Political news of the day:

I saw where one of my wife’s secondary school classmates, “Nobody doesn’t like” Sarah Lee Davis, was elected in yesterday’s election at Hawkins County, Tennessee, to the office of Clerk of Courts.  In addition, according to the Kingsport Times-News, another of my wife’s classmates, Hannah Boyd Bell, a former member of Reagan’s West (or was it East?) Wing staff, has a brother, Daniel Boyd, who was also elected uncontested to the Hawkins County Juvenile Court judge seat, receiving 5,189 votes.  I didn’t even know he was running.

More from Davis:

Davis said the first person to sign her candidate petition for clerk of courts was her father, Jackie Lee, who passed away five days later on Sept. 15. Davis, who received 3,932 votes ahead of Cradic’s 2,966, said she dedicates the victory to her father, who gave her the confidence to run for the clerk of courts office.

“I took the petition to him and he signed it, and he told me that when I started work there he told his wife that I would have that office someday,” Davis said. “He looked at me and he said, ‘I have all the faith in the world in you, and you will run that office someday.’ And I’m going to get that chance thanks to my dad for having more faith in me than I did myself. He was really my driving force, and that’s what carried me through it.”

Davis said she attributes the victory to hard work.

“I went door to door, and I didn’t buy one advertisement in the newspaper because I felt like I was asking the people of Hawkins County for a job, and when you ask someone for a job you do it face to face,” Davis added. “I would say I’m here for my job interview because I’m asking you for a job.”

When Davis takes over in September, she said her number one priority will be doubling collections. She also plans to cross-train every deputy clerk to do every job in the office so they can provide better customer service, and she intends to improve public relations.

. . .

Voter turnout for Tuesday’s election in Hawkins County was 7,985 out of the county’s 35,017 eligible voters, or 22.8 percent. As for partisan turnout there were 7,606 Republican votes cast and 379 Democratic votes cast.