Randy and Kelly Owen opened Tennessee River Music Farm on Lookout Mountain Tuesday night for a meet-and-greet and fundraiser for Corey Hill, the Republican nominee for Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries.
The Owens hosted the event alongside their daughter and son-in-law, Randa and John Starnes, who help run the family’s registered Hereford and Angus operation. More than 100 supporters attended.
The Owens billed the night as “working farmers supporting a working farmer.”
Hill is a fourth-generation cattle and poultry farmer from Douglas in Marshall County, where he has served as mayor since 2012 and runs a grocery store.
Owen, the lead singer of the band Alabama, named the farm after the group’s first No. 1 single.
The land came down through his family, and he bought his first Hereford cattle in 1981. The Starnes’ two children are the fourth generation on the property.
“Corey Hill is a guy we can get behind,” the Owen family told Yellowhammer News.
“His family’s roots run deep in production ag. It’s very vital that we have someone in office who understands the issues that we continue to face all throughout the segment of ag.”
Hill won the June 16 Republican runoff with 53.8% of the vote over Baldwin County agribusinesswoman Christina Woerner McInnis.
He carries endorsements from the Alabama Farmers Federation’s FarmPAC and the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association’s BeefPAC, and his first TV spot, “The Farmer’s Choice,” launched in April on the line, “What we grow and what you eat — it matters.”
“I am truly grateful for the outpouring of support from across NE Alabama last night as such a large crowd turned out to support my campaign to become Alabama’s next Commissioner of Agriculture,” Hill told Yellowhammer News.
“To have Randy and Kelly Owen host that event for me was an incredible honor. They personally know how important family farms are and how important it is to have a Commissioner of Agriculture who is an actual working farmer.”
He faces Democrat Ron Sparks, who held the office from 2003 to 2011, on Nov. 3.
Owen has been hosting candidates on Lookout Mountain for three decades.
He put on an event for Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-Haleyville) in 1996, Aderholt’s first run for office, and hosted then-candidate Tommy Tuberville in Fort Payne in December 2019.
His closest political friendship is with Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville), who grew up across the valley on Sand Mountain.
The two met at the Adamsburg Fire Hall in the 1980s, where Owen’s mother played piano and served fried apple pies at community fundraisers.
“I’ve known governors and presidents,” Owen said last year. “But Nathaniel – I know his heart. It’s different when you’ve shared dirt roads and apple pie with someone.”
Ledbetter secured $15 million in state funding for the Randy Owen Center for the Performing Arts at Jacksonville State University, and after Owen raised the idea of expanding agricultural education, the Legislature funded an FFA expansion aimed at growing Alabama membership to nearly 40,000 students.
Owen’s June Jam in Fort Payne, revived with Ledbetter’s help, has drawn U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn), Lieutenant Governor Will Ainsworth and much of the Legislature’s leadership to Lookout Mountain.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
