ORANGE BEACH, Alabama – Decorated World War II veteran Ty Fleming Sr. has announced he is running for the Orange Beach City Council Place 2.

The 93-year-old will face incumbent Brett Holk and Jeff Boyd in Tuesday’s municipal election.

“Everywhere I’ve been I’ve worked for where I live,” Fleming said, a former Kiwanis Man of the Year for his work in that civic club.

Fleming has been a resident of Orange Beach since the 1960s while also moving around south Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle working for an insurance company.

Before that he served with the Flying Tigers in Burma and China in World War II. He wrote a book, “We Served Also,” to tell the story of the men who served in at theater of operations overshadowed by European and Pacific battles.

“My business, after I got out was the insurance business,” he said. “Everywhere I went, wherever the company sent me I joined civic clubs and all. Lions Club, Kiwanis Club, American Legion. I was an American Legion Commander, president of the Lions Club.”

Fleming says his expertise in the insurance business can be of vital help to the city struggling with high health insurance for its employees.

“We just lost a good policeman because they couldn’t get insurance on his family,” Fleming said. “He was coming here from Foley to work for the chief of police and we lost him because we couldn’t insure him, couldn’t insure his family.”

A self-insurance pool plan worked for his church, Fleming said, and he believes the same could work for city workers’ health insurance.

“The premiums went up so high on insuring the church and all, now we don’t have any insurance for wind damage and all that,” he said. “It was an exorbitant amount of money. We put that money that we would be paying them a premium in a fund at the church. We’ve got it as a fall back to repair our church if something happens to it.

“They been thinking about doing that, but I’m pushing them to go ahead with it because it works great for our church and it ought to work for our city. And the mayor’s in accord with that. They’ve been thinking about it, but they’ve got to do it.”

It was his job, Fleming said, to travel from office to office to find wayward money.

“I was a trouble shooter for an insurance company for 32 years,” he said. “If there was money missing, I could find it. I got money for people that had lapsed policies. They didn’t know they had extended policies. There were two cases right here in Orange Beach, two widow women who had lapsed policies and I got money for them.”

Another item high on Fleming’s agenda is Canal Road.

“From 161 (east) is a dead end,” he said. “We don’t have any way of getting off the island. And the city wants to widen it. I think they should give it to the city. They did that with old highway 2 that come out of Gulf Shores and the state park. They gave it to the city and now part of is that beautiful park we’ve got up there for people to look at.

“I know another bridge would help, but that don’t have anything to do with Canal Road. We can’t get past the schoolhouse if there’s a bad wreck there. If you live this side of the schoolhouse, there’s no road to come off of this island to get out from your home. If we could three-lane that road we would have a way to get around the wreck.”

Fleming said if he’s elected, the insurance and Canal Road projects will be a priority.

“That’s essentially what I’m going to be working on,” he said.