Johnny Bohannon and Burton Young of Murray, Ky., will take the place of Michael Faihst and Pete Lancaster on the Murray City Council, effective January 2015.
Bohannon and Young will take two of the 12 seats available, joining ten incumbents on the City Council.
Bohannon returns to the city council once again with 1,932 votes—6 percent of the vote, and 6th on the list of vote-getters.
Bohannon said reclaiming his seat after a nearly 20-year absence felt good.
“It feels real good,” he said. “I’m real appreciative for everybody that was involved.”
Bohannon relinquished his seat on the Council in the 1990s and was defeated in a run for county judge-executive.
Bohannon retired and felt he had the time to serve the community he lives in.
“I’ve lived here more than 50 years,” Bohannon said. “My sons were raised here.”
The support from the community through the campaign and election process for Bohannon kept nervousness at bay on election night Tuesday. While confident, he was ready to take whatever the voters decided.
“I told myself if I win, great, if I don’t that’s okay,” Bohannon said. “I would still give back to the community.”
Bohannon said he has no specific plans for his first months on the Council, but he hopes to maintain Murray’s reputation as the friendliest small town, as map company Rand McNally named the city in 2013.
“I don’t have an agenda, nothing specific,” Bohannon said. “Murray is the friendliest city, and I want us to continue to be that way.”
As of press time, the other new council member, Young, had not returned calls left by The Murray State News.
Young claimed a seat on the council with nearly 6 percent of the vote, or 1,749 total votes.
Jason Pittman, one of the 12 City Council incumbents up for re-election Tuesday, took 2,356 votes—the most votes of those elected into the Council.
Pittman graduated from Murray State in 2003. During his time at the university he was a student worker for the CFSB Center, and after graduating had the position of president of the Murray State Alumni Association.
Pittman told The News before the vote number totals were finished coming in that he was confident the work he had done on the Council would reflect well in the voting numbers.
“I feel I’ve done a good job representing the people and being involved in the community,” Pittman said.
Pittman’s confidence was backed by his constituents. He reclaimed his spot on the Council easily with 7 percent of the vote and 128 votes more than Danny Hudspeth, the second-highest vote-getter.
Story by Amanda Grau, Assistant News Editor