Runoff election for Howard, Bond

 The four-way race for Donley County Judge came down to Dr. John Howard and Randy Bond after no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote in the Republican Primary Tuesday.

Howard and Bond will square off in a May 27 runoff election, and the winner will have no Democratic opposition in November.

Howard was the top vote getter with 353 but only got 40.4 percent of the total votes. Bond was second with 230 followed by Jack Craft with 152 and Gary Campbell with 138.

In the race for the Republican nomination for Precinct 2 County Commissioner, Daniel Ford was the clear winner and avoided a runoff with 178 votes compared to 96 for Mitchell Martin and 26 for John Grady.

Counting went into the wee hours of the morning Wednesday; and ironically it was the “early” votes that came in last just before 1:00 a.m.

Thirty-three people voted in the Democratic Primary in Donley County, which featured no locally contested races.

An offical total of those voting wasn’t available at press time, but the Enterprise estimated 918 people cast ballots altogether, which would be a turnout of about 38 percent.

Two Republican candidates faced no primary opponents but will have competition in November. Precinct 4 Commissioner Dan Sawyer will face Democratic challenger Ricky Ratten, and Pam Mason will face incumbent Democrat Connie Havens for Precinct 1&2 Justice of the Peace.

Republican candidates with no opposition this year were Precinct 3&4 Justice of the Peace Denise Bertrand and County Treasurer Wanda Smith.

County & District Clerk Fay Vargas ran on the Democratic ticket and has no Republican challenger this fall.

Katherine Williams won as a write-in candidate for Republican County Chair.

Also of local interest, Clarendon Congressman Mac Thornberry fended off two Republican challengers in his re-election bid.