By By William F. West / community editor
Aug. 28, 2002
U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering's local campaign headquarters won't open until next week, but volunteers already are using the downtown office to plot strategy for the 3rd District race.
Volunteers met Tuesday from about 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. before hitting the streets, going door-to-door, looking for potential Pickering supporters and encouraging them to register to vote.
Pickering, the Republican 3rd District congressman, meets Ronnie Shows, the Democratic 4th District congressman, in the November race for the newly re-drawn 3rd District U.S. House seat.
Pickering and Shows found themselves in the same congressional district after Mississippi lost one of its five U.S. House seats.
Pickering is expected to be in Meridian at 9:15 a.m. Tuesday to officially begin his Meridian-area campaign. He also will open his Meridian headquarters next to PaineWebber on Fifth Street.
Shows campaign spokesman Troy Colbert said no one has decided if Shows will open a Meridian or Lauderdale County campaign office.
Watson said he and other volunteers have gone door-to-door in Lauderdale County neighborhoods. Now, he said, they are visiting apartment complexes in Meridian.
He said most of the neighborhoods are friendly. "Some of them don't care," he said.
Supervising the volunteers is Rex Lewis, 40, a New Hampshire native and plant manager at Fairbanks Scales.
Bobbie Morgan, a co-chairman of the Pickering re-election campaign in Lauderdale County, said she expects the headquarters will be busy after next week's grand opening.