Donald Hughes filed for election to the City Council's Ward 1 seat this morning, accompanied by about 20 supporters who included his mother, former council and school board member Jackie Wagstaff, and county commisssioner Joe Bowser.

"Win, lose or draw, may the campaign bring you joy," elections director Mike Ashe said when Hughes had signed the requisite papers and paid his $188.35 filing fee (below).

Hughes is challenging incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden, who defeated Wagstaff's council re-election bid in 2001.

"I'm focusing on my own campaign," Cole-McFadden said, speaking by telephone from New York, where she is attending the NAACP convention.

Before going to the Board of Elections to file, Hughes opened his campaign with a rally on Alston Avenue, across from Eastway Elementary School (above).

"This election is about inspiring Durham," he said, recalling his own inspiration as an Eastway pupil when a then-council member Cynthia Brown spoke to his class about community participation.

A May graduate of UNC Greensboro, Hughes said his campaign will take full advantage of technologies such as Facebook and Twitter with which he and his contemporaries have grown up.

"It is now our time," he said.