Charles Trumbo recognizes it may be a longshot, but he wants to make a difference in November’s general election by running as a write-in candidate for Putnam County commission chairman against current Ward 3 Commissioner Bill Sharp. Sharp won a three-way race in last month’s Republican primary to become the presumptive replacement for outgoing Chairman Billy Webster after no Democrat challenged for the position.
Though initially planning to run as an official independent against incumbent Ward 4 Commissioner Jeff Wooten, Trumbo, 35, said he opted out for personal reasons shortly before the campaign began, thus missing the March deadline to officially be included on November’s ballot.
“Then I had some local business owners approach me about trying to go for the chair. And I told them, ‘Hey, it’s too late’ … and they said, ‘No, you can still go as a write-in candidate,’ so that’s where I’m at now,” said Trumbo, who since 2015 has lived in Putnam’s Twin Bridges area with his Eatonton-born wife, Joelle.
“And I’m a true independent. I’m not Democrat nor Republican,” he insisted. “I’m a moderate independent, the type of person who just thinks right is right and wrong is wrong.”
After graduating from high school in Kentucky, Trumbo headed to Georgia Military College in Milledgeville, where he also played as a walk-on defensive back with the football team until graduating in 2007. The next year he entered UGA and graduated from its agricultural education program in 2011 after again earning a spot as a walk-on with the Bulldogs defense.
That led to fighting the era’s recession with a couple of “stay-afloat” endeavors before Trumbo said he landed his first “big-boy job,” teaching within the Mitchell County public school system in southwest Georgia. Then he served six-and-a-half years as an agricultural specialist with UGA’s Eatonton beef research unit before enrolling as a current MBA student in Valdosta State University’s public administration program, focusing on government policy.
Ironically, Sharp himself somewhat set Trumbo on the path toward challenging for the chairperson position by recommending him to Putnam County’s Leadership Academy, “a 12-week program focused on leadership skills and community immersion,” according to the organization’s website.
Though he hasn’t heard from Sharp regarding his write-in candidacy, Trumbo said if Sharp did call, he would “thank him for pushing me to wanting to be interested in being a part of Putnam County government. I have no ill will towards him, you know? I’m not that type of person,” Trumbo insisted.
“I just feel like maybe I have better ideas for the county to where I think everyone wins. I want Eatonton and Putnam County to win,” he continued.
Trumbo said he favors aggressive, controlled development and thinks the county should particularly encourage it along the Hwy. 441 corridor.
“That highway leads straight to one of the most popular destinations in Georgia, which is UGA and Athens. You have to go through Putnam whether you’re coming from South Georgia or Macon or anything like that; you have to go through Eatonton to get there,” he stressed.
“So why don’t we take advantage of that and try to attract a mainstream hotel like Holiday Inn Express or Marriott to the outskirts of Eatonton off 441? You know, Walmart is not stupid, there’s a reason why they put three Walmarts in a row on 441 in Milledgeville, Eatonton and Madison … they see the potential here. So we just need someone to step up and actually put that vision to work.”
On the other hand, Trumbo said he doesn’t favor the way eastern Putnam County is developing with what he called “eye sores” of large boatand basic-storage facilities in the Harmony Road area. “If you’re going to do that for the county, well, you might as well just start putting liquor stores on every corner,” he stated.
Regardless, Trumbo knows his biggest challenge remains in getting his message across, then getting Putnam County voters to actually write his name on their ballots in November.
To share his message, Trumbo has established a certified Facebook candidate page (facebook.com/ Trumbo4PcBOC), taken out billboard ads and plans to hold a date-to-be-finalized meeting with interested Putnam County voters at the Twin Bridges fire station.
To help get his name written down on election day, Trumbo said the Putnam County Board of Elections and Registration explained he’s allowed to handout sample ballots with his name written in the appropriate space and voters are permitted to bring those samples to their polling place to then correctly transfer his name to an official ballot as long as they remove the sample with them upon leaving. His name also will appear on posters at each of the five Putnam polling stations stating he is a certified write-in candidate for the county chair position.
In the end, Trumbo said, he wants to promote forward-minded thinking for Putnam County.