News

New city attorney knows the way to the courthouse

By Lightning Reports, Published: July 30, 2020

The city of Hendersonville received a dozen applications from lawyers who wanted to be the new city attorney.

After the staff narrowed the field to four, City Council members spent hours interviewing them in a closed session via electronic connection. The lawyer the council chose will need no introduction in the legal community, nor directions to the courthouse.

Angela Beeker, who has served as both Henderson County attorney and assistant county manager and also practiced law in Hendersonville outside government, starts as the new city attorney on Aug. 17. She replaces Sam Fritschner, who is retiring.
Beeker, 53, is currently city attorney for Huntersville, a suburb of Charlotte with a population of around 50,000. Before she took that job in June 2018, Beeker had spent all of her career in Hendersonville, serving in Henderson County government from 1992 to 2004 before working for her own law firm and for the F.B. Jackson law practice, specializing in real estate and civil litigation.
A native of Hendersonville, she is the daughter of Sandra and Oliver Skerrett, who are both from Transylvania County. After graduating from high school, Beeker earned a degree in biomedical engineering from Duke.
“I thought I was going to go to medical school and then I ended up going to law school,” she said. She graduated from Campbell University’s law school in 1991.
Then-County Manager David Thompson and David Nicholson, who would succeed him, interviewed her for the staff attorney job in 1992. Nicholson promoted her to assistant county manager, and she transitioned to the county attorney post in 2000. One of her hires was Russ Burrell, who is now county attorney.
Beeker and her husband, Thomas, have two daughters.
“I consider it my home and also my husband and my kids were still there,” she said of her return to Hendersonville. “They never left. When I left to go to Huntersville, we decided to live apart for a year.” Her older daughter wanted to finish her senior year at Hendersonville High School while the younger one spent a year with her mom in Mecklenburg County before deciding last summer she wanted to return to HHS.
“I get to come back to Hendersonville and also I get to be with my family and particularly in my daughter’s senior year,” she said. “Hendersonville is such a wonderful place to live, it’s a blessing to be able to come home.”
She knows most of the City Council and a fair number of department heads.
“I think the world of Sam,” she said. She’ll train under Fritschner for two weeks before he leaves City Hall.
“I just look forward to a long career with the city of Hendersonville,” she said. “The folks in Huntersville were wonderful to me, too. I wasn’t looking for a job because I loved it but when this job came open it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I had to apply for it.”
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