Cook and Zordel Win the GOP Prowers County Primary

An unofficial vote count from the June 24 Primary election for Prowers County Commissioner for District 2 shows that the challenger, Ron Cook, has defeated incumbent Joe Marble by a vote of 1153 to 570.  As there are no other candidates for the position, Cook will assume the position, joining Wendy Buxton-Andrade and Henry Schnabel on the commissioner board.  By dint of his victory, however, Cook will need to resign his seat from the Lamar City Council.  A replacement will be needed and the city will make an announcement for applications in the near future.

The other primary race in Prowers County came down to two candidates on the GOP ticket from an early field of five.  Senior Deputy Sheriff Sam Zordel won in his bid to replace retiring sheriff Jim Faull, who announced early in the year that he would not run for another term.  The vote was 888 for Zordel and 804 for Undersheriff Ron Trowbridge.  Both men had received the endorsement from Sheriff Faull as being qualified for the position.  The race for sheriff is not over at this point, as Senior Deputy Ron Manly declared himself as an unaffiliated candidate for the sheriff’s office.  Manly needs to secure a set number of signatures by the July 10 deadline so he can petition himself onto the ballot for the November General Election.  If this is accomplished, then Zordel will face Manly in that election. There had been substantial interest in the sheriff’s position with several other candidates declaring their intentions to run including, Granada Police Chief David Dougherty, Deputy Shawn Stone and Lamar Police Detective David Reid.

One other race of note on the Republican Party ticket was the four way, state-wide primary contest among Mike Kopp, Scott Gessler, Tom Tancredo and Bob Beauprez to determine which candidate will go up against incumbent Democrat governor John Hickenlooper in November.  The voting from Prowers County had Kopp with 476 votes for first and he was followed by Beauprez with 425.

By Russ Baldwin

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