By Bryan Hanks

Some of the great things about being an American are our free elections and our ability as citizens to take part in them.

NeuseNews.com has been proud to have already introduced you to the candidates running in contested races in Lenoir County — including the Clerk of Superior Court contest, State House District 12, State Senate District 7 and the Board of Commissioners District 4. You can view absolutely free video interviews of those candidates answering pertinent questions at NeuseNews.com, 24 hours a day.

As Election Day approaches, we are taking our responsibility as our area’s hyper-local news source seriously. To that end, NeuseNews.com is sponsoring a candidates forum in Jones County on Tuesday.

The event – which will feature candidates for the three Jones County school board seats and for the seven new districts in the county – begins at 6:30 p.m., in the Jones Senior High School gymnasium. The event is free to the public.

I am honored to be moderating the event for NeuseNews.com in which we will ask all the school board and county commissioner candidates the questions you want to have answered.

This is where you come in, dear (Jones County) reader: If there is a question you’d like to have answered by one of the candidates, please send it to me in an email to Bryan@NeuseNews.com. I will do my best to interject your question(s) into the forum.

And when you come to the forum, come hungry! Concessions will be available for purchase and all proceeds will go to help the students at Jones Senior High School.

We certainly wouldn’t be able to have this event without help from our presenting sponsor – Lenoir Community College. For more than 50 years, LCC has proven to be one of the most community-driven organizations in Lenoir, Greene and Jones counties. Thank you to Dr. Rusty Hunt, Dr. Deborah Grimes, Richy Huneycutt and all the good folks at LCC for stepping up to help Jones County get to know its candidates.

Don’t fear, Greene County readers – although we are not going to be able to hold a forum there, we are going to introduce you to your candidates soon here on NeuseNews.com. We’re also going to be your primary source for Election Night results in a manner that is going to inform and impress you without costing you any money out of your pocket.

Jones County — we’ll see you on Tuesday at Jones Senior!