Brown County voters cast their ballots Tuesday resulting in a big win in the race for sheriff while setting two runoff elections for county commissioners in the Republican Primary Election.
Incumbent Bobby Grubbs maintained his position as Brown County Sheriff receiving 3,283 votes (64.17%) defeating challenger Brock Johnson with 1,833 votes (35.83%).
Sheriff Grubbs said he was pleased with the win.
“I feel like we ran an honest and straight forward campaign,” said Grubbs. “We evaluate employees every six months and I get my evaluation every four years. Seems I got a pretty good one.”
Grubbs said he was going to focus on his existing duties but looks forward to working on jailer retention.
“I want to try to get jailer salaries up. It’s a hard job. They are the unsung heroes of law enforcement,” said Grubbs. “They work under hard conditions, with the same people we do, except they have them 24 hours a day.”
Grubbs stated he was proud of his employees and felt like they would continue the work they have been doing.
“We’re going to be back to work tomorrow like we have been. I’m proud of the people I’ve got working here,” Grubbs said.
Races for Brown County commissioners narrowed the competition by setting a pair of runoff elections for July 31st.
For commissioner Precinct 1, Tommy Blevins received 543 votes (32.36%) and will face Gary Worley in the runoff. Worley received 339 votes (20.20%) and beat out Vance Hill by 4 votes.
Incumbent Richard Gist received the top number of votes in the race for Precinct 3 commissioner with 579 votes (34.42%). Gist was closely followed by challenger Wayne Shaw with 572 votes (34.01%). Gist and Shaw will face off in the runoff election on July 31st.
Incumbent constable Precinct 3 C.T. Ham was defeated in Tuesday’s primary by challenger Keith Varner. Varner received 801 votes (50.82%) to Ham’s 775 votes (49.18%).
Election officials said that 5,431 total votes were cast in both the Republican and Democratic Primary Elections. That is a 24.8% voter turnout. Officials said that 5,212 of those ballots were cast Republican. No local Brown County candidates filed for places on the Democratic ticket this year.
Grubbs is pictured at top being interviewed by television reporters at his election headquarters Tuesday. Photo contributed by Miranda Benefield.
See Brown County Primary Election results by clicking here.
