Alan is a native of Dickson where he grew up in the real estate and auction business. He believes that the Five Rivers Area is a great place to live, as his family in the past has - going back several generations in Dickson County (since 1806).
Alan is a Past President (2003 and 2006) of the Dickson County Board of Realtors and served on the Board of Directors of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors and the Tennessee Association of Realtors.
Alan graduated from Dickson County Senior High School and then graduated cum laude from Freed Hardeman University with a B.B.A. in Accounting and Finance and currently serves on the school’s advisory board. After graduation, Alan spent three years working for the State of Tennessee’s Comptroller of the Treasury, Division of State Audit as a Legislative State Auditor.
After traveling with the comptroller’s office, Alan has spent over ten years working as a full-time Realtor and Auctioneer with his family’s firm. He holds a real estate broker’s license and an auctioneer’s license. He received his GRI (Graduate of the Realtor’s Institute) designation in 2002 and his ABR (Accredited Buyers Representative) designation in 2003.
Alan is married to Becky Erranton Ragan, who is also a Realtor and a part-time employee of TriStar Bank. They have two daughters, Carrie (2000) and Erran (2002), and one son, Hardeman (2004).
They are members of the Walnut Street Church of Christ where he serves as a deacon, volunteers his time as youth minister and serves as a member of the missions committee. He and his wife have taken several mission trips to Guyana and Suriname, South America, over the past several years.
Elected to the Dickson County Commission in 1998, he served the eighth district through 2002. He is a member of the Dickson County Chamber of Commerce and has served on its Board of Directors. He is on the American Cancer Society Board for Dickson County and co-chaired the Cancer Auction Crusades for 1999 and 2000. He is a member of the Old Timer’s Day Committee, is a Past President of the Old Timer’s Day Committee and served as the parade chair for several years. He is a graduate of Leadership Dickson County and served on the advisory board. He is active in Youth Leadership Dickson County and has served on its board for the past several years. Alan was the Dickson County Chamber of Commerce’s Volunteer of the Year in 2000. In 2003, he received the Helen Rial Leadership Award from Leadership Dickson County.
Alan serves on the Dickson County Industrial Board. He is a member of the Dickson County Historical Society and in 2004 the Dickson County Commission appointed Alan to serve as the Dickson County Historian.
Alan has also hosted a weekly radio program, Life in the Tennessee Valley, since 1997. It was started by his grandfather in February of 1956, and is on each Sunday morning from seven till eight. It is broadcast over WDKN AM 1260 and WVRY Solid Gospel 105.1 FM. It features old time gospel quartet singing, death notices, birthdays, anniversaries, community announcements, local history trivia and the latest information on real estate and auctions.
Each Wednesday, Alan has a weekly column in The Dickson Herald, Dickson’s local paper, entitled 'Skits and Bits'. It is a collection of local day by day history tidbits.
