We haven’t counted, but probably no one has more photos in the Ellsworth County Independent-Reporter archive files than Kermit Rush.

There’s a simple reason for that accomplishment.

The first time we met Kermit was about 20 years ago. Sharon Montague and I had just started the Ellsworth County Independent and Kermit had decided to seek a seat on the Ellsworth County commission. He walked through our front door to talk about advertising.

Kermit won that election and several more. We’d like to say it was because he advertised in the Indy, but more likely it was because voters knew he would a commissioner.

This month, Kermit retires after having served his community for more than two decades. That creates a lot of opportunities to have your photograph taken.

The newspaper has had a couple of rough patches over the years, but nothing that diminished our respect for Kermit’s dedication to his job and the well being of Ellsworth County.

All of us at the I-R attend a lot of meetings. Kermit was almost always there. He wanted to know what was going on in Ellsworth County. He wanted to understand the issues that were important to his constituents. He did his homework.

The county’s mask mandate is an example. He and the other two commissioners, Steve Dlabal and Dennis Rolfs, were lukewarm to the idea originally. But they eventually came around. And Kermit has voiced his support since, despite occasionally loud protests from the opposition.

Several years ago, the Independent-Reporter sponsored a seminar with two attorneys, both of whom were experts in the Kansas Open Meetings and Open Records Laws. Not only was Kermit one of the few public officials to attend, he later went out of his way to question one of the attorneys about examples that were raised during the presentation.

More and more, it seems, we see candidates for public office with an agenda that doesn’t always fit with what’s best for their county, state or nation. Kermit was not one of them. Even when we disagreed with him, we never questioned his loyalty to Ellsworth, the town he represented, and the citizens of Ellsworth County.

Thank you, Commissioner Rush, for a job well done.