Ray Jeter says the construction company he manages in Maury County operates with one key motto for its staff. Build people, move dirt.
Jeter says he’d apply a similar approach to building up Tennessee’s education system if elected to House District 64 this year.
“You’ve got good and bad apples in every organization, and I think you find the good apples in that public school education, and you build upon that. And you work with those individuals, you get back to the basics,” said Jeter. “We can stand up all day long on a platform and scream we want change, we want change, but if you don’t get the people involved who are actually the boots on the ground in the classrooms, if you don’t get them involved and them excited about the change, and excited about the opportunity to right and better the situation, I’m sorry it ain’t never going to happen.”
Jeter’s approach stands in stark contrast to his opponent in the August Republican Primary, incumbent Representative Scott Cepicky, R-Culleoka.
Earlier this year News Channel 5 in Nashville aired a recorded meeting between Cepicky and home school families, where the Maury County lawmaker explained the path he hoped to follow to improve education in Tennessee.
“We’re trying to just throw the whole freaking system in the trash at one time and just blow it all back up,” said Cepicky.
Jeter says those comments upset teachers in Maury County.
“They’re absolutely livid,” said Jeter. “I had a teacher tell me two days ago, you know she feels like she was spat upon.”
Jeter says he believes improving education in Tennessee will come through working with public schools, along with private and home schools. He’s also a supporter of providing parents with more school choice and believes Governor Lee’s plan to let parents use taxpayer dollars to send their kids to private school could help provide it if there are protections that keep government from interfering with private and home schools.
He says comments like his opponent made, aren’t helping move needed changes forward.
“You can’t alienate a whole group of educators and families and children and just say you want to destroy it and burn it down and blow it up,” said Jeter. “He can’t see the forest for the trees, and I feel very strongly, I think there is reform and there are things that have got to happen within our public school system but you come from it with from a stance of, you want as many people on that boat, that ship to help you right that ship as possible.”
Lifelong Maury County resident
Jeter has spent almost his entire life in Maury County, where House District 64 is located.
His family moved there when he was three years old, and he met his eventual wife a few years later while both were students at Riverside Elementary School in Columbia.
Over the years he’s served the community as a business owner and the Chief Deputy of the Maury County Sheriff’s Office. Jeter is currently a county commissioner and the Chief Operations Officer of Harness LLC.
“This area has been my home and I live and breathe and sweat and bleed Maury County.”
In recent years the area has seen a lot of growth and traffic and inflation challenges that come with it.
Jeter says one of the main reasons why he’s running for a State House seat is to advocate for smart growth in Maury County and Middle Tennessee and to help protect those impacted by it.
Jeter says one of the first bills he plans to submit would freeze property tax rates for low-income elder homeowners in Maury County.
“We are seeing a huge amount of property value increases in Maury County and some of these elderly, fixed income property owners, they’re losing their properties. They’re losing their homes, and these folks just want to retire in peace and live the remainder of their lives without fear of being homeless.”
The winner of the House District 64 GOP primary in August will be heavily favored in November over the winner of the House District 64 Democratic primary.
