Final results for Lexington-area school boards are in. See who won
Here are results for Lexington-area school districts in Tuesday’s elections.
Lexington 1
Eleven people were seeking three open seats on the Lexington 1 school board, which oversees roughly 27,000 students covering an area from Lake Murray to the Aiken County border.
The candidates were: Harriet Poe Coker, Richard Gehling, Aaron Granade, Dana Homesley, Katie McCown, Andrea Nazarenko, Nicholas Pizzuti, Mary Price, Rhys Sage and Beth Shealy.
Beth Shealy maintained a strong lead all night, ending with 19.22% of the votes with 100% of precincts reporting. Chris Rice followed with 15.01% and Katie McCown had 10.84% of the vote.
Harriet Poe Coker followed in fourth with 10.45% of the vote, and all other candidates had less than 10%.
None of the current board members with terms expiring this year decided to run again, meaning three new members will join the board after this election. The incumbents not running were Jada Garris, Kyle Guyton and Timothy Oswald.
Shealy, the top vote-getter, focused her campaign priorities around bridging learning gaps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and working on better ways to retain district employees.
The candidates for Lexington 1 varied widely on the issues they hope to address on the school board. Multiple candidates said there should be more policies to remove “inappropriate” or “controversial” teaching material from the district.
Others stressed a need for improved transparency and accountability, and fostering stronger relationships between the public and the school district by holding town halls with parents and other community members.
You can read more about what each candidate told The State here.
Lexington 2
Four people were seeking three open seats on the Lexington 2 school board.
The candidates include incumbents Linda Alford-Wooten and Christina Rucker, as well as newcomer Joseph Chuck Hightower and former board member Kevin Key.
Rucker recieved the most votes Tuesday, ending the night with 28.23% to Alford-Wooten’s 27.08%, with 100% of precincts reporting.
Key led Hightower by just six votes, earning 22.10% of the vote to Hightower’s 22.08%.
Lexington 2 incumbent Bud Summers did not seek re-election. The seven-member board will welcome at least one new face after the election.
At least two of the candidates for the Lexington 2 school board, Alford-Wooten and Rucker, listed school safety as a top priority when responding to a questionnaire from The State. The other candidates did not respond. You can read the questionnaire responses here.
Teacher retention and pay issues have also been a talking point for candidates in the Lexington 2 school board race, according to reporting from the Lexington Chronicle.
Lexington 2 includes the Cayce and West Columbia areas.
Lexington 3
Three seats were open on the seven-member Lexington 3 school board this year, but only two candidates formally filed to run: incumbents Frances Bouknight and Cheryl Burgess.
Gariane Gunter, who is also a current board member, did not file to run before an administrative deadline and led a write-in campaign to keep her seat.
A write-in campaign depends on voters adding a candidate’s name themselves in the write-in space on their ballots. With only two other candidates in the race, whoever gets the most people to write in their name in the small community in western Lexington County will take the third seat for the next four years.
The Lexington 3 school district covers the Batesburg-Leesville area.
Bouknight kept a steady lead all evening, ending with 39.29% of votes, with 100% of precincts reporting. Burgess had 36.45% of votes. Write-in candidates earned 24.26% of votes in the Lexington 3 race.
Lexington 4
Three seats were open this year on the seven-member Lexington 4 school board, with three candidates who have filed to fill them. Two of the three candidates, Brad Frick and Zachary Smith, are current board members in the Gaston-Swansea area district.
The third candidate is Quincy Cardell Sutton. Current board member Donna Goodwin did not file to run for re-election.
Frick remained the steady front-runner Tuesday, with 37.78% of votes, with 100% of precincts reporting. Smith followed with 33.02% and Sutton received 28.55% of votes.
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 8:57 PM.
