Jones fills role for Autryville

Aug. 10—AUTRYVILLE — The long-vacant permanent town clerk position has finally been filled. Following her official swearing-in at last month's town board meeting, new clerk Lisa Jones was welcomed by the Town of Autryville.

"We are excited to have her here with us," Mayor Grayson Spell said. "She hasn't been here long, but she's already been a great help to the town. I know she's going to be a huge asset for us going forward as we work together to continue to grow Autryville."

Jones is a North Carolina native, born and raised just up the road from Autryville in Fayetteville. After growing up there, she went on to attend and graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2011 with her degree in education.

Jones eventually left North Carolina after marrying the love of her life Clifton Jones, who was in the military. They have two sons, Owen and Wyatt. After moving around a lot, Jones ended up back home and discovered the town clerk opening.

"I married a service member and so we traveled around for a while in the military and then he got out," Jones said. "We moved to Oklahoma and then I lived there for nine years and I worked for a construction company while I was there for six or seven years as their office manager."

"Then we decided to move back to North Carolina, which is where all my family's from. He was originally from Oklahoma — that's why we moved there," she continued. "I just moved back last month and I saw Autryville needed a clerk when I was looking for a job. And, it seemed like a lot of the things that I was doing, financially and working with the public, was really similar to what I was going to be doing here as clerk."

"So they hired me and it's been really great so far," she added. "Everyone's really nice and I'm learning a lot of really interesting things, there's a lot to do, but it's all really exciting."

Now that the clerk job is filled, Jones shared her feelings on being trusted the position and on her role in helping grow Autryville.

"I think that Autryville is growing a lot and that's really exciting," she said. "Where I worked at before, the construction company, they threw a lot at me while I was there so I have experience working within an organization that's experiencing a lot of growth."

"That's one of the reasons I was interested in working in Autryville,," Jones continued. "It's really small, but still has that hometown kind of flavor. I feel like after a couple months, I'll get to know everybody, but as it's growing, it's going to encounter challenges and I'll be here to help them with that."

Jones also touched on some of her aspirations and on the future she hopes to help build for the town.

"They've been without a full-time clerk for a while now, so there's some catching up to do, but once I catch up, I'm hoping to bring some more technology into the role," she said. "Things like using social media to connect more people. There's a lot of exciting things that you can do in this century and so I'm hoping to explore that. There's always something to do as town clerk."

Connecting with other town clerks is a part of that, to network as well to learn some best practices or innovations.

"Just in the short time that I've been here, I've talked to other town clerks throughout the state and it's really interesting to see what other small towns are doing and to learn from them," said Jones. "There's so much to do, but it's great to be back and I'm just excited to be here to help Autryville grow."

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.