Cullman County Commission chairman Jeff Clemons captured the tone inside the courthouse Wednesday, marking Nov. 16 as “a historic day for Cullman County” with the official swearing in of the two officials who’ll occupy the commission’s pair of newly created seats.

New associate county commissioners Kelly Duke (District 3) and Corey Freeman (District 4) joined returning incumbents Kerry Watson (District 1) and Garry Marchman (District 2) in separately taking their oaths of office Wednesday at a public ceremony that also inducted returning incumbents Randall Shedd (R-Fairview) and Corey Harbison (R-Good Hope) to the Alabama House of Representatives, as well as Senator Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) to the Alabama Senate.

With the addition of Duke and Freeman, Wednesday’s evening meeting of the Cullman County Commission launched a new era of elected representation as the commission began settling into its new configuration as a five-member body. The change stems from a 2020 law passed by the Alabama Legislature and approved by Gov. Kay Ivey, which converted the commission from a three-member group (a full-time chair and two full-time associates) to a five-member one, with only Clemons’ chairman’s seat remaining as the body’s full-time elected position.

Representing the entire county but separately residing, as the law requires, in each of the county’s four geographic quadrants, the four associate commissioners hail from each of the county’s four newly-created commission “districts.” The districts are defined by the four-way division created by the intersection of U.S. Highway 31 and U.S. Highway 278, which occurs at the county’s approximate geographic center in Cullman.