Love in the time of Elections
M
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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