“Go to church, believe in the Lord and follow Him, and do what you think is best for your family. There are only three things in the world: God, country, and family,” advised Jerry Rich. “I put God first because we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Him, and everybody knows that. I put family last for a simple reason: I’m patriotic. I served 30 years in the Air Guard. I went to only one war, and that was Desert Storm. If you’re in the military, I don’t care who you are or where you come from, you only think of one person: God. Then, it’s your family. Family is the most important thing in your life below God and country. You’ve got to take care of your family and raise them right.”
Jerry Rich has tried to make sure God, country, and family have been evident throughout his life. He makes sure to keep everything in order. Since everything eventually leads to the family, he has always show a particular love for his family as well as the hometown he grew up in, Stonewall.
“I’ve been in Stonewall all my life. My twin brother and I were born in 1943. I finished high school here in Stonewall—was in the last class that was in Stonewall. I was the next to the last one to get the diploma. I’ve never left Stonewall. I feel like this is my hometown. The only reason I ever had to leave was in ’90 with Desert Storm. I was in the National Guard, and we were deployed over to Saudi Arabia. That six months was the longest I’d ever left Stonewall for a long time,” stated Jerry. “When I graduated from high school, I worked in Dallas, Texas, during the summer months with my stepdaddy. My mother lived up there and got me and my brother a job. We did that for two years, and we’d come back and went to Jones Junior College. I didn’t finish Jones for the simple reason that I got married and had to go to work. I married my high school sweetheart Terry Rich.”
He loved life growing up with his grandparents. He may have gotten into a little trouble like most kids, but life was much simpler.
“Being born in 1943 during World War II, I didn’t have what a lot of people have. My grandparents raised us. I never knew my daddy and never met him. We were named by our great uncle. We were named after an uncle that was in a prison war camp in China during World War II. We were born in Watkins Hospital, and our doctor was Dr. H.C. Watkins that founded that hospital. Our granddaddy worked at the plant, Erwin Mills back in those days, and he was there until he retired. Then, we lost him. Our grandmother never worked. She was a housewife because back in those days women were housewives, and she raised us,” recalled Jerry. “We got in trouble like everybody else. The biggest thing we did back in the day was if you had a BB gun, you’d go around and shoot the street lights out. The law would come and ask if we’d been shooting our BB gun. You had to have something to do, and we were just being mischievous. We’d shoot out two or three street lights at night, and back then they just had bulbs so they’d go and screw some more in. They weren’t like today’s street lights. You could hardly see one coming up to the other. You’d walk to school. We lived on the far end of town, but the school bus wouldn’t pick you up if you didn’t live over a mile. We’d be walking, but most of the time if the school bus driver knew you he’d stop and pick you up anyway. I’d play all the sports. I played football and baseball, but baseball was my number one.”
He loved the close-knit community he was part of, and he was always playing with friends.
“I remember growing up playing baseball on the old field where the subdivision is now. During the summer months, that’s all us kids had was playing baseball. Every day we played baseball. We had a good time back in those days with no worries,” remembered Jerry. “Growing up in Stonewall, everybody knew everybody. You couldn’t walk down the street. If you got in trouble on one end of town, by the time you got home your mama and daddy already knew it, and you got another whooping. I think every parent had permission from each other parent to give their kid a whooping if they messed up. The biggest thing about growing up is it was a close knit community back then.”
Life was completely different when Jerry was growing up, especially in Stonewall.
“We had it made. We were in a controlled environment because Erwin owned everything,” Jerry reminisced. “I can tell you when cows, chickens, horses, and everything roamed the streets. I had milk cows. I toted coal for coal heaters and wood. I went to the Artesian Well and got the water growing up. The two pillars the town has now were part of the gate system. There was a fence all around Stonewall. Everybody knew whose animal was whose. There was a big barn where everybody kept their cows and horses on Cool Springs Road. There used to be a sawmill further over on Allen Avenue.”
Structure was something Jerry enjoyed, and he became even more structured after joining the military; in fact, he learned a lot of valuable lesson while in the military.
“The most experience I got was in the military. That’s where I learned leadership abilities and everything. I wound up with a pretty good rank,” declared Jerry. “When we were in Desert Storm, I had 17 men under me. The day we left I told their wives that everybody would be coming back home. When we got on that plane coming back from the war, all of us got off that plane together. It was just God’s will. We were stationed in the war zone but far enough away from it that we didn’t get hit by missiles or anything. It’s a scary situation. When I left Keyfield in Meridian, I was blonde headed; when I stepped off that plane after coming back, I was grey headed. The best thing about it was getting in there and learning to be a leader and be controlled.”
He took the leadership abilities he learned in the military and decided to apply them to assist the town he loves so much.
“I can’t even remember when I first run for alderman for the town. I’ve been seven terms as an alderman. I took a little break a little break and then came back four years. Since then, everything I’ve tried to do is for the town,” proclaimed Jerry. “I’m proud of what I’ve done since I’ve run for mayor the first time. I had a good board, and I’ve got a good board right now. We’ve had our ups and downs, but that’s part of being in the government. You have a strong board and a weak mayor. I can only do what they vote on and carry it through. I cannot do it on my own. I’m not considered a full-time mayor since it’s a small town. I’m part-time, but I’m here all the time because I need to be here for the people. This is my sixth year as mayor. I’m a citizen of Stonewall just like everyone else. I pay my taxes and pay my water and sewer and everything. I’m just a citizen, but I have to look at the day to day operation.”
Jerry is proud of the accomplishments he has achieved since he took office as mayor six years ago.
“The first year I got a water grant to redo our sewer system—the tanks and the pumps and stuff like that. Now, when my water man takes the samples to the school and stuff, Stonewall is number three in the state,” informed Jerry. “We’re trying to get the infrastructure of this town up to a better grade than it was eight years ago, 10 years ago, or 20 years ago because I was on the board and everything and saw where the problem was. That’s what’s helped me as mayor is to understand what the problem was. When I leave the office, I want to say that the next mayor may have a little water leak or service a line going to a house or something like that, but they won’t have the main line to go on. I want it to be in good shape.”
Recently, he and the Stonewall Board of Aldermen have made another great achievement for the town by having a contractor service come in.
“We’re going to have a contractor service coming in. This company is out of Mobile, Alabama. They contract to Comcast when they have problems and their lines get broken,” explained Jerry. “This guy will have crews sitting here. They’ll have an office, and if Comcast calls them anywhere in this area and it’s close by, it’ll be a double whammy. When they call crews in to repair Comcast cable lines, the crews will have to come in here. I say it’s a double whammy because they’ll be in campers, and we have our camping places on the river at the boat ramp, and the town will be renting them out. Then, we’ll be getting taxes off their business and everything. The man has already bought the property. He called me and started telling me they will put the office down there first, and then we’ll hook up water and sewage for them. Then, they’ll put up a pole barn down there to put all the equipment in. The office will have one or two people in it at all times.”
While he works hard every day, his family is still extremely important to him. He is proud of his family and what all they have accomplished over the years. While he has made some great memories with them, he has also experienced grief with them as well.
“The biggest hurt was Dustin getting killed. He was the oldest grandkid. We near about raised him. He stayed with us most of the time, especially when he got to be a teenager. He loved to be with me because of the way his daddy worked and everything. He loved to deer hunt, and he and I deer hunted together. He was my hunting partner. We stayed in the woods most of the time during hunting season. I don’t deer hunt now because of that because I felt like part of me was gone,” expressed Jerry. “I have another grandson who’s getting into deer hunting, and I’m helping him. I help him, but I don’t go with him to hunt. It’s too cold, and my old bones don’t take that cold like they used to. I’m not young anymore and can’t climb up a tree, and if I sit in a shoot house and get cold then I’m gone.”
No matter what comes his way, Jerry will continue to focus on God, country, and family. He has a desire to assist others and be a blessing, and he does his best each day to make sure he is successful.
If you would like to nominate someone for Person of the Week, contact Brittney Mangum at 601-776-3726.
