Parker County Today February 2018 | Page 14

Love in the time of Elections M 12 ike Prince became interested in the politi- cal process years before he met his future wife. He became intrigued with politics after butting heads with his homeowner’s associa- tion. Seems the HOA wanted to dictate how he landscaped his yard and he thought that should be his decision.  “They came in and told me that I couldn’t and I shouldn’t,” Prince said. They demanded that he remove the landscaping he’d just had put in because it didn’t look like everyone else’s. He fought the HOA and he won.  “I found that there were a number of people in the neighbor- hood (of 500 homes) who were unhappy with the board,” Prince said. Prince rolled up his sleeves and orga- nized the unhappy homeowners, went to the city council, got to know the mayor, found out what he could do to remedy the situation and then he did it.  But, the experience gave him a new perspective on property rights, freedom in America and the political process.  “A group of conc erned homeowners took leadership and ran the HOA as the bylaws defined,” Prince said. “There were lawyers and police officers along with many other knowledgeable people working to make our HOA a kind entity.” A few years later, he moved to Parker County and through the church he attended he met Zan Statham, Republican Party chair. “I called him because I had tickets to a Maverick’s game and wanted to know if any of the members of the singles group would like to go,” she said. Prince said he would. Did they talk about politics? “No,” she said. “We talked about basket- ball.” But, when they did finally talk about government they soon found that they shared Mike and Zan Prince a passion for politics and conservative values. The day they married, in the spring of 2008, the bride spent the morning teaching a class for precinct chairs. When the class was over, one of them asked how she was going to spend the rest of her weekend. She casually stated that she was heading out to Aledo to church and she was going to get married.  Mike and Zan Prince had not been married