Our State editor returns home as grand marshal

ASHEBORO — When Elizabeth Hudson leads the Asheboro Christmas Parade as grand marshal, it will be like an official return to her hometown. But in her heart she’s never really left.

“I grew up going to the parade,” Hudson said. “It’ll be interesting being in it.”

Hudson now lives in Greensboro as editor-in-chief of Our State Magazine. But she still makes it down I-73 once or twice a month to the town where she grew up.

Hudson, who turned 54 on Nov. 1, said during a lunch interview at The Table that her family lived for a year or two in a house on Salisbury Street at Cox. Her grandmother, Norva Hudson, lived nearby close to the Asheboro Public Library.

“She loved to read and had so many magazine subscriptions,” Hudson said. The two would spend plenty of time in the library and the younger Hudson learned to love reading from her grandmother.

In 1979, Hudson moved with her parents to Old Highway 49 and she attended Farmer Elementary School and then Southwestern Middle and High schools. But she spent much of her spare time in Asheboro with Norva Hudson since her parents owned businesses in town.

“I spent most of my time in Asheboro with my grandmother,” she said. “My mother owned Kit ‘n Kaboodle,” which had three or four locations before winding up at Randolph Mall.

During her free time, Hudson said, she and her grandmother would “walk all over and stop and visit people.” She remembers downtown shops such as the Little Castle, Tobias, Teen Haven, Eva Frye’s, Hall-Knott, Moore’s and Eagle’s 5-and-10, where she loved their chocolate stars. She did her Christmas shopping at the Belk store, which was on Sunset Avenue back in the 1970s.

As a teenager with her driver’s license, Hudson would “cruise up and down the streets,” then turn around and go the other direction.

That was when downtown Asheboro was where folks went to shop and was a center of activity. Then when shopping centers and the mall pulled customers away, the downtown became like a desert for more than a couple of decades. Now it’s turned full circle, and that’s not lost on Hudson.

“When I see Asheboro now, it reminds me of what it was before,” she said. “It’s amazing what’s happened. It makes me really happy.”

Hudson recalls having a passbook savings account at First National Bank and working in her parents’ store. Then she graduated from high school in 1988 and entered Appalachian State University for her first year of college. She said she got homesick and really didn’t fit in there.

When she told her parents she was leaving school, her father said she would have to get a job. So she wound up driving a tram at the NC Zoo in 1989.

Eventually, Hudson enrolled at UNC-Greensboro and “loved it there. They had a really good English Department and I found a home.”

After graduating from UNCG, Hudson got a job at Border’s Bookstore when it opened in Greensboro. “I loved that,” she said of working around so many books. Then she saw something that changed her life. 
“I saw a copy of Our State Magazine and thought, ‘That is where I need to work.’” She applied, got an interview and soon was answering the phone in the circulation department.

“I loved talking to people,” Hudson said. “I would take a stack of notes every evening and go through them with the editor.” Much of the stack was story ideas.

After a year at Our State, Hudson moved up to editorial assistant, that had her editing the Our State Quiz, book reviews and Tar Heel History by Billy Arthur. She had to retype Arthur’s columns until the company invested in a scanner.

Over the years, Hudson moved up the ladder, becoming editor-in-chief in 2009. The small staff of the magazine when she was first hired now numbers 45, she said proudly.

After seeing Our State magazine at Border those many years ago, Hudson is living her dream. “I hope I never leave.”

She said her job at Our State has her traveling all over North Carolina, into every county. “Anywhere in the state, you’ll find someone to talk to (about a story),” Hudson said. “I feel like I’ve traveled everywhere. You find something new when you go somewhere. I’m glad to make a magazine that’s positive.”

As a journalist, Hudson said it’s important to “cultivate a sense of curiosity in which everything is interesting.”

As for “coming home” to be in the Christmas Parade, Hudson said, “Asheboro is the quintessential small town with the Christmas lights. It’ll be the feeling that I’ve come back.”

When asked to be grand marshal, Hudson asked if her mother, Susie Hudson, could ride with her. Susie now lives in Greensboro across from her daughter.

“It will mean a lot to both of us,” Hudson said. “I’m excited to do it with my mom. This is our town.

“To be lucky enough to participate in a small town parade is like being catapulted back into small town life.”

The Asheboro Christmas Parade takes place downtown on Friday, Dec. 6, beginning at 7 p.m.