After serving two terms, Fentress County Executive Jimmy Johnson said he is not running for re-election in the August election.
Johnson said he has been helping Fentress County in various ways since he was 16 years old. Johnson said now that he is 70 years old, he believes it’s time to step away.
“When you get involved in stuff with the county for 54 years, you lose a lot of stuff for family time and such,” Johnson said. “And it’s just like I said, it’s time for me to turn the page to do something else, you know.”
Johnson said not running for re-election was a very difficult decision to make. Johnson said he believes the county has made progress under his leadership, but he could not have done it without the help of the county commission.
“We try to do what we told the people that we would try to do, made no promises, but we did work pretty well and hard at it, and had a lot of good help along the way with my county commissioners,” Johnson said. “You know, we had some who were here for the whole 12 years I was here, and then some were here, and then some were gone. We got new ones, but just had a good group to work with. Of course, we know that our county commissioners are the ones who set the budgets and give us permission to do what we need to do.”
Johnson said he is most proud of bringing a hospital back to Fentress County after Jamestown Regional Medical Center closed in 2019.
“Our ambulance service was our emergency room for almost three years and so you know, we’re very lucky here in the last about two, a little over two years, about two and a half years, we’ve, we’ve seen probably 30,000 patients that we’ve had to, to haul out in ambulances and such, but just very blessed to have that,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he was also proud of getting Roane State and TCAT to have one campus in Jamestown and the county building an ag center for local farmers to use. Johnson said as he steps away, he hopes to eventually see the completion of widening SR-28. Johnson said once completed, he believes many new businesses will come to the county and boost the economy.
