Union County board appoints collector’s widow as his replacement 

New Albany, MS– The Union County Supervisors have appointed Tameri Dunnam as the interim replacement for her late husband, Collector/Assessor Randy Dunnam, who died last week after a long illness.

The appointment was the first agenda item at the Monday morning, February 6th, meeting of the county board. Approval of the appointment was unanimous.

Randy Dunnam died last Monday, January 30, after a long battle with cancer. He was first elected Union County Collector/Assessor in 2011. He was re-elected in 2015, and was a little more than a year into his second term when he died.

Union County Circuit Clerk, Phyllis Standford, administered the oath of office to Mrs. Dunnam in a 1 p.m. ceremony in the Circuit Court room. The new collector was surrounded by her children Sam Jackson Dunnam, Olivia Dunnam, Jordan Dunnam Murry and son-in-law Ryan Murry as she was sworn in.

A special election to fill the vacant post will be held late this year, Tuesday, Nov. 7th. In such special elections in Mississippi there is no primary, with candidates being nominated by political parties. The candidates run on a non-partisan basis. If no one candidate receives a majority of votes in the Nov. 7 election, a run-off election will be held between the top two vote-getters.

The collector/assessor’s job, as structured in Union County and as specified by Mississippi law, currently pays $81,000 per year.

In other business Monday, the Union County board approved a Memorandum of Agreement on a Community Heritage Preservation Grant of $148,000. The grant from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History will be used for architectural work related to repair and restoration work on the Union County Courthouse.

The courthouse is in its 108th year, construction having been completed in 1909. A half-million-dollar state grant in 2015 covered cost of repairing the copper cupola and roof of the historic building.

The balance of the board’s Monday morning agenda was for routine housekeeping items, including paying the bills, approving last month’s minutes and approving road crew work schedules, deletion of a chain saw from the road department inventory, routine fees and reimbursements, etc.