Sharp County Judge Gene Moore has spent most of his life serving the county.
“I serve God first, then my family and then the people of Sharp County,” he said.
Moore, 56, went to work for the Sharp County Road Department in February 1989.
“That was 28 years ago,” he said, smiling.
“I ran a road-grader and drove a dump truck,” he said. “I was the road foreman for four years and was the Office of Emergency Management coordinator for eight years.
“I worked as an appraiser in the assessor’s office for a year; then I ran for county judge in 2016,” he said.
“I had considered running in the past. I had worked closely with the county judge before. My dad and [Sharp County] Judge Frank Arnold (now deceased) were friends years ago, and I worked with him, too. I had worked with several of the county judges over the years, including the immediate past judge, Larry Brown, who decided not to run again.” Moore said.
“There were four in the race. I ran as an independent. There was a runoff, and I won,” he said.
“I was happy that I won,” he said. “It was something that was on my mind for years. When Arnold was thinking about getting out [of office], I thought about it then, but I didn’t do it. The timing was just not right. This time, the timing was right.”
He ran on a platform of “serving the people,” Moore said.
“I serve God first, then the people. I want to see the county going forward,” he said. “Our county has seen tremendous growth. Ash Flat (the county seat) has expanded its city limits. When I was growing up, there were only about 200 people here; it was not very big. Now the population has expanded to over 1,000.
“Sharp County now has a population of 17,200. We have 1,100 miles of county roads. We are spread out from the Missouri state line to the Independence County line. The county has 5,980 square miles.”
As the county judge, Moore presides over the Sharp County Quorum Court. He also oversees the Office of Emergency Management, the Road Department and the courthouse.
“I take care of the building, not the independent offices,” he said of the courthouse, which he said was built in 1966. “It is in pretty good shape.”
Moore said the county roads are in “pretty good shape” as well.
“With winter weather approaching, we’ll have to keep an eye on them,” he said.
Moore said Sharp County has had its share of disasters over the years that have affected the roads, as well as life in general in the area. He cited the tornado and floods of 2008, as well as the ice storm of 2009.
“Flooding [along both the Spring and Strawberry rivers] always poses a problem,” he said. “We usually get [roads in] those areas back up in pretty good shape, but we need to do some more work on the ditches.”
Moore said that in addition to Ash Flat, other towns in Sharp County include Evening Shade, Cave City, Highland, Hardy, Cherokee Village, Williford and Sidney.
“Poughkeepsie is an unincorporated community, and Ozark Acres is a suburban improvement district,” he said.
Moore was elected Sharp County judge for a two-year term.
“If the Good Lord is willing, I plan on running again,” he said. “My wife and I have talked about it. If it’s meant to be, it will be. I am here to serve the people.”
Moore said he was sworn into office at 2 p.m. Jan. 1.
“It’s been something every day since then. It’s been something new every day. I guess you could say it’s ‘on-the-job training,’” he said.
“I am blessed. I’ve been dealing with the roads and the Office of Emergency Management for several years,” Moore said. “In working with Judge Brown, I learned to take my time and make decisions based on what is best for the county. In working with OEM, I had to learn to react on the spot.
“I’m blessed to work with good people. Many of them have been here awhile.”
Moore was born in West Memphis but grew up in Ash Flat.
He is a son of Willie Herron of Ash Flat and the late A.V. Herron. Moore has one brother, John Moore of Collierville, Tennessee; a stepbrother, David Herron of the Ozark Acres community; and three sisters, Pam Ellis of Heart (in Fulton County), Tina Goodman of Ash Flat and April Spurlock of Cherokee Village.
Gene Moore’s wife, Melissa, works at Sharp County Farm Bureau Insurance.
The Moores have two sons: Allen Moore, 31, and his wife, Lauren, of Gassville in Baxter County; and Garrett Moore, 29, of Cherokee Village.
The couple’s daughter, Trisha Wilson, 27, and her husband, Tommy, live in Ash Flat with their children, 12-year-old twins Brady and Bryce, 9-year-old Kaylie and 4-year-old Taylin.
Gene and Melissa Moore are also the parents of Sierra Goodman, who was 24 when she was killed in a traffic accident on July 1, 2010.
Gene Moore said his grandchildren “live right beside me.”
“We live by my mom, my mother-in-law and my daughter,” he said. “We have a little acreage just outside Ash Flat. My mom does the garden.”
Moore graduated from Highland High School in 1978. For a year, he attended Black River Vo-Tech, where he studied welding.
“There was not a lot [of welding] going on here, and I didn’t want to move, so I took up surveying,” he said. “I did that for about three years and then moved off for a couple of years and worked different jobs.
“I came back here [for surveying] and worked for another four years doing that and then joined the county Road Department in 1989,” he said.
“Sharp County has been good to me,” he said. “I’ve been blessed to have worked here for 28 years, come February. We’ve had some ups and downs, but we’ve come a long way. I’ve seen the Road Department and the county accomplish a lot. I’m proud of it.
“I want to try to keep the county going forward. We will accomplish this by doing the right thing and having the right people in place. We will do this by having all of us on the same page, … serving people and doing what’s right.”