Candidate Biography (submitted by candidate):

My name is Gary J. Bowers, and I am your candidate for Register of Deeds. I was born and raised in Thomasville, and currently work and reside in Lexington. My wife is Kristy Lohr Bowers, she is a registered nurse working for a general medical practice in Winston Salem. We have a one year old son, Christopher Quinn Bowers.

My parents are Jim and Nancy Bowers of Thomasville. My parents owned and operated various small businesses in Thomasville, and I worked at their side in furniture retail, appliance repair and real estate property management as a boy growing up.

I graduated from Thomasville High School in 1998, attended North Carolina Governor's School in 1997 and earned an academic and baseball scholarship to attend Belmont Abbey College. At Belmont Abbey College I was president of the College Union Board, editor of the college literary magazine, a volunteer in the community, and a pitcher and catcher on the Crusader baseball team. In 2002 I graduated cum laude with a bachelor of arts in political science, received the department award for high academic achievement and the Honors Degree from Belmont Abbey. In 2005 I graduated with a juris doctor from Oklahoma City University School of Law.

From my time in law school to the present I have worked as a law clerk at Stoner, Bowers, Gray & McDonald, P.A. in Lexington. At the law firm I have gained a wide range of experience in both civil and criminal law. Moreover, I have focused most my efforts on real estate, handling real estate purchases, loan closings and performing title examinations at the register of deeds office in Davidson County. My job duties have included performing title examinations and legal research for attorneys in over 20 counties in North Carolina.

I want to put my education and experience to work for the people of Davidson County. I am enthused about the opportunity, and know I will be a valuable resource for the people of Davidson County. My experience makes me familiar with the needed improvements inside the office and on the register of deeds website.

My ideas include preservation and reorganization of the land records in the deed vault at the office. This is the official public record and its efficient presentation and preservation saves time for title searchers, which translates into savings for the citizens of Davidson County. I will work to restore shambled pages and print.

I support a free website with images and indexing. However, I want to incorporate ways to protect the privacy of the citizens of Davidson County requiring registration and password protection to the website. Currently, contact information and mortgage information is very accessible to all scam artist, hackers and frauds that seek it out. The website should not be easy access for cons and scammers to put their materials into your mailbox. It is only a small inconvenience for those who use the website for honest purposes, but it adds integrity to the system by filtering out scam artists and other fraudulent browsers.

Further, I find it necessary to audit the imaging and work to complete the land records index on the register of deeds website. The current site is filled with poorly scanned images, inaccuracy and incomplete images. Past indexes are omitted from the website, or are not consistent with one method of searching. The website may not contain all the official records, but the citizens have paid for a job to be done with precision and quality, and I will see it through.