State Sen. Freddie Powell Sims announces resignation due to husband’s illness

ALBANY – Georgia State Sen. Freddie Powell Sims said on Monday that she had decided to resign as she rushed to Albany from Atlanta to deal with a family medical emergency.

The Dawson Democrat represented the 12th District and was a member of several Senate committees.

“I am withdrawing, resigning from the Senate,” she said. “My husband is very, very ill, gravely ill. Family comes first.”

Elected in 2008, Sims would have faced three challengers in the May 19 primary. 

Committees on which she served included secretary of the Education and Youth Committee, vice chairwoman of Interstate Cooperation and member of the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, Appropriations and Natural Resources and the Environment committees.

Prior to her political career, Sims was a long-time educator, and she retired as a middle school principal.

“I’ve known Sen. Sims from her time as principal at Martin Luther King Middle School,” Dougherty County Commissioner Anthony Jones, a retired Georgia Cooperative Extension employee who worked in 4-H, said. “She was a new principal, and I went by and organized my program in her school. She was a supporter of 4-H throughout her time.”

The principal later married Norman Sims, who was principal at the Phoenix School of Achievement, the Dougherty County School System’s alternative school campus, Jones said.

“We became real close friends,” he said. ”I wish him and Sen. Sims the best during these difficult times. My thoughts and prayers go out to them and the entire family.”

The three challengers remaining in the District 12 Democratic primary are: Edward Brown, Corey Morgan and Tracy Taylor.

The district includes all of Baker, Calhoun, Clay, Dougherty, Randolph, Stewart, Terrell, Quitman and Webster counties and also portions of Mitchell and Sumter counties.