It was four years ago this weekend that the Alabama Republican State Executive Committee elected me as its Chairman. It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve the Party in this capacity. As I wrote a few weeks ago, there is a season for everything, and after much prayer I have determined that the time has come for me to move into another season of my life. When the State Executive Committee meets in Montgomery this Saturday, I will turn the gavel over to a new Chairman.

I thank God for providing this opportunity for me to serve as Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. When I followed Senator Barry Goldwater into the Republican Party as a college student in 1964, I would not have dreamed that I would one day serve as ALGOP Chairman. During the last 50 years I never waivered from my commitment to the Republican Party and am proud to say that I have never voted for a Democrat.

Having served in the Alabama Senate for eight years, when Republicans were very much in the minority, I wasn’t sure I would see the day when we would have a super majority in both the House and Senate. Some thought the election of our super majority in 2010 was just a vote against an unpopular president. But last year voters not only returned our super majority to Montgomery, they gave us three additional Senators and five additional House members. We now have 26 of 35 seats in the Senate and 72 of 105 seats in the House.

>>>During the last four years, we weren’t content to just lay the groundwork for re-electing our super majorities in the legislature. We believed voters would vote Republican at the local level if we recruited good candidates and provided them support. And voters proved us right. We have increased the number of Republicans holding office at the local level by over 200 in the last four years.

We also wanted to make a difference in the presidential election in 2012. We asked the legislature to move our presidential primary date to the second Tuesday in March, with the hopes of getting presidential candidates to campaign in Alabama. And they did. The legislature moved the primary and the candidates came. In fact we held the first ever presidential forum in Alabama, where over 2,000 people packed into the Alabama Theater in Birmingham to hear former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senator Rick Santorum. All the national news media came to cover our big event.

We felt pretty confident Alabamians would vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket, but were very concerned about some of the battleground states. So we organized a group of volunteers that we called the Battleground Patriots and sent them on buses to Florida and Ohio to campaign door to door.

As I look back over the last four years, one of the things I feel we accomplished that will have a lasting impact – in addition to electing a record number of Republicans – was to finally secure a permanent home for the Alabama Republican Party. Now that we are the majority party in Alabama, I felt we should have a headquarters building we could be proud of and have as our own (as opposed to pouring money into rent).

We were blessed to have some faithful donors who agreed with us, and through their generosity we purchased a beautiful building in Hoover that is now our state headquarters. And it is completely paid for. We also have a much more desirable working environment, with a substantially larger work area, which enabled us to have over 100 volunteers coming to help us during the 2012 election. Visitors regularly come by and are welcomed by our full-time volunteer receptionist “Miss Carol”. She has truly been a blessing to all of us at the ALGOP headquarters and helps us keep a smile on our face.

Finally, I must thank the awesome ALGOP staff for the great job they have done for the last four years. The solid rock that has held us together is our Chief of Staff Harold Sachs, who has not only done a great job managing our staff but has been a great resource for our county chairmen. Having worked at every level in the Party, Harold was always eager to help anyone who needed advise or help through challenging times. During these four years we were blessed to have on our team TJ Maloney, Megan McIllwain, Britney Garner, Shana Kluck, Susan Cowart, Rudy Scott, Zach Bowman and many wonderful interns for which we were so thankful.

Thanks to all of you who have made these last four years such a success. I am so grateful for you.

By Bill Armistead, Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party