Meet the GA House Rep. District 147 Candidates – Heath Clark

Representative Heath Clark (R-147) has just completed his sixth session in the Georgia House of Representatives, and he said it feels like his years of speaking on behalf of middle Georgians have flown by. Clark believes he has accomplished a lot in his time of service, but he’s not done yet, and would like to continue what he started when he was first elected in 2014.

Growing up in a military family, Clark has fond memories of being raised in Warner Robins, though this is not where he was born.

“At the time I was born, my father already had orders to go to Japan, but he and my mom were waiting for me to make my entrance. Two weeks after I was born, we moved to Japan. At the end of ’83, my dad got stationed at Robins. At that point, I was three years old and had a younger brother who had been born while we were in Japan. My dad spent his last nine years at Robins Air Force Base. This became home. He retired from the Air Force, and I’ve lived here ever since.”

In 1999, Clark graduated from Warner Robins High School where he was voted “Most Spirited” as a Senior Superlative. He later spent his freshman year of college at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forrest, North Carolina, earned his associates degree at Georgia Military College, and finished up at Macon State (Middle Georgia College). Clark didn’t make mention of having many regrets in life, but one thing he did second-guess himself about at one time was his decision not to follow in his father’s footsteps and enter the military.

“It’s one of those things, where you look back and say, I wish I would have done this or that. But God had other plans. He had things planned in a different way for me,” Clark said. “Right after 9/11 happened, I almost went in, but I was so close to being done with college that my dad, and some of his buddies that were serving or had served, kind of talked me out of it. They told me to finish college first, and then if I went in, I could go in as an officer. But by that point, I had started working at some churches as youth pastor and kind of just felt led to continue that path instead of going into the military.”

Clark said that the thing that initially inspired him to run for public office is the same thing that motivates him to want to continue to serve.

“In the church I was in, we had a philosophy that stems from the book of Jeremiah. It talks about when the Israelites were exiled in Babylon and Jeremiah told them to be a blessing to the city, seek the benefit of the city, seek to plant your gardens and give your kids to marriage. Make this home and be a blessing. From that, I was inspired to get involved wherever I could and to seek to be a blessing to and serve the community. Eventually, it led me to run for office, and honestly, that’s the part of the job that’s the most satisfying—when there are constituents that are having issues, that you are able to help them with. When you start to run a campaign, you’re thinking about getting your platform in order and how you stand on different policy issues. But the best benefit you can be is to help constituents get through some of the problems they’re having and elevate their situations when they reach out to you so that they can get some help in what they’re trying to get done.”

Although he has a few years under his belt, Clark said that there are things that he has not yet accomplished in his role that he looks forward to pursuing if he’s re-elected. Matters regarding teachers and military veterans are at the top of his list.

“Governor Kemp has promised a teacher pay raise, and I want to see that thing through once we recover in the economy. Also, something that I’ve always worked on that has kind of hit a wall is the military retirement pension—getting the tax exemption for that so that it will help those men and women who gave some of the best of their working careers to serving our country. I want to give them some help. Not only will that help those men and women who gave that time of their working career, but it’s also a way to have them stay in or move to the state of Georgia. They are a highly skilled committed workforce that’s trained in their areas and know the discipline of being an employee or employer. If we can attract or keep them, it also brings more business because we have the trained workforce for their need.”

Clark truly feels that he is the better candidate, and his hope is that Georgians will continue to trust him to represent them in Washington.

“I think that at this time, with everything that we’re going through, the experience that I have, uniquely qualifies me to see that Georgia gets through the coronavirus and on the other side so that our economy can continue to be strong. I want to get back to where salaries were rising for the first time in a long time because there was a demand for workforce and because we had created such a strong environment for businesses to thrive and grow. With the coronavirus, I have the experience to be able to get us through that, and then on the other side, so that we can make sure that our economy is vibrant and thriving for all Georgians.”

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