Crandall gets stamp of approval from longtime Democratic mayor (VIDEO)
Angola’s Hickman revealed Henry said he had faith in Crandall to succeed him
Former Angola mayor Richard Hickman slipped into the Promenade Park Pavilion with little fanfare Tuesday afternoon.
Now in his fourth month of retirement, he took a seat near the back in one of the chairs assembled for Fort Wayne Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Stephanie Crandall’s official announcement of her candidacy to replace the late Tom Henry as mayor of Fort Wayne. (Video below)
After more than twenty years leading Steuben County’s largest city, Hickman retired at the end of 2023. Like Henry, he had been elected five consecutive times, despite being a Democrat in a reliably red area, and over the years, the two developed a friendship. “We used to go out to eat and stuff,” he said.
At the Steuben County Democratic Party’s 2023 summer celebration — which doubled as a night to honor the retiring Hickman — Henry told the crowd that the longtime Angola mayor had been a mentor and advisor to him.
Three days before Henry died, the two met to catch up. They hadn’t crossed paths since Cindy Henry passed away in late January, and “I just wanted to talk to him,” Hickman said.
“One of the things we talked about was who might be succeeding him if he didn’t make it through. Stephanie was one of the names that he mentioned that he had faith in.”
In the speech she delivered to family and friends like Hickman, Crandall emphasized her ties to Henry and spoke about how she would work to continue the momentum of his administration if selected to replace him.
“After working alongside Mayor Henry for almost eleven years, I know one thing for sure: he wouldn’t want us to stop the momentum that has brought us to the place where it is today,” she said, “and that is why I’m filing [to be] the next mayor of Fort Wayne.”
Crandall is among five declared candidates who have previously won a primary or general election in Fort Wayne. The others are City Councilwoman Michelle Chambers, State Representative Phil GiaQuinta, City Councilwoman Sharon Tucker, and Wayne Township Trustee Austin Knox.
Hickman can relate to at least some of what the caucus candidates are going through. In 2001, he won a caucus to replace Mayor Bill Selman, who, like Henry, died of cancer while in office. Selman hand-picked Hickman to be his successor and groomed him for that role in Selman’s final months.
Hickman said whoever wins the caucus to replace Henry will need to understand what their role is as mayor. “You feel like you have to do everything, be at everything, and this, that, and the other,” he said. “You have department heads. You have to just trust your department heads.”
Crandall was one of those department heads in the Henry administration, and continues in that role under Acting Mayor Karl Bandemer. Hickman said he often crossed paths with her when he was mayor. “She was always very interesting and very interested in what was going on and understood what was going on.”
Hickman said if he was speaking to a precinct chair about what type of mayor Crandall would be, he would tell them “she would be steady, like Mayor Henry was. Things would move forward, like [with] Mayor Henry.”
He said he was at her announcement to support her but stopped short of officially endorsing her. “There’s a lot of good candidates,” he said.
“[But] I will be tickled to death if she gets it.”