NEW MADRID COUNTY INCUMBENTS POST WINS IN TUESDAY'S ELECTION

NEW MADRID - All three New Madrid County incumbents easily defeated their opposition in Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Sheriff Jake C. Rone received 3,029 votes, turning back challenges from Thurman Beeson, with 1,357 votes, Herschel E. Lott, with 393 votes, Claude J. McFerren, with 302 votes, and W.W. Wayne Thacker, who got 30 votes.

On the Republican side, former Democratic Sheriff Walter L. Ivy defeated his primary challenger, Glen R. Creasy. Ivy received 248 votes, to Creasy's 101 votes in the only contested county race in the Republican primary.

Incumbent Democratic First District Commissioner Jim Cravens won reelection to another term, with 1,262 votes, defeating Robert Gene Fowler, who received 820 votes, and Bobby Blom, with 467 votes.

In the Second District county commissioner's race, incumbent Democrat J.H. Workman Jr., defeated his primary challenger, Virgil L. Estes, by a vote of 1,599 to 716.

New Madrid County Clerk Jim Farrenburg said turnout for Tuesday's primary was "about average for an August primary. I thought it might be a little higher, but it wasn't," Farrenburg said. There are 11,605 registered voters in the county.