Joe W. Hendricks Jr. has announced his candidacy for Circuit Judge for Logan and Todd counties after current Judge Tyler Gill’s retirement on July 31. The election to fill the vacancy will be part of the General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Hendricks is a native of Logan County and a 1988 graduate of Logan County High School. He is married to Kaye Hendricks, who is a teacher at Chandlers Elementary School. His parents are Joe Wayne and Cathie Hendricks, retired farmers. His father, Joe Wayne, formerly managed Logan County Seed Company. His grandparents are the late Joe and Beatrice Hendricks and John B. and Myra Brown Dockins. Both grandparents were Logan County farm families and the Dockinses were co-owners of Russellville Loose Leaf Tobacco Warehouse. Joe’s brother, Bill, works at Logan Aluminum.

Joe and Kaye are members of Liberty Baptist Church in Auburn, where Joe serves as a deacon and he and Kaye teach Sunday School.

Hendricks attended Berry College on scholarship and graduated magna cum laude in 1992 with a degree in Economics and Political Science. He served as president of the Baptist Student Union and the Economics Honor Society.

Hendricks graduated in 1995 from Georgia State University College of Law where he interned with the United States Attorney’s Office and assisted in the prosecution of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Federal Court.

He served as an Assistant District Attorney for the Appalachian Circuit of Georgia and was elected as that Circuit’s chief prosecuting attorney in 2004. In his career, he has been lead counsel on over 50 jury trials. Hendricks has been lead counsel in murder cases (including two death penalty cases), several organized crime cases and over 100 cases handled through the Circuit’s Drug Court. Hendricks served as Chairman of theControl Board for the local Drug Task Force and was active in a reorganization of theagency to improve the narcotics enforcement in his circuit.

Hendricks is currently a partner at Brooks and Hendricks, a general law practice inRussellville. For the last five years, he has helped families with estate planning, civillitigation, family law, and criminal defense.

Hendricks has over a decade of experience prosecuting felony criminal cases as well as having practiced criminal defense in private practice. Hendricks also has an extensive domestic relations practice that includes divorce and child custody, which are regularly handled by the Circuit Court Judge.

• Serves as counsel for the East Logan Water District and the South Logan Water Association.

• Serves as counsel for the Logan County chapter of the Fuller Center for Housing, formerly Habitat for Humanity.

• Serves as a member of the Board for the Russellville Rural Fire Department.

• Served as 2016 President and is currently a Board Member for the Logan County Chamber of Commerce.

• Co-chair of the 2019 Tobacco and Heritage Festival

• Chairman of the Tobacco and Heritage Festival Parade

“As someone who was born and raised to seven generations of farmers in Logan County and paid his way through school raising tobacco and cattle, I want to ensure that we have a Circuit Court that is efficient, fair, and accessible to the people of Logan and Todd counties and that upholds our values,” Hendricks, said.