Faye Prichard (Photo by Ash Daniel)
Faye Prichard got a piece of glass stuck in her eye as a toddler when her biological father, who soon split with her mother, dropped a glass in the middle of the night and didn’t pick up the pieces off the floor.
She went blind in her left eye, and starting in about fifth grade, she says, a group of boys — she remembers them all by name — bullied her about her appearance.
“I was the funny-looking kid,” Prichard says. “I looked cross-eyed. I’m not saying I’m a beauty now, but I sure as hell wasn’t a natural beauty as a child.”
The bullying caused her to doubt everything about herself.
But she pushed through. Today, Prichard is director of the writing program at VCU’s Honors College and a local politician. She served for 14 years on the Ashland Town Council, including 10 years as mayor, and is now in her second term on the Hanover County Board of Supervisors, the only Democrat to serve in more than 30 years in one of the reddest of Virginia’s Republican-dominated red counties.
A graduate of Highland Springs High School, she veered to the wild side after enrolling at what was then Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, flunking out after a little more than two years.
“I majored in boys and beer,” she says. “I was good at those two things but not a hell of a lot else.”
It might not have been the best start for a local politician or a college professor, but Prichard was able to pivot. She became a certified respiratory therapist, and then in her 30s, she returned to college at VCU, earning a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s in literature.
She got interested in politics when a group of Ashland residents — Citizens for Responsible Growth — formed in 2000 to keep Walmart out of the small town. The battle, which made national headlines, was eventually lost, but Prichard’s interest in politics had been ignited.
She and her husband, Steven, moved to Ashland 37 years ago as a compromise — she wanted to live in the Fan; he wanted to live in Louisa County. She says they lucked into the kind of small town they have come to love.
“I stand up for the things I believe in or that I see differently. But I’m part of the team, and the team works for everybody.” —Faye Prichard
Sue Watson, who served on the Hanover County School Board for 36 years and was the first woman named to the board, says Prichard has always amazed her with an ability to juggle work, family and life in general.
“She’s got a wonderful attitude and approach to people, which makes her a particularly strong leader in the political world, as well as in the world of local government,” Watson says.
Prichard says watching “The Andy Griffith Show” as a child helped define her personal morality and her approach to politics and to life.
“It was all Andy,” she says. “That whole sense of community and the value of a small town and doing the right thing every time. You know how we say today, ‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind?’ That’s Andy.”
The idea of doing the right thing every time has crossed Prichard’s mind a lot over the past two years, which she says have been her hardest years in politics because of the issues Hanover has faced, including:
- A decision by the board of supervisors in December 2019 to resist any legislation that impinged on gun rights, after Democrats took over the General Assembly. She was the lone vote against the resolution, saying she believed in common sense gun legislation.
- The school board’s debate over changing the names of schools named for Confederate leaders, which they eventually did in 2020 and which she supported.
- A 2019 visit of the Ku Klux Klan to the county courthouse, which earned only a tepid response from some members of the board of supervisors. The memory of the Klan’s visit later collided with last summer’s Black Lives Matter movement, and Prichard participated in a peaceful Black Lives Matter march.
- The eventual rezoning in 2020 for a Wegmans distribution center that would bring 700 jobs to Hanover, but which was resisted by many local homeowners. She sided with the homeowners. State and federal agencies are still reviewing environmental permits for the project.
It was the gun issue in December 2019 that got Prichard loud boos — and a death threat — at a public hearing, from an overflow crowd of 1,000 mostly gun supporters. Sheriff’s deputies escorted her out of the public hearing, and Ashland police parked outside her home for several days.
“I really didn’t feel unsafe,” she says, “but what I felt was mad and disappointed that people threatened and booed me because I disagreed with them.”
Prichard says people misjudge her if they believe she is only on the board of supervisors to be the sole liberal voice.
“What my citizens need is a person who works on behalf of them to protect the things they value where they live,” she says, “and the only way you get to do that is if you play as part of the team. So I stand up for the things I believe in or that I see differently. But I’m part of the team, and the team works for everybody.”
Prichard still can’t see out of her left eye, but she doesn’t view this as a disability, and she notes that sometimes it has its advantages.
“To be honest, if I don’t like you, I’m much more likely to place you on my left so I can’t see you,” she says, laughing. “So if I permanently put you on my left, there’s probably a reason for it.”
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