ORANGE PARK – Keystone Heights native Betsy Condon is one of the new members of the Clay County Board of Commissioners, embarking on her first term as a member of the board.

Condon is a graduate of the University of Georgia with a degree in Environmental Health Science. She has also lived in Atlanta and Gainesville, Florida, before settling back in her hometown of Keystone Heights.

Condon is a business owner with her husband. Together, the two own and operate a manufacturing company called Auxadyne, a manufacturer of high-performance foam padding. The Condons, who got an $86,000 grant from the National Football League to design new helmet padding called Xylafoam to reduce concussions, opened their company in April, 2015.

“First and foremost, the first thing I want to do is call for a roundtable discussion workshop, whatever you want to call it, to get all stakeholders involved from the federal, state and local level to see how we can get high-speed internet access readily available to all parts of our county,” said Condon of her immediate goals. “One of the things that we saw; and it was blatantly obvious before COVID, but one of the things we saw with the spring COVID shutdown, was that there are people in parts of primarily Clay Hill and Keystone Heights-McCrae area that just couldn’t work from home because they didn’t have access to high-speed internet. The children couldn’t do their online learning because they couldn’t get internet access at home. I just feel passionate that in the 21st-century, internet access should be as readily accessible as electricity.”

Her second priority is the maintenance of roads.

“We have roads that need to be paved [in District 4], drainage that needs to be maintained and built,” she said. “Middleburg is just exploding right now, so it just seems to me like we need to take an overall look at the strategic plan of the county to see how we are going to accomplish all of the needs for infrastructure that exists. So, I’d say that those are my main goals.”

She will be sworn into office on Jan. 5.

Condon is a former member of the school board, and that was her first foray into politics. Being a business owner, she also looks to help may Clay County more business-friendly, and she says that is what sparked her interest in making a difference via political office.