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- [S106] The Mountain Press, 14 Aug 2006.
Clabo to begin 20th year as Teustee
By: JOEL DAVIS
Staff Writer August 14, 2006
SEVIERVILLE - While Sevier County Trustee Jettie Clabo recently celebrated her 20th year in office with another unopposed election win, she hasn't taken serving county residents for granted.
"I love my job," she said. "I love dealing with the public and waiting on people."
First elected in 1986 after former Trustee Blaine "K.O." McMahan retired, Clabo has been unopposed in the last four elections.
"I'm very lucky," she said. "Six of us ran the first time. Since then, I've been very. very fortunate. I've never had another opponent."
During her next term, Clabo plans to continue improving her office.
"I just to try to keep up with the technology so the office is run more efficiently," she said "I've got a wonderful staff. I want to try to keep the staff I've got and make sure the public receives the kind of service I think they've received over the years."
While most people are familiar with the trustee's role in collecting property taxes, the office holder also serves as the county's banker, Clabo said.
"All the county's money comes through my office -- anything collected by the county or that has revenue comes through my office," she said. "We do the accounting for that."
In 2005, the Trustee's Office collected property taxes on about 84,000 individual parcels.
In addition, Clabo invests any of the county's money that is not being used, applying the interest toward the county debt service. Currently, she has invested about $25 million in certificates of deposits and $23 million invested in a checking account that draws interest.
Clabo resides in the New Center area with her husband, Steve Clabo, who co-owns and manages Sevier Title. They have two children and four grandchildren. The Clabo's attend the Sevierville First Baptist Church.
The East Tennessee Trustees Association and Tennessee Trustee Association named her "Trustee of the Year" in 1992, 1994 and 1997.
- [S106] The Mountain Press, 27 Feb 2007.
Counting numbers fills days for Jettie Clabo
By: DEREK HODGES, Staff Writer
For the man who got lost in a daydream watching squirrels outside his fifth-grade math class, Sevier County Trustee Jettie Clabo is nothing short of amazing.
Not only did Clabo have the sense to actually pay attention in her numbers-related classes, she's made a lengthy career out of her love of addition, subtraction and compounded interest. In fact, except for a stint as a paralegal, Clabo has spent her entire 39-year career crunching numbers.
"I started school at the old two-room McCookeville school, which was on what's now the spur," Clabo said. "Then, when I was in the fourth grade, I went to the big city of Pigeon Forge for school. I always loved math, all through school. I was the ninth of 11 kids and during the year, us kids would go to school. Then, during the summers, we'd help out on our parents farm on Gnatty Branch. We grew tobacco, corn and beans where the animal shelter is now."
After her education in the "big, scary" city of Pigeon Forge, Clabo found herself in a whole new world as she rode the bus daily to Sevier County High School. After her graduation in 1966 ("I was very short then," she says. "I was only four foot eight inches. I grew six inches after graduation."), Clabo attended two years of business college and earned an accounting degree. Then, it was time for numbers.
"I started in the Register of Deeds office in 1968," Clabo said. "I guess you could say I sort of grew up around the courthouse."
Grew up indeed. Clabo has worked at the courthouse for most of her career. Even as a paralegal, she worked in an office across the street from the county's judicial center and was in the Register of Deeds' office so often people didn't realize she'd left.
"I'd be back in the register's office looking something up for one of our lawyers 10 years after I left there and people would still ask me, 'Jettie, can you look this up for me?'" she says.
If the register's office was a baptism in dealing with figures, the trustee's office was surely a trial by fire. It's a trial Clabo wasn't certain she wanted to take on at first.
"The trustee was retiring in 1986 and some of my friends talked me into running," Clabo said. "I have been through all the changes in the courthouse and I think our office has been in every corner of this building. We've been upstairs and downstairs. I can even remember a time when we had to go outside and into the basement to use the bathroom. Finally they moved us into the old jail. I was awful glad they remodeled before they moved us in."
It's not just the building that's changed in Clabo's time - the amount of work has, too. Though staffers in the trustee's office no longer have to record all their transactions by hand, they do now have 84,000 parcels to collect taxes on, more than double the 35,000 in the county when Clabo started.
This week, Clabo and her staff will hear from as much as 30 percent of the owners of those parcels as they rush to meet Wednesday's deadline for property taxes.
"I guess you could say I'm kind of a busy person," she said. "Those last few days get pretty wild around here. All the staff always goes out to eat after it's all over, just so we can have a little break."
Still, through 21 years of last-minute tax payments and numbers crunching, Clabo said she's still happy to come to work in the mornings.
"I feel very fortunate to be here," she says. "I love my job. I love the voters who put me back in here, I love the wonderful staff I work with and I love all the officials here at the courthouse."
Like all good things, though, Clabo's career must surely come to an end. How soon that will happen Clabo hasn't yet decided for sure.
"I feel like I'm too young to retire," Clabo says with a laugh.
When she does, though, she'll have plenty of time to spend with her husband, Steve, two children and four grandchildren. She'll also be able to garden, read, cook, travel and spend more time with her grandkids.
Still, even in retirement one has to wonder how long Clabo will be able to resist the lure of numbers.
* dhodges@themountainpress.com
- [S58] Marriage Certificate.
CLABO, STEVEN EDWARD WARD, JETTI LOU 1981-04-04
- [S149] The Official Marriage Records of Sevier County Tennessee 1972 - 1981, Volume IV, Smoky Mountain Historical Society, (Copyright 2008), ISBN 1-890150-00-6.
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