Published: January 18, 2008 11:39 pm         

Rockefeller seeks new term in state where he was ‘kind of reborn’

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Just when it appeared Friday would slip by as an uneventful day of candidate filings, in walked Sen. Jay Rockefeller, accompanied by wife Sharon and other members of his family in tow.

Rockefeller filed for re-election to the U.S. Senate, a post he won back in 1984 in an unexpected close contest with Republican rival John Raese.

A member of one of America’s wealthier and more prominent families, Rockefeller has won re-election easily in succeeding years after his initial success. No one in either party so far has filed to challenge him this year.

With the Rockefellers were son Charles and daughter Valerie Wayne, with her husband, Steve Wayne, and children Lucy and Percy.

“There’s so much to do,” the Democratic senator replied when asked why he wanted another six-year term.

“West Virginia always has a lot of challenges. I’ve come so close to the people I instinctively know what those challenges are. And I’m absolutely unrelenting in my desire to help. And so, it’s a bond of friendship.”

Rockefeller arrived in rural West Virginia four decades ago as an anti-poverty worker in the community of Emmons and was elected to the House of Delegates in 1966. Two years later, he was elected secretary of state.

Rockefeller ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1972, losing to former Republican Gov. Arch Moore, but won the post in 1976 and served two terms before his winning campaign for the Senate.

“Coming here remade my life,” Rockefeller mused as he walked out of the secretary of state’s office. “I was kind of reborn again, so to speak.”

In a regional filing, Kelley Sponaugle of Shady Spring filled out papers as a Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates in the 27th District.



Mannix Porterfield writes for The Register-Herald in Beckley, W.Va.