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PICKENS COUNTY—A new potential candidate for the Pickens County Sheriff’s seat has emerged, and it is a name Pickens County voters are probably pretty familiar with.

Pickens County Assistant Sheriff Tim Morgan is collecting signatures to be placed on November’s ballot as a petition candidate for the sheriff’s seat.

His decision comes after long-time Sheriff David Stone was defeated in the Republican Primary by Rick Clark last week.

“I’ve been with this office for quite some time,” said Morgan. “I’ve served as assistant sheriff under (Stone) for 22 years. It had always been my goal to run for office upon the sheriff’s retirement.”

With Stone’s retirement from the seat now pending, Morgan says there is nothing that will stand in the way now.

“I promised him a long time ago that I would never run against him,” said Morgan. “We all know that a house divided is never a good thing. It would have been a terrible thing for this office had I run against him, plus I would have been going against my word. I was loyal to this office not to do that.”

“This is my first opportunity to run and it may be my last,” he said. “I thought if I could get the signatures together I would give it a whirl.”

Morgan says he has already seen an outpouring of support from Pickens County residents, but hopes he has enough time.

“There has been an overwhelming amount of support,” said Morgan. “There are a lot of forms out, but the problem is that it is such a short time frame to get it done. I’ve got less than two weeks now, but if you don’t try, you don’t know.”

As of now, a goal of around 3,300 signatures has been set.

“Once that’s accomplished, we’ll go from there,” said Morgan.

The Assistant Sheriff says he wants to continue his service to the citizens he has served for over 20 years, and believes he still has the heart to do so.

“When you start dreading to go to work, it’s probably time to start looking for something else. There’s never been a day that it was a dread to come to work,” said Morgan. “I’ve been on the train. Along with some of the other staff, we can recommend what track to take.”

What would it be like for Morgan to take office? He says he can continue to make a difference.

“There’s some things that I would do differently, but there’s a lot of things that this office has done that have done very well and I would put that up against any agency anywhere,” said Morgan.