Being a supervisor is a family tradition for Brock

As Joe Brock effortlessly guides his SUV through the snow-covered terrain that sits behind the former Jasper County Care Facility, he can’t help but admire the work he and other county employees did on the grounds during the summer.

Brock serves as the vice-chairman on the Jasper County Board of Supervisors and as a farmer by trade, he still finds it odd that his position on the board is less hands on, but more behind the scenes.

So when the opportunity to do a physically demanding task, such as landscaping the facility arises, he is more than happy to oblige.

“We worked on it for six to eight weeks and the purpose was just to get the building exposed again, so that we can establish the next step for demolition bids, but mainly, just to get the building exposed again,” Brock said.

The clean-up process involved multiple departments and during it, Brock said the Jasper County Conservation Office preserved the donated trees and plants from the families of former patients and they discovered walking paths and shelters that were previously hidden beneath brush.

Brock said, as a farmer, he is used to having to do everything himself and admitted it took an adjustment for him to delegate duties to employees versus doing them himself. While he may have had to adjust to that part of the job, being a supervisor was already in his blood.

His father, Ragan, was elected to two terms on the board and served as a catalyst for him to run.

“He passed away at the start of his second-term in 1993,” Brock said. “Obviously, there was a lot of inspiration there and a lot of who I am today. I would never have been on the Board of Supervisors and this was probably the furthest thing on my mind. I couldn’t have imagined I ended up doing it.”

Brock is half-joking and half-serious when he says he never imagined himself running for the board, but he’s served on the board since 2010 and talked about his other motivation to run.

“I followed county government for a number of years and there comes a time when you want to get involved in the decisions and hope you have something to offer,” Brock said.

Although his father was also an elected official, he got his first personal taste of politics just a few years back.

“I first started to get involved politically in the 2008 election when I was the chair of Jasper County Democrats and got to meet all the presidential candidates and the local candidates,” Brock said. “After awhile, I just kind of decided I would attempt it myself.”

When Brock first came into office, he talked about what he felt were the biggest challenges of his job at the time.

“We had some departments that needed to be updated and follow a different approach, which we were able to do,” Brock said. “We made some changes in our IT department, that I’m real proud of, and (County IT Director) Celia Robertson stepped up. Now, I think we have one of the best IT departments in the state.”

“As a whole, I can say how proud I am that we have so many smart and capable county employees that are full of ideas and can take the ball and run with,” he continued. “We’ve allowed them to do that and I think we are seeing a lot of (benefits) in not only the dollars, but the morale of the employees.”

One of the things Brock has said he is most proud of during his tenure on the board is the restoration project done on the Jasper County Courthouse. A remodeled basement and the instillation of geothermal heating and cooling were among some of the new features.

Brock is also proud that this current board doesn’t just pass the budget based on a year by year basis, but prefers to look at trajectories for 10 to 15 years in the future to ensure that the county is in good shape long after they are out of office.

Just like board chairman Dennis Stevenson, Brock works comes in multiple days a week to check in on the goings on within the county and serves on a number of other boards and committees.

On a day in which he and the other members of the board have already met and approved a number of items, Brock took a look the snowy grounds behind the care facility as he tries to think of a simple answer to a complicated question:

What is the typical day like as member of the board of supervisors?

“I don’t know if there is such a thing,” Brock said. “It’s really nothing typical about it. One day you’re on geothermal, trying to educate yourself and make a decision on that, and the next day its mental health reorganization and the next day it could be building a demolition out at the county home.”

“There’s nothing real typical about it, and it seems like you need to know a little about a lot,” he finished.

Staff writer Ty Rushing may be contacted at (641) 792-3121, ext. 426, or at trushing@newtondailynews.com.