News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Jackson County Commission elected Commissioner Jim Morgan to be the next county mayor after just one round of voting Monday night.
Morgan received eight votes, exactly what was needed to receive a majority over commissioners Jack Meadows and Douglas Stafford, as well as local business owner John Deane. Morgan said he has a lot of experience with local government because of his twenty-five years working as an EMS director and ten years on the county’s budget committee.
“With my background in EMS, as the director my job was twenty-four seven,” Morgan said. “And I assume the mayor’s job is going to be the same. Whatever it takes, any time of the day or night, that’s what it’s going to take as far as I’m concerned.”
Morgan said he also has experience working in Nashville with state legislators through his EMS career. Morgan was sworn in by a judge and signed the paperwork making his new position official immediately after the commission meeting.
“Also I retired from EMS in 2024 and since then I’ve been working in the mayor’s office in Overton County part-time,” Morgan said. “That’s pretty much kind of my background stuff I have in the county government.”
Meadows received three votes, Deane received two, Stafford one.
Commissioner Brian Lee asked each of the candidates what they think about establishing a planning commission for the county. All four candidates said that a planning commission is necessary but would have to be done properly.
“As far as the planning commission, I see the need for it, it just depends on how the county wants to structure it and set it up and what they’re going to let them control and not control is the way I feel about it,” Morgan said. “So I think it’s needed, it just depends on how we structure it.”
Morgan said he will do his very best to make the best mayor he can but he now has to retire his seat on the county commission. Interim Mayor Joey Denson said the commission will select someone to fill the vacancy at its next meeting in March.
“We’ll go through this same process for commission seat that we went through tonight,” Denson said. “So those in the second district interested in the commission spot that Mr. Morgan is vacating, same process.”
Former Mayor Randy Heady’s wife, Joyce Heady, addressed the commission after the election and thanked all the commissioners for the time they sacrifice for the community. Heady said her husband loved Tennessee, but his pride was Jackson County and she knows it was because he had the support of each member of the commission.
“I want to thank you that even when you didn’t agree with him, you had his back,” Heady said. “You stood behind him, you supported him because you knew that Randy’s goal was, ‘What can I do? What can we do to make Jackson County a better place to live?'”
