New commissioner Reed Hatch will take office in January

 

By Rhett Wilkinson

Staff writer

12-30-2020

 

 

MANTI—It was 1978 when Reed Hatch, who lives in Manti, started working in the Sanpete County Recorder’s Office.

That will change in a few days, when Hatch takes the Sanpete County commissioner seat being vacated by Steve Lund, who is leaving to become a state representative.

Hatch, who is 60 and who has lived in Manti or Ephraim his whole life, will have worked in the recorder’s office for 42.5 years, including 30 as the elected county recorder.

Hatch thinks being from Sanpete County and having decades of experience as the recorder is “a plus.”

The aspect of being a recorder Hatch will miss most is the people his office helps and the people with whom he worked.

The challenge he overcame as a recorder that he is most proud of is “modernization.”

“When I started, everything was by hand,” Hatch said, adding that the first time county government started using a computer for any function was in 1986.

“The assessor was really trying to push us to going on,” Hatch said. “I didn’t at the time care to because we didn’t really know it (the computer).”

Now, because of computers, the Recorder’s Office does a lot more work with the same amount of staff, Hatch said.

Hatch “didn’t really do that much campaigning” for the commissioner seat, he said. Claudia Jarrett, a former county commissioner, helped him greatly, Hatch said.

“Claudia put some ads in the Messenger that I thought were really helpful and the [county] Republican Party, they were really helpful,” Hatch said.

Not having to campaign too much helped Hatch focus on the Recorder’s Office “and keeping things going here, even though I have a really good staff here,” Hatch said.

During the transition between the election and being sworn in a few days from now, the commissioners have involved Hatch in many of their meetings and decisions.

“They had me sit in the last commission meeting and their executive meeting, that kind of thing,” Hatch said.

It will be interesting to “deal with problems that haven’t been addressed in some time and see both sides of a problem, too,” Hatch said.

Hatch said he appreciates the citizens of Sanpete County.

“It’s a great county to live in, and it is definitely growing,” Hatch said.