By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — Jasper County voters returned one incumbent and elected three new members to the Jasper County Emergency Services Board in balloting Tuesday.
Residents also put candidates with law-enforcement backgrounds in all but one of the posts being contested. Balloting filled four of seven positions on the board, which oversees the emergency dispatching operation that serves most emergency service most agencies outside Joplin.
The geographical districts are divided based on population, with the Eastern District taking in most of the county except for Joplin and parts of Duquesne.
The two winners in the Eastern District races were Dan Stanley, of Carthage, a two-term incumbent who works for Dyno Nobel and Larry Newman, of Carthage, a detective with the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department.
Among six candidates, Stanley received 9,926 votes and Newman, 8,576, followed by J.D. Whitledge, 4,798, Alan Martin, 4,720, Randy Haycook, 3,971 and Gerald Gardner, 3,780.
Winning the two Western District seats were Carl Francis, of Carl Junction, who is police chief in Webb City and Jeff Merriman, of Joplin, a lieutenant in the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department in charge of information technology. He plans to resign his post later this month to go into private business.
Francis lead the five-member field with 9,248 votes, followed by Merriman, with 7,178, Chuck Gibson, 6,925; Lee Smith, a board incumbent, 4,871 and Ervin Wilson, 2,890.
Primary funding for the board’s emergency dispatching operation comes from a countywide sales tax of one-tenth of one percent.
