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News - Engineer Furr retires after 20 years

After the Lincoln County Board of Supervisors changed officers and appointed various positions around the courthouse Monday, almost all the faces and names that answer to the board remained the same.

There was one change, however. And with it ended 20 years of service.

Carl Ray Furr, of the engineering company Pickering Inc., in Jackson, made his retirement official after serving the county since 1987. The 70-year-old engineer sat in on one last board meeting, quietly nursing a cup of coffee until near the meeting's adjournment before he said his farewell.

"Well, I have enjoyed it," he said as he stood. "It's been a great pleasure to work with everyone in my home county for 20 years now."

During that 20 years, Furr has seen the faces of his county bosses change through five elections.

"You hate to see some of the old ones get beat," he said. "But the new ones come on in and make friends quick and work hard for the county. They've all turned out to be good ones. Over the years, I guess I've known and been friends with more than 20 or 25 supervisors."

Furr said he looks back on his service to Lincoln County with no regrets and feels that a positive impact was made during his time as the county engineer. He is particularly proud a pair of bridges - the Cliff Givens Memorial Bridge on Industrial Park Road in Brookhaven and the railroad bridge in Bogue Chitto.

"In Bogue Chitto, the railroad was on an old truss bridge," Furr said. "School children were playing on it and moving across there, and the bridge was old, starting to rot and it didn't have any railings.

"It was really dangerous; a scary situation," Furr continued. "We finally got federal funds and tore that thing down. We replaced it with a $2.5 million major concrete structure."

Furr recounted that the supervisors were able to replace more than 20 bridges around the county during his time as county engineer. All that knocking down and building up is apparently too exciting for Furr to walk away from completely.

"I'm not retiring completely, but scaling back," he said. "I'll still be working with Pickering on projects around the state, but I've decided to retire from the day to day work as a county engineer. It's very time-consuming, and you get to a point and time in your life when you just got to move on.

"I woke up one day and I said 'I can't believe this, I've been doing this for 20 years,'" Furr continued. "Time flies when you're having a good time. But I'm 70 years old, and its time to move on and make my family a little happier - time to reduce the wear and tear and stress on my body. That's why I retired from the county, the age factor."

Furr said he will continue to work with Lincoln County on special projects at the request of the board to "help the county move forward and sweeten the cake." He said he was not "just going to walk off from Lincoln County." His roots will not allow him to disappear.

"I'm a fifth generation Lincoln County man," Furr pointed out. "My granddaddy, William Furr, was a supervisor in District Two for 12 years during the 1930s and 1940s. My family first moved into the county around Lake Lincoln in 1816. I've got lots of roots here, and that made my time as the county engineer that much better."

Stepping in to fill the void of county engineer is Jeff Dungan of Dungan Engineering.

"The board is bringing in a very good engineering firm," Furr said of Dungan. "He is a very good young engineer with good experience. I feel good about being able to turn the reins over to a person of Jeff's capabilities and professionalism."

Dungan will begin working for the county immediately, as he meets with the supervisors Wednesday to review the ongoing projects that his company will take over. The board approved an immediate cutoff date for Pickering projects Monday.

"There are jobs around the county at certain stages of completion, and the firms have to pass the torch," said Chancery Clerk Tillmon Bishop. "But it's not going to be a problem. Dungan and Pickering have worked together before, and they work well with one another."

As for Furr, he has already begun to embrace the free time he now has since retiring as the county engineer. He was in New Orleans Monday night at the National Championship game, pulling for the LSU Tigers.

"I'm a sports nut," Furr said. "I'm going to enjoy a little more time traveling with my family, going to sports events - I always like to go to the U.S. Open golf tournament."

Furr also plans to spend some time in the sun at his family's winter home near West Palm Beach, Fla. He does not plan to be all beach balls and sunglasses, however.

"I'm going to stay active and spend more time doing the things I want to do," he said. "You gotta keep moving. If you completely retire, then you just dry up and blow away."