District 7 is the heart of North Knox County, encompassing Powell, Halls and Heiskell. Long a Republican stronghold, the district’s seat on Knox County Commission is open following Commissioner Rhonda Lee’s decision to run for General Sessions Judge.

The winner of the GOP race will run against Democrat William Cooper in the general election.

Three Republicans are vying to replace her — Barry Beeler, Buddy Burkhardt and Justin Mash. 

Beeler and Burkhardt are Knox County Republican Party leaders — the former is the party secretary, while the latter is former three-term party chair. Mash is a fifth-generation Halls resident.

Beeler, who has engaged conservative consultant Erik Wiatr to help with the campaign, jumped out to an early fundraising lead, pulling in $14,108 as of Jan. 15. Supporters include Commissioner Andy Fox and businessman Michael Mullenhour. Burkhardt didn’t begin raising cash until early January and raised $4,897. His donors include Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary and developer Scott Davis. Mash, a political newcomer, loaned his campaign $5,000 and raised $1,852.

Burkhardt and Beeler talked to Compass for their profiles, but Mash did not respond to requests for an interview. His profile is based on his website and media reports.

The winner of the Republican primary will face William Cooper, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary, in the August general election. We will include Cooper’s profile in our general election coverage.

Barry Beeler

Beeler has lived a life of work and service, and now he wants to make it political.

This is his first run for elected office, but he’s no stranger to Knox County politics, given the fact that he’s halfway through his current two-year term as secretary for the Knox County Republican Party. 

He thinks his real-world work experience coupled with his ongoing community and church work make him a prime candidate for the 7th District Knox County Commission seat.

He said Lee and others in the party suggested that he pray about running for the soon-to-be-vacant seat.

“And so I prayed about it, talked to my wife, I talked to people at church, talked to people that are on the commission that are friends of mine, and just … God never said no.”

Beeler, 57, was born and raised in Knoxville and graduated from Bearden High School. He has lived in Powell since 2019. He’s a graduate of Tennessee Wesleyan University, where he played baseball, and holds a master’s in public health from the University of Tennessee.

His career as a safety and industrial hygiene professional has spanned nearly three decades. He spent 18 years with the Tennessee Department of Labor in safety and compliance, and the rest of his career has been spent in Oak Ridge in some capacity. He currently works in health and safety at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

As North Knox County booms, he hears a familiar refrain on the campaign trail: People don’t think the county is adequately handling growth.

“They’re concerned about infrastructure. They’re concerned about high-density development — they want it or don’t want it,” Beeler said. “They’re concerned about the development and the aging infrastructure — and maybe the lack of infrastructure — to handle all the load of the new subdivisions.

“Overcrowding is the concern with Powell Elementary. I think the superintendent’s office does a good job with this, but are they anticipating the growth once these subdivisions go in? Can we handle the load of kids? You know, we’ve got to be able to handle the load and teach them in an environment where they can learn. They’re concerned about that.” 

But other schools occupy higher slots on the capital-improvements list, he said. The school board delayed rezoning for Powell Elementary for a year following the squabble that erupted over rezoning students.

The County Commission has little say in how Knox County Schools ultimately spends or prioritizes the $700.5 million Commission allocates it each year, Beeler said. He warns of continued “growing pains” like the tangled traffic at the Emory Road and I-75 interchange as reconstruction to a “diverging diamond” traffic pattern takes shape.

A property-tax increase to cover the infrastructure needs cited by his potential constituents would be a hard sell, both to him and for him.

“I think we need to do a dollar-for-value independent audit to see if we have any duplicative spending before I even think about raising taxes,” he said.

“I think, according to the Charter, we need to stick to good infrastructure, good security, good schools. That’s the main things I think county government needs to focus on.”

He said his qualifications for office include management, leadership and getting down to brass tacks. 

“I’ve been required to digest a lot of information and distill it down to the main topic. I’ve got a lot of experience in that,” Beeler said. “You’ve got to be able to distinguish signal from noise and you’ve got to be able to process it in a timely manner and do your research and be ready to make a vote.” 

He also cites as a qualification the service work he has undertaken with his wife, Staci, as a lay leader at Calvary Chapel of Knoxville. The couple’s work with GriefShare involves working with vulnerable people unspeakably sad and shocked as they navigated grief, he said. They were drawn to the ministry because his wife experienced a sudden, tragic loss herself.

“It’s really tough, but people come in and they’re devastated because nobody has a playbook on what to do when you lose a loved one. And sometimes they come in and just speak their name at introductions, but yet at the end of 13 weeks, they become part of our family. It’s kind of sweet.” 

Buddy Burkhardt

Burkhardt wants to be Knox County’s newest gadfly if he makes it to County Commission. It’s the only way to keep up with the intricacies of running a county that has now surpassed 500,000 people, he said.

There are 29 committees and subcommittees that commissioners are expected to serve on in addition to their regular Commission duties.

“I want to be one of those guys that sits and looks in on these committees where you look at the Audit Committee or the Finance Committee, even the Insurance Committee, because the insurance is a very important thing for the employees of Knox County,” he said. “Hospital stays are not getting cheaper. Co-pays are not getting cheaper. And we’re not raising the salaries of our employees to keep up with a $300,000 house and a heart attack.”

Burkhardt would know: He spent 29 years as an employee with the Knox County Sheriff’s Office. He mainly worked on the administrative or technology-oriented side of things but also spent time on the street, learning as he accompanied patrols.

“To understand how I could better serve the officers and employees of the Sheriff’s Office, I had to understand what their job was,” said Burkhardt, who retired from the office three years ago.

“I spent time watching inmates in a hospital. I worked in a pod. I went through the special-operations response team training to understand what those guys had to do,” Burkhart said.

“‘I’ve been on a murder. I’ve been on a suicide. I’ve been part of a DUI checkpoint. I’ve done all these things to do a better job for the Sheriff’s Office. I intend to take that desire into County Commission.”

Burkhardt said he will report the reasons behind county government’s decisions to the public.

“Joe Citizen wants to know: ‘Why can’t a county with a $1.1 billion or $1.2 billion budget pave my road?’” he said. “I don’t think the County Commission of Knox County has done a good enough job of educating the citizens to let them know just what goes into keeping this county strong.”

Citizens also want to know what the county is doing — or plans to do — to accommodate the influx of new residents and the accompanying infrastructure needs, he said.

He said during a recent meet-and-greet he heard the word “infrastructure” about 30 times. And while people express concerns about transportation needs, the word means a whole lot more.

“Infrastructure is roads. It’s signage. It’s road maintenance. It’s utilities, it’s water, it’s electric, it’s gas,” he said.

And it’s schools, too. 

During the meeting, which featured brokers and Realtors, Burkhardt said that “nobody said what infrastructure really is. You know, you’ve got schools with capacity, but you’ve got other schools where development has been and the schools are over capacity.

“You’ve got subdivisions that exist and utilities are fine, but they want to put in 10 or 15 or 100 homes and the utilities, the gas, the electric, the water, the sewer, those have all got to be improved.”

He said he would work to identify efficiencies and savings within the county, and he offered two ideas for revenue — selling surplus or unneeded Knox County properties and a renewed push to fill, or create, industrial parks.

He cites a pattern of pushback against industrial development in existing industrial parks, such as Midway Business Park, and agreed that no one should have neighborhood-altering facilities forced on them. 

“But there has to be conversation and there has to be understanding that if we are a welcoming business environment, where we can bring employment for these 20,000, 30,000 people coming in here.”

While this is Burkhardt’s first run for an elected position, the three-time Knox County Republican Party chairman is familiar with the Knox County GOP machine.

“There’s not very many campaigns in Knox County that I have not been involved in some way at some point,” he said. “Let me just say that win, lose or draw, I enjoyed and was proud of the work that I did for the candidates and for the people that I helped get elected.”

Now he thinks it’s his turn.

“My compassion for people struggling is a real honest-to-God knowledge of what it’s like to struggle that way,” he said.

Justin Mash

On his website, Mash describes himself as a “Christian, dedicated family man and strong conservative Republican” who wants to make North Knox County great again.

The married father of two said he is “committed to fighting to make sure it flourishes for generations to come. It is time we bring our community back together and strengthen North Knox County to be stronger than ever before, while still preserving the conservative values we stand on. Knox County is no longer the hidden secret it used to be, but the growth of Knox County should not change the values that have made our community great for generations.”

Mash’s priorities are rebuilding family-friendly communities, building “smart infrastructure” that enhances the district’s quality of life, properly funding the school system, keeping taxes low, and supporting law enforcement and first responders.

Mash told KnoxTN Today that he would work closely with the county’s Engineering and Public Works to ensure the district’s roads are maintained, potholes are repaired promptly and traffic planning reduces congestion.

Powell and Halls have seen significant growth in recent years, but Mash said new developments should be approved only if they do not harm existing residents.

“Growth that does not strengthen our neighborhoods is not beneficial,” he said. ‘When development creates problems rather than opportunities for communities, the community must come first.”

Mash said that he wouldn’t want to raise the property-tax rate — “Families are suffering,” he told WBIR-TV’s John Becker — and that the county should emphasize tourism as a way to increase revenues.

If elected, Mash said, he would hold town-hall meetings every month or every other month to give the community an opportunity to voice their concerns. 

“Too often nowadays, people have lost the ability to sit down and talk. I feel it is important to bring people to the table with love and respect,” he said.

Mash told WBIR-TV’s Becker that his roots are deep in North Knox County. 

“My family’s blood, sweat, tears and hopes and dreams, like a lot of people in that district, is in that community,” he said. 

Mash said residents used to use the phrases “Halls Has It” and “Powell is the Place” with a sense of pride that he would like to see restored.