Johnston County — Two Democrats are seeking their party's nod for the N.C. Senate seat held by Republican Fred Smith.

Kay Carroll, owner of Carroll Pharmacy in Smithfield, has been a member of the Johnston County Board of Education since 1992. Currently the board’s chairman, Carroll thinks his experience in shaping budgets, building schools and improving the quality of classroom education would prove valuable in the State Senate.

“I do believe I offer leadership,” said Carroll, a graduate of Smithfield High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I am not spectacular, you know, but I can get my hands dirty and get the job done. I think people might not agree with everything I have done, but would say I have been fair about it, trustworthy and I do what I say I am going to do.”

Speaking up for the needs of Johnston and Wayne counties is important to Carroll. “When it really comes down to it, people are not so much concerned about if you are a Democrat or Republican,” he said. “They want to know, ‘Are you solving our problems? Are you finding ways to answer the questions we have and make our life better?’”

Johnston has many needs, Carroll said, and among the most important is money for road projects. “How much time do these people have to wait sitting there because the state has not addressed handling the traffic flow,” he said of the interchange at Interstate 40 and N.C. 42 in the Cleveland community. “I don’t think the counties should be put into the road-building business.”

Carroll’s opponent, Patricia Oliver of Selma, would improve education by providing vocational classes, such as plumbing, automobile mechanics and beauty care, to high school students. Also, she would place more emphasis on writing and reading in the classroom, she said.

“We need to start courting our industry to our counties,” said Oliver, owner of Oliver’s Home Repair and Around the Clock Plumbing. “[We need] companies that fit our lifestyles, companies that believe in hometown values and companies that need employees and are willing to promote goodwill.”

A graduate of The Institute of Political Leadership, a school affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Oliver would work to bring more businesses to Johnston and Wayne counties.

“We need more industry that can be an asset, not an elephant on our back,” she said. “We need industry for jobs. We need to court companies that want to be in a great county and furnish good jobs.”

Oliver said she would keep Johnston and Wayne citizens informed of the Senate’s decisions. “I will be the voters’ employee,” she said. “When I am not in the General Assembly, I will be out and about in these counties talking to the people. I am an ordinary person with a lot of common sense and business sense that anyone can approach, talk to and ask questions.”