Dale Wheeler sells burial vaults and gutter guards.
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“I get into things that are inevitable,” said Wheeler, 59, a lame duck member of the Bedford County Board of Supervisors.
“Leaves are going to fall; I don’t care who the elected official is,” he said. “Death’s going to come to everyone; don’t care who’s in the White House.”
Marital infidelity isn’t inevitable, but Wheeler once worked as a private investigator who specialized in bird-dogging suspected cheaters – another business he described as recession-proof.
“I did about 44 divorces one year. I think it broke a record,” he said.
And, of course, it was inevitable that Wheeler’s service on the board of supervisors would someday end.
He emphasized during a recent interview that he’s alive and kicking and looking forward to devoting more time to making a living. But he also acknowledged that leaving the board of supervisors after 21 years feels like a major loss. His term ends Dec. 31.
On Nov. 8, challenger Bill Thomasson garnered about 62 percent of the vote and won the District 1 seat.
“Am I going to miss it? Yes,” Wheeler said. “I love governing. It’s just something I like. I enjoyed it all. Some people play golf. Some hunt.”
He described both optimism and concern about Bedford County’s future.
“We’re booming and it’s because we have a 50 cents tax rate on real estate, no gross receipts tax, we are open for business,” Wheeler said. “We have four Food Lions in Bedford. The community of Forest is bigger than the city of Bedford. We built a thriving business community and it was paid for through controlled growth.”
Wheeler said he worries that the proposed overhaul under way of the county’s zoning ordinance could, depending on how it is steered, return the county to a period of unbridled growth that overwhelmed the school system in recent decades.
Wheeler was 38 years old when first elected to the board of supervisors in November 1990. At the time, the monthly pay for supervisors was $333.33. (Today’s monthly pay is $550.)
“We were going through this period that was rough,” he recalled. “There was no zoning in Bedford County prior to the late 1980s, and what we had were these private road subdivisions that just started popping up everywhere.”
He said the county became a mecca for low-income housing.
“There’s nothing wrong with that except the schools had kids hanging off the walls,” Wheeler said.
He said the county borrowed $60 million during his first 10 years on the board to rebuild the county school system and make other capital improvements.
“That’s a massive amount of money,” Wheeler said. “And during the next 10 years, $40million more. And it was catching up to all that uncontrolled growth in those private road subdivisions.”
Wheeler said supervisors recognized that Bedford County could not simply be a bedroom community for Lynchburg and Roanoke.
“We had to develop our own economic engine. We had no industrial parks. No visitor center. No tourism program. No plan of action. Just lawsuits, overcrowding, roads gone to hell and unbelievable growth.
“So, we had to build an economy, build the infrastructure to support the economy, borrow the money, get down on our knees and start rolling the dice and betting on the odds. And guess what, growth is not a bad thing as long as you control it.
“Bedford County is now a player in the future economic vitality of the region,” Wheeler said.
‘Hard times’
Dale Wheeler’s parents, Jack and Juanita Wheeler, are in their 80s and still live on the farm in Shady Grove that Dale says has been in the family since the 1750s.
“Dad was with Vinton Weaving for years and years and years as a loom fixer,” he said. “Then he became a long-haul truck driver until he retired.”
Wheeler attended Stewartsville Elementary, shivering “in the old World War II Quonset huts in the fourth grade with the coal burning stove; you could do multiplication on the window in the frost, it was so cold.”
When he turned 16 he landed a job as a cameraman for WDBJ-7 TV.
“I worked all the bum hours — weekends, nights, the live news.”
Wheeler later turned to sales, hawking TVs, Hoover vacuum cleaners, wholesale appliances and other goods.
As a traveling salesman, he frequently placed product advertising for small merchants in local newspapers. Wheeler became fascinated by the role of local government. Later, a professor at Virginia Western Community College helped fire his interest in governing at the local level.
“I had this curiosity. Why does one community thrive and another just blows away?”
He said his first campaign for the board of supervisors could not be replicated today. He said Thomasson, a Republican, benefitted from strong party backing.
“Sadly, the day of the independent politician is over in Bedford County,” Wheeler said. “I spent $400 on my first campaign. Took two 4-by-8 sheets of plywood, cut them in half, nailed them up to a fence post and my kid sister painted them with a paintbrush – ‘Vote for Wheeler.'”
In 1998, Wheeler started selling medical equipment.
“That business petered out and drove me into ruin,” he said.
In 2009, he filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“I have been very open with people about my financial difficulties. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon. I’ve had to bust my butt.”
He said his personal financial straits provides additional fuel for his blue-collar bias.
“It makes me very, very respectful for people who are going through hard times. It makes me very cautious around blue bloods. It makes me rather be with working-class people.
“It’s a very humbling thing to be poor in America today. I really don’t trust anybody who don’t carry a lunch box.”
‘Herein lies a character’
Through the years Wheeler also developed an affinity for small, neighborhood schools. This year, Wheeler erupted when Bedford County Public Schools Superintendent Doug Schuch and the school board proposed closing Bedford Primary School.
He tongue-lashed Schuch and a few school board members at a public meeting. Afterward, some people, including Schuch, said Wheeler’s behavior had been unprofessional.
“Sometimes I don’t have enough sense to shut up,” he said. “I like to say what I’m thinking. It gets me in trouble.”
He said his literary heroes include Will Rogers, Mark Twain and William Faulkner. Wheeler is known for an articulate, drawling speaking style that often mixes rural colloquialisms with wit honed to a keen edge.
He said his tombstone will read, “Here lies a character.”
Meanwhile, Wheeler said what has turned out to be his last year on the board has been the busiest of his 21-year tenure — a reality he attributes to the recession.
“Since 2007 it’s been no fun. We’ve had to hang on for dear life.”
He said he’s optimistic about the city of Bedford’s plan to revert to becoming a town within the county and will miss participating directly in that transition.
He said he loved governing “because that’s how you build a better future for your home.”
“The goal every day was to make Bedford a better place to call home. Better schools, better fire and rescue, better roads, better water and sewer.”
