Commonwealth Conservative’s weekend caption contest has become somewhat of a Virginia political blog tradition. Each week a photo ripe for satire is posted, and dozens or hundreds of humorous captions are submitted by readers. The best submissions, as judged by site founder Chad Dotson, are named shortly thereafter. The winner is awarded the satisfaction of a job well done. As the most popular Republican blog in the state, this contest gets a decent amount of exposure, albeit it’s limited to the rather small number of people who actually read Virginia political blogs.
The site isn’t just run by Chad, though. Will Vehrs is the second contributor to the site, having joined up a few months ago. He regularly participates in the competitions. By day, Will works for the Virginia Department of Business Assistance as a Business Services Manager. He works to promote the economic interests and well-being of businesses throughout Virginia.
Last week, Chad featured a picture of a man playing guitar and a woman singing as the photo for the caption contest. The photo was from the Martinsville Bulletin, from a story about how the two had created the winning jingle for the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation in a competition. The photo was not particularly flattering, and it proved to be a source of many fine submissions. Will Vehrs provided a handful of submissions, including a few of my favorites:
Cindy’s top was symbolic of the decline in Southside’s fabric industry.
“Martinsville: Easy to Leave.”
“We got married in a fever,hotter than a peppered sprout
We been thinking ’bout Martinsville,
Ever since the last plant closed out
We’re goin’ to Martinsville
We’re gonna mess around
We’re goin’ to Martinsville
Look out, Martinsville Town”The day the music died.
The easiest source of jokes for everybody was, of course, the area’s economic woes. Like all of Southside, Martinsville has certainly seen better days. They have no clear path to improving things, largely because their economy was built on manufacturing, something that NAFTA and globalization has made impossible to bring back.
Ever since my wife and I were involved with Al Weed’s campaign in 2003-2004, we’ve taken a keen interest in Southside. After the two of us took a three-day trip through the area in January of 2004, we can’t help but be fond of the area (particularly South Boston), and have been, to the extent to which we can be, vocal in advocating for opportunities for the area in whatever capacities available to us. Al feels strongly about the area, and I guess it just rubbed off on us. That said, it’d be tough for any Virginian worth their salt to spend more than a few hours in the area and not feel the same way.
Will’s entries lampooning the state of Martinsville were funny because they’re true. A new jingle isn’t going to do much for the area, though I can’t fault them for trying. But given Will’s profession, his captions were not well received by officials in the area.
Yesterday, Will realized that he’d made a mistake, and posted a sincere apology. The jokes might be funny, they might be true, but coming from him, it must have been a bit of a smack in the face to area leaders. As Will wrote:
As someone who works in economic development, when the caption picture was identified as related to economic development, I should have “recused” myself. I exercised bad judgment in submitting entries, especially those that mentioned the city, the county, individuals and organizations. I sincerely apologize for my lapse.
I love Martinsville, like I love all the Virginia localities I serve. Despite what someone unfamiliar with my work might think from the Caption Contest, I work especially hard for clients in Martinsville-Henry County because I know all too well the difficulties they have endured and the hard work they have done to restore economic vitality to their area. Again, I apologize for my bad judgment and the distress I caused those who read my entries.
I’d assumed that would be the end of it — he’d provided a sincere apology, and that’s that — but I assumed wrongly.
Today, Will followed up, writing that there’s trouble at his job as a result of this. Though nobody from Martinsville has actually communicated with him to discuss this, his colleagues and the HR Department fielded multiple phone calls about him. One colleague even described the tone of the calls as indicating that Will had “started WWIII in Martinsville-Henry County.” As an exercise in self-flagillation, Will even provided a forum where angry Martinsville/Henry County citizens could anonymously yell at him, though some four hours later, no complaints have yet appeared.
Will Vehrs demonstrated a rare lapse in judgment for a thoughtful, intelligent man. There’s no escaping that point. What was a small act on his part no doubt stung regional officials considerably. I’m more than a little puzzled by the unwillingness of those officials to confront him directly about this—I can only assume that a conversation could clear the air quickly.
Whatever harm may befall the region because of Will’s posts — and clearly none actually will — the current and future benefits of Will’s work on behalf of the region and within the Virginia blogosphere far outweigh that harm.
Just last month Will contacted me about giving a presentation to some state businesses about using blogs to promote themselves. I immediately agreed to do so. It never crossed my mind to ask for compensation or even further details. Why? It’s Will Vehrs. If he says that Virginia businesses could benefit from a few minutes of my time, I’m certainly going to do so. This is the sort of benefit that comes of Will’s extensive work as a Virginia political blogger. He has made connections, friends and allies across the state, all of which will serve him well in his work for the Virginia Department of Business Assistance and, by extension, will serve Virginia well.
If Martinsville officials are smart — and I hope they are — they’re know that they can turn these lemons into lemonade. I don’t doubt for a minute that, if they asked, Will would dedicate a significant amount of time to using his pulpit to promote Martinsville and Henry County. I would love to see him write a series of blog entries about the region, telling his readers about the area’s history, its culture, its businesses, and the economic opportunities available to the area. I’m sure that he could start a statewide blog discussion about Southside’s past, present and future. I’d be proud to take part in that discussion.
Will Vehrs erred in making jokes about Martinsville. Here’s hoping that Martinsville won’t err in their reaction. If any city in the state should know that “opportunity” is just another word for “problem,” it should be Martinsville. If they’re to have any chance any building a brighter future for themselves, now is their chance to demonstrate that they’ve learned that lesson.
Waldo–
Nice sentiments.
I hadn’t read the caption contest until you pointed it out and I have to say its not really the the content that bothers me–its clearly all in good fun–but rather the number of comments posted by Mr. Vehrs throughout the course of a Friday afternoon. If I were the economic development folks in Martinsville, I’d waste less energy on what he said than on when he said it. Every minute spent in a state office building on a state computer blogging in silly caption contests is one less minute focused on bringing jobs to Martinsville and places like it.
I don’t doubt Mr. Vehrs commitment to his job and to the people he serves–and I’ve no doubt that he works longer hours than the 9-5 he’s required to by the state…but if I were him, I’d be more concerned about the appearance of blogging from a state office than on open threads for those he offended (who are likely not reading the commonwealth conservative). It smacks of bureaucrats with too much time on their hands and does the state workforce a disservice.
What utter poop. Americans need to start acting like adults again. No one was hurt by this. Grow up folks, you are losing ground in important areas of life. This isn’t one of them.
Trevor,
12:51, 12:54, 1:02, 1:03, 1:07, 1:14, 1:17, 1:27, 1:36, 1:42, 1:44, 1:45, 1:47, 1:51, 1:51, 1:54, 2:06, 2:10, 2:33, 2:43, 2:48, 2:50, 2:55, 2:59, 3:03, 3:03, 3:12, 3:16, 3:16, 3:21, 3:25, 3:28, 3:37, 3:40.
taxpayers=hurt. Appearance=bad.
It says a lot about that community that I have lived in Virginia for going on 8 years straight (I was born here but lived most of the first 15 years of my life outside of the state) and I can only say that I have vaguelly heard of Martinsville. Vaguely. You’d think that a community that small and depressed would find any attention to its existance to be good attention…
I dont know Will, from what I read he seems a decent fellow….but thought I would approach this from a different angle to see not what will said, but when he said it.
A very quick peruse of a few political blogs (google ‘will vehrs’ and just look around) that span a few years back show Will spent more 8-5, Monday-Friday time posting comments, thoughts, and cute captions at other blogs…than just this incident.
Perhaps his co-workers brought this latest to light so he would do his job during the day, and limit his political activites to his off hours.
Oh, and before you ask…Im on vacation today.
I would like to respond to Dan because he raises an important issue.
On that Friday, and most Fridays, I have different job duties than normal. Instead of answering the 50-70 calls requesting business assistance that come in, I am responsible for answering the emails and the live chats that come in from my agency website or the state business portal. In other words, to be effective, I am chained to my desk in front of the computer so as not to miss any of the chat requests and to see the emails immediately so I can respond to them.
On most Fridays, it is relatively slow. Had I shopped online or closed my door and read the paper, no one would know. Had I just logged off to eat lunch out or take a walk, no one would be the wiser except for anyone who went to our website and wanted to use live chat and found that it wasn’t available. Instead, I mindlessly entered the Caption Contest using the computer in front of me, the one I had to monitor. A chat or email would immediately appear on my screen in front of what I was doing and I would handle it.
That’s not an excuse or justification, just an explanation of the situation. I was wrong to use the state computer in that way and I was wrong to participate in economic development satire. I have apologized for bad judgment and I apologize the bad appearance my many entries gave as to my work product.
Just for the record, yesterday I took 49 calls from businesses and citizens requesting information or answers. I was able to respond to 48 of them–one message was so garbled I was unable to get a callback number. I answered 70% of those calls live. Try calling around state agencies and see if you get a 70% live operator.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
I was looking for a place to build a small plant – 75 local jobs. One city that pitched me was Gary Indiana. They were all happy faces, the Miss USA contest had just been held there, they told me Everythg That Was Wonderful About Gary.
Just driving from the airport to the meeting, I went past block after block of borded up and occasionaly burt out houses. Shuttered stores. Derilict cars.
By the time I got to the meeting I knew that everything they’d told me so far was a lie.
If they had just told me what Gary was like to begin with, they would have had a shot. But even in the meeting, with the condition of the city known, they kept up with the happy talk. I knew I could’t trust them, I left early.
If a city is confidant to not just admit it has a problem, but to JOKE about it – that’s a city I want to do business with.
Oh, and just for the record, the above comment and this comment are taking me a long time to write because I am doing my job in-between.
Trust me, once this is resolved, I will never again post/blog on state time. I was wrong and again, I apologize.
For those of you who think you’re getting way more state work out of non-bloggers, I suggest you snoop around.
I visited Martinsville last year and I thought it was a really nice small Virginia town in the Piedmont.
I think it would be a beautiful place to build a state university.
As a native of Henry County I take no offense at Will’s humor. I’ve read each entry, and laughed at most (I especially liked the Sid Clower reference).
I agree with Waldo that too much has been (and will be) made of this, with few if any M/HC politicians/officials actually bothering to contact Will himself.
The timing of the posts is irrelevant. Anyone who cares has never worked in an office. Dollars-to-donuts that if he were not making blog posts he’d be chatting with other co-workers. This way only his productivity is impaired – a 50% bonus over everyone else.
Very few people can maintain an 8 hour attention span. We all need breaks. He took his posting from his computer. So what?
I hope the annoying bureaucrat at the Denver Registrar of Deeds, which only registers notarized documents, who told me that there where no notaries in the building was posting on a blog – if not she wasn’t contributing ANYTHING to society.
Thanks, mrsizer. The real problem in my mind is not with those who might be blogging or shopping online. At least they’re in their office and if you call them, you have a chance at getting them to answer the phone. If you email them, you have a chance of them opening it before it gets archived.
The real problem are those who aren’t ever in their office but offer you the old message, I’m so and so with such and such … sorry I missed your call, I am either … your call is very important to me … leave a message … for immediate help, call so and so ….
You call so and so and get his or her tape.
Check out the message on the tape of the Virginia Business Information Center, where I work. We do things differently.