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Spurlins in public service

A roundup of people surnamed Spurlin (and, separately, Spurling) in government, politics, the military and the courts, from a 19th-century Indiana sheriff to a Kentucky utility commissioner and recent local candidates, with links to the individual articles.

Sourcing: strong 14 government · 6 news · 1 genealogy · 1 book · 7 reference

This page gathers Spurlins who show up in public life: people who held or ran for office, served in the armed forces, or were named in published court decisions. Each linked article has its own citations. Sources vary in strength, and each article labels them, so readers can judge for themselves.

Officials and office-holders

  • Mary Jane Spurlin: Oregon's first woman judge (Multnomah County District Court, 1926).
  • Robert E. Spurlin: a Richmond, Kentucky, lawyer who sat on the Kentucky Public Service Commission from 1972 to 1976 and again from 2001 to 2004. In between he directed the Labor Cabinet's Division of Special Fund.[1][2]
  • Jimmy Spurlin: Tifton city commissioner and chairman of the Tift County (Georgia) Commission.
  • Chris Spurlin: Oxford, Alabama, city council member since 2008 and council president.[3]
  • E. T. Spurlin, named as Controller of the State of Colorado in the 1960 Colorado Supreme Court case Board of Education v. Spurlin.[4]
  • Warren L. Spurlin was an administrator for the School Board of Sarasota County, Florida, from 1978 to 1985. He served as interim superintendent from August to December 1985, according to a 1988 Florida appeals decision about the renewal of his contract as deputy superintendent.[5]
  • Jere Spurlin was chief of police of Fort Myers, Florida, when a state appeals court held in 1988 that police accident reports are public records. A second appeal in 1989 held that the names and addresses of the people involved are not confidential.[6][7]
  • Frances Spurlin: a House district-office caseworker for 27 years, honored in the Congressional Record in 2013.[8]
  • Don Spurlin: an Albertville, Alabama, builder who served on the city's Planning Commission and Airport Board.[9] He is vice chairman of the Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board.[10]
  • Gaylan Spurlin: a longtime county clerk of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, and a Democrat. He ran unsuccessfully for county judge-executive in 2022.[11]
  • Brent T. Spurlin: magistrate for District 4 of Todd County, Kentucky, from his first election in 2002 until the end of 2022. Before that he served four terms on the Elkton City Council.[12]
  • Thomas E. Spurlin (1931–2015) of Sylvester, Georgia: his obituary says he taught and was an assistant principal in the Worth County schools, and that he served on the state Board of Education.[13]

Historical office-holders

  • Ithamar Spurlin, a Union veteran of the 33rd Indiana Infantry, was elected sheriff of Shelby County, Indiana, in 1870 and served two years. His obituary, transcribed by a county genealogy site, says he also served as trustee of Washington and Addison townships and was a Republican.[14] See Spurlins of Shelby County, Indiana.
  • Milton H. Spurlin of Wilder, Tennessee, served as constable, deputy sheriff and justice of the peace in Fentress County. He was nominated for sheriff in the 1914 Republican primary.[15] See Spurlins of Fentress County, Tennessee.
  • J. L. Spurlin and the other officers of the newly incorporated town of Hamilton, Texas, were the appellants when the Texas Court of Civil Appeals upheld the dissolution of the town corporation in 1908.[16] See Spurlins of Hamilton County, Texas.

Candidates

  • Mark Spurlin lost the 2025 race for mayor of Pike Road, Alabama, by 52 votes in the official canvass (54 on election night).[17][18]
  • Don Spurlin finished second in the 2008 Albertville mayoral race. He then lost the 2010 Republican runoff for Alabama Senate District 9 to Clay Scofield by 615 votes.[9][19]
  • Other Spurlin candidates, including school-board, township and county candidates in California, Indiana and Kentucky, are listed in Spurlin candidates in recent elections.

Family ties to Congress

Congressman Wright Patman of Texas (1893–1976) was the son of Emma (Spurlin) Patman. The Political Graveyard's surname index cross-references him under SPURLIN.[20] See Emma Spurlin Patman and Wright Patman.

Military

  • Daniel R. Spurlin: Army first lieutenant killed in Go Cong Province, South Vietnam, in 1968. He is the only Spurlin named on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, according to the Virtual Wall's name index.[21]
  • Ashley Spurlin: Air Force combat controller and Bronze Star recipient.
  • John E. Spurlin: Confederate soldier.
  • Spurlins in the World Wars covers five Army soldiers surnamed Spurlin who died in the Second World War.[22] Two of them, Jesse C. Spurlin and Romie L. Spurlin, are buried in American Battle Monuments Commission cemeteries in Italy and the Philippines.[23]
  • The Senate nomination lists printed in the Congressional Record include officers surnamed Spurlin in the Army, Navy, Navy Reserve and Air Force. See Spurlins in the Congressional Record.

Law

CourtListener lists about 90 opinions with "Spurlin" in the case name.[24] The most cited is Spurlin v. General Motors Corp. (5th Cir. 1976), a school-bus brake-failure case taught in civil procedure courses. The list also includes People v. Spurlin (Cal. Ct. App. 1984) on heat-of-passion provocation and United States v. Spurlin (5th Cir. 2011) on bankruptcy crimes. Some Kentucky workers' compensation appeals of the 1990s carry the name only because Robert E. Spurlin was a party as director of the state's Special Fund. An example is Spurlin v. Woods (Ky. 1997).[25] Other decisions are summarized in Spurlin in American case law.

Spurling (variant spelling)

Officials with the related surname Spurling include Sir Dudley Spurling, Speaker of the House of Assembly of Bermuda; Medal of Honor recipient Andrew Barclay Spurling; Army neurosurgeon Roy Glenwood Spurling; and Mason County, Washington, sheriff Ryan Spurling. The Bermudian flying ace Arthur Spurling won the Distinguished Flying Cross for a 1918 action,[26] and his uncle Sir Stanley Spurling was a Bermudian parliamentarian (see Spurlings of Bermuda).[27] Smaller entries, such as a North Carolina town councilman and a Georgia county coroner, are collected in Spurling public officials.

Gaps

The Political Graveyard, a large index of American political figures, has no entry under the surname Spurlin. It lists only the Patman cross-reference and two Spurling entries.[20] Ballotpedia's pages on the surname cover only a handful of local candidates.[28] OurCampaigns, another candidate database, could not be searched for this article because its sub-pages were open only to logged-in users in September 2026.[29] No state legislator surnamed Spurlin turned up in this research, but that is not proof that none existed.

See also

  • Notable Spurlins · People strong
    An index of notable people surnamed Spurlin, with related Spurling-surname figures listed separately as variants.
  • Mary Jane Spurlin · People strong
    Mary Jane Spurlin (1883–1970) was a lawyer who became Oregon's first woman judge in 1926 when appointed to the Multnomah County District Court.
  • Jimmy Spurlin · People strong
    James Kenneth "Jimmy" Spurlin Sr. (1935–2006) was a coach, banker and local official in Tifton, Georgia, who chaired the Tift County Commission and was honored by the Tift County (2016) and ABAC (class of 2022) athletic halls of fame.
  • Chris Spurlin (Oxford, Alabama) · People strong
    Chris Spurlin is a Baptist pastor and former police officer who has served on the Oxford, Alabama, city council since 2008. He holds the Place 4 seat and is council president.
  • Mark Spurlin (Pike Road mayoral candidate) · People strong
    Mark Spurlin, a residential builder, ran for mayor of Pike Road, Alabama, in 2025. He lost to longtime incumbent Gordon Stone by 52 votes in the official canvass, 1,567 to 1,515.
  • Don Spurlin (Albertville developer and candidate) · People strong
    Don Spurlin is an Albertville, Alabama, builder, developer and founder of Don Spurlin Construction. He finished second in the 2008 Albertville mayoral race and lost the 2010 Republican runoff for Alabama Senate District 9 to Clay Scofield.
  • Robert E. Spurlin (Kentucky utility regulator) · People strong
    Robert E. Spurlin, a lawyer from Richmond, Kentucky, served on the Kentucky Public Service Commission from 1972 to 1976 and again from 2001 to 2004, and directed the state's workers' compensation Special Fund in the 1990s.
  • Emma Spurlin Patman and Wright Patman · History strong
    Emma (Spurlin) Patman was the mother of Wright Patman (1893–1976), a Texas congressman for 47 years, co-author of the Robinson–Patman Act and longtime chairman of the House Banking Committee.
  • Daniel R. Spurlin (Vietnam War) · History strong
    First Lieutenant Daniel Raymond Spurlin (1942–1968) of Atlanta was a U.S. Army adviser with MACV Advisory Team 92. He was killed by small-arms fire in Go Cong Province, South Vietnam, on September 19, 1968, and is buried in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
  • Frances Spurlin (congressional caseworker) · People strong
    Frances Spurlin was a constituent services representative for Alabama's 2nd congressional district from 1985 to 2013, working for three successive U.S. representatives. She was honored in the Congressional Record on her retirement.
  • Spurlin candidates in recent elections · People strong
    People surnamed Spurlin who appear as candidates in Ballotpedia, local election records and news coverage from 2008 to 2026, including two Albertville, Alabama, races by builder Don Spurlin and local races in California, Indiana and Kentucky.
  • Spurlins in the Congressional Record · History strong
    Federal congressional publications mention the Spurlin name in modern tributes and Senate nomination lists, in private pension acts for two Indiana Civil War veterans (1910 and 1914), and in 19th-century printed lists of voters, pensioners, pardons, claims and land entries.
  • Spurlin v. General Motors Corp. · History strong
    Spurlin v. General Motors Corp., 528 F.2d 612 (5th Cir. 1976), arose from a 1968 school-bus brake failure in Morgan County, Alabama. The Fifth Circuit reinstated a jury verdict for the plaintiffs, and the case is taught as an example of the standard for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
  • People v. Spurlin (1984) · History strong
    People v. Spurlin, 156 Cal. App. 3d 119 (1984), is a California appellate decision holding that heat-of-passion provocation must come from the person killed. A defendant provoked by one person cannot claim it for killing someone who did not provoke him.
  • United States v. Spurlin (2011) · History strong
    United States v. Spurlin, 664 F.3d 954 (5th Cir. 2011), is a Fifth Circuit bankruptcy-crimes decision. It held that a general power of attorney can be used to file a bankruptcy petition for someone else, reversed one false-oath conviction for insufficient evidence, and affirmed convictions for concealing estate assets and for bankruptcy fraud.
  • Board of Education v. Spurlin (Colorado, 1960) · History strong
    Board of Education v. Spurlin, 141 Colo. 508 (1960), was a Colorado Supreme Court case against E. T. Spurlin as state controller. The court held that officers of the State Department of Education were exempt from the classified civil service.
  • Spurlin in American case law · History strong
    A guide to published American appellate decisions with a party named Spurlin, from an 1818 North Carolina dispute over a whiskey still to 21st-century cases on public records, county government and bankruptcy crime. Each summary is drawn from the opinion's own text.
  • Spurling public officials (variant spelling) · People strong
    Minor public officials and candidates with the related surname Spurling, including a 19th-century Maine postmaster, a 2004 Democratic National Convention alternate, a North Carolina town councilman and school-board member, and a Georgia county coroner.
  • Ashley Spurlin · People strong
    Ashley Spurlin is a U.S. Air Force combat controller and Bronze Star recipient who competed on season 2 of History Channel's Top Shot (2011).
  • Ryan Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
    Ryan Spurling is the elected sheriff of Mason County, Washington, the 41st in the office's history. He ran for the office in 2022 after a 25-year career with the Washington State Patrol and is a candidate for re-election in 2026.
  • Dudley Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
    Sir Dudley Spurling (1913–1986) was a Bermudian lawyer, 1936 Olympic swimmer, 1934 Empire Games discus thrower and Speaker of the House of Assembly of Bermuda (1972–76). He was a founding partner of the law firm now called Appleby.
  • Andrew Barclay Spurling (Spurling variant) · People mixed
    Andrew Barclay Spurling (1833–1906) was a Union cavalry officer from the Cranberry Isles, Maine, and a brevet brigadier general. He received the Medal of Honor for capturing Confederate soldiers near Evergreen, Alabama, in 1865, and is buried in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago.
  • Roy Glenwood Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
    Roy Glenwood Spurling (1894–1968) was an American neurosurgeon who described the Spurling test for cervical nerve-root compression and led U.S. Army neurosurgery in World War II.
  • John E. Spurlin (Confederate soldier) · History strong
    John E. Spurlin (1841–1861) was a Rutherford County, North Carolina, farmer. He enlisted in the 16th North Carolina Infantry in 1861 and, according to the regimental roster, died of typhoid fever at Warrenton, Virginia, that December; a 1937 county history gives a different date and place.
  • Spurlins in the World Wars · History strong
    Five Army soldiers surnamed Spurlin, from Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina and Texas, appear on the War Department's 1946 lists of World War II dead. Two are buried in American Battle Monuments Commission cemeteries in Italy and the Philippines.
  • Arthur Spurling (Spurling variant) · People strong
    Arthur Rowe Spurling (1896–1984) was a Bermudian infantryman and airman who became a First World War flying ace with six credited victories. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross for a 1918 action in which he and his observer fought their way through a formation of about thirty German fighters.
  • Spurlings of Bermuda (variant spelling) · Genealogy strong
    In Bermuda the name is spelled Spurling, and Forebears ranks it the island's 202nd most common surname. Bermudian Spurlings have included the banker and parliamentarian Sir Stanley Spurling (1879–1961), his son Sir Dudley Spurling, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and his nephew Arthur Rowe Spurling, a First World War flying ace.
  • Spurlins of Shelby County, Indiana · Genealogy strong
    Spurlin families settled in Washington Township, Shelby County, Indiana, in the 1830s. Several of them served in the 33rd Indiana Infantry during the Civil War, and Ithamar Spurlin was elected county sheriff in 1870.
  • Spurlins of Fentress County, Tennessee · Genealogy mixed
    Spurlins were among the early families on the Wolf River in Fentress County, Tennessee, where Daniel Spurlin is said to have started the family's Spurlin Cemetery in 1858. A 1920 county history profiles M. H. Spurlin, a Wilder lawman and justice of the peace.
  • Spurlins of Hamilton County, Texas · History strong
    John L. Spurlin (1853–1935), a Hamilton merchant, banker and railroad promoter and a nephew of John H. Reagan, was a founding director of the Hamilton National Bank in 1890 and gave his name to the railroad town of Spurlin in northwestern Hamilton County.

References

  1. ↑ Kentucky Public Service Commission Biennial Report, July 1, 1999 – June 30, 2001 — commissioner biography Government
  2. ↑ Kentucky Public Service Commission Biennial Report, July 2003 – June 2005 — Lists "Robert C. Spurlin (2003-2004)" among commissioners who served during the biennium Government
  3. ↑ Chris Spurlin — City of Oxford, Alabama (official biography) Government
  4. ↑ Board of Education v. Spurlin, 141 Colo. 508, 349 P.2d 357 (1960) — Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library), full text JSON Government
  5. ↑ Spurlin v. School Board of Sarasota County, 520 So. 2d 294 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988) — Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library), full text JSON Government
  6. ↑ Spurlin v. Scheiner, 531 So. 2d 988 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988) — Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library), full text JSON Government
  7. ↑ Scheiner v. Spurlin, 555 So. 2d 403 (Fla. 2d DCA 1989) — Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library), full text JSON Government
  8. ↑ Honoring Frances Spurlin for Her Service to Alabama's Second Congressional District — Congressional Record, Dec. 9, 2013, p. E1809 Government
  9. ↑ ↑ Spurlin runs for Albertville mayor — Sand Mountain Reporter (June 26, 2008) News
  10. ↑ About Us — Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board Government
  11. ↑ Election night results — Leader-News (Nov. 8, 2022) News
  12. ↑ Todd Fiscal Court bids farewell to outgoing magistrates at final 2022 meeting — WHOP Radio (Dec. 29, 2022) News
  13. ↑ Thomas E. Spurlin (obituary) — The Sylvester Local (Feb. 3, 2015) News
  14. ↑ Obituaries - Spurlin / Spurling — Shelby County Indiana Genealogy & History — transcribed obituary of Ithamar Spurlin Genealogy
  15. ↑ History of Fentress County, Tennessee (A. R. Hogue, 1920) — Internet Archive — sketch of Milton H. Spurlin Book
  16. ↑ J. L. Spurlin et al. v. State of Texas, ex rel. F. M. Graves, 51 Tex. Civ. App. 266 (1908) — Caselaw Access Project (Harvard Law School Library), full text JSON Government
  17. ↑ Gordon Stone wins reelection in Pike Road by 54 votes — WSFA 12 News (Aug. 27, 2025) News
  18. ↑ Official election results, Town of Pike Road municipal election, Aug. 26, 2025 — Town of Pike Road Government
  19. ↑ Alabama State Senate elections, 2010 — Ballotpedia Reference
  20. ↑ ↑ Index to Politicians: Sproat to Staffin (SPURLIN, SPURLING entries) — The Political Graveyard — Surname index; SPURLIN cross-reference to Wright Patman; Spurling entries Reference
  21. ↑ Alphabetical index of names, S — The Virtual Wall (VirtualWall.org) — Only one Spurlin listed among Wall names Reference
  22. ↑ Gold Star Veterans: Spurlin — Honor States — 10 results, of which 6 are Spurlin (1 Vietnam, 5 WWII) and 4 Spurling; private-sector archive Reference
  23. ↑ ABMC Burial and Memorialization Directory: search "Spurlin" — American Battle Monuments Commission — public search entry point; 3 results, Sept. 2026: Romie L. (Manila), Jesse C. (Sicily-Rome), Federick William (Corozal); record details opened from the results list Government
  24. ↑ CourtListener search: case name contains "Spurlin", sorted by citation count — 90 opinions returned (Sept. 2026) Government
  25. ↑ Spurlin v. Woods, 954 S.W.2d 309 (Ky. 1997) — CourtListener Government
  26. ↑ Arthur Rowe Spurling — The Aerodrome — Birth and death details, Royal Aero Club certificate, DFC citation (London Gazette 30989/12973), list of six victories Reference
  27. ↑ Hero's medals up for auction — The Royal Gazette (8 August 2009) — Rick Spurling on his grandfather, parliamentarian Sir Stanley Spurling, uncle of Arthur Rowe Spurling; read via Internet Archive snapshot, 2016-03-03 News
  28. ↑ Search results for "Spurlin" — Ballotpedia — 14 pages returned (Sept. 24, 2026) Reference
  29. ↑ OurCampaigns home page — notice that sub-pages may be viewed only with a login (Sept. 2026) Reference

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Last reviewed 2026-09-24.