A closely contested judge’s race made for an interesting election

Seldom have I seen a candidate work as hard as Seth Reeves did in his campaign for district judge and not win an election. Seth was all over the place and campaigned for over a year only to come up about 200 votes short.

Mark White is Editor of The News Journal.

His work ethic is very impressive. He has some good ideas.

I got to know Seth a lot better as he was out campaigning over the past year, and he impresses me.

I don’t have any doubt thought that he will one day be a judge, whether it is district, circuit or perhaps even federal.

Congratulations to incumbent District Judge Cathy Prewitt who beat Reeves on Election Day. She also campaigned extremely hard in her bid to win re-election.

While Reeves carried Whitley County by about a 700-vote margin in the two-county 34^th Judicial District race, Prewitt won by nearly 1,000 votes in McCreary County to put her over the top.

I’ll be curious to see whether Prewitt, who already has 19 years on the bench, will seek re-election as district judge again in four years.

After you spend about 20 years in a profession, it’s natural to start asking yourself some questions.

How much longer do I want to do this? How do I want to leave my profession? What do I want to do in the next chapter of my life?

As someone, who has pondered these questions multiple times myself, I can say that the idea of going out on your own terms is a very appealing concept.

It is something that I suspect not only Prewitt, but some of our other judges and office holders will probably be asking themselves before they run for office again in two, four or eight years.

• Bill Elliotte emerged victorious in the Whitley County sheriff’s race Tuesday. I expect him to do good things in office.

Elliotte defeated a pair of write-in candidates. Jim Walden received 357 votes while Harvey Alder, who had only been in the race for about one month, garnered 893 write-in votes in a very impressive first political outing.

One has to wonder how Alder might do if his name appeared on an actual ballot rather than just running as a write-in candidate, and what office Alder might seek if he decides on more forays into politics. He could be an interesting candidate to watch in the years to come for a few different offices.

• Speaking of write-in candidates, incumbent Third-District Constable Jim Thornton lost his write-in bid Tuesday garnering 777 votes to Republican nominee Jordan Davis’ 1,174.

For those that don’t know, Thornton made an unsuccessful bid in the May Primary Election to become sheriff finishing in a competitive third place before trying to retain his current job through a write-in candidate bid.

To my knowledge, no write-in candidate has ever won an election in Whitley County. Thornton’s race last Tuesday was an interesting experiment in terms of whether a write-in candidate can win in Whitley County considering he was the sitting incumbent in the race.

This leads me to conclude that short of a perfect storm of circumstances I don’t foresee a write-in candidate ever winning an election in Whitley County.

You would have to have the Republican nominee being in some major hot water, such as an arrest or federal indictment. You would have to have no Democrat or Independent in the race. The write-in candidate would have to be someone well qualified for the position, who is pretty well liked and widely respected for it to maybe happen.

• On Election Day, you had three really good candidates running for two seats on the Corbin Independent Board of Education in Paul Taylor, Carcille Burchette and Kimberly Croley. Sadly only two of them could get elected with Taylor and Burchette emerging successful. Croley has done excellent work on the board during her many years of service and will be missed.