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Sumner County School Board incumbents claim victory in August elections




Betsy Hawkins won her first full term on the Sumner County School Board on Thursday. File

Betsy Hawkins won her first full term on the Sumner County School Board on Thursday. File

Incumbents facing challengers in two of five Sumner County School Board races in the Aug. 6 County General Election declared victory on Thursday.

Both District 6 School Board member Betsy Hawkins and Ted Wise, who represents District 8, will continue to represent their constituents.

School board seats in Districts 2, 4 and 10 were also on the ballot, but incumbents in those districts didn’t face challengers.

Hawkins was appointed to the seat in January by the Sumner County Commission following the death of her husband Jim Hawkins in December. Jim Hawkins, elected in 2016, was serving his first term on the school board.

“I have felt moved to step up and finish the job my husband started,” Betsy Hawkins, a trained paralegal who co-owned her husband’s law office, told county commissioners.

Hawkins was challenged by Ginny Hall Plunkett, a real estate agent and former teacher in the Aug. 6 election. Hawkins won 56.14 percent of the vote with 1,998 votes while Plunkett garnered 43.69 percent with 1,555 votes.

In the other contested race, Ted Wise, who has been serving on the school board since 2008, won 56.65 percent of the vote with 1,192 votes while challenger Kyle Robinson garnered 908, or 43.16 percent of the vote.

Incumbents Tim Brewer, Sarah Andrews and Glen Gregory ran unopposed.

State and federal primary races were also on the ballot including the U.S. Senate seat held for years by Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander who stepped down this year.

Gallatin native Bill Hagerty clinched the Republican nomination Thursday beating out 14 other Republican candidates.

Hagerty won 52.24 percent of the Republican vote in Sumner County while physician Manny Sethi finished second with 41.5 percent.

Marquita Bradshaw won the democratic nomination in Sumner County for U.S. Senate with 32 percent of the vote.

The other races on the ballot were uncontested. They included:

Ferrell Haile, president pro tempore of the Tennessee Senate, was first elected in 2012. Haile again won his party’s nod for Tennessee Senate District 18; Terri Lynn Weaver of Lancaster, a singer, songwriter and small business owner, ran unopposed in Tennessee House district 40. Weaver has held that seat since 2008.

House Majority Leader William Lamberth of Cottontown, first elected in 2012, ran unopposed for the Republican nomination in District 44 and Attorney Johnny Garrett of Goodlettsville ran unopposed in District 45. Businessman John Rose, who was first elected in 2018 after Diane Black decided to run for governor, ran unopposed for his District 6 U. S. House seat.

Democrat Christopher Martin Finley won his party’s nomination in Sumner County for U.S. House of Representatives in District 6.

John Isbell, who ran unopposed, won his fifth term as Sumner County Assessor on Thursday.

Kristi Cornett was elected Democratic state executive committeewoman for District 18.

 

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