By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

PINEVILLE, Mo. — Democrat Robert Evenson sneaked past Republican Gregg Sweeten by 18 votes in the race for the open McDonald County sheriff’s post Tuesday. An incumbent Republican on the County Commission won re-election, and an incumbent Democrat did not.

Evenson, 37, is a former sheriff in the county who lost a re-election bid to Republican Don Schlessman in 2004. Schlessman elected not to seek re-election this year and Sweeten, his 43-year-old chief deputy, ran on the Republican ticket instead.

Evenson, who has 20 years of law enforcement experience and has been working as a detective for the Barry County Sheriff’s Department, managed 3,974 votes to Sweeten’s 3,956. There were 20 write-in votes for other people than the two official candidates cast at the polls.

Sam Gaskill held on to his Eastern District seat on the McDonald County Commission, defeating Democratic challenger Loren Garren, of rural Goodman, with 59 percent of the vote. Republican McCaskill drew 2,568 votes to Garren’s 1,770.

But incumbent Democratic Commissioner Gayle Brock lost his re-election bid to GOP challenger Ronnie Walker, of Southwest City, in the Western District by 427 votes. Walker garnered 1,971 votes, or 56 percent, while Brock lagged behind at 1,544 votes.

Brock, who was appointed to the post in 2003, was elected in 2004 but was denied a second full term by voters in Tuesday’s presidential election that saw 62.7 percent turnout among registered voters in McDonald County.

In other races of interest in McDonald County, Republican Assessor Laura Pope, 52, of Noel, walked away with almost 66 percent of the vote in her race with Democrat Paul Sprenkle, 57, of Goodman. Pope won a third term by a vote of 5,227 to 2,697. This is the second consecutive election that Sprenkle has been defeated by Pope.

Incumbent Donna Underwood also won a third full term as public administrator. Underwood, a Republican, earned slightly more than 67 percent of the vote, defeating first-time Democratic challenger Joyce Cruikshank by a vote of 5,271 to 2,575, numbers that closely paralleled those of Pope in the assessor’s race.

The 54-year-old Underwood, from Pineville, was first appointed to the office in 1999 and then elected in 2000 and 2004.

But the largest percentage win in county contests came in the open coroner’s race, where Republican candidate Tracy Dowd beat Democrat Doc Halversen 5,729 to 2,059. Dowd, who defeated current Coroner B.J. Goodwin III in the GOP primary, garnered a decisive 73 percent of votes Tuesday.

Dowd, 43, of Noel, is a co-owner of Walker Dowd Funeral Home in Anderson. Halversen, 62, is a retired emergency services worker from Anderson.

Voters in Noel narrowly defeated two ballot propositions that sought to make the elected positions of police chief and collector appointed by the town’s board of aldermen.