Mark Carlisle

GAINESBORO-Incumbents won three of four board of director seats up for grabs in the recent Twin Lakes Telephone Cooperative election.

The exception to the rule was in Clay County (Area 2), where challenger Mark Carlisle unseated incumbent Luke Collins in a close vote, receiving 1,259 votes (53.1%) to 1,111 (46.9%) for Collins. More votes (2,370) were cast in the Clay County race than any other. 

Incumbents took the other three races with a two-thirds to 70 percent majority.

Clay County native Ricky Strong won the Area 1 (Jackson County) seat with 1,471 votes (66.3%), to Duane Randolph’s 747 votes (33.7%). Strong was the leading vote-getter in the four races.

Kent J. Brown took the Area 3 (Overton County) seat with 1,395 votes (68.1%) to Joel Poston’s 652 votes (31.9%). Gregory Brown won the Area 5 (Fentress County) seat with 1,465 votes (70.8%) to John Michael Wood’s 607 votes (29.2%). 

Early voting was held at local offices on September 26, with the rest of the voting taking place at the co-op’s annual meeting the following Saturday.