At first, Carol Hamblen only planned to run for a seat on the Warren County Commission.

Then she suddenly decided to set her goals much higher. She was going to run for Warren County Executive.

“I became president of the Chamber in 1994 so that go me pretty involved in the community,” said Hamblen. “When I first started thinking about it, I looked into running for the County Commission. Then the timing just seemed right for county executive. Harry Dunn was not going to run again so I wouldn’t be going against an incumbent. I had a business background and was looking at coming in and running the county like a business. So I filed my paperwork and said let’s do this.”

That was in February of 1998 when Hamblen began the trek that would end with her becoming the county’s first female county executive. She fought through obstacles from the very start.

Almost immediately, Hamblen’s decision was hit with a roadblock when she received a terrifying health diagnosis in March. She had been experiencing throat pain and after several trips to the doctor she was diagnosed with a malignant tumor and given grim news.

“The doctor basically told me I had 12 to 16 months to get my things together,” said Hamblen. “He told me I had 12 to 16 months to live. I thought at the time that God has too many things for me to do right now for me to go home and stop living. I wasn’t about to give up.”

Carol was 49 at the time with two teenage daughters still living at home. She was determined cancer would not slow her down.

She endured 38 radiation treatments, traveling to Cookeville five days a week. Despite experiencing some fatigue, she campaigned with vigor and won the election in August  1998 by 20 votes over Kenneth Rogers.

“I was hit with some pretty big things during my term,” said Hamblen. “I had only been in office a few months when they had the mysterious fumes at the high school when everyone got sick. We had some high-powered people from the EPA come in from Seattle and D.C. and I don’t know if anybody ever figured out exactly what happened.”

The fumes incident was studied and even featured in textbooks. One train of thought was it was a psychological issue where one or two students experienced medical trouble, leading a mass of students to believe there was something in the air and they got sick too.

School superintendent Pedro Paz was famously seen on a TV interview saying he didn’t know what was happening, that maybe Godzilla was under the school burping.

Hamblen was also county executive on Sept. 11, 2001 when terrorists attacked America using our own commercial airplanes.

“When the planes hit, we didn’t know what was happening or if there were more to come,” said Hamblen. “Oak Ridge is right down the road so we didn't know if we might be a target too. The state told us if we couldn’t have a deputy stationed at every school to send the kids home and we couldn’t have a deputy at every school so we dismissed school and sent everyone home. I caught a lot of grief for that decision, but I was only doing what the state said we should do.”

Another immediate challenge was the physical relocation of her office, which had been at Warren County Courthouse. After a couple months of her term the remodeling project was complete at Warren County Administrative Offices and many county offices moved to that facility on Locust Street.

Hamblen remembers David Smartt, the county clerk at the time, was quick to claim the office with the drive-thru window, which has created drive-thru windown envy for some of the other officials.

Then there was the problem of being a woman, an issue some Warren County commissioners couldn’t get past.

“It never dawned on me this would be such an issue,” said Hamblen. “There were a couple on the County Commission who couldn’t get over the fact there was a woman as county executive. Most people were real good, but there were a couple who would be against everything I recommended. Being a woman was a lot of the battle that I fought.”

Hamblen remembers one exchange which got especially testy.

“One commissioner told me, and I won’t say his name, that I should go back to the kitchen and back to the bedroom where I belong,” said Hamblen.

Despite this opposition, Hamblen did manage to log a number of achievements during her four-year term. The Sept. 11 attacks brought a new emphasis on communication and the county worked toward a number of emergency service upgrades her last year in office.

Hamblen was instrumental in getting an ambulance substation in Morrison and establishing a volunteer fire department atop Harrison Ferry Mountain. Along those lines, she helped with the development of Overton Retreat atop the mountain.

“One of the things I was able to take pleasure in was seeing some of the suggestions I made go into effect after I left office,” said Hamblen. “They would be against it because I recommended it, but it proved to me it was a good idea when they adopted it after I left. Overall, it was a great learning experience and one I thoroughly enjoyed. There were so many people who reached out to help me and we were able to accomplish a lot of great things.”

After leaving office, Carol, an accountant by trade, worked for Bouldin Corp when WastAway was gearing up. She’s worked for Cumberland Caverns and is still secretary of its board. She’s also worked for Superior Walls.

She’s now made the transition into full grandmother mode and enjoys spending time with her husband, Russell, a retired dentist.

Among her list of professional accomplishments, Hamblen was also the first female president of the Chamber of Commerce and the first female president of the Rotary Club of McMinnville.