Councilman Doug Young Loses Long Battle with Cancer

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Murfreesboro native, Vice Mayor, Councilmember, businessman and family man, Doug Young lost his long battle with cancer Sunday, December 18. He was 68.

Mayor Shane McFarland ordered flags on City buildings be lowered to half-staff this week in honor of Vice Mayor Doug Young.

“Murfreesboro has lost one of its greatest champions,” said Mayor McFarland. “We will miss his leadership and dedication to our City Council. “Doug Young was one of the most selfless people I have ever met and that showed in the way he helped our City for many years. Murfreesboro is a better place because of him and I am better for having known him. He will truly be missed.”

Young was elected to the Murfreesboro City Council in 2002 and as vice mayor in 2014. He was a leading advocate for the funding, planning and development of the Public Safety Training Center, honored in his name during a groundbreaking November 8 at the former Franklin Heights Housing Complex.

The Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce recently named Doug Young as the inaugural recipient of a lifetime achievement award named in his honor. Young, the owner of City Tile and Floor Covering Company since 1973, was a fixture in the community and instrumental in shaping Murfreesboro through his leadership and service.

In announcing the lifetime achievement award, Chamber of Commerce Board Chairman Jamie Reed noted,

“Doug’s passion for helping others and his commitment to making our community a better place to live and work are seen in everything he does. Doug has helped lead Murfreesboro to great heights, and for that, we will be eternally grateful.”

Young served as a member of the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce, Main Street Board of Directors, and the Blue Raider Athletic Association. He served as chairman of the MTSU College of Liberal Arts Advisory and Murfreesboro City Schools Foundation Boards, vice chair of the Murfreesboro Planning Commission, past chair of the Murfreesboro Board of Zoning Appeals and member of the St. Clair Senior Center Advisory Board and Urban Environmental Commission.

Young attended Hobgood Elementary School and graduated from Murfreesboro Central High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree from MTSU in 1971, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and served in military intelligence from 1971 to 1973.

Young was a graduate of the Murfreesboro Citizens Police Academy, Murfreesboro Citizens Fire Academy and Leadership Rutherford. He gave his time and energy to organizations such as the MTSU Foundation, MTSU National Alumni Association, Rutherford County Arthritis Walk, Boy Scouts of America, Tennessee Municipal League, and Downtown Murfreesboro Business Association. His professional memberships included the National Federation of Independent Business, Middle Tennessee Floor Covering Association and the World Floor Covering Association.

Vice Mayor Young was particularly fond of a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt known as ‘Man in the Arena’:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

A lifelong member of the First Presbyterian Church of Murfreesboro, Young served as a ruling elder and Sunday School instructor. Young is survived by a wife of 45 years, Susan; three children, Andrew Young, Julie Young Clark and Matthew Young; and four grandchildren, Catherine and Anna Clark and Reecely and Ellie Young.