Aiken will scratch another name off the list of presidential candidates yet to speak in the city when former Texas Gov. Rick Perry comes to town later this month.
Hosted by the Aiken Republican Party, Perry's visit will begin Aug. 28 at Newberry Hall, 117 Newberry St. The doors will open at noon for lunch and Perry is expected to begin speaking around 1 p.m.
The cost is $25 per person or $160 for a table of eight. Tickets can be purchased at bit.ly/1MPOTCK
Unlike other candidates to visit the Aiken GOP, the Perry's visit will feature a five-person panel that will ask a series of questions depending on time and order. Questions will come from party representatives, elected officials and media outlets.
Perry announced in June that he was joining a Republican primary ballot that now includes 17 hopefuls running for the presidency.
According to his campaign page, Perry grew up the son of tenant farmers in the tiny West Texas town of Paint Creek.
Between 1972 and 1977, Perry served in the U.S. Air Force flying C-130 tactical airlift aircraft in Europe and the Middle East.
Perry's earliest assignments as an elected official were his positions as Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and then three terms in the state's House of Representatives.
He then served as Lt. Gov. in 1998 before serving as the governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015, and under his scope, Texas "created almost one-third of all new private sector jobs in the United States. Without the 1.5 million jobs Texas created since the end of 2007, the United States would be net negative more than 400,000 jobs," according to Perry's campaign site.
Perry will join the growing list of candidates who have already visited Aiken including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
Derrek Asberry is a beat reporter with the Aiken Standard. He joined the paper in June. He is originally from Vidalia, Ga., and a graduate of Georgia Southern University. Follow him on Twitter @DerrekAsberry.