Town council races feature mixed bag of results

A mixture of incumbents and challengers were voted into North Big Horn County town councils in Tuesday’s General Election.

In Lovell, for instance, incumbent Carol Miller was re-elected to the council after not initially filing for office but accepting a write-in nomination in the August primary. Challenger Mike Grant topped the ticket with 456 votes, unofficially, and Miller received 442. Incumbent Ray Messamer received 322 votes, Gareth Robertson 319.

In Byron, incumbent council member Karma Sanders was re-elected with 109 votes and will be joined on the council by Mike Brightly, who topped the ticket with 121 votes. Stephanie Wagner received 85 votes, Toby Turnupseed 80.

Two incumbent town council members went down to defeat in Cowley. Dexter Woodis and Rob Johnson lost their council seats to challengers June Minchow and Max Lewis. Minchow topped the ticket with 277 votes, and Lewis garnered 181. A close third was Woodis with 171 votes, and Johnson received 120.

In Frannie, incumbent Roger Ganoung was re-elected, receiving 35 votes in Big Horn County and six in the Park County side of the community for 41 total votes. He will be joined on the council by Shang Clendenen, who garnered 39 votes – 35 in Big Horn County and four in Park, while just out of the running in the tightly contested race was incumbent Guy DeSantis, who received 33 votes – 29 in Big Horn County and four in Park.

Nick Loftus and Aspen Beall were unopposed for the Deaver Town Council, and Loftus received 66 votes, Beall 65.

All other races of interest were unopposed.

Elected to the Lovell Hospital Board were incumbent David Winterholler and Max Lewis (at large) and Patricia Crumrine (Lovell seat).

Cherie Wambeke and Kevin Griffin were unopposed for their seats on the Big Horn County Fire Protection District No. 5 board of directors, and Bruce Jolley and Greg Rael were unopposed and re-elected to their District 1 board of directors seats.

Spencer Ellis and Brad Tippetts were re-elected to the Shoshone Conservation District board.

Senior citizens district

The mill levy to help financially support the North Big Horn County Senior Citizen Service District passed overwhelmingly on Tuesday, receiving 2,044 votes, with only 468 votes opposed. And elected to the North Senior Citizen Service District board of trustees were Lori Scheffler, Annella Prosser and Edie Crosby.