From Staff Reports

HENDERSONVILLE —  The leadership  of the Henderson County Republican Party “remains in disarray after three officers decimated the executive committee and rewrote the party’s plan of organization, leaving confusion and bitterness in their wake,” the Hendersonville Lightning reported on May 2.

“Starting with the party’s annual convention on March 23 and continuing through a raucous meeting of the executive committee on April 15, party members have traded shots, shouted at one another and gotten into physicial altercations,” the Lightning noted.

“By the time a special called meeting on April 15 staggered to a close, party Chair Brett Callaway and two deputies had deposed more than 35 precinct committee chairs from the executive committee and Hoopers Creek Kathy Maney precinct was led outside by a City of Hendersonville police captain. 

“Maney had already filed a charge against Callaway of assault on a female for grabbing her cellphone during a dispute at the March 23 convention.”

The Lightning added that GOP member Susane Brown wrote on Facebook: “If it weren’t for Kathy Maney revealing the TRUTH., the communist actions of Callaway & his committee of three would have been forever concealed ‘under the rug,’ and would have been very difficult to prove.”

The Daily Planet emailed Callaway at the only email address listed on the HCGOP’s website ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) on May 2, seeking his viewpoint on what happened at the meetings, but the email was returned with a note that “message (was) not delivered.” 

Meanwhile, Bruce Hatfield, chair of the Henderson County Republican Men’s Club, told the Daily Planet on May 5 that his club’s  breakfast meeting at 9 a.m. May 11 at the American Legion in Hendersonville “will discuss the recent actions by the HCGOP and the 11th district chair (Michele Woodhouse), and how the Republican Party of Henderson County can move forward.”

Hatfield added that the 9 a.m. May 11 breakfast meeting at Hendersonville’s American Legion Post 77 “is open to all registered Republicans,” along with the news media. The breakfast cost is $10 for all attendees, he noted, but first-time attendees also must pay $30 annual dues to join the club. 

The text of Hatfield’s May 5 email response to an inquiry — about his club’s upcoming meeting agenda and his viewpoint on the melee — from the Daily Planet is as follows:

“We will have an open discussion at the men’s club meeting (May 11) to discuss the actions tanked at the HCGOP county convention, which a motion for a new plan of organization was unanimously voted down and reverted.  

“On a special called executive meeting on April 15 no one was allowed to speak, the new plan of organization, which had been rejected at the county convention, was vote in essentially by three people.  

“Former members of the executive committee were dismissed. The new PoO (plan of organization) no longer represents the precinct chair, the men’s club, and other members of the previous executive committee.  

“One member was removed by the police at the meeting and the majority of members walked out.  At the 11th district convention, no one was allowed to speak and one member was removed from the convention who was a delegate.

“The men’s club will discuss the recent actionst Ken by the hcgop and the 11th district chair, and how the Republican Party of Henderson county can move forward.

“The men’s club is a member of the North Carolina federation of men’s clubs — and is not a part of the local hcgop or 11th district.” 

Meanwhile, the Lightning reported that “the April 15 executive committee meeting was unusual from the start, (as) Callaway and Michele Woodhouse, who is the Republican chair for the 11th Congressional District, brought in District Secretary Hunter Clark from Buncombe County to chair the meeting. 

“The only three executive members left standing at that point were Callaway, Cyndy Wiley and Derek Prickett.

“Order was restored enough for Woodhouse to rise and explain that the executive committee members had all been seated improperly at the March convention.

“Party members booted from the leadership were in an uproar. The Lightning viewed a 45-minute video of the meeting.”

The newspaper then quoted Woodhouse, who lives in Laurel Park, as telling the party activists the following:

 “What I’ve seen happening here in my own county over the course of the law five weeks has been heartbreaking. 

“It has been disrespectful. What we saw happen at the county county convention, with a former elected official using the F-word from the floor to the chair of the convention — unacceptable. 

“Screaming yelling, women being harassed by men — unacceptable. We are better than that. There have been emails that have been circulation among people who claim to be leaders in this party for weeks — prior to the convention, after the convention and up to and including just a few hours before this meeting. 

“What we saw just happen in the back of this room, this is not how Republicans should be behaving.”

The Lightning noted that Woodhouse would not grant it an interview to ask her quetions about the “disrespectful” and “unacceptable” behavior of party members, and she instead responded in an email “with party leadership boilerplate.”

In Woodhouse’s email to the Lightning, she said (in part), “‘NC11 and Henderson County Republicans are unified and focused on delivering a red wave in November!” 

The Lightning also said it contacted Maney on whether she knew the identify of a “former elected official using the F-word” -— and that she responded, “I can’t fnd anyone who knows who she (Woodhouse) was talking about. I didn’t hear the F-word used by anyone.”

Efforts were made by the newspaper to contact Callaway, the HCGOP chair, for an interview — by telephone, email, text and even leaving a note at his home in the Dana community — but “he failed to respond,” the Lightning reported.