Submitted photo Randolph County Clerk Brenda Wiseman, center, and West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, right, accept the Margaret Chase Smith Award in honor of the late U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph. The award was presented by National Association of Secretaries of State President Kyle Ardoin, left.

Submitted photo
Randolph County Clerk Brenda Wiseman, center, and West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner, right, accept the Margaret Chase Smith Award in honor of the late U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph. The award was presented by National Association of Secretaries of State President Kyle Ardoin, left.

CHARLESTON — The late U.S. Senator Jennings Randolph was honored with the National Association of Secretaries of State’s highest honor in a special ceremony Friday.

NASS President and Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin presented the annual Margaret Chase Smith American Democracy Award posthumously to Randolph with more than 170 student leaders in attendance from all over the state. The event was hosted at the state capitol by West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner.

Randolph was honored for his 29-year effort to pass the 26th Amendment and reduce the voting age from 21 to 18 years of age. Randolph County resident Ella Mae Thompson Haddix was also recognized on Friday as an “Honorary WV Secretary of State.”

Feb. 11 marks the official 50th anniversary of Haddix being the first 18-year old American to register to vote after the passage of the 26th Amendment.

Haddix, now a retired Randolph County school teacher living near Elkins, was escorted to the Randolph County Courthouse in Elkins in 1972 to register to vote by none other than Randolph himself. The senator was called by the Nixon White House on the morning of Feb. 11, 1972 asking him to do the honor of securing the nation’s first 18-year to register.

“I was honored to be a part of that. Sen. Randolph put a lot of work, perseverance and determination into getting it passed,” Thompson told The Inter-Mountain last week. “I was lucky enough to be able to go with him to be the first 18-year-old to register.

“I think he was very proud of that amendment,” Thompson said. “And I was honored to do it because my brother had been killed in Vietnam and he had not been able to register to vote. So I feel like it was something that I did for him, too.

“In 1971 is when it was passed and last year was the 50th anniversary,” she added. “I’m very proud of it and I just happened to be lucky because I was working at D&E and Sen. Randolph wanted to take an 18-year-old from Randolph County to be the first to go register. And I was asked if I would go and I told them that I would.”

“Sen. Randolph sent me an autographed picture of when we were in the courthouse signing the registration papers,” she said. “That was something really special to me. I really thought a lot of him, he was a true gentleman.”

“I think that was something that was near and dear to his heart,” she said. “He wanted to get it done and he had been trying to do so for a good while. So he was happy to finally get that accomplished.”

Thompson has been caring for her ill sister and was unable to attend Friday’s ceremony in Charleston, but Randolph County Clerk Brenda Wiseman took part in the ceremony.

Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, the NASS president, attended the ceremony to make the presentation. Randolph’s two sons — Jay, 87, and Frank, 83 –sent taped messages to the ceremony.