Boswell Misidentified Herself as Registered Nurse

N.C. House District 6 incumbent State Representative Beverly Boswell had been incorrectly identifying herself as a registered nurse before the North Carolina Board of Nursing recently intervened, according to a story this week in The [Raleigh] News & Observer.

Boswell, a former Dare County Commissioner and first-term state representative, is facing a Republican primary challenger—Currituck County Commissioner Bobby Hanig—in her bid for re-election this year. The Democratic candidate in the race is Tess Judge, the widow of former Dare County Commissioner Warren Judge, who died just days before the Nov. 8, 2016 election that pitted him against Boswell.

The News & Observer story reported that Boswell, a medical assistant and phlebotomist, had been identifying herself as a registered nurse on her campaign website and Facebook page before the nursing board, in response to a complaint, asked her to stop.

The story quoted an email from board spokesperson David Kalbacker saying that Boswell “is not a licensed nurse nor has she ever been a licensed nurse.”

Boswell, in an interview with the News & Observer, told the paper she had been unaware of the error until she heard from the nursing board. She was also quoted as characterizing the situation as a “non-story” and a “non-issue.”

An outspoken social and fiscal conservative who made a quick leap from the Dare County Board of Commissioners to the NC General Assembly, Boswell is no stranger to controversy. Perhaps the most notable one is the significant local backlash that developed after she played an important role in the state legislature’s repeal of the Outer Banks’ plastic bag ban last year.

In a recent Sentinel interview, Boswell addressed her critics by asserting that, “These people are confusing personality with issues…Pettiness has no place in my decision making at all.”