Runoff election scheduled Nov. 21

EASLEY — Easley Mayor Butch Womack is facing a runoff with challenger Lisa Talbert.

Talbert (1,454 votes) actually garnered 347 more votes than the incumbent mayor’s 1,107 — but neither managed to break the 50% threshold needed for an outright victory. Outlier David Cox snagged 723 votes last Tuesday, so it will be interesting to see which way Cox’s votes swing in the run-off on Nov. 21.

With Easley’s City Council, Tom O’Shields had 370 votes to Mike Puckett’s 315 for the Ward 1 seat and Donna Rainey’s 276 votes were enough to top Pat Webb’s 238 to win the Ward 3 seat. The Ward 5 seat went to Justin Alexander with 231 votes, ousting the incumbent, Nancy Breazeale, who had 174 votes.

Nick Caldwell will remain Commissioner for Easley Combined Utilities after defeating Rick Tate at the polls.

No run-off is needed in the mayoral races for Six Mile or Pickens. In Six Mile, James Atkinson defeated Kayla Holtzclaw 155 to 74 to land the big chair.

In Pickens, two city council members were vying for the Mayor’s seat after current Mayor Fletcher Perry announced he would not be seeking reelection. Isaiah Scipio defeated Lois Porter 422 to 204.

Danny Adams managed to get a majority of votes on Nov. 7 to secure a place on Pickens City Council. Allie Winter, Morrell Stokes and Floyd Rogers will runoff for two remaining seats after receiving 262, 245 and 235 votes, respectively.

Norris Mayor Odell Williams ran unopposed as did Calli Lucas and Brian Norris for the (two) available town council seats.

Over in Central, the special election to fill L.C. Hayes’ seat had 285 voters turn out, with Robert Carl Griffin landing 117 — 41 percent of the vote. He and Bryan Schuapp will be on the Nov. 21 runoff ballot as Schuapp had 85 votes to current Councilman Harry Holladay’s 74.

The two top candidates in the at-large election to fill three seats each had 181 votes to secure their spots on council. Lynn O’Dell Chapman and Curtis L Peek were unofficially elected Nov. 7 and the next-highest vote-getters will be on the Nov. 21 runoff ballot.

Joe Moss had 134 votes and Doug Barry had 132, securing their places in the runoff race.

No surprises in Liberty, two wards had openings with only one candidate running for each. Daniel Graybeal received 202 votes for Ward 3 and Jeff Massie had 222 votes for his Ward 4 seat.

Incumbent Rhonda Whitaker kept her at-large seat by 10 votes, receiving 129 to challenger Jon Humphrey’s 119.