Rocky Top council races uncontested
MAYOR KERRY TEMPLIN
Two incumbent council members, Jeff Gilliam and Joe Tackett, are also running unopposed so far to win the two council seats that are on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Qualifying deadline is noon Thursday (Aug. 20), but no one else had even picked up a petition to try to qualify for either the mayor or council races.
In Rocky Top, the mayor and council members serve four-year terms, with two of the four council positions up for election every two years.
Templin, part of a family that has long been involved in business and politics in Rocky Top, garnered more than 82 percent of the vote against former Mayor Timothy Sharp in the 2022 city election, taking 265 votes to Sharp’s 57.
He is a now-retired compliance training officer for the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, and for 20 years was a firefighter at Y-12.
Gilliam, an investigator with the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, was the top vote-getter in the five-way race for the two open council seats in 2022, collecting 227 votes.
In second place, winning the other seat, was Mack Bunch, with 210 votes.
But Bunch resigned his seat on the council in early 2025, and Tackett was appointed by the remaining council members in April 2025 to fill out his unexpired term.
Tackett had served on the council a few years ago, the mayor said.
Templin is a lifelong resident of the area whose father, George Templin, served as mayor and city councilman in the 1980s, and ran Cooper Supply Co., a former local hardware store.