County Commissioner Duane Flowers says serving his community isn’t just a job – it’s in his blood.
“My family’s fought, bled and died for this country since day one,” said Flowers, 72, of Hanover. “We will continue to serve, and we’ll do what we can personally to keep this the greatest country ever.”
His family has served in the U.S. armed forces since the Revolutionary War, and Flowers is among them, having served during the Vietnam War.
Flowers was born in Newark, and has spent his life in public service. He’s held one of the three Licking County Commissioner seats since he was first elected in 2012, and says he is running again – against Granville Township Trustee Bryn Bird – because there’s still more to do before he wants to retire.
Flowers earned a degree from Virginia Computer College in 1970, and in 1971, he served with the army during the Vietnam War.
During basic training in Fort Polk, Louisiana, he was selected for a leadership program – the United States Army Drill Sergeant Academy. After becoming a drill sergeant and training troops for the United States Army, the Vietnam War ended and Flowers left the service in 1977.
After leaving the service, he moved back to Licking County and took a job in Columbus. With his degree from Virginia Computer College, he began working at the Acts Computer Corporation as a data processing manager at the Newark Kaiser Aluminum Plant.
In 1976, Flowers said he decided to leave the computer business.
“One day, I just decided I want to build homes. So I walked down to the Park National Bank and talked to one of the loan officers there. I said, ‘I want enough money to build two houses.’” Flowers recalled. “An hour later, I walked out the door with the money and started my construction company. I built custom homes for over 50 years.”
Flowers began his career in politics in 1999, when he was elected to be the mayor in Hanover. Elected three times, he worked on many issues in the village. In 2012, Flowers ended his term as mayor of Hanover and became one of the Licking County Commissioners.
Since then, Flowers said he has been working to improve the county as a whole – though he said there’s a lot of overlap between building the perfect home and supporting Licking County.
“I want to build you a house to where you drive up in the driveway and you look at it, and you smile, and you say, ‘This is my house.’ I don’t want you to have to pull up in the driveway, put it in reverse and say, ‘I hate this house’ and leave. I want to do the same thing with our communities,” Flowers said.
Throughout his nearly 12 years as commissioner, he has worked on dozens of community improvement projects, and said he is most proud of his work on the Licking County Transportation Improvement District; assisting in the creation of Licking County’s first forensic laboratory; facilitating repair of nearly 100 bridges in the county that were previously deemed “in failure” by the county engineer; creating the Buckeye Lake Region Corporation, which saved small businesses all around Buckeye Lake from economic failure after water levels were significantly below average and the state declared “economic injury” in the region in 2015; and revamping the Licking County Courthouse to its former glory.
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“We still have projects that aren’t done, and I want to see them finished up and see them through,” Flowers said.
When he’s not working, Flowers said he enjoys relaxing with his wife and reading. He also regularly attends his five grandchildren’s sporting events.
Though Flowers has been reelected to the position several times, his tenure has not been without controversy.
In 2016, Flowers made a remark about then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton – that she should be “hanging from a tree” – that was published by news organizations around the country.
When asked about whether he would change it if he could, he said in his interview with The Reporting Project, “Absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I would.”
He said the original remark was “exaggerated,” and he said that he has since met with the United States Secret Service.
In a later conversation with the reporter from the Newark Advocate, Flowers said to the reporter who first broke the remark that “anybody deserves due process, and she needs to have due process.”
And later, in 2022, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism identified Flowers as a suspected member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol.
Flowers rejected that claim immediately, and says he’s never been a member of the organization, never paid dues to the group and doesn’t know how his email was included on the leaked membership lists.
Flowers told The Columbus Dispatch in 2022: “My name may be on that list, but as far as I know, I can’t remember (receiving) any type of documentation or literature from that group.”
When asked about it by The Reporting Project last month, Flowers said: “As far as Oath Keepers, who knows? I didn’t know who the ADL was at the time. Still don’t really.
“I think they wanted to put a black eye on the Republicans, but I can’t prove that,” Flowers said. “But… it haunts me.”
Despite these controversies, Flowers believes in his work as county commissioner.
He said that the power resides within the people and there should be a limited government influence.
He feels that he is set apart from Bird, his opponent, by his connections to other government officials – connections that are difficult to build.
“I am a conservative,” Flowers said. “And I said, when I ran, when I came in here, I didn’t come here for a job. I came here to serve, and that’s why I’m here today, and that’s why I’m running again.”
This story was updated at 7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 18 to correct information about Flowers’ career history and his time serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. The Reporting Project regrets the errors.
Andrew Theophilus writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.