Getting the Jims mixed up -- governors, that is

A lot of readers let me know right away that I had missed by four years the date when Jimmy Green became lieutenant governor. He won that post in 1976, not in 1972 as I wrote. I flat got my Jims mixed up. I was reminded of that Friday night at a North Caroliniana Society Dinner honoring Jim Holshouser, the mountain lawmaker from Boone who won the governorship in 1972, the first Republican to win the office in the 20th Century. Another Jim was elected that year, as there would be for elections to come. Jim Hunt won the lieutenant governorship in 1972, and moved to the governorship in 1976. He won two terms as governor, followed in 1984 and 1988 by another Jim -- Jim Martin of Mecklenburg. And, of course, Jim Hunt won two more terms as governor after Jim Martin, leading to speculation that you had to be named Jim to become governor in the last third of the 20th century. For 28 years, our governor was a guy named named Jim. Among the things these Jims had in comon, one speaker noted Friday -- all were Presbyterians. Mike Easley, a Roman Catholic, finally broke the Jim trend, winning the governorship in 2000 and 2004.