Chapin, SC - 04/19/2021 (Paul Kirby) – Chapin’s Mayor-Pro Temp announced Sunday night that he will run for mayor in November of this year. Although there had been a great deal of speculation over this, Koon made it official by public confirming it on a local podcast.
Current Chapin Mayor David Knight has said many times he will not run for a second term. He’s a semi-retired real estate attorney and had sad that the job of running the small town was very time consuming. Chapin has a strong mayor form of government which can put a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities of running the town on the mayor.
Koon is a graduate of Clemson University. After getting his degree in engineering, he was hired by then SCE&G. They sent him to school to learn how to operate a nuclear plant and when he returned, he was assigned to the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station until he retired.
Koon has been very active in the town’s operations since being elected to the town council. He’s helped facilitate changes that have made the town what it is today. He is very interested in keeping the look of the center of the town and the historic district like it is and closely scrutinizes each new business that opens in that area to ensure they add not detract from the area.
“We have so much more to do,” Koon recently said during an interview. “We are working with the SCDOT on improving the look of the new, wider Columbia Avenue project. The same can be said about the adjoining bypass we hope will relieve traffic in the historic district. We are also working to annex more homes into town so everyone who has a Chapin mailing address will actually live in Chapin. Because so many receive their mail with a Chapin address on it, they think they live in the town. When a municipal election comes up, they show up to vote and are turned away because they’re not residents of the town. There are so many talented people around us that would like to be involved in setting the tone for the area. If they only lived in the town, they could vote in our elections or perhaps run for office too,” he concluded.
Koon is married to Susan and the couple have two sons. They also have a number of grandchildren in the Columbia and Greenville areas of the state.
