Macon sheriff faces Republican primary challenger
Cook, left, is running making a second run at sheriff, this time squaring off against incumbent Brent Holbrooks in the Republican Primary.
File photos
Following his first four years as Macon County’s sheriff, Brent Holbrooks is facing a primary challenge as he seeks a second term.
Following former Sheriff Robbie Holland’s announcement that he wouldn’t seek reelection in 2022, Holbrooks emerged from a crowded Republican primary field that included multiple candidates who worked in high-level positions in Holland’s office.
As Holbrooks seeks reelection, he is again facing Bob Cook, who also ran in the Republican primary in 2022, garnering 10% of the vote.
This time, Cook told The Smoky Mountain News that he feels like his previous campaign experience, along with the thinned out primary field, may work in his advantage.
Cook came to Macon County a bit later in life. Born and raised in Newton, Iowa, Cook joined the Navy in 1972 and served until 1992 as a personnel specialist, retiring as a chief. His final duty station was in the Jacksonville area, where he chose to stay and pursue a career in law enforcement. He ended up working for the Jacksonville Beach Police Department for 2.5 years before serving with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for 22 years. While he worked in a number of different capacities, he focuses on his time in narcotics investigations more than anything else, since it’s relevant to the problems facing Western North Carolina.
Eventually, Cook found his way to Macon County. While he’d owned property in Franklin since 1999, he and his late wife moved up permanently in 2015. Since running in 2022, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in October of last year. He has since spent a good deal of time touting that level of education, one Holbrooks hasn’t attained.
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Holbrooks failed to respond to multiple requests for an interview. During a forum featuring him and Cook hosted by the Macon County GOP and posted to YouTube by Macon Media Holbrooks said he plans on sticking with what he’s done throughout his first term, defending a number of policies, including one that closes public comments on MCSO Facebook posts. He also lamented the campaign process.
“I absolutely hate this season,” Holbrooks said. “I want to be your sheriff, don’t get me wrong, but election time brings out the worst in so many people, and it’s ridiculous. The name calling, the blame, the casting stones and hate, for what reason, folks? To build up one candidate or belittle or browbeat another. Are you kidding me? We’re better than that.”
While much of the forum was convoluted and lacked substantive debate on issues facing the county, Holbrooks did offer a promise to voters.
“A vote for me ensures that Macon County will move forward like it is, and a vote for me ensures that Macon County Sheriff’s Office won’t have to start from scratch, and to be honest, it’d probably be a skeleton crew if not,” Holbrooks said.
In Cook’s interview with SMN, he said he felt compelled to run again — this time against an incumbent — because he thinks there are “a lot of management issues” within the Macon County Sheriff’s Office that need to be addressed.
“I’ve never been a guy that complains about something while not offering a solution, so if I’m going to complain about somebody’s management of an organization such as the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, literally in this case, and I’m going to try and do something about it,” Cook said, adding that he thinks with his background in law enforcement and education, he has a lot to offer.
Cook said that throughout this campaign, he’s run into a good number of people who complain about the responsiveness of deputies, including occasions where citizens have complained about issues with drug sales at a certain property only to never receive a call back. During the forum, Holbrooks pushed back against this notion, saying he’s completed lengthy and cumbersome nuisance abatement procedures at multiple problem locations, but Cook said there are still plenty of issues.
“In a county this small, with sheriff’s office that’s relatively small, there should be no reason why the sheriff or somebody in his staff doesn’t call somebody back when they have a complaint,” he said.
When it comes to drug enforcement and interdiction, Cook said part of the solutions is to get a “bigger buy-in” from other agencies with additional resources, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration. In addition, partnerships with surrounding local agencies can create a stronger response to trafficking across the region.
Cook considers that given his education, military background and outside police experience he has a greater capacity to identify “outside-the-box” solutions to these complex problems. And he thinks voters may be catching on, saying his campaign is gaining some traction among people he speaks with, many of whom have reached out not just now but over the course of Holbrooks’ first term.
“In the last three or four years, my phone rings all the time,” he said. “It’s people calling me about issues they’re having in their neighborhood, issues they’ve tried to tell the sheriff about, but they don’t get an answer.”
“Sometimes I can’t help them, and I tell them, ‘You have a problem I can’t help you with,’ but at least I can usually tell them where to go,” he said. “Sometimes they don’t like my answer, but at least I’m truthful with them.”
During the forum, Holbrooks argued that his office has continued to improve the county jail, which failed each of the 16 state inspections from 2017 to 2025. He said that the last inspection noted zero deficiencies. Nonetheless, one of the key issues Cook has campaigned on is the urgent need to build a new detention center; the current one, he says, is too small and lacks basic facilities like a kitchen, which ultimately costs taxpayers more money.
“I get it that these are inmates, but they’re still human beings that we’re responsible for,” Cook said. “So we need to make sure that we’re taking care of our charge at least by the minimal standards, but we I think we can do better than minimal, and I think that’s what we need to look at.”
Cook also said he would look at programs, such as medication assisted treatment, that can lead to better outcomes for inmates, opportunities to get them out of the oft-referred to revolving door of the justice system and back on the right track to becoming contributing members of society.
