A new member has been appointed to fill the seat on the DeKalb County Election Commission left vacant by the recent death of long-time member Kenneth Moore.Richard Hearon Puckett was appointed last week by the Tennessee Election Commission to fill Moore’s unexpired term.Moore had been a member of the commission since 1980, serving as a Democratic member.Puckett will serve for at least the remainder of Moore’s two-year term, which expires next April.Puckett is retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, where he served for 42 years.He will join the commission as one of two Democratic members along with Harry Lasser, the other Democratic member, and Republican members Walteen Parker, Barbara Vanatta, and Jim Dean.Lasser was appointed to the commission in April 2011 for a two-year term, and all the other members were re-appointed at that time.Dean and Vanatta are in their second terms on the commission, and Parker has served since 1992.Puckett began his career with the Corps of Engineers as a ranger at Center Hill Lake, then progressed to an outdoor recreation planner position at the Nashville district office, resource manager at Old Hickory, Cordell Hull, and Center Hill lakes, became area manager for the Mid-Cumberland area, and then stepped into the job of operations manager for the Mid-Cumberland area.He has been retired from the Corps since 2005.Puckett and his wife Ann have two daughters, Tecia, who is married to John Pryor, and Mary Ann who is married to Jack Barton.Puckett has been involved in Gideons International, has been a member of the Tennessee Association of Professional Surveyors, the National Forester's Association, and the Society of American Military Engineers.