Re-elect Gary Byrne for NH School Board

     I have deep roots in northern Harrison County.  My ancestors and other pioneers migrated from Salisbury, North Carolina.  This is where New Salisbury's name came from.  My great, great, great, great-grandfather, Charles Leason Byrn, traveled here with his family in 1806.  They arrived by covered wagon though the Flower and Cumberland Gap and crossed the Ohio Falls by flatboat.  His brother, Temple Cole Byrn, came along in 1809, with brother Thomas following in 1810.  Charles Leason settled on a farm just north of Byrneville's current location.  He owned and ran a grist and saw mill on Corn Creek.  Temple Cole settled on a farm that he plotted Byrneville in 1837.  The two brothers operated the mill for many years (Thomas Byrn settled in southwest Corydon).  All three of the brothers had large families.  Many of today's families in Harrison County are descendants of the Byrn brothers...Engleman, Fouts, Fessel, Harrison, Mosier, Purcell, Smith and Utz to name a few.  The brothers are buried in the Byrn Pioneer Cemetery, which is located on a bluff that overlooked where the mill was located, along with other ancestors.  The cemetery and the mill location is on the family farm that I grew up on and still currently reside.  Half of the farm is located in Jackson township and the other half in Morgan. 

     My parents are Terry and Bonnie Byrne.  They both graduated from North Central High School.  My dad worked at General Electric, and my mom worked at the Corydon Post Office as a mail carrier.  In 1976, they started Byrne Trophies.  After the business was established, Dad left his position at G.E. and also raised beef cattle on the farm.  At one time, he had over 80 head.  Mom has retired from the Post Office and Dad is still selling and making trophies and plaques.

     I attended the former North Central to start my education and graduated from North Harrison High School in 1979.  I was active in band and FFA.  In band, I participated in marching band and solo & ensembles contests.  In FFA, I participated in the many judging and public speaking contests.  I served as vice-president my junior year and president my senior year.  I have many good memories participating in band and FFA, and going to summer camps.  I get asked a lot if I ran in high school because of the success of my sons, but the truth is that I only ran track my senior year.  Quite simply, I was not that fast.  However, my classmates that I ran behind were really fast.  Jeff Nash and Mark Robertson held the school records for the mile and two-mile that lasted for 25 years.  My oldest son, Ryan, broke Jeff's mile record in 2004 at the state meet and Scott Robertson broke Mark's the same year.

     After I graduated and not sure what to do next, I decided to enroll at IUS.  I worked as a DJ at the Corydon Amusement Park (behind the WJDW radio station), and in the summers at Buffalo Trace Park in maintenance, concession and as lifeguard.  In 1980, I met my wife-to-be, Angie Burnside, while working there.  She resided in Weslaco, Texas, but she was in Harrison County for the Crawford Family Reunion, held at Buffalo Trace.  After Angie graduated from Weslaco High School (1981), she came back to Indiana.  She stayed with her grandmother, Bessie Crawford and enrolled at Watterson College.  A little more about the Crawford family...Angie's grandparents, Henry and Bessie, lived on a farm near Central Barren.  They had a large family and all the children attended and graduated from Morgan, except Darlene, who graduated from North Harrison High School after Morgan consolidated with North Central.  The family was well known in the county, in part, because they also co-owned and operated Country Lanes...the first bowling alley in Corydon.  Angie's mother is Mamie Crawford.

     On, June 26, 1982, Angie and I were married at Indian Creek Baptist Church.  While Angie was finishing college, I was a subcarrier at Georgetown Post Office and also raised tobacco.  Once Angie graduated, she became employed as a teller at Corydon State Bank.  In 1983, we started our own business venture...Byrne Satellite Systems.  A couple years later at our store in Georgetown, we added video rentals.  This lead into suppling video rentals for all Swifty Food Mart stores in Indiana and a few Seven Eleven convenience stores.  Later, we moved our location to Highlander Point.  While there, we expanded the video rentals and added home theater systems, sales and installations.  We operated our business for almost twelve years at this location.  We sold the video rentals to a video chain and moved the rest of the business to a shop behind our house. 

     In our 27 years of operation, we have been fortunate to earn the business of many residential customers in the surrounding counties, including Louisville.  On the commercial side, we have worked for companies such as Tuckers, Hooters, Best Western, Budgetel and Harrison County Hospital, to name a few.  All but the first few years of our business have been my family's sole source of income.  Still today, we install and sell satellite systems for DIRECTV and DISHNetwork, sell and install home theater systems, television mounts, flat panel televisions, sound systems, surveillance cameras, intercoms and pre-wire new construction.

     When Angie and I started, we pretty much had nothing, as most married couples do.  We bought a used trailer to live in for $2500.  The next several years, we worked hard saving money for building a house.  We broke ground on the family farm in 1985.  After doing much of the construction of the home ourselves, we were finally able to move into the home in 1986...just before our first son, Ryan, was born.  We had two more sons...Jordan in '88 and Tyler in '91.