Parry to face Lennon in November: Tuesday election results

by Bruce Wallace

It will be an election of stark contrasts in the November’s race for Boone County Commission Southern District.

While Fred Parry will represent the Republican Party and Brianna Lennon will represent the Democrats, the commission seat has more to do with fixing roads, dealing with the Boone County Fairgrounds and finding a way to properly fund the sheriff’s department and the jail than it does partisan politics.

Still, Parry and Lennon are a contrast of old vs young, private businessman vs attorney who has worked at the State and, yes, male vs female.

Lennon and Parry both won strong support in their wins in Tuesday’s Primary election.

Vote totals for Lennon were 3,177 to Ted Farnen’s 1,557. Ann Peters had 1,538 votes and Trevor Fowler had 1,127 votes.

Parry polled 5,935 votes to Matt Cavanaugh’s 1,911 votes.

“It will be an easy race to differentiate between the candidates,” said Parry. “I don’t think I have to introduce myself to a lot of people – there won’t be much of a guessing game” when it comes to differentiating between the candidates.

Lennon would not make any predictions, but did say it would be a good race of contrasting ideas.
“I won’t make any assumptions,” said Lennon, just after she had won her first race, but this should make for a good campaign. It will be a race of different ideas.”

In other races Boone County races:

• Jeff Harris edged Deborah Daniels by a slim margin 6,424 to 6,301 votes for the Circuit Court Judge’s seat.

• Sonja Boone came from behind late in the evening to edge Chimene Schwach in the race for Public Administrator 6,131 votes to 5,339 votes.
In two very heated statewide races, Republicans battled for the right to represent their party in November.

• Eric Greitens defeated Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, businessman John Brunner and former Speaker of the Missouri House Catherine Hanaway and will face Democrat Chris Koster in November. Greitens won Boone County with 31.7% of the vote. Greitens had 35% of the vote statewide.

• Josh Hawley defeated Missouri Senator Kurt Schaefer in the Republican Attorney General’s race. Hawley won Boone County as well, getting 58.6% of the vote. Hawley will face Teresa Hensley in November.

• One losing candidate who garnered more votes than anyone thought possible? Chief Wana Dubie. The Salem candidate for US Senate lost badly to Jason Kander, however, Chief Wana Dubie picked up plenty of attention for his (obvious) name recognition – and had 30,340 votes at the end of the evening.

• Turnout in Boone County was as light as predicted – only 30.51% of registered voters voted in the election.