Fannin County voters said they are happy with the incumbents in the two local seats up for grabs in last Tuesday’s General Election Primary.
Post 2 Commissioner Glenn Patterson and School Board Member Bobby Bearden both received their party’s nod in the Republican Primary.
Patterson will face Democratic challenger Larry Syputa in the General Election and there is no opposition on that ballot against Bearden.
Despite multiple candidates in each of their primary races, Patterson and Bearden both emerged winners without the need for a runoff election.
In the Post 2 Republican race, 6,008 votes were cast.
Patterson won with 3,500, or 58.26 percent of the votes. To avoid a runoff, he needed 50 percent of the votes plus one more vote.
Anita Weaver, making her first appearance on the political scene, was the next highest vote getter with 1,164 votes, which equaled 19.37 percent.
Larry Joe Sosebee, who previously served on the commission, captured 979 votes, 16.29 percent, and Greg Staffins, in his first try for a commission seat, received 365 votes, or 6.08 percent.
In the race for the Republican nomination to Bearden’s school board seat, Bearden came away with 3,690 of the 5,917 votes cast. The incumbent’s total represented 62.36 percent of the votes cast.
Challengers Debi Holcomb and Clarence “Junior” Farmer were only 61 votes apart. Holcomb came away in second place, collecting 1,144 votes or 19.33 percent. Farmer received 1,083 votes or 18.30 percent.
In the Democratic primary for Post 2, Syputa received 455 votes.
In many other primaries, local voters followed statewide trends including those in the races for governor and secretary of state. For more local election coverage, please see page A3.