Daws re-elected, Shannon, Russell win additional terms

Published 10:26 pm Tuesday, June 3, 2008

A Limestone County commissioner will be coming back for another four years and two county Board of Education members won another six years.

Tuesday’s election brought Bill Daws back to District 4 for a second full term. Darrin Russell was also reelected from Board of Education District 4 and James Shannon was reelected from District 5. All are Democrats with no Republican opposition in the November General Election.

Limestone Voters cast a total of 7,889 votes Tuesday with 34 of 35 precincts – or 97.15 percent—counted. Still to be counted is the provisional box.

Democrats cast 4,114 votes, while Republicans cast 3,761 votes.

Daws handily defeated challenger Sam McMeans Jr. 902 to 554.

“I appreciate all of the support I got, everybody who came out and made phone calls and went door-to-door,” said Daws. “I especially appreciate all my family members who supported me. I feel the citizens of District 4 voted for four more years of progress.”

Russell fought back challenger Brad Stovall 501 to 402 to capture 55.48 percent of the vote for District 4 school board. Russell also expressed appreciation to his supporters. He said the biggest problem facing the Board of Education is annexations by Madison and Huntsville take away headcounts and thus state funding.

“We don’t know what the annexations will actually do to our student count,” said Russell. “With Huntsville and Madison possibly building new schools, we don’t know what it will do to our population.”

Shannon defeated Berry 538 to 319 to snare a decisive 62.78 percent of the vote. Berry had previously served on the school board for 18 years.

“I will continue to do what I’ve done for the last 5 1/2 years,” said Shannon. “Finances are the biggest problem facing us. We have more children every year, but we get less from the state. We failed on the 1-cent sales tax. If we don’t do something to raise money in Limestone County, it’s just going to get worse.

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