After 20 years of serving as Irmo's mayor, John Gibbons has decided to step down from the post at the end of his term in November.

For the past 22 years, Gibbons has been a part of the Irmo Town Council as a councilmember and mayor. Come December, Gibbons will be spending more time with family and living in his home on Lake Murray. Before Gibbons became the town's mayor, he grew up in Clarendon County and attended the University of South Carolina, where he earned a bachelor's degree in accounting and a master's degree in business administration.

After serving in the Air Force, and doing financial and economic feasibility work for a number of years, Gibbons moved to Irmo opening his own oil change/ lube business. It wasn't until the town was having a special election to fill the seat of an unexpired term, for the second time in four years, that Gibbons decided someone needed to step up and be a consistent leader in the town.

"We needed someone who was going to stay here and live with the rules they set," Gibbons said. Two decades later, Gibbons is hanging up his hat, but not without having made some significant contributions.

"I feel like I did a lot of good for a long time," Gibbons said. "And it was all by being frugal. Being able to say no to things you don't need."

When Gibbons became mayor, he inherited debt, property taxes at 4 to 7 mills and a police force of only five or six deputies.

With his knack for fiscal responsibility and conservatism, Gibbons and the council went to work "I knew we could do better than that and basically we did," Gibbons said.