For the Love of Branson: Farewell to office

For about a third of my life, I’ve been directly involved with local politics in the Branson community. I first ran for Mayor in 2017 and since then I was honored by the citizens by being elected twice to the board of aldermen. My journey included some losses at the beginning, however, through perseverance and building alliances I was eventually able to reach the highest echelon of influence in the town that I love so dearly.

Since the beginning, my platform has been built on supporting our live music show industry and we’ve been tremendously successful on that front. Initially it appeared as though the powers that be had completely forsaken this sector of our tourist economy that made Branson famous in the 1980s and 90s. However, with the help of my fellow aldermen and the mayor, we transformed the Branson Chamber of Commerce (the primary marketing arm of our town) into not only an entity that cared for our music shows again but also one that was fortified upon the values of Faith, Family and Flag. The clearest evidence of this long successful journey being the recent unveiling of the “Where My Heart Sings” marketing campaign that features The Petersens’ bluegrass band singing what essentially amounts to the new theme song of Branson. We finally have a marketing campaign that revolves around music and with this, I couldn’t feel more proud and accomplished.

Therefore, with all of this success, one might ask themselves why I made a recent announcement that I won’t be running for reelection when my current term ends in April of next year. Well, over Christmas break last year, my father-in-law announced to us that he is retiring and wants to leave me his restaurant. See, for the last 30 years he has owned and operated the A&W hamburger joint at Tanger Mall to great success. And while it has been very lucrative for him, he is ready to ride off into the sunset and retire.

Therefore, we made an agreement that for now I would step away from my position on the Board to focus on the transition towards my ownership of the restaurant. As I write this, I am heading back from Lexington, Kentucky, which houses the A&W headquarters where I spent the last week in their corporate training seminar.

I am so excited for the next chapter in my life and yet sorrowful for the friends I am leaving behind in city government and always cautious about Branson going back to the way things were. However, with our City Administrator Cathy Stepp steering the ship at City Hall and Pam Yancey filling the role as CEO of the Branson Chamber, we couldn’t be in better hands. In fact, Pam was the first person I sat down with besides my family and told what was going on with my plan to step down. She was unbelievably gracious for our friendship and ensured me that our working relationship was far from over.

We have some incredibly exciting news upcoming in the next year or two, and I can’t wait to share all of that with the citizens. As always, I will remain active in the community advocating for our live music shows and continuing my civic art projects. And if you know anything about me, you will certainly know that my reelection bid in 2024 was far from the last time I will run for public office in this town. Furthermore, I have every intention to continue my “For the Love of Branson” series that you are reading now. It’s just that for a time I will be allowing another representative to take my place on the board until the day comes when the citizens choose to have me back. Because to quote my favorite line from a song by my grandpa “When we’re young we want to get away, when we’re old we want to go back. And we spend our lives replacing all the things we leave behind.”