Authur Kimmel joins Linden Economic Development
Authur Kimmel grew up living the small-town life. From the small town of McLeod, which is located about 15 miles southeast of Atlanta, he attended McLeod ISD, where in grade school his teacher, Nicole Shay, always pushed him to do his best. He says of McLeod ISD that it is a really great school and even had exemplary status for many years. Graduating in 2011, he went on to attend Texarkana College, where he majored in mathematics and was a member of the Student Government Association. When he made the switch to Texas A&M Texarkana, his government teacher, Dr. Gary Bugh, inspired him to switch his major to political science. He was also the president of the Political Science Club at Texas A&M.
It is his love of small-town life and wanting to help develop small towns that led him to join the LEDC just this month as the executive assistant. He hopes that in his role at LEDC he can do his part to help the town of Linden grow and develop and still maintain that small-town charm.
Outside of work, Authur spends his time tutoring math. He also enjoys writing poetry and credits his junior year teacher, Tricia Brantly, for inspiring his love of poetry, and does, on occasion, perform his poetry at various establishments. He is also an avid gamer and a computer game named Oxygen Not Included is one he cites as helpful in inspiring strategies for the development and growth of small towns. He also enjoys raising farm animals and has two pigs named Houdini and Tigger along with two dogs, a young black Labrador named Itty Bitty and a puppy named Susan. Susan’s namesake is a character from the game League of Legends by the name of Nasus, but because the pup is female, he reversed it. His family is also very important to him. He has two siblings, a brother, Tony Kimmel who lives in Taylor, Arkansas and a sister who lives in Shreveport, Louisiana. He says they were his biggest push all of his life as he wanted to set a strong example for them.
Outside of those who inspired him in school, he says another recent great influence has been Grace Rollins, who has pushed him to always continue to do his very best. He would also like to thank his family and friends for their help along his journey and Andrew Beddingfield and family for being there for him since 2006. Authur would also like to especially like to thank his parents, Joseph and Melinda Kimmel, for always supporting his journey. Finally, he would like to thank his colleague Paige and her mother Joyce Ort for pushing him during the latter half of his college years.
He says, “I couldn’t have made it without my colleagues.” He does plan to eventually move to Linden and make the town his home. He is honored to be working for LEDC and hopes that he will make the residents of this beautiful small town proud. Authur says the words that keeps him going is, “If you have one person rooting for you, that’s one more reason to keep going, and sometimes you have to root for yourself.”