Former Shore resident thanks the late Muhly for efforts to make School Board elected

The fine obituary for Paul Muhly omitted an important one of his many contributions to the Shore. That is, it was on Paul’s initiative that we now have an elected school board in Accomack County. Ten years ago, Accomack was one of the few remaining districts in Virginia in which School Board members were still being appointed by a judge, a relic of the Jim Crow era. Paul researched the matter, and gathered petition signatures necessary for the first stage in a multi-year process, which was getting the question on the ballot. The first attempt, getting signatures in high-traffic parking lots such as Food Lion in 2014, failed because many of the signatures were by folks unable to vote. Undiscouraged, he learned a better way: gather the petition signatures at polling places on Election Day, 2015. That succeeded, got the question on the 2016 ballot, and Accomack now has an elected School Board. Paul did it purely as a patriot and concerned citizen. He stood to gain nothing from the effort. As with so many of his contributions, he did it because it was the right thing to do.

Alan Silverman