Lewis Wheaton was appointed as Smyrna’s newest city council member at a special called meeting of the Smyrna City Council on Nov. 14 to complete the term of Ron Fennel for Ward 7 to end Dec. 31.
Wheaton was elected to the Ward 7 post for a four-year term and will fill the post left vacant by the resignation of Ron Fennel until the end of the year.
Mayor Max Bacon recommended that Wheaton be sworn in soon after the election was certified. Wheaton was sworn in by Cobb County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Childs. His wife Teri held the Bible while he recited the oath as provided by the judge. Wheaton’s family, friends and Cub Scout troop also were present for the event.
He is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech, according to the city website. Also, he has an adjunct appointment in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.
Since his arrival at Georgia Tech in 2008, he has been the director of the Cognitive Motor Control Laboratory, which has a goal of improving rehabilitation outcomes in people with brain injury. Wheaton also has been actively involved in rehabilitation policy within Georgia as a Governor-appointed member of the State Rehabilitation Council, a congressionally mandated council that oversees the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency.
Born in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania and reared in Petersburg, Va., he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Radford University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in College Park in Neuroscience and Cognitive Sciences in 2005. Wheaton was a fellow at the Baltimore (Maryland) Veterans Affairs Medical Center from 2005 to 2008 before moving to Smyrna.
He and his wife Teri have sons Lewis Jr. and Joshua, and they are active members of Powers Ferry Road Church of Christ.
From the December 2019 issue of The Bright Side, Cobb County Georgia’s Newspaper covering Smyrna, Vinings, Mableton, Powder Springs and Austell, GA.
