DEATH IN OFFICE LEAVES OPEN RACE IN STODDARD COUNTY

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- Darla Grossman was appointed interim public administrator May 22 after Stoddard County public administrator Dean Cooper died in office. The timing of the appointment was too late for Grossman to file for election as a Democrat, so on Friday she turned in the required number of signatures to run for the office as an independent.

The election in November will pit Grossman against one of four Democrats in the Aug. 1 primary election. No Republicans filed for the office.

Grossman is an office manager for a chiropractor, and prior to that worked as a paralegal for more than 20 years. She said most people don't know what the public administrator does. She herself had some misconceptions before she took on the job.

"Like most people I was under the impression that the reason the public administrator got involved was there wasn't any family. There really are families, but either they are unwilling or unable to take on additional responsibility."

The death of Cooper, who had been in declining health, created a Democratic free-for-all for the job. Teresa Driskill, a legal secretary who lives in Dexter, says she had been planning to run for the office even before Cooper's death. "Any other time, nobody wants the office," she said. "Lo and behold, everybody is running."

Driskill said qualifications are going to be the deciding factor in this campaign. "Working in a law office, I have done a lot of probate work," she said, "descendant estates, minor estates, conservators and guardianships."

She said the newly elected public administrator is "going to have to care about individual and not just the elderly. The handicapped, minors in unusual situations, children who have lost both parents.

"... Sometimes there's nobody to make sure funds are looked out for."

She and her husband, Mike, have three children.

Jackie Gilles, a lighting consultant for H&H Industries who lives in Dexter, is another Democratic candidate.

His experience working with people is his primary qualification, he said. "You're going to have to be able to get along with people."

Gilles is the adjutant and finance officer for the American Legion post in Bloomfield.

"Their funds are what you're taking care of whether they're in a nursing home or an incompetent child whose parents passed away or a child in a state school," he said. "It's something that needs to be taken care of. They don't need to be just a number out there instead of a name.

"A lot of times they get to be a statistic. But these people are real."

He and his wife, Kay, have one child.

Duane Kirby of Bloomfield is the third Democratic candidate for public administrator. He had an administrative noncommissioned officer rating when he was discharged from the U.S. Army and was the superintendent of a power plant in California before his retirement. "I'd like to have another administrative job," he said.

"It's helping people, that's one thing I'm after," he said.

Kirby and his wife, Deane, have five children.

The fourth candidate is Brenda "Sugarplum" Wilson, a Bloomfield resident who with her husband, David, owns Sugarplum Golf Cars in Bloomfield..

"Sugarplum" is a nickname her husband gave her, and Wilson decided to use it on the ballot. "A lot of people know me by that name," she says.

Her qualifications consist of working with elderly people on her own for several years and ombudsman training she began at the first of the year. Volunteer ombudsmen go into nursing homes, visit with residents and explain their rights to them. "If their rights are being abused you can report it to the regional program, which will relay the concerns to the Department of Aging," she said.

"I feel like I'm qualified for (the job)," Wilson says. "I love working with the elderly, and I think I could do the best job."

Wilson and her husband have four sons.