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A Republican real estate agent will be on the ballot for the Vinton Magisterial District’s seat on the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors come November.
The question is who.
Incumbent Tammy Shepherd and county school board member Tim Greenway, both Realtors in Vinton, will vie for a spot on the special election ballot in the June 18 Republican primary. Both brand themselves as the conservative candidate who is right for the job.
The primary will, for all intents and purposes, be the election; Roanoke County Democratic Committee chair Brandon Lewis said no one from his party will run for the seat. November’s winner will serve through the end of 2025 in the seat left open by the election of former supervisor Jason Peters as the county’s commissioner of the revenue. The remainder of the county’s board of supervisors appointed Shepherd to that post Jan. 11.
“It was never a part of the plan,” Shepherd said regarding her foray into local politics. “It had never even been on my radar.”
But when longtime mentor and friend Leon McGhee pushed Shepherd to throw her name in for the post, Shepherd couldn’t say no. The county’s remaining supervisors chose her over eight other applicants, including Greenway, voting 3-0 to appoint her to the post; Catawba District supervisor Martha Hooker abstained from the vote.
Greenway has questioned the validity of the appointment process. After Peters won the commissioner of the revenue race, the county posted a call for applications Nov. 16 with a cutoff date of Nov. 30 before extending the deadline to Jan. 1. Greenway said that he applied prior to the original deadline and that applicants were not told why there had been an extension. He believed the supervisors extended the deadline to find someone “who could beat me,” Greenway said this week.
Amy Whittaker, public information officer for Roanoke County, said the supervisors quickly realized that eight business days around the Thanksgiving holiday was simply not enough time for applicants to properly prepare their materials, prompting the extension. She could not say how many of the nine applicants had submitted material by the original deadline.
Shepherd, 54, said her motivation for finishing the term comes from a sense of duty to her neighbors.
“I’m very much a people person and very social, and this is a way I can give back to the community that I earn my living in,” she said.
Greenway, 60, said his reasons are twofold. His sole campaign promise was to increase transparency in local government, something he sees as lacking from his post on the school board. In recent years, Greenway said, the school board struggled to get answers from supervisors about addressing below-average teacher pay and other budgetary questions.
“I felt like, well, if I can’t get them to speak to me from the school board perspective, then I need to run for that spot,” Greenway explained.
Second, Greenway said the time has arrived for a fresh voice on the school board, a position he called the most important elected office in the United States. He was first elected to that body in 2015.
“You shouldn’t overstay your welcome,” he said.
Both candidates are Vinton natives and William Byrd High School graduates, and have a long history of civic involvement. Greenway, aside from his eight-plus years on the school board, previously served in volunteer leadership roles with the Vinton Area Chamber of Commerce and the Vinton Dogwood Festival; he’s also active in the Lions Club and Vinton Baptist Church. Shepherd previously served as president of the William Byrd Football Booster Club and treasurer of the William Byrd Booster Club, and on the county’s board of equalization.
The two agree on the county’s biggest strength: its people.
Both also agree that the county’s top priority must be economic development.
“Continuing to bring in new business helps bring in taxes and jobs … which will in turn reduce taxes on citizens,” Shepherd said.
Greenway echoed that sentiment, pointing at declining school enrollment — Roanoke County Public Schools lost more than 500 students over the past decade, according to the Virginia Department of Education’s annual fall membership count, despite the county’s total population increasing by nearly 5% in that time — as an indicator that young professionals with families aren’t moving to the county due to a lack of desirable employment. And that’s despite Roanoke County consistently ranking among the commonwealth’s top school systems, according to the annual Niche rankings. Roanoke County checked in 11th in the 2024 iteration.
“The only thing it can be is that we’re not getting the jobs here to bring the younger people,” he said.
Shepherd also pointed to infrastructure concerns she said need to be addressed in the coming years. Many school buildings, firehouses, the jail and other county buildings are due for repairs and updates, she said. And though she said she’s a conservative who would not raise taxes on county residents, Shepherd said she would support the county’s vital services, such as education, law enforcement and first responders.
“I can tell you: if I need to call 911, I sure as heck hope they’re there,” Shepherd said.
For Greenway’s part, he said his record on the school board speaks toward his own conservative politics.
“When you’ve fought to keep the boys in the boys’ bathrooms and the girls in the girls’ bathroom, when you’ve fought to keep books about sexual orientation out of the hands of elementary-school kids, and when you’ve fought to keep our schools open during the COVID year, I don’t think I have to explain if I’m conservative or not,” Greenway said. “People know you’re conservative when you’ve done those things. I don’t just print that word on my campaign literature. I’ve lived out conservatism the last nine years.”
