brim. Trainloads of it. Some 50 or 75 trainloads of TNT scattered over a 5,000 acres there in east Chattanooga, Tennessee. So the plant started cutting back and BOOM the big news came down that the personnel men from the army, General Nichols and General Groves—they wanted to talk to anyone who had technical training, especially a college degree, in chemistry, engineering, etc. So I was interviewed and hired in the same day I was interviewed and

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and transferred to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And I was one of the first three selected out of a group of 25,000. And this I'm real proud of. I was selected, one of the first three as foreman, in the separation of uranium and the electro-magnetic process of Tennessee, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

BILL FINGER:

You understood that . . . you were more than just a research, a chemist at this point. You had moved into sophisticated research.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, I had done a year of post graduate work and I had studied and I knew . . . I was quite a good student, physics student but chemistry was my major. That's what I loved, most. But the electro-magnetic process of separating uranium didn't bother me at all. I'll tell you that. I loved it. I got in to it real fast like. We had 10,000 college graduates ranging in age from I guess my age to 65 to 70 that came in from Salt Lake City, Utah. Remington Arms had shut down a tremendously large powder plant out there. And coupled with that, the people coming in from Chattanooga, Tennessee, we simply built a city there in a matter of six months. Just outside of Knoxville. Consisting of 65,000 people. It was barracks. It was tar paper and mud.

BILL FINGER:

What year is this now? . . . the war

ZENO PONDER:

This was in 44 or late 43 or 44. After a year's time we actually got in a few portable trailers. And they didn't look like the trailers that you see nowadays. They didn't have any windows in them. They were just long tube like things. You could get dry, get in the dry and you could have a little heat in and a little electric light, but . . .

BILL FINGER:

This is outside of Knoxville.

ZENO PONDER:

Yes, this was just outside of Knoxville. And believe it or not by the third or fourth year we were getting into some housing, that looked like 20 year housing. As a matter of fact that's what they built it and called it—20 year housing. Still temporary stuff, but it beat the mud and the shacks that we had lived in the first few years.

BILL FINGER:

So from there . . . you never were actually . . . you were a civilian then.

ZENO PONDER:

I never was inducted. And I'll tell you, they have a way of training you there in Oak Ridge. Once you got to there, that was all she wrote. Because many of the friends that I had attempted to see some action. They got real disgusted. They weren't getting the promotions. It was monotonous as the dickens. You couldn't talk even to your wife about what was going on. You had to have at least three passes to get in to even the most menial tasks to be performed there. I had four passes. And some of these boys . . . I'll tell you a good friend of mine, Bob Goodell—he was from New York. I'd worked with him at Oak Ridge, I mean I'd worked with him at Chattanooga for about a year and a half. And I'd worked with him at Oak Ridge for about a year. He didn't get where the action was. So he goes down and volunteers. Sure enough, he gets in for his boot training. But two weeks later he was back, on the job, working for Colonel Nicholson, same as I was. And he had taken a reduction in salary from $600 a month to $65 a month. And he stayed there for the duration, as a buck private at $65 a month.

BILL FINGER:

And you all were making $600.

ZENO PONDER:

Oh yeh, I moved on up to $800, $850, $900 a month. He still got $65. So it doesn't take too much of that, you know, to make believers out of all of us. We buckled down for the duration. After the war was over I was offered a continued job, but I simply just wanted to get back to Madison county. I wanted to get back to the country I loved, to the people I loved. And be my own boss, take my own chances, do my own gambling. So I came back to Madison county.

BILL FINGER:

One thing I'm interested in at this point, going back to Madison county . . . well, several things. Your wife had been very independent for

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that time. She'd gotten a chemistry major in a field that is often male dominated. And she had worked, even taken over your job at one place. Was there any question, as there is now with lots of men and women who are both, have experienced professional situations, of the wife would go with her man. Did you talk about that at the time. She knew you loved Madison county, so that's where she wanted to go, too.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, really, I guess at the time, unquestionably, we were both very much in love with each other. And I think I get your question. Nina Lou didn't hesitate to respect my judgment to work with me and go with me. Now she has influenced me, and she's tried to influence me along some lines which I just wouldn't accept. She thought I would have made an excellent salesman and she wanted me to get in to the furniture business. Her father had been a furniture man. Her grandfather—Rustin Furniture company. They had done real well in the furniture business. I told her, yes, I guess I could sell. You know. But I'm just not interested in selling. I like to produce. I like to farm. I like to see things grow. I like to gamble on the weather. I like to gamble on whether a calf will be born alive or dead. I don't want to sell a piece of furniture.

BILL FINGER:

And she respected that?

ZENO PONDER:

She respected my judgment. Said "Okay, we'll farm." So we put together what we had, which was not a great deal. But we had bought war bonds all during the war, both she and I. And she had a little money coming in from her father's estate, who had been dead many years at that time—20 years. And I had some money coming in at this point from my father and mother's land. So we pooled it, and went in debt right heavy and started farming.

BILL FINGER:

In Madison county?

ZENO PONDER:

In Madison county. Right here.

BILL FINGER:

Right here on this land?

ZENO PONDER:

Right here.

BILL FINGER:

And you've been here since 1945.

ZENO PONDER:

Been here since 45 or 6. 46.

BILL FINGER:

That's real interesting to me, a lot because . . . the times are a little different now, you know, but people still make decisions, I think, on those kinds of bases. What one person respects about the other. The other thing which is interesting at that particular time, that decision, was because of the kinds of work that you had done at Raleigh, Brevard, Chattanooga and Oak Ridge, had your . . . the influences from your mother, particularly your mother's sides of the family and the politics which was such a part of life in Madison county. Was that with you all the time? Or were you so caught up in your work and the war effort . . . Had you forgotten about politics or was that always in the back of your mind?

ZENO PONDER:

Bill, I think I would have to tell you in all sincerity that at the time I came back to Madison county I was not thinking in terms of becoming involved in politics. I was not thinking of what I wanted to do about Madison county. I wanted to just come back and live in Madison county. I wanted to be part of what I grew up with. I guess most of us have an inkling to go home again, you know. Thomas Wolfe put it "look homeward angel." Well . . . I was reminiscing. I was wanting to come back, just to be with friends. To see the beauty that you behold from this mountain top. Then when I got back here I immediately become involved with the veterans of World War II and the GI training program. I taught school four years. Lot of people don't know that. But I was . . .

BILL FINGER:

In the county high school?

ZENO PONDER:

No, I was teaching the GI training program. Teaching vocational agriculture to the GIs of World War II. So I had 20-25 young men, many of them—most of them as a matter of fact—older than me. Incidentally, the

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oldest living student I have is Melvin Melton and he's 86 years old.

BILL FINGER:

He was one of those veterans?

ZENO PONDER:

He was one of them. He's my oldest living student. I'm 53, but my oldest living student is 86.

BILL FINGER:

You were teaching them vocational agriculture.

ZENO PONDER:

Right.

BILL FINGER:

And they got GI benefits?

ZENO PONDER:

Right. Now during this teaching of four years I was also doing moonlighting on the farm. I was trying to keep my farm going, working pretty hard really. Working 15 hours, 16-18 hours a day. Whatever the occasion called for. That's how long I worked. Many times I didn't have my shoes off. I've driven a tractor and plowed all night long; gone right through the next day's work and into the next night.

BILL FINGER:

All night long?

ZENO PONDER:

Absolutely, many, many times. Many times.

BILL FINGER:

By moonlight?

ZENO PONDER:

By tractor lights. I had my own tractor. An old coop tractor. Disc and plow and work right around the clock. And I enjoyed it. Loved it. Trying to get ahead. As I said. I guess I got cold at the foot of the bed during the 30s. I knew what it was like to live right on the border of hunger. And if you've ever been there you just don't want to go back. Not if you're built out of the kind of stuff I am.

BILL FINGER:

And your mother helped put some of that in you, too.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, I expect my mother had quite a bit to do with that and so did my dad. They both worked real hard, but I think my mother unquestionably. She had the strongest will I believe of any person I've ever known on this earth. I've thought about many, many things that she has said and done. And how she would drive herself beyond what looked like it was human

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endurance. To grow a patch of beans. To grow a patch of tobacco so that we could have the first radio in the community. 1937. We grew about a half acre of extra tobacco. Put it on the floor and we got about forty some dollars for it and we spent $38 for a battery set radio. And that was the only one on that side of the river in Madison county. So Saturday nights when the grand ole opery came on—Dave Macon —you talk about being popular. We had everybody in the community eavesdropping our radio.

BILL FINGER:

Boy, I don't know. I want to talk about Uncle Dave Macon and grand ole opry, but I think we should go on to politics. I don't know. [laughter] Let me ask you, while we're talking about the radio and the grand ole opry, was . . .

ZENO PONDER:

I started to tell you . . . I broke my train of thought . . . excuse me Bill. I started to tell you there what really got me, I think, motivated to get into politics. These thousand GIs being taught by some 20-25 teachers. I was one of the 20-25. All over the county. All over Madison county.

BILL FINGER:

A thousand GIs in this county!

ZENO PONDER:

A thousand GIs from this county. I was maybe not the loudest mouth, but I was one of the one who didn't hesitate to express myself when we'd have our teachers' meetings. And we'd get together say maybe four times a year. And those of us who were teaching the GIs would get together and express ourselves and discuss different policies and tactics and skills that we were using and field trips, equipment, etc. in dealing with the farm situation here in Madison county. Well, I guess I became a leader of those teachers, those 20-25 teachers. And those 20-25 teachers were scattered throughout the county. They would talk in terms of well, what Zeno Ponder's doing in his class. We would have field days, county-wide field days. And I did have the opportunity to go before all these GIs and

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express myself on certain points. I learned and I sensed maybe a consensus of the group was "Well, yes. We've been out of Madison county. We have seen what's going on in the rest of the world. We've been in boot camp in Louisiana, or South Carolina, or Tennessee or Texas. We like Madison county but we got some changes we want to make." I could sense this thing and I became a part of it. I become their mouthpiece. And Democratic or Republican, it was incidental. Really, it was incidental whether I was a Democrat or they were Republicans.

BILL FINGER:

Were you a Democrat at that point?

ZENO PONDER:

I was a Democrat at that point. My father registered as a Democrat and I naturally registered as a Democrat. That's something that's just handed down, you know. You don't go contrary unless there's a real good reason at the age of 21. So when I reached the age of 21 I registered as a Democrat.

BILL FINGER:

But that wasn't an important decision.

ZENO PONDER:

No (it wasn't) an important decision. And I had more Republican friends than I did Democrats because there were more Republicans in Madison county. But I did become a spokesman or a mouthpiece, expressing the desires and wishes of these young men who had seen change and who wanted change to occur here in Madison county.

BILL FINGER:

Why do you think that was, that you were the spokesman? Was it because you had been to college and, you know, had some training? Were you articulate?

ZENO PONDER:

I would say that you have described it very well. I had more formal training than the average by far here in Madison county. I don't think that I had any particular skills or abilities that many of the others would not have had had they had the same formal training. I think perhaps I did inherit a pretty strong will, a pretty strong drive. I guess my daddy made

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a point with me early in life. He told me the only reason the postage stamp delivered a letter was because it stuck to it. And if you believe in something, damn it, just stick to it. Don't give up. And . . .

BILL FINGER:

You weren't sure then what you were sticking to. You just had a sense that they wanted some change . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Right. Wanted some change. And some of the changes I knew we had to bring about or I felt we had to bring about in order to ever get Madison in step with Raleigh. To me it made good sense that if you wanted something from Raleigh you need to be in tune with Raleigh. Well, I happened to be a Democrat. I had registered that way. The state of North Carolina was Democratic. It had been since the Civil War. And at that time certainly looked like it was going to be for a long, long time. Even beyond Jim Holshouser, maybe. But, anyway . . .

BILL FINGER:

That may be.

ZENO PONDER:

And it might go back now Democratic I would think for at least 50 years. I don't think he has done the Republican party any great service by some of the programs he has done. For instance in this county he took down $35 million that was earmarked and set up for primary roads. He took down every single dollar of it. And not one square foot of road has been built in his first two years of administration. Not one square foot.

BILL FINGER:

In this county?

ZENO PONDER:

In this county.

BILL FINGER:

$35 million?

ZENO PONDER:

$35 million.

BILL FINGER:

Earmarked for this county?

ZENO PONDER:

Right. 25-70 from Asheville to Marshall, going through the east side of my farm over here. Highway 213 from Mars Hill to Marshall. Highway 213 from Mars Hill down to the Dairy Bar, down to the Appalachia road. NC 213

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from Marshall to Spring Creek. NC 25-70 from the state line at Newport to Tennessee into Hot Springs. All taken down.

BILL FINGER:

The Scott administration appropriated that?

ZENO PONDER:

Right.

BILL FINGER:

So he's looking to where his support its? He's shifting the money around with this change . . .

ZENO PONDER:

He's hoping to take this $35 million, and apparently taking it with the blessings of the Republican leaders here in Madison county and spending it in other counties—hopefully someplace for sale. I got news for him. He's just making this a more solidly Democratic county by depriving us of what was rightfully ours.

BILL FINGER:

Well, that's a good perspective on where politics are now, to kind of jump back and keep with the story in 1948 when you started thinking about . . .

ZENO PONDER:

47, 48 and 49. Was trying to think about getting Madison county in line with the state capital so that we could get our share of roads and schools and appointments. Various and sundry patronage ties that just naturally tie in on our political system. That's just the way the ball bounces.

BILL FINGER:

Was there any particular incident that really brought that home and made you decide I have to be the one, or I have to be one of the ones to build a Democratic party in this county.

ZENO PONDER:

Well yes, there was. It wasn't by my choice. It was like many arguments that I've had and lost and it turned out that maybe I was glad I lost. My brother, E.Y. Ponder, who is presently sheriff and is serving now his 19th year . . . yes, next year will be his 20th. And he's a candidate, too. He's running again. He succumbed to the demands of his friends to make the race for sheriff of Madison county and I did everything I thought within my power to discourage him. To keep him from making the race at that time.

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I just didn't think it was the right time. I didn't think he should get involved, at that point.

BILL FINGER:

This was 1950?

ZENO PONDER:

This was 1950. But he succumbed to the demands of his friends and intercepted me on a business trip. I was up to Asheville. Said "Zeno, I've decided at the meeting last night that I am going to be a candidate for sheriff." I told him it was a bad mistake, I just didn't want to see him do it. "There's no way at this point. We're just not well enough organized. I don't believe we can make it. I just don't want you to run." He said "Well, I just got no choice. A man doesn't go any further in life than his friends will push him. And my friends are very insistent. I've got to make a race." So, I said "Okay. If you've already committed yourself I'll hush. What do you want me to do?" He said "I want you to be registrar in the Marshall precinct." "My god . . . I've never . . . I don't believe we can do it, Elymas. I just don't believe we're prepared for this. We haven't got it organized that well." "Well," he said, "we got no time. History doesn't wait and time doesn't wait. And if we're going to do anything about the county

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

ZENO PONDER:

So, E.Y. and me, from that point on, we worked very, very close. We figured out right down to the vote what would be the minimum in each of the 24 precincts. And the Marshall precinct was by far the largest precinct. And we concluded that he would have to have a split in that precinct to get it. If we wanted any part of the ticket we would have to have a split—that is, a 50-50 break. And that never had happened in the history of the Marshall precinct.

BILL FINGER:

It had been strongly . . .

ZENO PONDER:

It had been strongly Republican. Usually losing by 2, 3, 400 votes. So my work was cut out for me and I had helped cut out my own work in that

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particular precinct. So I really went to work and working hard. And with the help of other Democrats we carried that Marshall precinct by 2 votes. And E.Y. was elected sheriff by 32 votes.

BILL FINGER:

Were you informally appointed precinct chairman for his campaign?

ZENO PONDER:

No, I was formally appointed registrar of the Marshall precinct by the board of elections.

BILL FINGER:

It was a Republican controlled board.

ZENO PONDER:

No, it was . . . actually the board was Democratic because the state machinery sets it up, see. So Judson Edwards and Jack Payne were the two Democratic members and Spence Rice was the Republican member.

BILL FINGER:

And they appointed then Democratic precinct registrars all over the county?

ZENO PONDER:

Right. We had 24 registrars who were Democrats. We had 24 Republicans who were Republicans—judges. We had 24 Democrats who were Democratic judges. So we went about holding an election and it was plenty rough and tough and a lot of hard work.

BILL FINGER:

I know there was a lot of controversy about that, your brother's election in 1950 and also Dr. Sam's election to the legislature. Before we go on, because we're going to start talking about a lot of elections and politics, I want to go back to what I said at the beginning of the interview. This is, I think, so important about mountain politics. That all elements of the mountain culture are operating all the time. Its not just a political election like it is in Guilford or Mecklenburg or Wake counties. Its . . . you know, the family ties, the . . . people carrying guns around like they don't do in Wake county. The people . . . the kinds of community events. The tobacco rais . . . the tobacco, you know . . . tobacco planting and barn raisings. All that. All those things enter in to it all the time.

ZENO PONDER:

Right.

BILL FINGER:

So, from Uncle Dave Macon in 36 . . . just try to give me some perspective

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on these other elements of what was happening.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, speaking of the guns . . . you know, I guess us mountain folks take for granted that a man's a man and he covers all the ground he stands on. I took the position as registrar that under the law I was in charge, and I took charge. I asked nobody any quarter. I simply took charge as registrar. We had at that polling place—Marshall school house—not less than 50 Republican deputies. Armed, as they were supposed to be. They had a permit to carry their guns.

BILL FINGER:

Deputies.

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh, deputies . . .

BILL FINGER:

To the Republican sheriff?

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh. They were deputies under J. Hubert Davis and he was running against my brother who was not a sheriff and had no right to carry a gun. And it was not easy, you know, to take charge with bare knuckles so I didn't try it bare knuckles. I tried it with my gun. Because under the law I was in charge, to use whatever force necessary to maintain order.

BILL FINGER:

This is at the voting place, you're talking about.

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh, that's right. And I had a lot of fellow registrars throughout the county who were GIs and knew how to use a gun and had the guts to do it. And they took charge. So when a Republican deputy came in and said "Now I'm going to take the names of the people here who are using markers because we feel there's something going on. You all are buying votes. Accusing us of buying votes. The Democrats. So I'm going to take names." Well, I knew all the time what he was taking names for. Because both bankers were solid Republicans and both bankers would brag that they held enough paper to control any election. Just so they could find out, you know, if that fellow did in fact vote a Democratic ticket. They could foreclose and go get his cow or his horse or demand full payment on the little shack that they

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had sold him.

BILL FINGER:

And that had happened before?

ZENO PONDER:

That had been happening all the time.

BILL FINGER:

There wasn't a Democratic bank that people could . . .

ZENO PONDER:

No. There was no Democratic bank. There was no Democratic finance. There was no way. If you wanted a loan in Madison county economically, you went through the Republicans. But I was trying to change that.

BILL FINGER:

That's what I'm trying to get at. Why politics was so important to you, to people. I mean that . . . it was because it was their mortgage.

ZENO PONDER:

It was their livelihood. We had this one fellow . . . this part . . . I wouldn't want his daughter embarrassed. She's a mighty fine person. But Mr Arthur Whitehurst, cashier of the Citizens Bank, along . . . just two years after this, was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service. Now this was back when a dollar was a dollar. And he owed a quarter of a million dollars back taxes. Mr Craig Rudsill who owned the other bank, the French Broad bank, he owed $300,000 to Internal Revenue Service. Mr Guy English, their former Republican sheriff for 14 years, he owed something like $180,000.

BILL FINGER:

Were these figures published in the newspaper?

ZENO PONDER:

These figures were published in the newspaper and let me give you the whole story. The chairman, the chairman of the Republican, the Republican chairman of the county board of commissioners—Mr McDevitt—he owed $150,000. So once that investigation got under way . . .

BILL FINGER:

And that broke in the press . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Mr McDevitt died of a heart attack. Mr Rudsill died of a heart attack. Mr English died of some natural cause. Mr Whitehurst died of a heart attack. Now they were the four leaders. The two bankers, the sheriff and the chairman of the board of county commissioners.

BILL FINGER:

Which one was the chairman of the county commissioners?

ZENO PONDER:

Mr McDevitt.

BILL FINGER:

McDevitt.

ZENO PONDER:

Now those fellows had bought up at about $1.50 an acre about half of the Laurel community. It ran from Mars Hill to Hot Springs. Bought it from the federal government. They had cut timber off of it and received something like $100-150 an acre. Made a tremendous profit. Then they turned around and cut it up into 50 and 75 acre blocks of land and sell it for $25 an acre. And one of the bankers—it didn't make too much difference which—would finance the construction of a little house to be built on stilts, we call it. No underpining. Just drive in a few post, lay your 2x4s down and start building your little shack. It was very convenient then for the sheriff to turn his head and let them do some pretty fair moon-shining and pay 6% interest and take back what was a tremendous profit. Now, when the Internal Revenue Service got into that—and rightfully so—they came in—they should of—and broke the thing up. That was the beginning of the end of the one party system.

BILL FINGER:

Did that break before this 1950 election?

ZENO PONDER:

No, no.

BILL FINGER:

So they were all still . . . you were still fighting that.

ZENO PONDER:

They were still intact, very much intact, when we made our attack in 1950.

BILL FINGER:

That's why you had a gun with you.

ZENO PONDER:

Doggone right. That's why I had my 38 with me.

BILL FINGER:

Before we leave this I just want to . . . how did the federal government happen to own from Wolf Laurel to Hot Springs?

ZENO PONDER:

I don't know what the deal, when they acquired this land. I believe history would show that Betts Lumber Co came in there and built a railroad

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from Runnion up the Laurel River and up Big Laurel on up Shelton Laurel and cut out a tremendous amount of the timber. Then . . . maybe they went bankrupt, a bankruptcy declared. I'm not sure, but anyway Betts Lumber went out of business and the federal government did, in fact, end up buying most of the Laurel community through there. Then there was a change of plans as to whether or not the federal government would keep it.

BILL FINGER:

As a national forest.

ZENO PONDER:

As a national forest or let it go back to private enterprise. And these four fellows did get title to it.

BILL FINGER:

Back in the 20s?

ZENO PONDER:

During the 20s.

BILL FINGER:

That's when the forest service . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh, it was during the 20s when they bought it. And during the 30s and 40s when they sold it.

BILL FINGER:

I think those anecdotes give us a good perspective on . . . start from 1950 and moving on politics. Because you read about Madison county elections and the various ones that were protested in the courts and right on up to decisions and there is . . . the interest in this county in politics is so high. You know, to the point of 50 deputies in the Marshall precinct. So I think the way you described the interlocking financial industries and the inability of a person to get outside that is important. Well, let's go on with 1950. They said E.Y. didn't make it.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, E.Y. did make it. He was elected by 32 votes and that was a landslide in Madison county. Because it never had happened before except one time—and that one time when Sheriff Burnett was elected it was a situation where the Republicans just got real disgusted with their incumbent sheriff and tried to beat him in the primaries. They failed to beat him in the primaries and then said "Well, we're going to vote against him in the

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fall." And they did. They voted against him and elected Mr Burnett. Oh, sheriff Burnett was a good fellow and he lived just about a mile right over there. Awful nice gentleman but I guess maybe he was a better Sunday school teacher than he was a sheriff. He didn't seek re-election. Really didn't want the job. He just agreed to file . . . was what it amounted to.

BILL FINGER:

But E.Y. had trouble even getting himself inside the jail, didn't he?

ZENO PONDER:

Oh yes. The . . . the Republicans just absolutely homesteaded and set up tommy guns, machine gun and refused to surrender the jail to the lawfully elected sheriff, so . . .

BILL FINGER:

They actually had a machine gun?

ZENO PONDER:

Oh yes. They had a machine gun. We had a lot of fun out of them with that. They had it manned by Mr Claude Henderson. He was a pretty rough old fellow. And we would try to shake his nerves. And we had a lot of fun. We'd go down and throw out firecrackers. Drive by the jail and throw out firecrackers. And they would start passing out these pistols just like passing out apples, you know. And he would get to his machine gun. It was manned in front of the jail, there where you could cover the court house. So we'd go driving off . . . let them get settled back down . . .

BILL FINGER:

The machine gun was outside, in front of . . .

ZENO PONDER:

It was setting right in front of the jail, where they could aim toward the court house or swing around 180 degrees. Yep. So we'd let them settle back down. 30 minutes or an hour later we'd go back by and flash the lights, throw them another firecracker. So they never knew whether we were foolish enough to attack. Of course we were never going to attack. We were just having fun. This was our nightly passtime.

BILL FINGER:

That's not quite as calm as the grand ole opry. [laughter]

ZENO PONDER:

No, not so serene. But it's exciting.

BILL FINGER:

I bet it was. So E.Y. brought suit in superior court to . . .

ZENO PONDER:

To take possession. He brought what was known as a mandamus proceeding—which is a taxpayers proceeding to determine who is rightfully entitled to the tax money in the form of the salary for sheriff of Madison county. So it really . . . a proceeding is really a three way law suit. You have the tax payer who is bringing the suit. Then you have the one, the incumbent in this case. The Republican, contending that he rightfully had won. And E.Y., the challenger, contending that he had won. And the tax payer, over here, bringing the law suit. So it was a three way . . .

BILL FINGER:

Who brought . . . who was the tax payer?

ZENO PONDER:

The tax payer was Roy Freeman and Ernest Nelson.

BILL FINGER:

Were they Democrats?

ZENO PONDER:

They were Democrats.

BILL FINGER:

They were working for you all to bring . . .

ZENO PONDER:

They were Democrats and this was a beautiful piece of legal work in that it was a three way law suit. And the tax payer had the right to cross examine and so did the contender.

BILL FINGER:

Did you have to go outside the county to get a Democrat lawyer to . . .

ZENO PONDER:

We certainly did. We went to Asheville and hired George Shufford and Walt Haynes. George Shufford later was elected to the United States Congress and served until his health broke with him and he retired. Walt Haynes had never run for public office but both of them were very influential and strong Democrat lawyers.

BILL FINGER:

Were you also active in 1950 in Dr Sam's legisla . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Oh yes, it was not just for E.Y. We had a whole, full ticket. We only got two of them elected. But we had three county commissioners, we had three men running for county commissioner. Tax collector. Auditor. County coroner. Of course a representative in the legislature—Dr W A Sam.

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We did get him through and got E.Y. through.

BILL FINGER:

And all of those races were tied in together.

ZENO PONDER:

They were tied in together. We were working solid for the ticket as a unit. We were working just as closely together as Norm Sloan's basketball boys. Team play.

BILL FINGER:

1950 you broke it. Or was it not quite secure yet?

ZENO PONDER:

Well, in 1950 we broke it in that we got Dr Sam (in state legislature.). We got E.Y. in office. We stripped about a four bushel sack of pistols off the Republican deputies and sent them back to plowing. Some of them practically broke themselves down carrying big heavy guns. So we relieved them of their weapons. And from there on it was a somewhat easier situation. 1954 I was named to the county board of elections and subsequent to that the other two elected me as chairman of the county board of elections. So in 1954 we put out a full ticket again and elected every single Democrat who was running for office.

BILL FINGER:

So that was really then an era for you, politically. From roughly 1947 or 8 when you started the work through 1954 when you had some pull in the county.

ZENO PONDER:

That's right. From 48 to 54 was the era of challenge and it was finally brought off November 1954. Full slate of Democratic candidates.

BILL FINGER:

Very locally oriented politics. I mean, you were in every cove in Madison county. It was the county machine in the county board of elections, school board. All those county level positions.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, yes . . . E.Y . . . and I bring his name in because . . . speaking of every cove, every house. For every one person that I have talked with and worked with politically and done a favor, E.Y. has gone me about ten better. He is a person who has dedicated his life to helping others. He's dedicated his time to listening to others' problems. I'm just not that

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good a politician. I'm just not that kind of a politician. I like to plan, I like to organize, I like to deal with the key people. I like to have a program, and I like to go at it from that standpoint, long range standpoint. E.Y. thoroughly enjoys working with people day by day. You can go down to the jail and I can guarantee that he will talk to not less than 100 a day and 99 of them will have problems. One might come in to commend him on the job he's done. 99 of them will have problems and he will listen to all of them and most likely he'll leave 75 or 80 of them pretty happy. So he is the person who has . . . he's been the work horse all the way through.

BILL FINGER:

Is he much older than you?

ZENO PONDER:

11 years older.

BILL FINGER:

Then he really pushed his little brother into politics.

ZENO PONDER:

Yes, he got me involved. He got me appointed registrar so he could be elected sheriff. Then he and I did have in mind . . . we immediately went about . . . Dr Sam to introduce the first bill he ever introduced was to—and this might not sound too popular today but it was good for us then, it helped—was to give any industrialist or prospective industrialist who would come in to Madison county a 10 year tax break. That is they would pay tax on the land that they bought at the same value that was on that land when they bought it for the first ten years. They would pay no tax on their concrete and mortar and their building. But they would pay on their personal property, such as machines, whatnot that they had that was movable. But no tax on . . .

BILL FINGER:

No property tax.

ZENO PONDER:

No property tax, no tax on the property improvements. And that enabled us . . .

BILL FINGER:

Just for this county?

ZENO PONDER:

Just for this county, Madison county.

BILL FINGER:

How'd you get that through the state legislature?

ZENO PONDER:

Well, we worked at it. [laughter] We got it through.

BILL FINGER:

I'm surprised that a bunch of other counties didn't . . .

ZENO PONDER:

It was 15 years later before they decided it was unconstitutional. But we'd already used it.

BILL FINGER:

Well, did you get industry in . . .

ZENO PONDER:

We did. We sure did. Yes sir. We got the building in at Mars Hill. We got the industry in. Micro-Switch is now employing 550 people. And we got the industry at Hot Springs. First one. I'm trying to think of the name of it . . . I don't recall the name of that. It's changed hands twice. Hummurland Manufacturing Company was the one at Mars Hill. And they sold out. It was an electronics manufacturing concern. And Micro-Switch, which is a division of Honeywell, has taken over the building and now has in excess of 500 employees and hopes to go to 1,000 by next year.

BILL FINGER:

That's in Marshall?

ZENO PONDER:

Mars Hill. So yes, that law . . . it was effective and very quickly started bringing in fruits. We had the first industry—and this was the first in Madison county in its whole history of 100 years, except for the child labor deal in the old mill, cotton mill in Marshall. And it's been closed for 50 years. It hasn't been doing anything since child labor was outlawed. Just sitting there idle. And incidentally we put it to work. We got a chair manufacturing outfit in there.

BILL FINGER:

At this point then, in 54 and then on in 55 and 56 when you had consolidated both your control and your ability to move the county along. Getting your industry in and I'm sure you were interested in your schools and the roads and getting money from Raleigh. Did . . . did . . . well, Madison county has this long history of Republicanism. They had been in control; they had affected people's lives, influenced the family. With Haywood Watanga Yancey and Avery and Mitchell. Did you feel in the late 50s as

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you started making progress in Madison county, that you had a responsibility to move in, to do that kind of thing for the other counties? To help . . .

ZENO PONDER:

At the end, yes Bill, I did. I had the desire. And I had the feeling that we had some mighty good people here in western North Carolina in some of these counties and I was particularly . . . At one point you . . . Yancey county was Democratic. Yancey is more liberal than most any other small county in the western part of the state and has been for years. But Watauga, Avery, Mitchell . . .

BILL FINGER:

All out west, too.

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh, they were just . . . well, they were more Republican than Madison has ever been, even though Madison had been Republican for 104 years. It seemed like Avery county, with all their beauty and their serenity. Their ability to move out. They had just simply held themselves back by staying out of the state government. And I was very much of the opinion that some of those people over there needed some help. And I did. I went in to Mitchell county many times. Bakers ville, Spruce Pine. We got behind the state senator from Avery county—Belmont Winters. He was a candidate for the state senate and running in our district and it was our vote that put him over. We elected him. He served in the 1958 session, I guess it was. He lost his health. He was a retired mail carrier. He lost his health and didn't repeat, but we picked up another one then from Spruce Pine and supported him. Albert Kanipe. It seemed that neither was able to really do a lot for Mitchell county. They were both good men and had some good ideas, but I guess they didn't really subscribe to my theory of politics. You can't win a fight if you don't have one going. And if you see that there is need for a fight and if you think your chances are 50-50 then, if its your game you'll start it. And I told both men at the time that I thought they were being somewhat derelict in thier duty, that they could

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start a fight, they could win. But . . .

BILL FINGER:

You mean win control of the county . . .

ZENO PONDER:

Right. They prefered not to stir the waters. They were getting along pretty good working at it methodically and slowly. Well . . .

BILL FINGER:

And unsuccessfully from your point of view . . .

ZENO PONDER:

And in my opinion unsuccessfully.

BILL FINGER:

So you weren't just Madison county oriented. I mean you did have some perspective on the regional situation and that would make you even stronger.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, I don't know that I was looking at it really from the stand-point of strength. I did run for the state senate. I ran because I felt at the time that Madison county really needed to consolidate her gains on a state wide basis. We needed a platform from which we could be heard by the media. And I was real sick and disgusted with what had been painted the picture of Madison county that I knew to be wrong. I knew the people here in Madison county had changed their way of thinking. They had been given freedom in the ballot box, not had it taken away from them. They had had it taken away from them for 104 years, by people sitting there and taking names and reporting to the Citizens Bank or the French Broad Bank of how so and so let a Democrat mark his ticket. And then the next day the sheriff was given a summons to go out and get his cow. Or he was given a summons to pay a note in total because he was in default by two months. And the damn thing had been controlled by the finance, the Republican finance. By money. People weren't given the opportunity to vote freely as they saw fit. So I gave them . . .

BILL FINGER:

1964 when you were running for the state senate?

ZENO PONDER:

Yes. So I had worked real hard to bring about freedom of the ballot box, not destroy it. And I think as a result, you can look back now and

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see, well, Madison county is the only small little county in the state with voting machines. And how do the elections go? They go Democratic. Now the Republicans are holding this election. The Holshouser crowd. You want me to tell you how it's going to go? It's going to go Democratic.

BILL FINGER:

You've got two Republicans on the board of elections . . .

ZENO PONDER:

And all the registrars are Republican and I know they're all going to be Republicans.

BILL FINGER:

Tomorrow.

ZENO PONDER:

Yes. And I don't blame him for naming a Republican registrar. That's his buisness.

BILL FINGER:

He won an election. I mean . . .

ZENO PONDER:

That's right.

BILL FINGER:

The Democratics were able to do that through the years. Let's see what he can do.

ZENO PONDER:

Let them try their hand at it. I . . . there's one advantage. And you might never hear me brag on the Republicans having any advantage, but there is one distinct advantage to the Republicans having control of this election. Damn it, they can't accuse anybody of rigging it. They're going to have to live with it.

BILL FINGER:

It will be a real good test.

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh.

BILL FINGER:

That took up a lot of time with that legislature last year. That huge, complicated board of elections bill.

ZENO PONDER:

Right.

BILL FINGER:

When you could . . . very, very partisan. The legislature didn't know how to deal with a Republican governor. I'm sure Mr Ramsey told you about that. [laughter] Well, what were some other key election years? 1950 was one; 1954 was one. You took control. 1964 was one when you ran for the state

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senate. It . . . maybe during those ten years some other parts of the mountain culture, you know, were operating in your life. You were building a farm, you were raising a family.

ZENO PONDER:

Well, I . . . yes, during those ten years we were, my wife and me, we were heavily indebted really. We were . . . had the blessing of the four children—three sons and a daughter—and I had this huge farm here. Some 600 acres. It was bought originally. I had added to it and bought some more land and leased quite a bit more. I had, at this point in 64, I had formed three owned, three family operated corporations. Ze-Nina Farms Incorporated which consists of some 400 or 500 head of beef cattle and dairy cattle. Some 5-600 acres of farm land. 18-20 acres of burley tobacco. Growing 2-300 acres of corn a year on this operation. And then Ze-Nina Lakes—and that's Zeno and Nina. My wife's name's Nina. Mine's Zeno, of course. And going from there, you put the two together and you've come up with Ze-Nina. So Ze-Nina Lakes Incorporated consists of two lakes for recreational purposes back down on the west side of the farm. 13 acres of land and big recreation house. We do a little square dancing there every Saturday night during the summer time.

BILL FINGER:

You've been busy.

ZENO PONDER:

Have a 72 foot long front porch 12 feet wide. Two log cabins and a self-supporting roof . . . I promised everybody that if they ever saw another one like it I'd burn mine down and build it again. It's just different.

BILL FINGER:

Two log cabins . . . ?

ZENO PONDER:

And they're separated by a 32 foot span between them. And then the 32 foot plus the length of the two cabins gives my a 72 foot long, 12 foot wide front porch with this open area in between the cabins.

BILL FINGER:

And that's where you square dance.

ZENO PONDER:

And then a patio 14 feet wide and 72 feet long at the back all tied in with that. So you can accommodate a crowd of 150-200.

BILL FINGER:

Did you take lessons on Bascom Lamar Lunsford on how to build your back porch?

ZENO PONDER:

No, really . . . I knew of Mr Lunsford. Knew his son real well. I'm not a student of music. I love to try to dance. And I love the beat of the good old mountain music. There just ain't nothing like it. Wonderful. It's just wonderful.

BILL FINGER:

That's right. You go down to the mountain folk festival in Asheville?

ZENO PONDER:

Yes, I go down practically every year.

BILL FINGER:

Hear Obray Ramsey and lots of Madison county people.

ZENO PONDER:

Yeh, Obray and Bayard Ray are two of my very special friends and two good Democrats.

BILL FINGER:

[laughter] That makes them better friends.

ZENO PONDER:

I politic with them many days and nights.

BILL FINGER:

Well, while we're talking like this why don't you . . . I'm sure a lot of people in the state wonder where you got your name. I've never heard the name before.

ZENO PONDER:

I was named for a prominent Baptist minister—two of them as a matter of fact. Dr Zeno Wall, who was pastor of the First Baptist Church, Shelby, North Carolina. When he retired from the ministry. He started his ministry here in Madison county. The first church that he had was the Marshall Baptist church. And my grandmother and my grandfather, John Ramsey, lived right there on main street and he had just, well, perhaps finished his second term as high sheriff of Madison county. My mother would go over there with them and go to church occasionally. She thought Zeno Wall was just about the best preacher that she had ever heard. So when I came along she had another favorite preacher.