Brown hopes she's a real cog in the wheel to advocate in Concord

Carolyn Brown believes she brings her community's voice to Concord where she has served two terms in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. That's one of the reasons why the North Conway resident is seeking re-election: She enjoys public service.Brown; incumbent Howard "Crow" Dickinson, R-Center Conway; incumbent Gene Chandler, R-Bartlett; and Henry Mock, R-Jackson, are all on the Republican ticket, while incumbent Tom Buco, D-Conway; Ed Butler, D-Hart's Location; Gino Funicella, D-Jackson and Fran DeFeo, D-Conway, are all running as Democrats. District 1, which covers Bartlett, Chatham, Conway, Hart's Location, Hale's Location and Jackson, elects four candidates this fall with the primary on Sept. 12 and general election in November.Brown took part Aug. 15 in the Gibson Center's "Five Minute" Candidate Forum. The following is what she spoke about:"As you can see, I'm sitting in a very male-dominated position here. I appreciate the opportunity to go to Concord and bring your voice to Concord. I think it would be good for me to start out and tell you a little bit about myself also. I moved to the valley in 1984 with three children in tow, put up a hand-written sign in the window that said, 'Tailor coming soon,' and I brought more prayers with me than you can even imagine. I was coming from a divorce with my three children. I can remember one day a person coming into my tailor shop and saying whatever makes you think you can make it here as a single woman? Because if the valley likes you, they will support you. If the valley doesn't like you, you can't make it here. Well, I've been here in a successful business for 22 years.I married my second husband, Robert Therrien, and he delivered me three more children, without the pain of child birth, but it came with pain. We have done well here in the valley. As a community leader, I have been elected as your state representative, this is my third term to be elected with any luck at all. I want you to know that that didn't come easy either. I ran two other times and did not get elected. I lost by a very small margin. I really want to represent you. I really work hard. I do my very, very best to be accessible. 'Accessible' is a good word. My tailor shop is in Redstone, and I am very accessible. People come and go and chat and tell me how they feel about things. They tell me when they are happy, and they tell me when they are not. I try to listen; I try to pay attention.I can't tell you that I have sponsored a lot of bills, I haven't. I can tell you that I sit on the Health and Human Services Committee and I have for four years. The issues that come before Health and Humans Services are enormous. They're from birth to grave. The budget is approximately, a little bit more than 60 percent of the entire state budget that goes to Health and Human Services. I know we haven't had a representative sit on Health and Human Services from our valley for many years. I hope that I'm a real cog in the wheel to bring your voice to Concord. I believe that Senator (Joe) Kenney has sat on Health and Human Services, and I don't know if he is currently there as he was last year. Thank you Joe, I just got the nod he is currently on Health and Human Services. It's an enormous, enormous job. Between the safety of our elderly and the health of our newborns there is a vast, vast spectrum of issues to be handled. Prescription medication, we all heard about that from Mr. (George) Cleveland about the Medicare, the doughnut, there are people that are struggling. Sometimes we take very good care of our very lowest paid citizens and our wealthy citizens take care of themselves, but we have the working poor, which a real serious issue with health care. The clinics that we do have here do pick up a little slack. We're very fortunate to have a couple of clinics here that are very, very good at helping people that have no money. It's a serious issue. It really and truly is a serious issue.I also belong to rotary. Rotary is a service organization business. It probably doesn't sound like it goes with state representative but we do an enormous amount of work in our valley. Lots of times people that are in need come to me through my state representative job and sometimes I am able to help them through rotary even it's unable to be helped through a speedy way through the legislature.One thing I was very surprised with when I went to the legislature was how long it takes to get things done. It takes an enormous challenge to get a bill passed. We may have very, very good ideas. We may have enormous importance on this one particular bill, and let me tell you it is a very, very long journey to get that bill through to become state law.I also sit on the board of directors of the peer support center here in North Conway. The peer support center is very, very helpful with the mentally ill. If in fact they have someone who is having a bad time, perhaps we would rush them off to the hospital. This peer support center, they help each other at this peer support center. I am proud to be part of an organization who helps each other. You know sometimes they don't need hospitalization, they need somebody who will listen, somebody who will care for them, somebody who will maybe give them a ride to where they need to go because transportation is a serious issue.I do want you to know I have my brochures out here. It has a picture of the state capital on it because every time I pass into that Exit 14 and I see that capital building shining up there I can't tell you how proud I am to serve you. I ask for your vote at the primary make sure that you got to the primary because you know we don't have any contested races on the state representative level, but it's really important. I lost my primary, that's why I was not on the ballot the first two times I ran, so both of the elections are very, very important."