While the focus of Tuesday’s general election will be on the U.S. presidential race, Oktibbeha County voters will pick a new Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District trustee and settle two challenged election commissioner races.
Residents living outside of Starkville’s city limits will choose one of three candidates — John Brown, Rondeze Harris and Jamila Taylor — to replace the school district trustee Eddie Myles, whose term expires in January.
About 15,500 residents are registered to vote in the school board election, Oktibbeha County Elections Clerk Sheryl Elmore said.
Brown, who lost last year’s Republican primary for Oktibbeha County tax assessor, is a parole and probation officer for the state and has five years of public school system experience, including a one-year stint teaching in the former Oktibbeha County School District.
Harris, a previous applicant for a city-appointed school board seat, is a lifelong Oktibbeha County resident employed as a shift superintendent at Yokohama Tire Manufacturing in West Point.
Taylor is an administrator with Mississippi State University Extension Services’ Early Years Network, which provides a long list of training and resource-providing initiatives for parents and educators. She has also served on a variety of parent-teacher organizations in the school district, the district’s PTO executive council and its bi-racial ethics committee.
Two commissioners challenged
Of Oktibbeha County’s five district election commissioners, two face re-election battles, two are unopposed, and an incumbent’s retirement means the board will have at least one new member next term.
District 1 Election Commissioner Greg Fulgham will face Judy Goodman in a rematch of the 2012 race.
Fulgham, a lifelong Oktibbeha County resident who works as a farrier, took over as the district’s election commissioner in 2010, replacing his grandmother, Margie Fulgham. Goodman serves as a business manager for the MSU Department of English.
In District 3, incumbent Myles Carpenter, a former MSU Extension Service worker, is seeking his fourth full term. He faces Paul Short, a Bell Schoolhouse poll worker who also worked for 25 years at the university and has experience with area law enforcement agencies as a part-time and reserve officer.
District 2 Election Commissioner Sissy Smitherman and District 4 Election Commissioner Joe Baker are unopposed this election cycle.
District 5 Election Commissioner Bettye Ford previously announced she would not seek a third term.
Ford won her first election in 2008, the same year the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors appointed her to fill the seat’s vacancy when her husband, Hollie Ford, died in January.
Replacing Ford is Ernest Rogers, who was the lone qualifier for the District 5 post. In 2015, he ran for the district’s supervisor seat but was defeated by incumbent Joe Williams in the Democratic primary.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 40 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 40 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
