David Bennett, after vowing during public comments at a couple of Bulloch County Board of Commissioners meetings to run against one of the commissioners, qualified Thursday as a candidate for chairman. Roy Thompson, who is in his eighth year as chairman after a previous 12 years as a district commissioner, also signed up and paid the fee that same day.
Both qualified as Republicans, so with just two candidates, the race will probably be decided in the May 21 Republican primary. The race for sheriff, with Keith L. Howard, who ran in 2016 and 2020 again challenging incumbent Noel J. Brown, is also completely in the Republican primary. Some other contests – whose candidates are named toward the end of this story – involve both Republicans and Democrats and so will go to November.
While sheriff is a much higher-paid, full-time job, holding the part-time commission chairmanship is somewhat like being a county mayor, and this is the first time Thompson has had a challenger for the role.
“I feel like we need a change of leadership in this county and we need a change of direction,” Bennett said. “Mr. Thompson has done well, and I’ll never fault him for the things that he’s done, but I think it’s time for some new leadership in our county, and some fresh ideas.”
But Thompson, who was also interviewed Friday, March 8, wants to keep the job and notes that he brings longtime experience to the board, as a business owner in the community as well as a commissioner. Of course, both candidates observed that this is a time when major changes are occurring, driven by construction of the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant in Bryan County and associated growth here.
“I’ve been working at this same business for 72 out of my 78 years and I’ve seen a lot of changes. …,” Thompson said. “I can remember when the streets of downtown Statesboro were lined with cars, people were shopping there, and that’s all we had, and I can remember when the mall was built, and things started to change for downtown Statesboro,” Thompson said. “I’d still like to be a decision-making part of the changes that we’re going to go through.”
Incidentally, the chairman can only vote to break a tie, but incumbent and challenger agree it is an influential position.
The challenger
Bennett, 49, originally from Jesup, in a way followed the career paths of both his father, who had a career in the Air Force, and his mother, a registered nurse. After joining the Army Reserve at age 17, he first came to Bulloch County as a student at Georgia Southern University, where he participated in the ROTC and was commissioned as an Army officer upon graduation in 1998.
He served in the Army Nurse Corps, including a tour of duty in Iraq and another with an air evacuation unit in the Middle East, and later attained a master’s degree and post-master’s certificate from the University of Virginia as an acute-care nurse practitioner and critical care specialist.
In 2020, he retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and he and his wife, Jessica, a teacher, made their home on a 25-acre place in the southeastern part of Bulloch County. They have two daughters, ages 18 and 14, and he volunteers with the Southeast Bulloch High School FFA and they attend Brooklet United Methodist Church.
For about three years now, Bennett is again serving as a flight nurse, this time with the civilian Air Evac Lifeteam based in Statesboro.
He says he filed a declaration of intent to run for office last August, about two days after the county commissioners voted 6-0 to raise the property tax millage rate following two years of substantial inflation in assessed property values. He later decided to run for the countywide chairmanship instead of one of the district seats.
“For me, the biggest issue really is taxes,” Bennett said Friday. “And you know, a lot of things tie back to that, and I tell people a lot I feel our county now is at a crossroads, or a fork in the road, and we’re going to have to make a choice whether we just let unfettered growth turn this county into an annex of Pooler or Savannah … or we can stay that community with an agrarian base that has that wonderful university in it and we still have opportunities to have that rural, agrarian lifestyle.”
He believes that managed growth can be good but thinks the county needs to take a more proactive approach and improve its infrastructure, from paving roads to getting a larger hospital, he added. Brannen said roads and public safety – fire, EMS and law enforcement – should be the county government’s priorities and that the commissioners should cut nonessential things and eliminate wasteful spending.
The incumbent
Roy Thompson and his wife Deborah own and operate Statesboro Floorcovering. Their family’s TMT Farms annual drive-through Christmas lights display is a major visitor attraction, and they direct the donations collected there of food, toys and cash to people in need through local charities. In January 2023, the Statesboro Bulloch Chamber of Commerce presented Roy Thompsom with its Bruce Yawn Lifetime Achievement Award, four years after Statesboro’s Two Rotary Clubs named the Thompsons, together, as Citizens of the Year.
During his tenure on the commission, the county has built the Bulloch County Agricultural Complex, expanded the jail, and recently expanded the North Main Annex, he noted, as major public building projects funded from sales tax referendums.
As for the industrial and residential growth, he said he might hope for “a slight slowdown, maybe, so we can catch our breath and just face the challenges ahead of us.”
“Even though we’re catching so much heck from everybody, you know, we’ve tried to keep taxes down, and I might add that this year we’ve already discussed that there will be a rollback this year,” Thompson said. “There’s nothing we can do about appraisals of people’s property, not when people are paying these high prices for (homes and other real estate).”
In his almost 20 years as first a district commissioner and then chairman, Thompson has faced opposition only in that first election, in 2004.
Other commission races
But all three of the district commissioners up for election this year also have challengers after last week’s qualifying.
R. Ryan Brannen, a farmer who in 2020 ran for a Board of Education seat and came in second in a very close runoff, this time is running for Board of Commissioners as a Republican, challenging longtime Democratic incumbent Commissioner Ray E. Mosley for Seat A in District 1. They will appear on their parties’ separate May 21 ballots for District 1 voters, and that race won’t be decided until November.
Another Bulloch County farmer, Ray. M. Davis, who has been among those expressing concern about the effects of wells intended to supply the Hyundai plant, is challenging incumbent District 2, Seat A Commissioner Curt Deal. With both running as Republicans, this race should be decided in the May 21 primary.
But the most crowded field is for District 2, Seat C, currently held by Commissioner Jappy Stringer, a Republican. He’s seeking re-election, but challengers Brian Pfund and Nick Newkirk also signed up as Republicans, after Leonard “Len” Fatica, the Bulloch County Democratic Committee chair, signed up as a Democratic candidate for the same seat. So the winner from among Newkirk, Pfund and Stringer in the May 21 primary or a possible June 18 runoff will face Fatica on the November ballot.
Coroner contest
The office of county coroner attracted three candidates, with Craig R. Tremble and Matthew Lovett qualified as Democrats and Chuck Francis as a Republican. But the current coroner, Richard Pylant, appointed last April upon the retirement of longtime coroner Jake Futch, isn’t running.
The Bulloch County Board of Education, whose seats are nonpartisan, will see some changes, since current District 1 member Glenn Womack and District 3 member Stuart Tedders are not seeking re-election. Lannie Lanier, who served on the board years ago, is unopposed to return to the board in January from District 1. But District 3 has a race between Jennifer Campbell Mock and Suzanne Hallman.
In BOE District 7, incumbent Heather Mims faces a challenge from Lisha Nevil.
The in-county incumbents unopposed for re-election are Clerk of Superior Court Heather Banks McNeal, Tax Commissioner Leslie D. Akins, Solicitor-General Catherine Sumner Findley, Probate Court Judge Lorna G. DeLoach, County Surveyor John A. Dotson and BOE District 8 member Maurice Hill.