Beaufort County School Board: 1 current member unseated and another race won by six votes
With 100% of the vote reporting at 8:00 a.m. Wednesday, an incumbent Beaufort County School Board member had been defeated, and another race was decided by just six votes.
In District 2, Chloe Gordon won against Terry Thomas with 2,162 votes to 2,156 votes. At 12:45 a.m. last night, the South Carolina Election Commission reported that Terry Thomas won against Chloe Gordon 2,142 votes to 2,140 votes.
District 2 hasn’t had representation since Chairman David Striebinger died less than a month ago.
“I should have been a slam dunk,” Thomas said Tuesday night. “Two votes, holy crow!”
Gordon declined to comment on the outcome Tuesday night.
For District 10, Elizabeth Hey won against incumbent Mel Campbell and Peter Kristian. Hey received 38.20% of vote, Campbell received 26.41% and Kristian received 34.94%.
No results were in for the District 5 race between write-in candidates Cynthia Hayes and Gwenyth Saunders. Redistricting led to District 5 representative Richard Geier to run unopposed for District 4. No one filed to run for Geier’s current seat in District 5, resulting in a race between the two write-in candidates.
More than half of the 11 seats on the Beaufort County school board were open in Tuesday night’s election.
Carlton Dallas in District 8 is the only newcomer running unopposed.
Incumbent William Smith is running unopposed in District 3 and incumbent Rachel Wisnefski is running unopposed in District 7.
Seats not up for reelection are Earl Campbell in District 1; Angela Middleton, District 7; Christiana Gwozdz, District 9, and Ingrid Boatright, District 10.
The ballot was significantly more crowded than the board’s 2020 elections, when six candidates ran for four open seats, two of which were uncontested.
New members will be sworn in at the board’s first January meeting. At that time, the board will also elect new officers to replace chairwoman Gwozdz, vice chairwoman Cathy Robine and secretary Angela Middleton. Gwozdz was elected as chair in a special meeting after Striebinger died unexpectedly.
The new school board in January will have a variety of issues to tackle, including the book review process, pandemic learning loss and school security.
Election results are unofficial and set to be certified this week.
This story was originally published November 8, 2022 at 9:40 PM.
