Packed Jones Community Center rally revives old-school Autauga County politics

A packed Jones Community Center on Monday night put Autauga County politics back in a room built for it, with sheriff candidates Mark Harrell and Kevin McNatt, 19th Circuit Judge, Place 5 candidates Bradley Earl Ekdahl and Carol Cook Carter, and State House District 69 candidate Marshae Madison all taking turns before residents in Jones.

Melba McCullough Chandler moderated the program and kept the evening moving by calling each candidate forward one at a time and giving them three minutes apiece. The format fit the room and the moment: less than a month before the May 19 Alabama primary, voters in Autauga County were able to hear the candidates side by side and judge how they spoke about offices that will land directly on the Republican ballot.

The turnout mattered because the county itself is big enough that in-person politics still carries weight. Autauga County had 58,805 residents in the 2020 census, and the Census Bureau estimated the population at 61,920 on July 1, 2025, spread across 594.5 square miles of land. In a county that size, a community hall in northwestern Autauga County can still serve as a political crossroads, especially when the race includes sheriff, 19th Circuit judge and a contested state House seat.

The setting also carried its own history. The Jones Community Center was once the Jones Schoolhouse, and the building still reflects that past. In earlier years, residents had used it for meet-and-greets, political forums, ice cream gatherings and election-day events, and in 2023 neighbors even raised money for repairs and repainting through a vintage rummage sale. That kind of local upkeep helped make Monday’s crowd possible, because the center was not just a venue but a community asset that depends on people keeping it open and usable.

The evening also stretched beyond county politics. Candidates for higher offices, along with their representatives, were there too, widening the conversation beyond Autauga County’s own lines and into the broader Alabama ballot. A cake auction added a fundraiser element for maintaining the center itself, underscoring how civic life in Jones still runs through the same place where neighbors have gathered for generations.

Jones itself, once called Jones Switch until the name was officially shortened in 1903, remains an unincorporated pocket with deep local roots. Monday’s rally suggested that old-school political retail is not just a memory there; it is still a working part of how candidates try to earn trust in rural Autauga County.