Gary Simrill retires after 30 years in SC House

by R. Marc Howie, Vice Pres­i­dent of Com­mu­ni­ty Devel­op­ment

Work­ing togeth­er is part of the coop­er­a­tive cul­ture and one of the ways York Elec­tric is able to ful­fill our goal of mak­ing a pos­i­tive impact in our com­mu­ni­ties. We can all agree that our local and state gov­ern­ment has a con­sid­er­able influ­ence on where we live and our qual­i­ty of life, which is why it is so impor­tant for your elec­tric coop­er­a­tive to form mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships, build­ing trust and sup­port to those who mat­ter most—our mem­bers.

York Elec­tric is proud to work with such a strong local del­e­ga­tion at the SC State House who, like your co-op, puts the best inter­est of our mem­bers and their con­stituents first. In my role at York Elec­tric for over 25 years, I’ve had the hon­or and priv­i­lege of build­ing these rela­tion­ships with polit­i­cal lead­ers in Colum­bia; but this year will be a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. Gary Sim­rill, major­i­ty leader of the South Car­oli­na House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 2016 until May of 2022, served our area for 30 years. Gary’s com­mit­ment to his elect­ed duty and well-round­ed views on what is best for all South Car­oli­na res­i­dents will be great­ly missed.

I’m proud to know Gary pro­fes­sion­al­ly and would be remiss if I did not show my sin­cere appre­ci­a­tion to him for his stead­fast sup­port of York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive. His good char­ac­ter made my job easy. He was always respon­sive and quick to return a call or text, he had a strong voice that was respect­ed by all par­ties, as well as con­stituents from urban and rur­al areas, had the best inter­est of our state at heart and stud­ied issues before speak­ing or mak­ing rash deci­sions. Like me, folks respect Gary, his will­ing­ness to get the job done and the humil­i­ty he showed by nev­er car­ing who got the cred­it. He was nev­er afraid to cross the aisle if it meant find­ing a com­pro­mise to help our mem­bers, our area or our state.

Per­son­al­ly, I’m hon­ored to call Gary my friend, fel­low Winthrop alum and York Coun­ty native. Although we will miss him in Colum­bia, it is nice know­ing he is still work­ing and sup­port­ing our com­mu­ni­ty in his new role at Winthrop Uni­ver­si­ty, con­tin­u­ing his efforts to make our area the best place to live. Thank you, Gary.