In mid 2020 members of our community asked in a time of need if I could help our great county by serving our community by running for a spot on the Perry County Healthboard, in April of 2021 election the community made it’s wishes known and it was with all humility that I knew it was time to get to work.
A global pandemic left many leaders in our community (including the Health Department) struggling to make sense of the death, destruction and confusion that was Covid-19.
Reactions, overreactions and lack of scientific data left us with alot of questions that desperately needed be answered.
At the Health Department the winds of change were blowing as wild and strange as a storm coming east across the Mississippi.
The Health Board had just accepted Director Silvia Forrester’s resignation and it was immediately obvious and imperative to find a director that could lead us out of the toils of the pandemic that created tremendous downward pressures on the HD, the Community, our Schools and many others including private and public business alike.
I knew that we needed a local voice with an understanding and a long deep perspective of Perry County values and a background in public health that understood data tracking and had a working understanding of virus transmission along with a sleuth like hunger for data collection, interim Director Liz House fit that bill for me and after lengthy discussions with Liz and our Board I personally knew she was the right person at the right time to be Perry County’s newest Health Department director.