Turning down Merrimac Drive it’s obvious which of Selma’s four announced mayoral candidates lives on the street.

Lining the curving street on either side are red and white “Hisel for Mayor” signs, displayed proudly on well-manicured lush, green lawns. Hisel may be a relatively new addition to the neighborhood, but evidently he is a popular one.

Exactly where Hisel’s neighborhood is has been a bit of a hot topic around Selma lately.

Hisel, who owns a pair of Selma BP’s, left the house he and his wife Brenda built back in January and leased a house on Merrimac Street so Hisel could make a run for mayor.

“A lady asked me, ‘why did you and Brenda sacrifice?’ and I said to us it’s a step forward,” Hisel said.

That doesn’t mean the move has been easy.

After more than a decade in a big house in what is now Valley Grande, the Hisels built a smaller house nearby and had lived their for about a year when they made the decision to come back to Selma.

“When we left out home, we both cried,” Brenda said fighting back tears as the pair sat in their living room in the house on Merrimac. “If it will help Selma, a little bit of sacrifice won’t hurt.”

Gene said simply, “It was real hard to leave my home.”

That home, however, has stayed in the family.

Hisel’s daughter and her family are living there now, tending to the garden and the fruit trees.

The criticism Hisel has received for coming back to live in Selma just to qualify for the mayor’s race irritates him a little.

He points out that he has owned a business in Selma for 26 years, his two daughters graduated from Selma High and his family moved to the country, there were still in Selma police jurisdiction until the neighborhood became the town of Valley Grande.

“Our family was growing, we built a house in Valley Grande, we lived in it 16 years, then we built a smaller house,” Hisel said. “It irritates me some that they would base my value to the city on a residence question.

It bothers me some. If it is brought up I don’t think I need to use positive energy to debate the point, it takes away from my energy to do what’s best for Selma.”

Hisel, a military man from Indiana, was stationed at Craig Air Force Base after serving in Vietnam.

In Selma, he met Brenda, got married settled down and raised his family.

Hisel said his drive to run for mayor began in September of 2001.

He and a group of approached the council about increasing police officer numbers, but nothing came of the meeting, he said.

Later, he said, his house was broken into and his 5-year-old grandson was confronted by the thief.

“I truly knew how it felt to have a stranger in my house,” he said. “I started thinking very hard about how I could change things.

At that point I started making plans to move into Selma.”

The Hisels have been on the house on Merrimac since January, according to Brenda, they had the place since October but wanted to spend Christmas in the house they built.

According to the Notice of Election of Municipal Officer, Hisel more than meets the letter of the law.

The notice states that the candidate must live within the municipality for 90 days prior to the election to be eligible to run.

Still the hard feelings some Selmians have for anything to do with Valley Grande may hurt Hisel’s campaign.

But the candidate says better relations between Selma and Valley Grande would help both cities.

“I want to bridge any adverse felling that Selma and Valley Grande might have,” he said. “If we can join hands with Valley Grande it will be nothing but positive for both cities.”

Hisel added that, if elected, the citizens should have no concern where his loyalties will lie.

“If you are serving the people of Selma, they are first,” he said.