‘Mayor Emeritus’

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Posted July 7, 2023 | By Rosemarie Dowell 
rosemarie@ocalagazette.com

Folks in the tiny northwest Marion County town of Reddick are downright gobsmacked these days because for the first time in roughly 50 years, the town mayor’s last name isn’t Stroup. 

The family’s remarkable decades-long streak of dedicated public service concluded April 6 when James R. “Jimmy” Stroup officially handed in the gavel following the monthly town council meeting. 

He had served a whopping 30 years as mayor.

“It was time; I was ready,” said Stroup, who’ll turn 82 in July and won his first election back in 1993. “It was 30 years, but it seems like it was more like 100 sometimes.” 

Stroup’s father, the late Noland Jefferson “Jeff” Stroup, served on the town council for a total of 35 years, including nearly 20 as mayor before he retired, making way for his son to take over as the pro-bono ceremonial leader of the town, established in 1882.  

“Dad liked to pass things on to people, me included,” said Stroup, who moved to Reddick from nearby Lowell during his sophomore year of high school. The Stroup family had moved to Marion County in 1947 from Kokomo, Indiana.

 “I was always helping him out with town business, so I just stepped into the role,” said the father of four, including a daughter who passed away in 2016.  

The jovial grandfatherly town leader was evidently well-esteemed; he ran unopposed in every mayoral race he entered, serving as part public relations expert, part community watchman, and steadfast town advocate throughout his lengthy reign.

“In Reddick, if they don’t like you, you can forget it,” said Stroup, a U.S. Army veteran who’s worked for the past 17 years at the Reddick Public Library, which was once the agricultural building he attended classes in on the campus of Reddick High School. Built in 1923 and renamed North Marion High School in 1957, the school was demolished in 2021, despite efforts to save it.

Stroup, who graduated from North Marion in 1959, recently reflected on his decades of public service. 

“The thing I’m most proud of is the civility between everyone and the diversity of the council and the town,” said Stroup, who previously worked for a charcoal manufacturer in Ocala and near Dunnellon.

The town’s council members, who also serve without pay, include four females, three of whom are Black, he proudly noted. 

“I’m glad that I got to be included in the planning for the new park that will be built on the site of the old high school, too,” said Stroup, a 1963 graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. “We’ve fought a long time to get a county park here.” 

Several town council members who served with Stroup said he will long be remembered for his contributions to the town, both as a stalwart leader and dedicated citizen.

“He’s done a lot for the town, but I think his biggest accomplishment, his legacy, has been his ability to relate to people and people to relate to him—it’s a gift,” said Reddick Town Council President Steve Rogers, a lifelong resident of the town, who’s served on the board for 36 years but has known Stroup for more than 50 years. “He also has a wealth of knowledge about the town, its history and its citizens.”

The two close friends serve on various civic organizations together, including the Millwood Cemetery Association and the North Marion High School football team’s “Chain Gang,” and are both lay leaders of the First United Methodist Church of Reddick. 

“I have tremendous respect for him both as a person and as a man,” Rogers said. “He’s a great example and role model, and has helped a lot of families over the years.”

Stroup, said Rogers, has an uncanny knack for recalling events and names. 

“He’s got an amazing, phenomenal memory for the history of Reddick and remembers people’s names even though he may have only met them once,” he said. 

Reddick Church of God Pastor Myra Sherman, who just began her second two-year term in office, said she first met Stroup, a fervent supporter of sports at North Marion High School, about 20 years ago when her sons were student-athletes there. 

“His integrity and dedication to the community fills my heart,” said Sherman, who often sees Stroup riding his bicycle through town in the mornings. “Whenever I had a question about anything, he would be always be prompt to answer it and was always accurate.” 

Sherman said Stroup’s spirituality especially stood out to her. 

“He would always pray before we started any meetings and offer a prayer up to God,” she said. “Knowing that your mayor trusts God is comforting.”

Another council member, Martha Cromwell, said Stroup will be greatly missed as mayor.  

“He’s been a mainstay of the town council for over 30 years and has served the town well,” said Cromwell, who grew up in Reddick and has known Stroup all her life. “He’s just a gem, a wonderful, wonderful man.”

“He’s still coming to council meetings, but now he’s just a spectator, which feels odd,” she said. 

As for what he feels is his biggest accomplishment while in office, Stroup said it was getting a Marion County Sheriff’s Office substation in town, under then Sheriff Ed Dean, who served for 14 years from 1998 to 2012. 

“I think it went a long way in making the community feel safer,” said Stroup, whose wife, Marjorie Stroup, serves as town clerk as an independent contractor. “I think it did deter some crime.” To Stroup’s chagrin, Dean’s successor, Chris Blair, closed the substation soon after taking office. 

“I’d love to see one open up here again,” he said. “It would be a visible law enforcement presence in town.” 

Stroup would also like to see the newly launched “Restore Reddick” succeed. The initiative by the Reddick Preservation and Growth Foundation, founded by Reuben and Tina Aiton, aims to revive the town by renovating and restoring a bevy of historic buildings in town to their former glory.

“It’s gonna be tough, but I hope they can do it,” said Stroup. 

Once a thriving small town, Reddick has lost a horde of businesses over the years, said Stroup, including the Reddick Supermarket, a hardware store and several others. The closing of a Wells Fargo Bank branch office two years ago, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, was a wallop to the community.  

“My daddy worked his hiney off getting that bank here. Now the closest Wells Fargo is 13 miles away,” said Stroup. “That really hit the town hard.” 

But perhaps the most bittersweet of all the changes Stroup has seen over the past several decades is the demolition of the iconic high school, which had stood for nearly a century in the heart of the community on Northwest Gainesville Road, the main thoroughfare through town.

The large two-story red brick school, a beloved local landmark, served hundreds of families from the area including Fairfield, Lowell, McIntosh and Shiloh before it closed in 1964, following the opening of a newly constructed North Marion High School in nearby Sparr. The new school took in students from high schools in Fort McCoy and Anthony.

After it closed, part of the school was reopened and used for other purposes, including a food bank, an interfaith thrift shop, and offices. It even served as a location for the 2001 “Jeepers Creepers” horror film. 

Over time, there were numerous attempts to bring the campus back to life.

“There was talk of it becoming a tag office for the county at one time,” said Stroup. “But politics killed that idea.”  Stroup was also part of a community task force formed around 2007 to see what could be done to save the school, which had become even more derelict over the years. 

“We were going to pursue grants for renovations and talked about moving the library there and using the auditorium as a craft space for the community,” he said. The discussion and group were dealt a death blow when the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 hit the U.S. 

“When the bottom fell out, it all fell out and that was the end of that,” said Stroup. The school was razed in October of 2021 at a cost of nearly $500,000. 

“It was sad, but I’ll be the first to tell you it was time for it to go,” he said. 

As for his plans now that he’s no longer an elected official, Stroup said he doesn’t have any. 

That’s probably a good thing; Rogers and Sherman said Stroup is so well revered and entrenched in the community, people will always view him as the town’s leader and will no doubt keep calling him for advice and input on town matters. 

Said Sherman, “He’ll always be mayor to me.”

“In my mind’s eye, for a very long time, no matter who the mayor is, Jimmy will always be Mayor Stroup,” said Rogers. “He is Mayor Emeritus.”