Lance Center has worn many hats in Llano over the years.

Accountant. Business owner. Coach. Church youth director. Three-term city council member. Citizen of the Year 2002. Yellow Jacket broadcaster.

Now, more than four decades after attending Llano High School, Center has added Llano County auditor to the list. He was sworn in on August 31.

The position marks a new chapter in a long history of service to the community - one that has stretched across the City of Llano, Llano ISD and now Llano County government.

At the same time, Center is stepping into a new role in another part of his life that has kept him closely tied to Llano for nearly 30 years. Following the death of longtime broadcast partner Art Dlugach last year, Center has moved into the lead play-by-play seat for Yellow Jacket sports.

The two roles come at a point when Center has been reevaluating how he wants to spend the next chapter of his career and where he believes he can make the greatest impact.

“For me, it’s about serving the community,” Center said. “I figure I’ve got 10 years left in me, and if the county will bless me with 10 years, I’ll ride out my career right here.”

A Life Tied to Llano

Center moved around growing up but attended junior high and high school in Llano, graduating in 1981.

He earned his accounting degree from Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State University, and met his future wife, Jackie, while living in San Antonio, where she was raised.

Center was working for a large San Antonio accounting firm when the couple began thinking about starting a family. He proposed moving back to Llano and asked Jackie to give his hometown a chance for one year.

He'd always had an interest in hospitality so they bought the Burger Bar. When the year was up, Jackie said, “We’re staying.”

The couple sold the restaurant and Center returned to accounting. He joined his brother’s accounting practice in Llano, later worked with Todd Keller and eventually opened his own CPA practice, which he later moved to Horseshoe Bay.

As he and Jackie raised their children in Llano, they became heavily involved in the community. "We were Mr. and Mrs. Llano," he said.

During those years, Center received multiple accolades from Llano ISD, including the “Jacket for Life” award. He served with the Llano Chamber of Commerce and on the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission and Economic Development Corporation, spent three terms on the Llano City Council and was named Llano’s Citizen of the Year in 2002.

The Centers were also heavily involved at Lutie Watkins Memorial Methodist Church, where Lance spent several years as youth director and Jackie ran the church daycare.

As their children reached high school, Center’s career took a different turn. After years in accounting, he joined a software sales firm in Dallas.

“I went all the way to the dark side,” he joked.

Center spent the next 12 years with the company, moving up through the ranks and, he said, “doing things in the corporate world I’d never thought I’d get to do. It was a very successful corporate run."

But two years ago, his priorities changed again.

Center was diagnosed with Stage 2 colon cancer and underwent surgery. Through it, he said, both his company and his hometown rallied around him. “I was stepping lighter from the lifting I was getting from this community,” he said.

After surgery, Center returned to work, received a promotion into sales management and “kicked butt” for another year. Professionally, he was still succeeding. Personally, he was beginning to question what he wanted that success to look like.

“Through treatment, my faith had rebounded, and it got me reevaluating what’s important,” he said. “I know I can go out in the corporate world and kill it, but is that really what I want to be doing?”

His faith increasingly pointed him back toward Llano.

Both of the Center’s children live in Llano, along with their five grandchildren. Jackie is Llano ISD’s director of food service, and both of their children teach and coach in the district.

Center had also continued broadcasting Yellow Jacket football throughout his corporate career, giving him a connection to home even when work pulled him elsewhere.

“I was doing football with Art, but I wanted to do more locally,” he said. “This community means a lot to me.”

He wanted to return to his financial roots, slow down and find a way to serve Llano in a larger capacity again. Then he saw the Llano County auditor position posted online.

Center sent in his résumé and within a week, he received a call. It happened, he said, like “boom, boom, boom, you’re in.”

Back to His Roots

Center began working alongside outgoing County Auditor Kelly Eckhardt in June, giving him an opportunity to shadow the county’s budget process before formally taking over the position.

He praised Eckhardt for allowing him to dive into the job early and for her work during four years in the office.

Center said he inherited a great set of books and believes Llano County is in a strong financial position.

“The county is extremely healthy financially, and that’s because of the diligence of the department heads, Commissioners Court, judges, and their ability to budget and stay under budget each year and continue to build surplus while taking care of the county in a high-inflation period,” he said.

While “accounting is accounting,” Center said the government aspect has brought a new learning curve, particularly the laws, procedures and compliance requirements that come with handling public funds.

He also sees the position as an opportunity to help Llano County navigate changes already underway.

While growth remains concentrated in the eastern portion of Llano County, Center said, interest in a rural lifestyle is attracting a younger demographic to the western portion. “The face of Llano is changing,” Center said.

As that happens, he believes the county will need people who care deeply about the community to help guide that change.

“I want to leave this world a better place than I found it,” he said, “and there is no better place to do that than from where I’m sitting now, based on my skill set.”

He also sees the position as an opportunity to help bridge two parts of Llano County that can sometimes feel worlds apart.

The western side centered around Llano and the eastern side centered around Horseshoe Bay, he said, “might as well be on two different planets” at times.

Two institutions, however, cross that divide in a unique way: Llano County government and Llano ISD.

With deep ties to both, Center sees an opportunity to encourage partnerships and dialogue across the county. To him, having a hand in building those connections would amount to “a life and a career well lived.”

A New Seat in the Booth

Long before becoming county auditor, Center found another way to serve his hometown - behind a microphone on Friday nights.

His broadcasting career began on a whim.

Center had gotten to know Ross Johnson, who operated a radio station in Horseshoe Bay, through Chamber of Commerce activities. When the station decided to broadcast a Llano playoff football game, Center asked if he could help.

He called the game alongside his brother. It was, Center now jokes, “the worst broadcast in history.”

But he had caught the bug.

“The reason I know I’m starting my 29th year broadcasting for Llano is that my son is turning 29 this year, and I announced his birth during my first broadcast,” Center said.

Center played football himself in high school, though he describes his playing career as mediocre.

His broadcasting career, he said, has surpassed his football career “by far.”

Center is a longtime fan of sports radio and said there are times he would rather listen to a game than watch it. During the busiest stretches of his corporate career, Friday nights served as a lifeline to Llano - a standing commitment that kept him connected to the school and community.

His corporate bosses supported that commitment, ensuring he had the time needed to get to the games.

And beside him in the booth for 27 years was Dlugach.

“We were very different individuals, but very close and respectful of one another,” Center said. “We were a good tandem because we were quite different.”

Dlugach’s death last year left a tremendous void in the booth, but Center said the broadcast will continue to show love to Llano's kids.

That positivity - the “Llanoness” of the broadcast, as Center describes it - is the tradition he is most determined to preserve.

Center knows firsthand what a small bit of recognition can mean to a high school athlete.

When he played football, Mike Virdell was writing his “Play to Win” column. Center remembers looking for it each week to see whether his name appeared.

Even when a player might not have done enough to warrant a mention, Center remembers Virdell finding a way to recognize everyone.

Dlugach did the same thing on the radio. Center intends to continue it.

“You don’t have to be a starter to get your call out, your love on the air,” he said. “We uplift these kids. Art and I shared that for over 27 years.”

This season, Center takes the play-by-play seat for the first time as the new voice of the Yellow Jackets on Stinger FM 102.7.

“Now I’ve gotta paint the picture,” he said. “I’m still getting my legs on it. I’ve been broadcasting, but when you go from that chair to this chair, it’s totally different.”

He is bringing in a rotating group of local volunteers to fill his former color seat, including Todd Humphries, Jeff Kuykendall, Grant Robinson and Chip Parrish.

Jackie is part of the operation, too. She attends every game and helps behind the scenes.

“She’s a bigger sports fan than me,” Center said.

She even made her broadcast debut September 10, adding a few comments to the weekly wrap-up. Center hopes to eventually get her live on the air.

Jumping Back In

If taking over the county’s finances and the Yellow Jacket play-by-play booth were not enough, Center is finding other ways to put down roots again.

The family raises fainting goats and is getting back into stock show goats with the grandchildren. Center was recently appointed goat superintendent for this year’s Llano County Junior Livestock Show.

“Talk about jumping back in with both feet,” he said.

He is also preparing to launch a new Sunday morning radio program on Stinger FM 102.7 later this fall.

“Sunday Centering Time” will combine Christian music with Center’s commentary on the songs and the meaning he takes from them. Each episode will revolve around a theme, with short segments connecting the music.

“It’s not preaching,” Center said.

Instead, he envisions a positive way to begin the week.

“People forget Sunday is the first day of the week,” he said. “Let’s start it with positivity.”

After decades of accounting, public service, corporate sales and Friday nights in the broadcast booth, Center is entering a chapter that brings many of those threads together.

Now, the hours he once gave Llano around the edges of his career have become the career itself, and that is exactly where he wants to be.