Incumbents were winners in
--In the at-large district of the
Thomasville City School Board, consisting of both District One and Two of the
city’s election districts, Jess Booth won by a 102-vote margin over his
challenger, Ira Flowers. Out of the 1,663 votes cast of the 8,973 voters
eligible to vote in the city, Booth had 858 votes versus Flowers’ 756. Booth
had 37 votes in the Douglass precinct, 70 votes in Harper precinct, 25 votes in
the Thomasville Resource Center precinct which has voters from District One and
Two and 114 votes from the Butler-Mason YMCA precinct which has voters from
both districts. Booth also had 234 votes in the Scott precinct and 312 from the
Jerger precinct. Flowers had 197 in Douglass, 159 in
Harper, 227 in
--In District One
of the city school board elections, there were two posts to be filled with the top-two
vote counts filing the positions. Out of the 836 voters casting ballots of
4,243 eligible, the two incumbents in the posts, Matthew Conyers and Andrew
Jones, won over challenger Lucinda Brown. Conyers had 527 votes, Jones had 485
votes and Brown had 227 votes. In Douglass, Brown had 76 votes, Conyers had 127
votes and Jones had 131 votes. In Harper, Brown had 52 votes, Conyers had 143
votes and Jones had 157 votes. In the
--The other candidate for the city school board, George Lilly ran for re-election unopposed. The two candidates for the Thomasville City Council, David Lewis from District One and Camille Payne from District Two, ran unopposed.
--In the Boston City Council elections, there were 232 voters casting ballots out of 588 eligible. In Post Four, incumbent Mark Saunders won with 136 votes over challenger Tim Gay, who had 86 votes. For Post Five, incumbent Richard Reynolds won with 128 votes over challenger Bill Carson,jr., who had 105 votes. Ann McCrickard was unopposed for Post Three.
--In Meigs, there were 172 votes cast out of a possible 307. In the election for Mayor of Meigs, the winner was Harold Cook with 83 votes; the other candidates were Andrew Wurst with 43 votes, Jamie Layton with 26 votes, Shelia Dash with 8 votes and Judy Aldredge with 6 votes. In the Meigs City Council election, the posts elected were the top three finishers out of seven candidates, winning was incumbent Alton Gassett with 86 votes, Cheryl Kicklighter-Hall with 80 votes and Ralph Nixon with 73 votes. The other candidates lost; they were incumbent Carol Nelms with 70 votes, Linda Eason with 37 votes, Danny Dew with 32 votes and C.B. Lamb with 29 votes.
--In the Pavo elections, there were 85 of 225 votes cast. For the Pavo City Council, the best two of the three candidates gained the posts; the winners were Billy Hart with 62 votes and Granvil Jones with 56 votes. Daniel Flounoy, sr., had 25 votes. For Mayor of Pavo, Faye Walker ran unopposed.
--In Barwick, there were three city council elections. In the race for Barwick City Council Post Five, no candidate won a majority of the vote; on Election Day, the incumbent in Post Five, I. J. McCann had 46 votes, or 43.4%, James Herring had 31 votes or 29.3% and Rosetta Coston had 29 votes or 27.4%. On Tuesday, November 25, a runoff was held for the Post Five Council election between James Herring and I.J. McCann, with Herring winning the seat, 41 votes to McCann’s 37. On Election Day, for Barwick City Council Post Two, incumbent Herman Daniels won with 67 votes to Geary Staton with 34 votes. In the Barwick City Council Post Three election, Mark Morey won with 57 votes verses Timothy Andrews with 44 votes.
--Six of the eight people running
for positions in
--The first candidate to speak was
Ira Flowers, for the at-large district that covers the whole city. Flowers said
he was a product of the
--Then the three candidates for the two posts in District Two of the school board spoke. On Election Day, the candidates that gather the first and second places in the vote will be elected to the posts.
--Incumbent Matthew Conyers said he
had 35 years working in education. He said, “All of our students need to
compete in the workplace and need a good education to do that.” Conyers said
the issues were accountability, “That includes everyone in education –
teachers, students, administrators, board members and parents,” requiring
higher levels of student achievement, ensuring safe schools, providing a qulity educator in every classroom and “reducing
student-teacher ratios.” Conyers said his goal was to have a 1-to-15 ratio in
elementary schools, 1-to-20 ratios in grades six through eight, and 1-to-25
ratio in grades
--Incumbent Andy Jones said he was appointed by the board to fill the seat of Lucille Morris, who retired, “At first when I was asked, I said ‘no’ but then I prayed about it and said ‘yes.’ It is a challenge. We see young people that need guidance.” Jones said he retired from a long career in the Thomasville City School System and went to work teaching inmates in the Georgia Correctional System, “I remember the first time I walked inside a prison, I heard a voice holler, ‘Coach Jones!’ I remember a cold chill coming over me. One of my former students recognized me, a student who obviously I had failed. I blame me.” Jones said, “Every child can have a chance. We need more parent involvement in schools. Parents need to get to know a school administration as well as the teachers. Test scores need to be above average. We can’t accept seniors failing the graduation tests. We need to be sure our teachers are doing a good quality job.”
--Challenger Lucinda Brown then spoke. She said, “I stand for all our children receiving the same education. We need to make sure what is going on with each child. To many times parents have come to me about problems in the school system. We need the system to educate our children. It’s not about special interests, but what is best in the child’s interests.” Brown said, “Too many children are leaving the system by the time they reach high school – we’ve lost too many by then. There is no child that cannot learn and be taught.” Brown is the chairman of the Education Committee of the Thomasville Branch of the NAACP; she said Tuesday night, “Let me continue to do the work that I’ve been doing for the past seven years.”
--Voters in the municipal elections
in
--The Legislature passed the new
advance voting system to supplement absentee voting and cut down on long lines
at the polls. The system allows citizens to vote a week prior to the election
without providing a reason as would have to happen in absentee voting; most
absentee voters say they will be out of their voting district on election day. Most absentee systems allow voting 45 days
prior to election day. However, to vote on Monday,
November 3, citizens have to vote by absentee to give election officials time
to go through the voter list and mark who voted absentee and who voted early.
There are 15 other states that allow advance voting including