Donnie Pope Wins Republican Nomination

More than 3,700 Jasper Countians voted in the General Primaries and Non-partisan Elections Tuesday, and selected Donnie Pope as the Republican nominee for Sheriff of Jasper County. Mr. Pope will face Democratic candidate Greg Sands and Independent candidate Charles Ledford in November.

Mr. Pope received 60 percent of the vote, with Richard “Rick” Cook receiving 34 percent, and Bob Yarborough finishing with six percent.

The 3,717 voters translates to better than 48 percent of the county voters, much better than the statewide turnout of just over 30 percent.

Ken Jackson will remain the Chief Magistrate beating challenger Tim Lam by a mere 4.5 percent margin.

The new Tax Commissioner is Angela Walsh, who garnered 76 percent of vote. She and Angie Steele were both vying for the post left vacant by the retirement of Merry Faulkner.

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The County Commission seats in Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 were on the ballot and in District 2, Bruce Henry defeated David Bryant. Mr. Henry will face incumbent Charles Hill in November.

In District 3 there will be a runoff between Jack Bernard and Gene Trammell as there has to be a 50 percent plus one vote in order to claim the seat outright. Mr. Trammell received 49.65 percent of the vote.

In this race there is no Democratic opposition, and as of press time yesterday, no independent had announced. The deadline for an independent to file a notice of candidacy is noon tomorrow, Aug. 3.

Craig Salmon had the majority of the vote in district 4—48.77 percent, not enough to win. Therefore there will be a runoff between Mr. Salmon and Lee Simmons. The winner of this race will face Joan Bell in November.

Doug Luke defeated incumbent Alan Cox for the District 5 commission seat. No one has qualified as an independent for this district, and if that remains the same then Mr. Luke will represent that north end district.

Erin Lynch has been voted onto the School Board in District 2 and will replace long-time incumbent Phyllis Norwood.

Jasper joined most everyone in the Northeast Georgia Distric in voting down T-SPLOST. Clarke County is the only county in othe district which passed it. Across the state, only three of 12 districts approved the one percent tax, and they were all by small margins.

In the 25th district State Senate race Burt Jones won Jasper handily, but narrowly defeated incumbent Johnny Grant in the district. He will face Democrat Darrell Black in November.

In Jasper County there were no contested democratic races. The run-off will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 21.