Hooper to serve as Economic Development Director

January 1, 2021

Times-Gazette

Shane Hooper of Tupelo, Miss., was officially hired as the new local economic director for Bedford County/Shelbyville, according to joint economic development committee.

Mr. Hooper was hired through a joint partnership funded by the City of Shelbyville and Bedford County, although he will operate from an office on the second floor of Bedford County Courthouse Annex. His consulting work will be under the guidance of both the City and County, as agreed upon last year, when both governments both put up seed money — $100,000 each — for starting this new economic development office.

He met with the board overseeing the joint city-county program. The board discussed upcoming projects such as industrial recruitment, development of 231 North Business Park, and development of downtown Shelbyville as a retail, recreational and tourist destination.

Mr. Hooper, a graduate of Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi, and Lipscomb University in Nashville, holds a master’s degree in economic development from the University of Southern Mississippi. He served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps and is a past director of development services for Tupelo, Mississippi. He has served on the Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning and is a past president of the Tupelo Rotary Club, the Gardner-Simmons Home For Girls, and United Way of Northeast Mississippi. He has also served the Community Development Foundation, the Good Samaritan Free Clinic, Sanctuary Hospice House, and the Health Care Foundation of North Mississippi.

His awards include Rotarian of the Year and Tupelo’s Top Twenty Young Professionals.

Professionally, he had a career in the insurance and financial industry for the last 18 years. He’s president of Professional Training Corporation, Inc., a training provider for the insurance and financial services industry.

Shane and wife, Sarah, who recently moved to Shelbyville, have two sons, Christopher and Channing, one daughter, Ellabess, and a beloved Springer Spaniel named Max.