Corky’s a corker

Erlanger at Hutcheson Board of Directors Chairman Corky Jewell calls the hospital “my biggest challenge.” Photo by Mike O’Neal

During more than 30 years as a Georgia State Patrol officer Corky Jewell served at patrol posts such as those in LaFayette and Dalton, was officer in command when a bomb was detonated during the 1996 Olympic Games and planned communications for the G8 Summit held at Sea Island in 2004.

But he says neither those nor tasks in his subsequent career as a businessman were more difficult than what he faces as chairman of the board of directors for Erlanger at Hutcheson hospital.

“Hutcheson Medical Center is my biggest challenge,” he said of the Fort Oglethorpe-based hospital.

Though a great uncle was an original member of the hospital authority and served until about 1967, Jewell said he never planned to follow in those footsteps.

Instead, he said it was during conversations with Walker County Sole Commissioner Bebe Heiskell, “about early 2002,” regarding another venture that she asked if he would be interested in serving on the local hospital authority board.