The Franklin County Democratic Party held their annual President’s Day Spelling/American History Bee.  Rupa Blackwell gave remarks and conducted the spelling bee for local students and quizzed adults on their knowledge of American History.  After dinner, the competition began! 

Here are our winners:

Young Spellers: 1st place Gus Seballos; 2nd Lucy Seballos; Ella Brain
Older Spellers: 1st place Maggie Lu Rudd ; 2nd place Parker Kovalski; 3rd Benjamin Rudd

American History Bee: Chuck Mogret

Democrats were among the many organizations in the county giving out candy on the square at the 2023 annual Boo Bash.

Democrats gathered to meet Franklin County’s new director of schools, Cary Holman for a brunch and Q & A session.

Democrats met at Winchester City Park on a beautiful fall day for a potluck and linedancing. Maria Brewer of the TNDP gave remarks.

The 2023 winner of the FCDP/FCDW Scholarship is Angelina Dominguez-Smith, who will use it to study music at MTSU.

On Saturday, March 11, the Franklin County Democratic Party held its biannual reorganization convention to elect officers and an executive committee for the next 2 years.  We are looking forward to increasing voter participation (including helping those who have paid their debt to society regain the right to participate fully in our democracy), raising awareness of local, state, and national issues, supporting our teachers, and helping to elect common sense leaders.  Our new officers are 

Chair: Sherry Hamby

1st Vice Chair: Greg Maynard

2nd Vice Chair: Mark Smith

3rd Vice Chair: Tessa Hill

Secretary: Helen Stapleton

Treasurer: Ashly Bowers

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed food, their time, and their presence to this fun annual tradition that was held at the Sewanee Community Center on Monday, February 20.  Al Bardi took the prize for the American History contest.  Here are our Spelling Bee winners:

Young Spellers: 1st place Cullen Thompson; 2nd Benjamin Rudd; 3rd Julian Elrod

Older Spellers: 1st place Lucia Polansky; 2nd place Maggie Lu Rudd; 3rd place Callie Eavey

I hope you will join me in welcoming Rupa Blackwell as the new Democratic Committeewoman for the 16th State Senatorial District, which includes Franklin County.

Rupa was elected by the TNDP executive committee to fill the vacancy created when Sheila Younglove stepped down (after being elected in August).

Rupa is a former Alderman for Tullahoma (2019-2022) as well as previous secretary of the Coffee County Democratic Party and a longtime Democratic activist.

She brings a lot of enthusiasm and experience and we look forward to working with her.

What is a Democratic Committeewoman? TNDP (the state party) forms its executive committee from two representatives from each of Tennessee’s 33 state senate districts. One is the Democratic Committeewoman and the other is the Democratic Committeeman, who is currently Bobby Bush (probably several of you have met him at FCDP events).

These are elected positions. This year they were on the August ballot. They serve for 4 years. However, it is my understanding that because Rupa was appointed, that position will be up for election again in 2024, the next regular election cycle.

These people help manage the affairs and decisions of TNDP much the same way that our elected district reps do for FCDP.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Betty Fraley, from Winchester, who served in some capacity in TNDP for over 30 years. She stepped down from the Democratic Committeewoman position this year. We are lucky to have such a dedicated Democratic activist right here in Franklin County and she continues to support TNDP.

Voting Guide

Please find the Voting Guide attached to this email, but if you can’t open it

Governor: Jason Martin

Amendment 1: NO

Amendment 2: NO

Amendment 3: YES

Amendment 4: YES

U.S. Rep, District 4: Wayne Steele

TN Rep, District 39: Bruce Manuel

School Board, District 4: Ben Pender

Disclaimer: The Tennessee Democratic Party does not have an official stance on Amendments 2 or 4, so feel free to make up your own mind on those. 

We had a tent at the Fall Heritage Festival in Cowan over the weekend of September 16-18. We registered voters, handed out campaign materials for Bruce Manuel (State Rep), Jason Martin (Governor), Bruce Pender (School Board) and Wayne Steele (U.S. Rep). We also held a sweepstakes to win a One-Year Family Membership to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, which allows for unlimited visits for a family of 2 adults and up to 5 kids. Haley Hall won in a drawing held on Sunday afternoon. She plans to donate the membership to her sister who has young kids. We are so grateful to members such as Josephine Holman (pictured below) who manned the tent and to Tessa Hill’s Sober Living for donating the aquarium membership prize.