Candidates for local office have been qualifying at three different locations in Bulloch County this week for Georgia’s May 21 general primary and nonpartisan general election. The first half of the four and a half-day qualifying period confirmed contests for sheriff, one county commission seat and one school board seat.

There are also new candidates for two other school board seats, whose incumbents said they are not seeking re-election. But most of the county’s elected department heads are running again.

Qualifying hours were 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday-Thursday, March 4-7, and 9 a.m.-12 noon Friday, March 8. So as of this Wednesday report, a day and a half remained for other candidates to sign up.

Sheriff Noel Brown brought his completed paperwork and qualifying fee payment to the Bulloch County Republican Party headquarters Monday. Then Keith Howard qualified as a candidate for sheriff, also as a Republican, Tuesday. Howard, who retired from the Georgia State Patrol and then served as chief deputy for the Jenkins County Sheriff’s Office, also ran for Bulloch County sheriff in 2016, when Brown was first elected, and again in 2020.

Neither Chairman Roy Thompson of the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners nor an announced challenger, David Bennett, an Air Evac flight nurse and former Army Nurse Corps officer, had qualified as of midday Wednesday. Bennett said he was planning to do so on Thursday. Both are Republicans.

Only candidates for nonpartisan offices, including four Board of Education seats, Magistrate Court judge and Probate Court judge, can qualify directly with county Election Supervisor Shontay Jones at the Board of Elections and Registration office in the Bulloch County Annex, 113 North Main St., Suite 201, Statesboro.

Candidates for partisan offices, including commissioners chairman, three other county commissioner seats, sheriff, clerk of Superior Court, tax commissioner, solicitor-general of State Court, coroner and county surveyor, fill out their paperwork and pay qualifying fees with local party officials at one of two different locations

Party locations

The Bulloch County Republican Party is hosting qualifying for local Republican primary candidates at the GOP headquarters in Unit 3 at 24 Joe Kennedy Boulevard. This is outside the boulevard’s loop behind Ogeechee Technical College and near the Lewis Color printing plant. Qualifying hours are the same as for nonpartisan offices.

Meanwhile, the Bulloch County Democratic Committee’s candidate qualifying space is a conference room across the lobby from the county elections office, again 113 North Main St. Officially, the Democrats’ qualifying hours were also 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Thursday and 9 a.m.-noon Friday, March 8. But Democratic Committee Treasurer Don Armel announced he would only be at the annex 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday and that any candidates after that should call him at 912-678-8399 for an appointment.

“I offered a space to both parties, and the Democratic Party took me up on it,” said Jones. “The Republican Party stated that they would do it at their headquarters, which was fine, and they did it there as well in 2022.”

Nonpartisan qualifiers

The one race for a nonpartisan within-county contest to emerge by midweek is a school board race.

Heather Mims, incumbent District 7 member of the Bulloch County Board of Education, qualified for her seat Monday, and so did a challenger, Lisha Nevil. Mims is now in her eighth year as a board member and in January was returned to the position of vice chair by vote of the members, having served as vice chair for several years previously. Nevil, a retired teacher, taught for 30 years, including 26 years at Nevils Elementary School.

Meanwhile, Board of Education District 1 will have a different representative on the board beginning in January but will not necessarily have a race. Current District 1 member Glenn Womack, first elected in 2020, confirmed by telephone Wednesday that he will not seek re-election.

Lannie Lanier, who served on the board years ago, had qualified as a candidate for the District 1 seat Tuesday, and Womack said they had talked about it and that Lanier has his full support.

BOE District 3 will also get a new board member in January, to succeed Stuart Tedders, Ph.D., who also confirmed Wednesday that he does not plan to seek re-election. Local attorney Jennifer Campbell Mock qualified Monday to run for the seat.

Tedders, now dean of the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University, was first elected to the school board in 2016.

As of midday Wednesday, neither incumbent BOE member Maurice Hill nor anyone else had signed up for the District 8 seat, in which Hill has served for 19 years.

Bulloch County Chief Magistrate Judge Karen Riggs Jones, who has not been elected before but is considered the incumbent since being appointed last fall to fill the unexpired term of now-retired previous Chief Magistrate June Bradley Braswell, qualified Monday as a candidate to seek a new four-year term. So did Probate Court Judge Lorna DeLoach.

As nonpartisan contests, any races for the judgeships or school board seats will be decided either in the May 21 election or its possible June 18 runoff. However, candidates on the May 21 Democratic and Republican primary ballots will be vying for their parties’ nominations and could face off with the other party’s nominees in the Nov. 5 general election.

A party chair runs

The Bulloch County Democratic Committee signed up two candidates earlier this week, one an incumbent county commissioner and the other a challenger for a Republican in a different commission seat.

Commissioner Ray Mosley, long-time incumbent in District 1, Seat A, qualified Monday as a candidate for re-election. Serving continuously since first elected in 2012 after previously being appointed to fill two separate unexpired terms, he is only incumbent Democrat up for election to a Bulloch County office this year. District 1, the majority-minority commission district, has two members, with alternating terms so that one is elected every four years, while District 2, the majority-white district, has four members, two of whom are elected each four-year cycle.

Leonard “Len” Fatica, who chairs the Bulloch County Democratic Committee, qualified after announcing his candidacy last week for District 2, Seat C, now held by Commissioner Jappy Stringer, a Republican.

“I am going to take a leave of absence (as Democratic Committee chair), probably after the primary,” Fatica said. “I’m not anticipating anybody running on the Democratic ticket for county commissioner other than Ray and myself, but then after the primary, Jessica Orvis, who is the first vice chair, will step back in and be the chair until after the election.”

Stringer, the incumbent, was first elected to Seat 2-C in 2016 and so is now in the fourth year of his second term. He qualified as a candidate Tuesday at the county GOP headquarters.

Commissioner Curt Deal, the Seat 2-A incumbent, qualified there Tuesday, so all of the district commission seats now have candidates.

Other Republican primary candidates include Bulloch County State Court Solicitor-General Catherine Sumner Findley, Tax Commissioner Leslie D. Akins, Clerk of Superior Court Heather Banks McNeal and County Surveyor John A. Dotson. These incumbents signed up Monday and Tuesday.

Chuck Francis, currently one of the deputy coroners, qualified Wednesday as a Republican candidate for county coroner. Coroner Richard Pylant, incumbent by appointment since the May 1, 2023 retirement of longtime Coroner Jake Futch, had not signed up or announced his intentions.

Candidate fees

Qualifying fees, based on salaries for the offices, are $600 for commission chairman, $225 for district commissioner, $2,425.67 for Superior Court clerk or tax commissioner, $2,799.43 for sheriff, $4,142.37 for solicitor-general, $630 for coroner and $100 for county surveyor.

For nonpartisan offices, the qualifying fees are $2,474.19 for Magistrate Court judge, $2,425.67 for Probate Court judge, and $72 for a Board of Education seat.