January 24, 2025
By: Dwayne Page
Six people want to succeed Susannah Cripps on the DeKalb County Commission from the third district and they made their intentions known during Thursday night’s committee of the whole commission meeting.
Cripps announced her resignation from the commission last month. Her term expires on August 31, 2026.
The commission is expected to name Cripps’ successor Monday night, January 27 to finish out her unexpired term. That meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the county complex.
Those who announced their intentions Thursday night were Brandon Donnell, Eden Nokes, Johnny Croom, Tim Perricone, Stuart Colwell, and Len Dickens.
The following are the remarks made by each to the commission Thursday night:
Brandon Donnell– “I am a Christian and attend the Smithville First Freewill Baptist Church. I align myself with conservative values. I am a Republican and a lifelong resident of DeKalb County. I graduated high school here in 2005. I currently work at the Smithville Police Department as a detective. I have been with the department for 14 years. Before that I worked at the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department for a little over four years. I started working there when I was 19 years old. I have been serving the people of DeKalb County pretty much all of my adult life. My wife is Kaylah. We have been married over 18 years. She is an assistant manager at Wilson Bank & Trust in Smithville. She has worked there over 18 years. I have two children. My son Carson graduated high school last year. He is now a student at Tennessee Tech. My youngest son Collin is an eighth grader at DeKalb Middle School. My whole family lives here. I am going to retire here. I care deeply about this county. I want this county to thrive. I want my kids to graduate here, go off to college and get a good education, come back, start their families here, raise their kids here and be proud of DeKalb County just like I am. I don’t know everything there is to know about all the issues this county is facing but that’s the reason why I would like to serve, to learn more and do more for the betterment of this county”.
Eden Nokes- “I was born and raised here. I graduated from DCHS in 2007. I was involved in FCCLA in school and that got me familiar with how you run meetings. After I graduated high school, I went onto college to major in education which I quickly changed my mind after I got a job in education. That is not where I was supposed to be at. I worked at Smithville Elementary School for seven years. I also worked at dispatch for a very short time. I now work at Bell Street Apartments. I am the manager. I did maintenance for 11 years before I became the manager. My whole family is from here. The last seven years I have been less active in the community helping take care of some sick family members. I am ready to get back In. I think what Susannah started was great. I called a few people in my district and asked what they thought about it and they said go for it. I think I would be a great asset”.
Johnny Croom- “I didn’t grow up here. I grew up in west Tennessee. I was involved in county business there. I obtained a community development block grant for a manufacturing facility along with an economic development administration, so I have been involved in both state and federal government in grant procurement. My background my adult life has been in the insurance business, property, casualty, liability claims business. We handle claims. That’s what my company does. I have children and grandchildren who are in the school system here. I feel like our county is growing. I have been here 10 plus years, and I have seen our county grow and change. How I even knew about DeKalb County is I came up and wrote insurance for the ambulance service, schools, the old shirt factory. We installed what is called a section 125 plan. What that did was take a portion of insurance premiums that an employee would pay from a post-tax situation to a pre-tax situation. It would increase their take home pay every pay period. That’s how I got familiar with DeKalb County. I fell in love with the county and moved here. That was in the late 80s, and I have been here ever since. I put down roots here and my son lives next to me. I feel like my experience in the insurance business and my experience with the state and federal agencies regarding grants and economic and community development would make me an asset to the county commission. The decisions we make today are going to affect this county 20 years from now. I think we need to have a body of people who can discuss the issues, be transparent, and then use common sense to come to an agreement”.
Tim Perricone- “I would really like to have the opportunity to serve on the county commission. The way I look at public service is going from being a citizen to serving citizens. I look at it as an opportunity to give back. I’m not quite a lifelong resident here but I went to kindergarten here. I finished up high school in Florida and college in California but then I moved back here around 1991. I was married and raised three children here. One of my children went to the army and another to the marines but they came back. I still have one in college at Murfreesboro. My middle son just graduated college at Tennessee Tech as an engineer. During the last election for the county commissioner spot, I ran against Tony Luna and Ms. Cripps. It was actually a close race. She had six votes more than me and I think Tony had like 20 something more votes than me. Being that I ran in the election, I would like the opportunity to serve”.
Stuart Colwell- “I was born and raised in DeKalb County. I am a 1993 graduate of DCHS. I started my law enforcement career in 1996, and I have stayed in law enforcement full time since then. I am also an honorary lifetime member of the DeKalb County Fire Department. I have a master’s degree in criminal justice. I know the issues the county is currently facing. I have no desire to run for political office. I would only be interested in serving for the rest of this appointment because I think the people of the third district should pick who they want to serve from there. Currently I manage a state park. I have overseen a capital project of $12.6 million with an annual operating budget of $2.2 million. There’s a lot of things on the commission’s agenda that are controversial and divisive in our community but because I am not seeking to run for office, I don’t mind opening my heart the way I see it to what is best for the county as a whole”.
Len Dickens- “I have lived in DeKalb County all my life. I started my work career here at Tenneco for 22 years. I moved on to bigger and better things at Nissan. I currently work for Bonnell Aluminum at Carthage as a maintenance planner. In that role I develop job plans and job scopes for maintenance technicians across the building to do different kinds of jobs. I deal with job budgets for all kinds of work that needs to be done. My wife and I have six children and eleven grandchildren. I believe that before you start any job you should have a good plan to lead you in the right direction to get the goal accomplished. I want to see DeKalb County progress a little more in industry. I think more industry here would help but at the same time I would like to see Smithville keep to its small-town roots”.