Winners of Cape County’s contested primary races discuss reactions, plans for office

Four Cape Girardeau County Republican candidates won contested races during the primary election Tuesday, Aug. 6. Three will run unopposed in November, while one will continue to campaign ahead of the general election.

Associate commissioner

Stephen Daume will take over for Paul Koeper, who decided to not run for reelection, as the county’s District 1 associate commissioner after defeating challenger Kody Thompson by 295 votes in the five-way race.

Daume said he was inspired to run for county commissioner because he wanted to “see the county continue to be solid.” After Koeper decided he wasn’t going to run for reelection, Daume said he was asked by multiple people whether he would consider running for the office. As a result, he turned to his Christian faith to guide him.

“I started praying about it and asking myself if that's what the Lord wanted me to do,” Daume said. “I arrived at the conclusion that it's what I needed to do, it's what I wanted to do and I've just decided to make myself available to the residents of the county to serve. My goal is to just do the best job I can serve the residents of the county.”

In response to winning the race, Daume said he was “humbled that people came out and supported” him at the polls Aug. 6.

“They gave me a vote of confidence and put their trust in me to manage the county’s resources,” he said. “It feels awesome, and I just appreciate the opportunity.”

Daume said he ran a “grassroots” campaign, receiving help from his wife, family and volunteers, and took advantage of his “strong work ethic” to do what needed to be done to win.

“We just tried to isolate the precincts with the most likely voters and I tried to go door to door as much as I possibly could,” Daume said. “I knocked on … thousands of doors, probably. I covered a lot of ground, even out in the county. I drove a lot of dirt county roads, trying to hit likely voters and at the same time visiting with people about concerns they have for the county.”

Since Daume doesn’t have an opponent in November, his campaign is pretty well wrapped up. Upon taking office in January, Daume hopes to “begin to analyze how we're prioritizing resources and how we're utilizing our assets”, as well as work on ambulance response time.

“People are the most important resource we have and also equipment. In agriculture, those pieces of equipment continue to get bigger and more expensive, so it's really important that we track how those hours are being used and utilize everything as efficiently as we possibly can,” Daume said. “We want to try to minimize wasted trips, wasted processes and things like that.

“One of the things I like to do is try to figure out how we analyze those things and see if there are places we can save money, if there are places we can be more efficient and then divert those resources perhaps to roads and bridges, infrastructure and emergency services.”

Treasurer

Ronnie Maxwell will take over for Roger Hudson, who recently announced his retirement, as the county’s new treasurer after defeating Matt Henson by more than 2,000 votes.

Maxwell said he and his wife, Jessica, were watching the results come in from the basement of the county building. While the initial results indicated a tight race, Maxwell was able to pull well ahead and win.

“The banker in me says it's not done till the ink is dry. I've seen deals fall apart at the last minute, so until that last precinct comes in, it's not done,” he said. “I was very, very humbled and overwhelmed with the results. It tells me that people liked what I had to say, and they liked my thoughts and my ideas.”

Maxwell said he’s known Hudson since he was in high school and played sports with Hudson's son. After assuming office in January, as he’s running unopposed in November, Maxwell said he will rely on Hudson to give him advice as he navigates his first term.

“Roger has said he's not going anywhere,” Maxwell said. “He’s going to be around, so I've told him we're gonna go ahead and install one of those ‘Bat Phones’ in his house. So, ‘Hey, when the red phone rings, you've got to answer the Bat Phone.’”

One of the things Maxwell enjoys most about being a banker is educating people on financial literacy, which is something he hopes to continue to do as the county’s treasurer. Additionally, he has made plans to work alongside current state treasurer Vivek Malek to install a program similar to the state’s MOBUCK$ program — a linked deposit loan package application portal — for Cape Girardeau County.

“My thing that I'm probably the most passionate about is advocating for financial literacy and getting that developed,” Maxwell said. “... I would like to be able to get out into school districts, help with teachers and faculty and maybe develop a financial literacy program.

“The other thing that I'm excited about is working with our state treasurer right now, Vivek Malek. I met with him and have already reached out to him. He's going to help me in a little bit of a mentor role,” Maxwell said. “I've got an idea to develop a MOBUCK$ program for Cape Girardeau County.”

Coroner

Deputy coroner Craig Williams came out on top in a six-person race for the coroner position, defeating second-place finisher Mark Seesing by 417 votes, and will officially take over for removed Coroner Wavis Jordan.

Williams said he’s “still in shock” after winning the race.

“It's sort of a surreal moment,” Williams said. “I felt confident from the start that I was, I guess I would say the right person for the job. But also, it was my first time ever running a campaign of any sort. To have the county get behind me on top of all first responders and everyone in the area, it's a type of enjoyment I never knew existed.”

Williams served as deputy coroner under Jordan following the 2020 election but was let go from his position in 2023. In February 2024, Williams was reappointed to the deputy position by Sheriff Ruth Ann Dickerson, who is currently serving as the interim coroner. Since being reappointed, Williams said he’s taken on most of the responsibility in the coroner’s office without issue.

“I've been essentially doing the job as the coroner for the most part,” he said. “I've been signing the death certificates, doing a majority of the investigations and I’m also the one requesting and reviewing any medical records, autopsy reports and toxicology reports.”

Upon taking office in January, Williams said he hopes to regain the trust of the public by being transparent with his work. Additionally, one of his other main goals is to work on digitally filing records.

“Pretty much 99% of our information is paper stored. We don't have any type of electronic system to protect your records,” Williams said. “It could just take one natural disaster, and then everything would be lost for the office. We were fortunate that Sheriff Dickerson helped get us an intern over the summer, Ms. Elizabeth Brandt, and she did a great job of at least starting a spreadsheet with the need-to-know information of all the cases back to 2021.”

With his campaign in the bag, Williams expressed his gratitude to the citizens of Cape Girardeau County, Dickerson and area first responders for putting their trust in him. He also thanked his opponents for giving him the motivation to put in the work to win the race.

“I would like to thank the first responders, all the guys that got behind me, because, to be honest, they work hand-in-hand with the coroner's office and they know better than anybody what's needed as far as a competent and professional coroner.

“Lastly, honestly, I'd like to thank the other people that ran for the same office. I’d like to thank them for bringing the determination out of me and a drive that, honestly, I never knew that I had.”

Public administrator

Kyla Biester received 52.26% of the vote in Aug. 6’s Republican primary against acting public administrator Laura Cassatt, who took over the role following the death of former Public Administrator Lisa Reitzel.

While Biester said she was “ecstatic” to win the race, running for office wasn’t necessarily about winning.

“I wanted to try and do what I can to serve this population that needs help taking care of themselves,” Biester said.

The primary election was the first time Biester had run for public office but was hesitant initially. Ultimately, after some convincing, she decided to file for candidacy.

“A couple of people had reached out and said, ‘Hey, you should really think about running’, and I said, ‘Absolutely not,’” Biester recalled. “The more I thought about it, and the more I thought about how close what I did at the Children's Division, having custody of children, helping find placement and all those things kind of just fell in line with helping a different population. …

“Ultimately, after some prayers and talking with family and all of that, I decided that I would.”

Despite defeating Cassatt in the primary, Biester said she hopes she will continue to work alongside her in the public administrator’s office.

Biester is the only candidate who will have a challenger during the November general election when she will face Libertarian Andrew Ostrowski. While Libertarian turnout is typically low in the area, Biester doesn’t plan to let her guard down. Although she plans to take a little bit of time to celebrate her victory, Biester looks to hit the ground running soon.

“I do have a couple more fundraisers kind of planned. We're just going to kind of continue with what we did. I've had people tell me that I shouldn't be concerned too much about my opponent. … But I can't (become complacent). I'm not just going to think it's going to fall in my lap. We're still going to attend any event that we're invited to that we can.”