While spotlighting the area’s state legislative delegation in general, the Statesboro-Bulloch County Legislative Appreciation Event, a banquet attended by about 100 people Monday evening in the Jack Hill Building at Ogeechee Technical College, served as a retirement celebration for Rep. Jan Tankersley six months in advance.

The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners, City of Statesboro, Development Authority of Bulloch County, Ogeechee Technical College Foundation, Georgia Southern University and Statesboro-Bulloch Chamber of Commerce together hosted the event. Former Georgia governor and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, now chancellor of the University System of Georgia, attended to help heap thanks on the legislators, as did Technical College System of Georgia Commissioner Greg Dozier.

As Perdue and Tankersley noted, his eight years as governor and her 12 years in the Georgia House of Representatives did not coincide. Tankersley, a Republican from Brooklet, started her first term in the Legislature Jan. 10, 2011, three days before Perdue formally left office as governor.

But before that, Tankersley had served 10 years on the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners and was 2009-2010 president of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

“Our service never really overlapped. You came when I left as governor. Now I came back and you’re leaving; I don’t really understand that,” Perdue joked with Tankersley from the podium. “Nonetheless, thank you for your service both on a local level and as president of the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and certainly this last 12 years in the General Assembly.”

He also called her a dear friend.

While ACCG president, Tankersley had visited Perdue in the governor’s office to talk about issues of concern to Georgia counties, and he appointed her to some advisory committees before she stepped down as a county commissioner in April 2010 to run for the Legislature.

Public service career

Originally the District 158 representative, Tankersley became the District 160 representative with redistricting in 2012. She has been re-elected five times, for a total of six two-year terms. For much of her tenure, her district included a large portion of Bulloch County and northern Bryan County.

Before becoming a county commissioner, Tankersley had served five years on Brooklet City Council, so with the completion of her final legislative term a few days into January 2023, she will have served 27 years in elected public office. Tankersley attained some historic firsts along the way, being the first woman elected to the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners and the first elected to the Legislature by her district.

From early in her tenure, Tankersley has chaired the House Intergovernmental Coordination Committee, handling local legislation affecting specific cities and counties. The 2022 session brought the redrawing of district lines based on the 2020 Census. The redistricting plans for school boards, county commissions and city councils increased the number of bills before the committee to about 405, she said.

The redistricting work was the storm before the calm, since Tankersley announced in February that she would retire when her current term ends.

H. Lehman Franklin III, who also has a Brooklet-area address and is general manager of Franklin Toyota, then qualified and ran unopposed for the House District 160 seat in the recent Republican primary. Franklin remains unopposed in the November general election and is so the apparent representative-elect.

Other banquet speakers included OTC President Lori Durden with the welcome, introduction of Dozier and concluding remarks; Georgia Southern University President Kyle Marrero, who introduced Perdue; and Statesboro-Bulloch Chamber of Commerce Chair Allen Davis, Statesboro Mayor Jonathan McCollar, Bulloch County Commission Chairman Roy Thompson and Development Authority of Bulloch County Chair Billy Allen.

After first appearing in a “delegation appreciation video,” with some other local officials, McCollar, Allen and Thompson spoke in person, making laudatory remarks specifically about Sen. Billy Hickman, R-District 4, of Statesboro; Rep. Butch Parrish, R-District 158, of Swainsboro; and Tankersley, respectively.

Perdue had noted that Parrish has served 38 years in the Legislature, “a lot of trips going back and forth to Atlanta,” and called him “almost dean of the House.”

McCollar observed that Hickman “is a person that if you text him, he’s texting you back, if you call him, he’s calling you back,” whether early in the morning or later in the evening, and called him “a true public servant.” First elected in 2020 to succeed Sen. Jack Hill after his untimely death that April, Hickman is unopposed for re-election this year.

After the remarks about the three legislators, each of them, Hickman, Parrish and Tankersley, made some remarks of their own, thanking the local officials in turn, and also praising their legislative colleagues and Tankersley in particular.

Rep. Jon Burns, R-District 159, of Newington, who serves as state House majority leader, did not attend. But Perdue and other speakers mentioned him, and Burns appeared in a second video that was part of the program. Another Burns, Sen. Max Burns, R-District 23, of Sylvania, who is not really a member of the Bulloch County delegation, attended and was mentioned by Perdue and others.

A video gift

That second video, produced by Ogeechee Technical College in cooperation with Stouthouse Media, was specifically about Tankersley, recapping her career. It also included conversational remarks by Tankersley and her husband Hughie Tankersley, sitting together on a bench at their Brooklet home.

From the video’s telling of it, her retirement plans include spending more time with their grandchildren and helping husband garden and raise chickens, or cooking while he works in the garden.

After presenting the video, Thompson joked that he had seen Hughie Tankersley preparing sign holders for his wife’s next campaign.

But Rep. Tankersley called her husband the love of her life and said she promised him, “regardless of what Chairman Thompson said, no more political signs, ever again, for me, just mostly chickens and the garden, friends and family and you.”

The video also featured Tankersley’s farewell remarks to her state House colleagues, and their standing ovation, during the last session.

“This evening will be a cherished memory for so many years to come. …,” she told the crowd Monday night. “Between this evening and my farewell at the Capitol, I feel like I’ve been to my own celebration of life.”