Friends work to preserve history

    In many ways, Joe Hermes and Harrison Stafford have led parallel lives. The friends both left Edna after graduating high school, and they both came home not long after. Both men love history, and are involved in “civic service,” as Hermes, Edna’s mayor, calls it.     He insists, “I am not a politician.”     Harrison Stafford served as Jackson County Judge from 1991 until his retirement in 2011 and Hermes has been the mayor of Edna since 1987.     Today, the two men finish each other’s sentences, banter back and forth about Hermes being younger, and Stafford being “more handsome,” but in school, they were not close.  Hermes graduated in 1961 in a time when grade levels stuck together and friendships weren’t often formed outside of classes.