GOP appointee official will try to win seat

Scott County Commissioner Ron McCormick has already made his decision: Though the general election is more than a year away, he's decided to try to win the seat he was appointed to earlier this year.

McCormick said he's decided to run for election as the commissioner representing the county's northern district, which would make him the first Republican commissioner to win election since 1920. McCormick was appointed to the seat early this year after Jamie Burger won the election for presiding commissioner, forcing him to vacate the seat McCormick now holds.

History says McCormick doesn't have much chance of winning election -- since 1920 only two other Republicans have served on the county commission. The last to do so was Ralph Boyer of Sikeston, who was appointed by Gov. John Ashcroft in May 1989 to represent the county's southern district. The appointment came in the wake of Commissioner Eldon Ziegenhorn's resignation for health reasons. Ziegenhorn's son Dennis, also a Democrat, now holds that seat.

The next year, Boyer was defeated by a Democrat when he sought election. He declined to comment for this article.

Before Boyer's appointment, William Pfefferkorn served as a Republican. He won election in 1920 and went down to defeat two years later.

But McCormick hopes his record and his growing relationship with people in his district can overcome party affiliation in a county where every office holder is from the Democratic Party.

"I'm a hard worker, and I think I've done some things for people in the community that have made them see that just because I'm a Republican doesn't mean I can't help them," McCormick said. McCormick, a residential developer from the rural area near Scott City who also co-owns a cleaning business in Sikeston, said the work of the county commission really has little to do with party.

The junior commissioner said he's worked well with his Democratic colleagues -- Burger and Dennis Ziegenhorn of Sikeston. When McCormick came to office, it was Ziegenhorn who told him immediately that party labels must be put aside to conduct county government, advice McCormick said he's heeded in his 10 months in office.

Ziegenhorn's party affiliation means he'll stay neutral in McCormick's election bid, neither endorsing him nor working to defeat him. And he affirms his past statements that party affiliation ceases to matter when a commissioner walks into the commission chambers.

"We're there to do a job after we're elected," Ziegenhorn said. "The fight comes before that."

At the same time, Ziegenhorn will be trying to win re-election to his seat, a post he first took in 2004.

McCormick and Ziegenhorn join a short list of men who have declared their intention to run for office in 2008. Sikeston police detective Bobby Sullivan publicly declared his intent to seek the sheriff's office this summer, and the current sheriff, Rick Walter, said he also plans to run for re-election.

Some speculation has circulated about McCormick's ambitions for higher office -- that he might want to unseat Steve Hodges, the Democratic state representative in the 161st district, which covers most of Scott County's eastern half.

But McCormick said those plans are not in his near future, though he did mull a bid for legislative office in 2006, when he was a resident of the 160th District.

"That's tempting, but that's really not something that I feel that I'm ready for," McCormick said of running for higher office, "If I can pull off an election and do my four years and feel comfortable that I've made some accomplishments, I'll think about it."

msanders@semissourian.com

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