County’s Board of Elections director retiring
Dean Hensley
Hendersonville Times-News USA TODAY NETWORK
After 37 years of working for the Henderson County Board of Elections, Karen Hebb is on to the next chapter in her life: Retirement. Her final day will be June 30.
“I’m going to sit on my back porch and drink my coffee, and I’m never getting up at 6:05 in the morning again,” she said on June 13. “I told my doctor that last week, and he said, ‘Why do you get up at 6:05?’ I said, ‘Well, it sounds better than 6 ... and I get that extra five minutes. My clock will never say 6:05 again. It’s been a long time ... and it’s time.”
Hebb started at the Board of Elections in 1986 as a temp, a title she held until 1995 when she was hired fulltime. In 2019, she was named director. Through the past nearly four decades, Hebb said she’s seen many changes.
“When I first came to work here, the results were written on a big poster board. They had just gone to computers and were using those big cards and the books,” she said. “We’ve come a long way since then.”
Back in the days of the poster boards, Hebb said the workers spent many long hours at the office on election nights.
“It was like 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning. By the time everyone would bring their supplies in and things, it could take a long, long time,” she said.
Hebb has worked through 10 U.S. presidential elections and has participated in several close local elections. But the election year that stands out most in her mind was in 2020, a year after she was named director.
“That was the most bizarre year that we’ve ever had because of COVID and because of the turnout,” she said. “Things reversed from everyone coming in person to getting the ballots mailed because no one wanted to come out during COVID. We had all those recounts, including the hand-eye recount and the machine recount for that race.”
She said COVID presented challenges her team had never dealt with before.
“Everybody in here did their jobs well. It was wonderful. It could’ve been a disaster, but instead, it turned out great,” she said. “We had poll workers coming out of the woodwork because everybody wanted to volunteer and help. It was a bad thing that turned into a good thing.”
Hebb said most of all she will miss the people. “Ninety-nine percent of the people that come in here are grateful to us for helping them vote. You feel like you’ve done something good to help them. It’s just great meeting all the people in the county,” she said.
The Board of Elections is still in the process of hiring a new director, Hebb said.
Dean Hensley is the news editor for the Hendersonville Times-News. Email him with tips, questions and comments at
