Voters have chosen challenger Dawn King over incumbent Kathleen Knight-Abowitz for a spot on the Talawanda School Board.
Incumbents Chris Otto and Rebecca Howard will return to the school board, according to the Butler County Board of Elections’ unofficial election night results.
“I appreciate all the votes and everybody that helped me on the campaign,” Otto said. “It’s a nice affirmation that we’re doing a good job, and I appreciate that.”
In this election, school district residents could vote for three of six candidates to fill three seats on the five-member board:
- Incumbent Rebecca Howard retained her seat with 3,961 votes
- Incumbent Chris Otto retained his seat with 3,941 votes
- Challenger Dawn King won election with 3,895 votes
- Incumbent Kathleen Knight-Abowitz lost her seat with 3,496 votes
- Challenger Ivan J. Carver was not elected with 3,234 votes
- Challenger Andrew R. Langsner was not elected with 2,849 votes.
Although not reelected, Knight-Abowitz retained strong support within the city of Oxford, drawing more votes than King in every Oxford precinct.
“Obviously I’m a little disappointed that Kathleen didn’t get reelected. She’s been a really valuable member of the board,” Howard said. “I’ve also met Dawn and think she’s going to bring a good perspective to the board.”
King had strong support in Hamilton, Hanover and Milford, where in most precincts she out-polled the incumbent more than two-to-one.
“We still have a lot of hard work ahead of us with our budget and other hard decisions that we’re going to have to make,” Howard said.
