By Miles Layton

CURRITUCK — Jerry Tillett will fill North Carolina’s Senate District 1 seat after Republican representatives from across the district gathered Saturday morning at the Currituck County Courthouse and tapped him by acclimation to replace the recently resigned Bobby Hanig. Tillett, a retired Superior Court judge from Dare County, signed the paperwork to formally accept the committee’s recommendation. Under North Carolina law, the choice now moves to Gov. Josh Stein’s desk, where he is expected to make the appointment official next week.

A video interview with Tillett and a gallery of photos appear in this story.

The main photo accompanying the article shows Tillett signing the paperwork to represent Senate District 1, which includes Bertie, Camden, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Tyrrell counties.

Speaking just after the vote to the Albemarle Observer, Tillett was quick to turn attention away from himself and toward the people who showed up to cast their support.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people of the executive committees and the hard work, grassroots supporters in northeastern North Carolina,” Tillett said. “They had a lot more important things they may think they could be doing today, but they took the time to show up to be here, not because it was about me, but because it was about something more important than themselves. And that is for the cause of good government in our state, and especially in northeastern North Carolina.”

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The Appointment Process

Familiar faces from across the region turned out Saturday, including John Spruill, 1st vice chair for District 1, of Washington County; Dave Forsythe of Gates County; Ben Winslow of Tyrrell County; Bob Valentine, GOP chair for Perquimans County; and certainly Mary Helen Pelt Warren, Republican chairwoman of the 1st Congressional District. The meeting lasted roughly eight minutes, give or take.

Under the process, Gov. Stein is required to appoint the person recommended by the committee within seven days of receiving that recommendation. If he does not act within that window, state law does not leave the seat vacant indefinitely — instead, the appointment is presumed to have been made, and the Senate is directed to seat the person the committee recommended regardless.

The appointment itself is limited in scope — to serve out the remainder of Hanig’s current term. Voters will decide who represents District 1 for a full term in the Nov. 3 general election, when Tillett is set to face Democrat Melissa Zehner on the ballot.

The vacancy Tillett is stepping into was created earlier this week when state Sen. Hanig officially retired from the North Carolina General Assembly on Monday morning, ending his legislative career several months before his term was set to expire. Hanig’s departure set in motion the formal process Republicans used to identify a replacement to temporarily represent the district.

Hanig, a Currituck County Republican, represented the same 10-county district. His current term had been scheduled to run through Jan. 1, 2027.

Hanig had already made clear he did not intend to seek another term in the Senate. Instead, he set his sights on North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, entering the Republican primary for that seat. Despite a valiantly fought campaign, Hanig finished third in the March primary, trailing both Laurie Buckhout and Asa Buck. Buckhout went on to win the nomination and will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis in the November general election.

Hanig’s time in Raleigh dates back to 2019, when he unseated incumbent Rep. Beverly Boswell in the 2018 Republican primary for House District 6, then defeated Democrat Tess Judge in the general election; Tess is a great mom — I attended high school with her kids. Before Hanig ever held a seat in the General Assembly, he chaired the Currituck County Board of Commissioners, giving him deep roots in local government well before he moved to the state legislature. Good guy!

A Long Career on the Bench

Tillett is no stranger to public service in the region. A native of the coastal area, he spent 33 years as the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge for the First Judicial District, the largest judicial district in the state. That tenure put him at the center of the legal system across the string of rural counties that make up much of northeastern North Carolina, giving him decades of exposure to the concerns of the communities he’ll now represent in a different capacity.

His résumé extends well beyond the courtroom. Tillett has also served in the state Senate itself in a non-elected capacity, holding positions as chief of staff and chief legal counsel. That experience gives him a working knowledge of how the chamber operates — its rules, its rhythms and the relationships that shape how legislation actually moves. Also, Tillett has had a successful business career.

That combination — decades on the bench, staff-level experience inside the legislature, and hands-on experience running small businesses — is what Republican committee members pointed to as they weighed candidates to finish out Hanig’s term.

Tillett’s Plans for the Coming Months

Asked what he expected in the weeks and months ahead, Tillett acknowledged that the Senate is not currently in session, but said there is still plenty of work in front of him before lawmakers reconvene.

“There’s a lot of plans,” he said. “I mean, first we’ll be continuing to campaign, but there’s — there’s some legislative items left over, and they may be taken up shortly. There will be orientation and learning the way around that needs to happen first.”

He said he expects the coming session to include significant budget-related work, and he’s already thinking about how he’ll approach it once he’s seated.

“The session can include some money issues, as I understand,” Tillett said. “So it’s important for me to study bills. To research them and to determine what they actually do and do not do. So I’ll be devoting a lot of time to that.”

He added that a number of legislative priorities from residents in the district remain unresolved. “There’s plenty left over from this session and from prior sessions that the people asked for that has not been yet completed. And then there’s other things that we need to deal with and address as we move forward.”

Faith and a Message to Voters

Tillett, described as a man of deep religious faith, was asked to reflect on the moment and share a message with the voters of the district he’s about to represent. He tied his answer back to remarks he made to the committee members immediately after they cast their votes in his favor.

“You know, the thing I would say is just what I told these voting delegates just after I was elected,” Tillett said. “I said, ‘What I will tell you is, after thanking them, thanking Senator Hanig for his service, is that I will tell you every day I will attempt to get single-mindedness of focus, attention. I will listen. I will study. I will research. I will work.’”

He framed the role not as a personal platform, but as a responsibility to speak on behalf of the region.

“And I will fight for northeastern North Carolina, and it’s not my voice; it’s the people’s,” Tillett said. “I want to be the right voice at the right time.”

Gallery — Click to enlarge the image