Russ West

Russ West grew up in Mooresville and is now an attorney in the ever-changing town.

How long have you been in Mooresville?

I’ve been in Mooresville since about 1965. I started school here in first grade, and I went through all twelve grades here.


What were some of your first jobs?
I worked in textile mills in the summertime. There was Burlington Industries, and a lot of other textile mills in the area, and they would hire high school kids on the weekends and in the summers to come in and clean the machines, and basically just do whatever cleanup work they needed done.

Is it true that you worked at Deluxe Ice Cream?

That’s right. I worked one summer at Deluxe Ice Cream, making ice cream and fudge bars and just filling up quarts of ice cream. All flavors, all kinds. It was cold.

Are there any stories from the mill?
I don’t remember any really unique things happening, but I do recall working there with a bunch of buddies of mine in high school. We would take air blowers into the machines and you would come out at noon just covered in lint and oil, and just dirty. But it was fun because your friends were out there with you.

What was the popular hang-out spot?

There were really two. When I was in high school, there was a Hardee’s on Main Street, and that was on the north end of Main Street towards Charlotte, and on the other end of Main Street, there was a Tasty Freeze on the Salisbury side. What the kids would do is cruise up and down Main Street going real slow. They’d borrow the parents’ car, go pick up their friends, and then cruise down Main Street going extremely slow, yelling at all their friends. They would go to the Hardee’s and turn around at the Hardee’s and go back to the Tasty Freeze, and back and forth and back and forth. It doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun now, but it was pretty fun with your friends.

Do you have any memorable moments from high school?

I do. We had a terrible high school football team. I remember going to South Rowan one year, and they beat us 70 to nothing. But back then, you didn’t have the influence of Charlotte as much. Mooresville seemed much more isolated, like just a real small town, and there wasn’t nearly the number of people living on the lake. Most of the people who lived on the lake at that time actually lived around Mooresville and then had a little trailer, or a very, very small shack-type house that they would go out to in the summer time and just hang out. You didn’t have the mansions on Lake Norman that you have now. And we would go out there in the summertime and ski and sail. You pretty much had the lake to yourself because, again, at that time, there weren’t that many people living out there. And that was a lot of fun.

What other cultural differences do you see, and what impact do you think they’ve had?

I think the biggest cultural difference is the influx of people here from other parts of the country. It has good elements, and it has challenging elements. The good elements are that when you have an influx of people like that, you also have an influx of businesses that they bring with them or come after them, and you get a lot more restaurants, and places like that to eat at. But also, when you go out now, you used to be able to go out to a restaurant and see a lot of people you knew, whereas now, a lot of times you go out to a restaurant, even in downtown Mooresville, and not know anybody eating there. And that is a loss of some of the small-town flavor, because it’s really not a small town anymore.

How have you seen business change?

I’ve seen dramatic changes in business. With the new influx of people from other parts of the country, there are a lot more large subdivisions around town. Of course, that brings traffic with it, and it brings a lot of people who have no family here. And you do have a fairly small group of people around now who grew up here, and they remember which families lived on which corner and which street, and they remember parents and brothers and sisters, and it’s just a…it’s fun to meet up with them and catch up on all of their family. But it does remind you, too, that most folks living here now don’t have family from here, and so they don’t have that old-time connection. And you do miss that.


Is there anything else from Mooresville’s past that you miss?
Yeah…I miss the closeness of the community. I don’t know if that is something that is really…what’s the word…it’s not unique to Mooresville, but not knowing people through family connections, knowing people for only a year or two. And really, you don’t know that much about them. You don’t know anything about their family, their brothers and sisters, you know, where they’re from, and you had…there is a tendency to want to seek out people that you know and say “hey” and that kind of thing. And again, there is a loss of some of the small-town feel to it when you go downtown and you don’t know anybody down there.

The influence of NASCAR has obviously grown over the years.

Yes.

And what comments do you have about that, if any? How it’s changed…?

Well, first, NASCAR came into Mooresville at a crucial time. The textile mills were dying out. As work was going overseas, jobs were going overseas. And a lot of textile towns were having a really hard time diversifying their business base. And Mooresville has been extremely fortunate to have the NASCAR community come in. They’re good and hard-working people, they bring high-paying jobs to the area, and they’re just…they’re very good corporate citizens. And we’ve been really fortunate to have good-paying NASCAR jobs come to the area and bring good people in. it’s an exciting business, and they’re exciting people to be around. So that’s been a real blessing for the Mooresville area in many ways.

Great. And you actually left to go to Quantico, right?

That’s right. After Law School, when I graduated from Law School in 1988, I decided to join the Marine Corps and serve in the JAG Department, Judge Advocate General, and that’s where we had our basic training boot camp, as it’s commonly known, and from there I was actually assigned to Quantico. And Quantico is a large Marine base right outside of Washington, D.C. The FBI academy is located on the Quantico base also. So there was a lot of do and a lot of training going on. It was an exciting place to be.

How long were you away from Mooresville during that period?

I was away from Mooresville from 1980 until 1992.

Wow. What changes do you remember noticing coming back, or did you notice many during that time?

I remember…the biggest change I remember was really when large chains of restaurants came in because when I left, we didn’t have any restaurant chains. Of course, we had a Hardee’s and McDonald’s, but as far as actual sit-down restaurants, you really didn’t have any. You had a lot of “Mom-and-Pop” restaurants. And when I came back…not long after I came back, Cracker Barrel built a restaurant out at I-77. That was a big summer for me. (Laughs.) And after Cracker Barrel, a lot of restaurant chains came in fairly quickly, and we enjoyed that.

Speaking of changes, do you think there was one significant change that kind of started the snowball rolling, or do you think there was just a chain of events?

I think the biggest thing that started the growth was the arrival of NASCAR. And what people don’t really understand, if they just drive through the town, is that it’s not just drivers and crew chiefs, it’s all of the crews of each team, but also, for every team, there’s at least ten businesses that produce things that support NASCAR. Every single engine component has to have a business somewhere that produces that thing. Every nut and bolt on a race car, every tire, the seats – everything has to be manufactured somewhere, and a lot of those businesses are located in the race parks in the Mooresville area. And that brought in thousands of people to the area.

One final question that I have for you is, what would you like to tell other people about Mooresville?
I would like to tell them that it has a good combination of big city – places to eat and things to do – but it still retains some of the small-town flavor that was in place when I grew up here. You really do get to know your neighbors – find out where they’re from, what they do – and that makes the neighborhood living here, suburban living, a lot of fun, and it’s neat. We have really good neighbors, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

Great. Well, thank you so much for your time, Mr. West.

Thank you.