By Lori Ehde
and Sara Strong
Rock County conservatives did their share in contributing to the Republican takeover of control in the Congress.
On local ballots, Republicans won in all but the state senate race, and even that one showed a narrow margin with Luverne's Alex Frick taking 49.78 percent of the votes compared with incumbent Jim Vickerman's 50.12 percent.
Partisan turnout aside, employees in the Rock County Auditor-Treasurer's Office were pleased with the 84 percent local participation.
“I think it's great to see the voter turnout,” said Lisa DeBoer. “It's great to see that people are interested in what’s going on in their community.
While the presidential election of 2000 brought 90 percent of registered voters to the polls, she said 84 percent is well above average.
That could be attributed to a number of things.
The sheriff and auditor-treasurer races haven't seen a contest for years, and the Luverne mayor candidates have gotten attention this year. School boards and county-wide competition in other city elections also increased voter turnout.
High voter turnout, in addition to hand-counting the supplemental ballots in the U.S. Senate race, made for a long night in the Auditor-Treasurer's Office.
“I went home at 5 a.m., took a hot shower, got the kids off to school, and came back to work on time,” DeBoer said.
Rock County Sheriff
Mike Winkels 2,663
Ron McClure 1,800
After 12 years at the helm, Rock County Sheriff Ron McClure will relinquish his duties to Sergeant Mike Winkels, who easily won the county’s sheriff election Tuesday.
“People wanted change,” Winkels said, when asked why he thought voters supported him. “People want to see change and they want to see results. They're definitely going to get that with the Policing Institute changes underway.”
Winkels said the campaign was a good way for the two candidates to mingle with the public. “I told Ron, the one good thing about this campaign is that you're out talking to people, and I'm out talking to people, and that’s what community policing is all about.”
McClure said he's not surprised so much that Winkels won, but that he won by such a wide margin. The final tally came in at 2,663-1800, with Winkels garnering 59 percent of the votes.
“I thought it would be close one way or another,” McClure said. “I guess people were just ready for a change. When you think of what's happened in the last year with the homicide and the drug activity … I think people felt we weren't doing anything about it. Part of it was change, and part of it was these things hanging out there.”
He said he hopes Winkels will support the efforts of community policing. “If he's smart he'll know this is what the people want and he won't undercut it,” McClure said.
McClure retains his duties as sheriff until the end of the year, and he said he won't remain with the department. He had no specific plans after that.
“I'm going to wait awhile before I decide if I'm going to do anything but retire,” he said. “I might enjoy this. I can do a lot of things I want to do, with a lot less stress.”
Luverne Mayor
Glen Gust 1,402
Keith Erickson 781
Mayor Glen Gust has served two years in office, and now has another two to look forward to.
“I had a good feeling [during the campaign],” he said. “I’ve just got some things to do so I wanted to stay in.”
Gust said the first two years went so fast, partly because he was learning so much about the city and running meetings. “I don’t have that learning curve now, so I’ll be able to do more.”
Gust will be leading a relatively new council, with two new members and two with just two years experience. New council members are Pat Baustian and Robert Kaczrowski.
Councilman Keith Erickson has served 12 years on the Luverne City Council and couldn't be reached for comment.
Auditor-Treasurer
Gloria Rolfs 2,394
Lisa Ahrendt-DeBoer 2,044
Long-time Rock County Auditor-Treasurer Margaret Cook announced she'll retire at the end of this year prompting a flurry of interested candidates for the job.
The September primaries resulted in current Auditor-Treasurer employees Gloria Rolfs and Lisa Ahrendt-DeBoer on the ballot.
They beat out Nic o'Lena Bosch, Candace Reese, Ona Reker and Johnna Bowron- Ahrendt for a run at the general election.
Rolfs earned the honor by a narrow margin Tuesday with 53.91 percent of the votes, compared with DeBoer's 46.03 percent.
Cook was elected treasurer in 1978 and took on the combined office of auditor and treasurer in the mid-1990s.
She’ll pass the baton to Rolfs in January.
The job includes overseeing many things including elections, vital records, passports, bond reports to the state, collecting taxes and settlements.
Other local races
Several Rock County rural communities saw races this year for mayor and/or council seats. Following are listings of who was elected in those races:
In Beaver Creek, Arlyn Gehrke and Burdell Willers will serve on the council.
In Hills, Keith Elbers and Linus Svoboda will take the council seats and Jim Jellema will serve another term as mayor.
In Steen, Robert Sandbulte and Brad Bosch will fill the seats. Melvin Van Batavia will be mayor.
In Kenneth, Walter Kopp returns as mayor and Keith Hoven and Delbert Nieuwboer will serve on the council.
In Magnolia, Fabian Deutsch will be mayor and Becky Kruger and Marvin Kroontje will serve on the council.
No information was available from Hardwick's elections.
On the county front, Richard Bakken, Jane Wildung, Robert “Bob” Jarchow and Ron Boyenga ran unopposed for Commissioner seats.
County Attorney Donald Klosterbuer and County Recorder Jere Ohme were re-elected in unopposed contests.
Statewide
Winning state candidates sometimes differed from Rock County's choices.
In Rock County, U.S. Senate Candidate Norm Coleman (R ) got 154 votes, and Walter Mondale (D) got 42. Actual winner was Coleman.
For U.S. Representative District 1, Rock County voted 2,509 for Gil Gutknecht (R ), 1,746 for Steve Andreasen (D), and 168 for Greg Mikkelson (G). Actual winner was Gutknecht.
State Senator District 22 in Rock County brought 2,258 votes for Jim Vickerman (D) and 2,243 for Alex Frick. Actual winner was Vickerman.
Rock County voters for State Representative District 22A gave Doug Magnus (R) 2,573 votes and Ted Winter (D) 1,930 votes. Statewide winner was Magnus.
In the Governor and Lieutenant Governor category Rock County voted 2,195 for Pawlenty/Molnau (R), 1,727 for Moe/Sabo (D), and 452 for Penny/Robertson (I).