It was a sermon that helped Andy Boyd decide to run for office.
Boyd, who is running for the District 37 seat in the House of Representatives, said he had been waffling about whether to run for office or not and had convinced himself he had nothing to offer.
“The sermon was on Moses, and the title of the sermon was ‘The Nobody That God Uses,’” he told Columbus Exchange Club Thursday. “All Moses’ excuses, who am I to do this, fear of his past and the fact that he had killed an Egyptian. Like I’ve said before, I’ve never killed an Egyptian.”
Boyd felt like maybe God was trying to tell him something. That message was really brought home later, when the widow of the late Rep. Lynn Wright — whose seat Boyd is running to fill — had a conversation with him at her husband’s funeral.
“(She) told me, ‘Andy, we want you to run for this spot. Lynn and I talked about it,’” he said. “I go home, and I told my wife I needed to make a decision. I need a burning bush.”
Boyd said he kept waiting for someone to tell him not to run, and it kept not happening.
“I went to see (Circuit Clerk Teresa Barksdale) to get my paperwork, and I felt like I was going to throw up,” he said. “I had to get 50 signatures, and I got my preacher to sign number one on the list because he’s the reason I’m here.”
Boyd is running against David Chism, who owns Greenaway Pool & Spa, to fill out the remainder of Wright’s term. Wright passed away in June. He was filling out the remainder of Gary Chism’s term after Chism retired.
The election will be on the ballot Nov. 8. District 37 includes parts of Lowndes, Clay and Oktibbeha counties.
Boyd worked at Swoope Insurance for 29 years before becoming executive director of the Frank P. Phillips YMCA, a post from which he retired in 2019.
Boyd said his biggest issue was crime.
“I think it’s horrible that me or you can’t walk into Walmart or the grocery store without having to look over our shoulder,” he said. “You have what you tolerate…To me the biggest issue we’ve got is crime. It seems like crime’s increasing and sentencing is decreasing. It seems like the same ones are committing crimes over and over again.”
Boyd was asked about the issue of Medicaid expansion, and he said he hadn’t made up his mind. Originally he said he wasn’t in favor, but now he is more open to the idea.
“Hospitals are having trouble keeping their doors open, and I think part of the problem is that we have not expanded Medicaid,” he said. “I’m going to visit (Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle Administrator Paul Cade) and talk to him. I want to hear both sides. We’ve got to figure something out, and I don’t have all the answers.”
Club member Fred Kinder asked Boyd if he thought former politicians should be prosecuted for fraud, a reference to former governor Phil Bryant. Bryant is currently embroiled in a scandal around the spending of $5 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Funds to build a volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has been subpoenaed as part of a state investigation into the spending.
“Right’s right and wrong’s wrong,” Boyd said. “They should be held responsible for it. I’m not speaking to anyone in particular. We don’t know what all the truth is, but if somebody stole money…that’s your money.”
Club member and retired chancery judge Jim Davidson urged Boyd not to be just another empty suit if he got elected.
“I want you to go down there and break the mold,” Davidson said. “This state has been 50th because for the last 25 years we haven’t had anybody who is looking out for the state.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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