By Conrad Dudderar
Staff Writer
EL RENO – It’s a sweep.
In what many considered a foregone conclusion, Kelly Beck has been elected to another three-year term on the Canadian County Fair Board.
The longtime fair board chairman and member won by a 32-0 unanimous vote in the Feb. 13th fair board election at the Canadian County Fairgrounds, 220 N Country Club Road.
Beck, a cattle breeder from Yukon, represents District 1 on the nine-member Canadian County Fair Board.
Beck thanked those who braved the weather Feb. 13 with an impending blizzard to support him in the election.
“I know a lot of guys are out here feeding cows, calving cows and chopping ice,” Beck said after the votes were tallied. “To come out, that was awesome. That really meant a lot. So, I appreciate it.”
Yukon’s Rick Cacini also had filed for the District 1 fair board seat, but later decided to drop out after learning Beck wanted to continue serving.
But Cacini’s decision was too late for his name to be taken off the ballot, so the Feb. 13th fair board election proceeded as planned.
The doors of the Education Building at the Canadian County Fairgrounds were open at noon last Saturday for the election. Signage encouraged social distancing and facemasks were offered.
SHOW YOUR I.D.
Citizens were asked to provide either a voter I.D. or another form of identification to verify who they were. Only District 1 residents were eligible to vote in this election.
“Their names were verified against District 1 voter rolls,” said District 1 County Commissioner Marc Hader, who conducted the election.
“A single ballot was issued to each authorized voter. They were allowed to cast their votes at that time, if they wished.”
Since fair board elections by law do not specify a range of time to vote – only a time to hold the election – the doors were closed and locked at the statutorily specified time of 2 p.m.
Commissioner Hader called the election to order at 2 p.m. and directed the ballots to be counted and verified.
The ballots were counted and audited by former County Commissioners’ chief of staff John Johnson and District 41 State Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, R-Piedmont.
Commissioner Hader announced the results, with Beck winning by the 32-0 margin.
After Beck’s brief speech, Hader adjourned the meeting at 2:04 p.m.
Three Canadian County Fair Board seats – representing each county commissioner district – are up for election annually. This was the second straight year more than one person filed for a District 1 seat.
Two county fair board members won new terms in office after running unopposed this year – El Reno’s Clint Reuter in District 2 and Calumet’s Michael Crowly in District 3.
Other county fair board members are Dan Wedman of Calumet, Michael Beard of Calumet, Justin Atkinson of El Reno, Ken Carpenter of Mustang, Phil Carson of Yukon, and Brent Hunt of El Reno.
