Mayor Bob

(The following is excerpted with permission from an article written by Bill Moss of the Hendersonville Lightning. Read the full article here. The article was published shortly before Bob finished his term as mayor.)

Bob Staton, Mayor of Flat Rock 2007 - 2019.

Bob Staton had been retired in Kenmure less than three years when he got a call from Judy Boleman at Flat Rock Village Hall. “We want to talk to you about serving on the Planning Board,” Boleman told him. Staton was eager to go.

“I thought, ‘Oh, this is great.’ I put on a coat and a tie like it was a job interview,” he said.

His background as a real estate development lawyer may have counted more than his sartorial splendor, but he got the job. The Village Council appointed him at its next meeting, in July 2000. Thus began Staton’s 19 years of service that has included six years on the Village Council and 12 years as mayor. Widely regarded as the hardest working mayor in a small town that has been led by accomplished executives throughout its 25-year history, Staton gives up the gavel this week. He declined to run for re-election in November, handing the top job off to Mayor pro tem Nick Weedman, who was elected without opposition.

A sixth-generation native of Henderson County, Robert V. Staton traces his descendants to Benjamin Staton, who settled with his family of 10 or so children in the Mountain Page community near Saluda in the early 1800s. 


“My great-grandfather, John Walton Staton, served in the Confederate Army in the Civil War,” he said. The Yankees captured John Staton and the rest of his regiment at Cumberland Gap and marched them to a Union prison camp in Chicago. 


“Family lore is that when the war ended they just opened the gates and said, ‘Go home boys,’” the great-grandson said. “So they walked from Chicago to North Carolina. Took a while.

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After graduating from Hendersonville High School in 1954, Staton earned a bachelor’s degree from UNC at Chapel Hill, then a law degree from George Washington University. Staying in the Washington, D.C., area, he practiced law from 1963 to 1999, specializing in construction, real estate development, and finance, and working as a commercial arbitrator in the construction industry. 


“For at least 35 of the 38 years I was there it never occurred to me that I would come back to Henderson County,” he said. “I came down here in 1992 to a high school reunion. I was in the Hendersonville High School class of 1954 and that was our first reunion and I saw people I hadn’t seen in almost 40 years. I had a great time. My wife loved every one of them. We made her an honorary member of the Class of ’54 and as we were leaving to head back to the Washington area my wife said, ‘What’s wrong with Hendersonville to retire in? It’s not a bad place.’ From that time we knew we were coming back here.” 


He sold his law practice, and in December 1997 he and his wife, Jo, had settled into what he planned to be a fairly sedate retirement life, with travel and a few hunting trips to keep things interesting. It didn’t turn out that way.

When Staton first filed for the Flat Rock Village Council in 2001, a Times-News reporter asked him whether he had ever run for office. 
“I said, ‘Yes, when I was at Hendersonville High School I ran for president of the student body and I won and when I was in college my fraternity nominated me for the Ugliest Man on Campus and I came in third.’”

Council members say he has always run meetings with decency, helped them prepare and shared the background on important issues. “He’s a kind leader and he always puts us in good light,” said Paige Posey, who was elected to the council in 2017. “He does everything to make sure we’re prepared. He never hangs us out to dry and never tries to embarrass us. Any time I have a question, his office door is always open. I can just on a whim run over and it’s ‘Come on in, Paige.’”

“He’s fantastic as a singer,” Posey said. “You may remember in Theatre with the Stars his performance of “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.’” He loves to sing, and he’s in the Saint John choir.”

For a few more days, Robert V. “Bob” Staton —reluctant recruit to a council job, non-politician, generous sharer of advice and free attorney —will go the office and do the job he grew to love. He is spending even more time at work, cleaning out his desk and getting things ready for the next mayor. His door will remain open and he’ll welcome anyone who has a question about the village and its people and culture. He’ll probably answer with a funny story and make himself the butt of a joke.