Hodge to run as write-in candidate for Corbin City Commission

The race for Corbin City Commission received and unexpected twist Monday as a Poplar Street resident officially filed to be a write-in candidate on the November General Election ballot.

Seventy-year-old Freddie Bruce Hodge said he plans to campaign hard for one of four seats up for grabs this fall. Hodge is a retired United Parcel Service driver and U.S. Navy veteran who said the sudden death of former City Commissioner Dennis Lynch, and a debilitating stroke suffered by Commissioner Bruce Farris, prompted him to run.

Absent him entering the race, the only two non-incumbents on the ballot, tax-professional Joe "Butch" White and former commissioner Ed Tye, were virtually assured spots on the board.

"This is no slam on Joe Butch or Eddie Tye … I like them both, but I just can’t see them walking in on account of what happened to Bruce Farris and Dennis Lynch," Hodge said. "That was the main reason I decided to run."

Hodge is a regular attendee of Corbin City Commission meetings and has missed few in recent years. He said he feels the city is doing an adequate job serving its citizens and said he plans to focus on public works issues if he gets into office. He is particularly concerned, he said, about the state of some city sidewalks and weeds that are growing tall on many creek banks. In regard to high weeds, he’s even asked the town’s Code Enforcement Officer to cite the city for allowing grass in areas it is tasked with maintaining to grow above the legal limit of 10 inches. Hodge is a member of the city’s three-member Code Enforcement Board. No citation has yet been issued.

He praised efforts to beautify downtown Corbin through the city’s Main Street Program and said he supports a robust continuation of that effort.

"I just love the way the city looks right now," Hodge said. "If you would have taken a picture fire years ago and compared it to what it looks like now I think it is just fantastic."

Hodge is critical of some city efforts, though, including construction of the $30 million David L. Williams Southeast Kentucky Agriculture and Exposition Center – a 5,000-seat arena in south Corbin. He calls the facility a "white elephant" and a wasteful use of funds that could have been redirected to other more worthwhile projects.

"This white elephant on top of that hill up there is going to drain everything the city of Corbin’s got," Hodge said. "I wouldn’t have voted for it. I was against it. They could have took all the money used for that and bought every old house on Seventh Street and turned it into places anybody would have wanted."

Hodge is a 1958 graduate of Corbin High School and a member of Central Baptist Church, where he was baptized in 1953.
He joined the U.S. Navy in 1959 and served on a destroyer in the Mediterranean Sea for much of his time in the service before he was honorably discharged in 1963.

He worked locally at a body shop, an auto parts store, and Whayne Supply Company before landing a job with the Kentucky Highway Department, then finally hiring on with UPS in 1968. He moved to Lexington and stayed with the company for 30 years until his retirement.

He moved back to Corbin in 2000 when he purchased a home on Poplar Ave. behind Corbin Middle School where he now lives with his wife Sylvia. He is the father of one son.

With a keen interest in owning and restoring old vehicles, Hodge is one of the principal organizers of the Cumberland Valley Cruise-In Car Show, which takes place in downtown Corbin the second Saturday of the month from May through September annually. He said he was "hurt" when city leaders decided earlier this year to move the car show off of Main Street over to Depot Street, but maintained the decision had no impact on his decision to run for city commissioner.

"Not at all, but I am going to campaign if I get in there to get us put back on Main Street," Hodge said. "I think it is good for the city."

Hodge said he plans to take his campaign "door-to-door" this election season, personally talking to as many voters as he can before time to vote.

If elected, he said he will not accept his $6,000 city commissioner salary, instead donating it to the Shriners Hospitals for Children and the St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital.