Bill Lester (R-WV-3)

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Bill Lester

Campaign links: Bill Lester (R-WV-3)

William Mathews “Bill” Lester, Jr.

Bill Lester Congressional Candidate West Virginia District 3

Biography of Bill Lester from the committee to elect Bill Lester Congressman

“My name is Bill Lester, and I was born and raised in Bud, West Virginia. My father was a machinist on the Old Virginian Railway and served in the Pacific during WWII. At that time my mother worked at the Pentagon and it was there they were introduced. I grew up and entered the public schools of Mullins, West Virginia. My father opened a junk yard when I was eight, and I went to work for him full time when I was nine years old. When I turned eighteen, I began working at the East River Mountain Project. I shoveled ditches and poured concrete into forms. Working for my father had taught me discipline and the value of hard work.

I entered Concord College that fall and graduated in 1974. I found that Paramount Pacific, who I had worked for at the East River Mountain, was building a dam and relocating a railroad in Justice, West Virginia. I spent a couple winters outside at Justice working first for Paramount Pacific and then Western Contracting. In 1978, I went to Marshall University to study political science. I took the money I saved from construction and then transferred to Antioch School of Law in 1979. I went to work at Washington Gas Company after my first year. My dream was to come back to West Virginia and represent underprivileged people. I have lived out that dream and represented the people of West Virginia for over 25 years.

The areas of the Third District hold a special place in my heart, as my ancestors had received a swath of West Virginia starting at Winterplace and running into Wyoming County for their service in the Continental Army. Today, it is hard to believe the despair, deprivation and fatalism that envelopes the district. I then decided that the “Caretaker Congressman” would be challenged and that I was the man for the job. Yes, it meant leaving a comfortable law practice in Charleston, but I believe the citizens of the Third District deserve more and better.

If elected, I am ready willing and able to take the Grover Norquist pledge, “I will not raise taxes on anyone, anywhere under any circumstances”. ”