6 Candidates Advance In School Board Race

Terry Tippett File Photo

Voters narrowed the field of 13 candidates to six in the race for the Johnston County Board of Education.

In unofficial results Tuesday night with all precincts reporting, Terry Tippett led the field with 12,419 votes (18%). Kevin Donovan finished second with 11,215 votes (16%), and Michelle Antoine came in third with 10,040 votes (14%). Rick Mercer secured the fourth spot with 6,737 votes (9%), Mark Lane came in fifth with 6,309 votes (9%), while Melissa Bowers secured the sixth position with 5,271 votes (7%).

Seven other candidates were eliminated from the race including Stuart Ashby Lee (3798 votes), Joe Preston (3725 votes), Aldostin “Al” Byrd (2887 votes), Jenn Gurley (2760 votes), Jennifer Slabaugh (2755 votes), George M. Brewer (1976 votes), and John Fischer (1736 votes).

Mr. Byrd was appointed in 2021 to fill out the unexpired term of Tracie Zukowski. Byrd was unsuccessful in his bid to remain on the school board.

The six top vote-getters now advance to the November general elections for three open school board seats. Incumbents Todd Sutton and Terri Sessoms did not seek re-election this year.

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51 COMMENTS

      • Yes she did! I can’t wait to vote her out!! I saw her in public without a mask back during the school masking, I sent her an email calling her out on it and her response was “if you didn’t take a picture of it, it didn’t happen!” Right then I knew she was beyond corrupt.

    • Back to a all white racist board. Good luck Johnston county Glad I have no kids in the Johnston county schools.

      • Kind of racist of you to assume that just because it’s all white that they are automatically racists.

        • Exactly what I was going to say. To assume someone is racist well……is racist. The paradox.

      • They call you racists because they don’t have anything worthwhile to say. You know, losers.

      • You’re still gonna be funding it with your taxes though…you good with that, or planning on moving to a more woke county?

        • Nah Brett I don’t live in Johnston county. Thank god I don’t have to pay taxes for that B.S. lol We have problems here but not like this . We have a diverse board and we let our kids learn . We teach history just like like all of our ancestors lived it . We are not scared that we are gonna be the minorities by 2030. It terrifies you all and Donald trump has you all scared and turning on one another Johnston county will not always be in the hands of our people. . It needs to be diverse.

          • Come together? I was Born in JOCO. In 1978 I heard on my Clock Radio(bet u don’t know what that is.) early morning that the county I was living in was having problems with County & City schools trying to merge. I told My wife of 47 yrs.(now
            ) We are moving back to JOCO so we know people & they know us. 2nd best move I have ever made!! My kids went to school everyday, did home work and respected their teachers. Parents are more Responsible for bad grades and poor attendance than even the kids or haven’t You tried to help with homework. Get involved & be on the side of Good Educators. Push that child every day. Be a Parent!!!!!

    • You clearly have opinions terrybarns, so why didn’t you run?

      To only offer conspiratorial and nonsensical theories without real evidence or alternative obtainable solutions is ridiculous and ineffective. A school board should be composed of a diverse group of individuals that provide varying views and insights that can best help guide the district toward a brighter future for ALL students and staff.

        • Diversity is what has brought these kids that think they are cats or dogs to our schools! They call themselves “Furries”. Don’t care who it offends, these kids are mental and need serious help. Or just yet put their a**es in cages and serve them dog food and cat food. Take their cars away! Animals don’t drive or talk. MENTAL!!!!!

          • Kim, it sounds like you’re the one who needs help here. Some people have completely different views than you do. Shocker, isn’t it?

      • How a pro-mask, pro-CRT, anti-parent, lover-of-other-people’s-money type would secure over 6000 votes in Joco is astounding. Our kids need to be educated, but our adults need to be MORE educated.

        • Spot on! We need to spread the word far and wide in Joco about all these candidates true positions so people can make an informed decision.
          Anyone else feel like the fraud and corruption will still keep the good ones out?

        • The irony of your statement, claiming the adults need to be “educated “when you repeat falsehoods about “CRT”. “CRT isn’t being taught in Johnston County Schools”, teachers teach the state standards. When you claim that people who disagree with you are “anti-parent”, and when you think that people who go with science over politics are wrong…simply because they don’t agree with your politics. I support candidates who best look out for our schools without letting the gutter politics get in the way of what is best for our schools.

          • Which science are you referring to? The science that has now conclusively shown masks make Covid worse or that the more jabs you get the more likely you are to have heart problems, Covid, infertility, death, neurological problems, cancer, miscarriages, etc? That science or the MSM science that says it’s perfectly normal for 18-25yos to die from heart attacks, to continue getting Covid after getting a jab to prevent it and masks work? Just curious.

  4. Terry Sessoms, Todd Sutton, and Al Byrd will be remembered as elevating our academic school status from the bottom one-third teer and navigating an unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic while modeling diversity in the Administration and on the Johnston County School Board.

    • Ummm how so? All they did is shut the schools down. That’s not navigating that’s surrendering. With regards to “modeling diversity” I fail to see a Hispanic on the school board or in admin. They are by far and away the fastest growing group in the county

  5. Nobody cares about your composed group of diverse Social-Democrats that want to create a Star Wars bar scene society that can only survive on a college campus. HEE,HEE,HEE, I think we have some disappointment showing through.

  6. It’s a real shame John Fischer didn’t get his message out better. I think a lot more would have voted for him if he had. How much money has Rick Mercier spent over the years to keep on losing? Poor sap. I will support Donovan and Tippett, but Michelle Antoine seems clueless and Mercier is a whiner.

    • Donovan and Michelle got on board wit tippet and where able to get the same voters as Tippett . Michelle and Donovan used Tippett

      • Not entirely true… I voted for Donovan but not the other 2. I know many others that did the same just like the vote totals show.

    • We think alike! I do wish Fischer had gotten his message out more, he would have been fantastic on the board. I think Antoine will be good in that she is at least against CRT, vax and mask mandates and has some good ideas for the schools. I just hope she can get her messages more streamlined and come with ideas for change not just saying it needs to happen.

  7. I wanted to vote yesterday and I went to where the NCSBE website told me to go and no one was there!

  10. I’d love to see Jen R’s scientific studies that show that masks “conclusively make COVID worse”, or that getting vaccinated is worse than getting the disease. But I won’t hold my breath because Jen doesn’t really back up her claims with credible sources. propaganda sources, like Paul Alexander, will cherry pick sentences from various studies to paint a dishonest picture while ignoring the overall conclusion, but it’s not science and it isn’t honest.In the meantime, I’ll stick with the peer reviewed studies. They have evidence and accountability. https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/do-face-masks-work-here-are-49-scientific-studies-that-explain-why-they-do/

    • They make it worse because it gives people a false sense of security from catching a virus. All masks were intended to do was slow the spread from an asymptomatic person that has Covid and doesn’t know it. IT DOES NOT PREVENT YOU FROM BREATHING IN THE VIRUS.

      • Only I’m not interested in baseless and unscientific opinion. Masks do help prevent the spread of COVID, even if far from perfect. Your argument is like trying to claim that seatbelts make car crashes worse because it gives one a “false sense of security”. I was interested in actual science, but as usual. its clear that none will be provided. The anti-mask crowd thus confirms (again) that they disagree not because of evidence, but merely because of politics.

        • Not even close to the same thing. Go ahead and look at the stats. There’s were more cases of Covid when we had both vaccines and mask mandates. Go ahead and check the cdc, I know it might be an inconvenient truth for you but give it a shot.

          • The data is conclusive that masks reduced the spread of COVID and that vaccines reduced the severity of the disease. Your latest argument, after your baseless claim about them “giving a false sense of security”, is to claim that since numbers were high, then somehow, that must mean the masks and/or vaccines don’t work. With the Delta variant, there were widespread cases. Most of those going to the hospital were the unvaccinated people. That’s reality and I can back up my claims with scientific sources. So far, you have yet to present any scientific source that backs up your nonsense. What the CDC actually says: “Vaccines reduce the risk of COVID-19, including the risk of severe illness and death among people who are fully vaccinated. In addition to data from clinical trials, evidence from real-world vaccine effectiveness studies show that COVID-19 vaccines help protect against COVID-19 infections, with or without symptoms (asymptomatic infections). Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalizations has remained relatively high over time, although it tends to be slightly lower for older adults and for people with weakened immune systems.” https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/effectiveness/work.html

    • So called scientific studies are loaded up with liberal socialist democrat scientist that have guaranteed the out come to support the socialist democrat president and governor. Mr. or Ms.Joyce Junior you probably believe and worship the climate change religion and support man made carbon taxes that is going to save the earth from houses built to close to the sea. Does anyone know why dealth from cancer, heart attack and auto crashes have taken a dive for the last couple of years?

    • Tony “WRAL” Braswell with his big Joe Preston for school board sign in front of his gas station better take notice that he is bleeding support worst than a flat tire bled air. Here is some advice for our Mr. Tony “WRAL” Braswell, you helped your man Joe Preston get 3725 votes by stepping out and throwing your pinlict support behind Joe Preston. Tax Payers and Parents sent you Mr. Tony “WRAL” Braswell a clear message that your endorsement will get as many votes as you will should you decide to run again for Johnston County Commissioner. The votes for Terry Tippit, Kevin Donovan and our most beloved Mother Antoine was a total of 33,500 votes screaming that the endorsement of Mr. Tony “WRAL Braswell means absolutely nothing.

      • I may not be as deep in the weeds as you are about Tony Braswell, but I have not seen or heard any valid reason why Joe Preston should not have come in the top 3. I totally liked his idea about breaking down the state district and county districts into local districts, run by the parents and the community. The money for the students stays here, the rules for the schools are local and they can cancel school for weather related issues locally, as opposed to the whole county being cancelled for the same weather event. Doesn’t that sound like a good idea? The further away from the people a government body gets, the more administrative and largess it becomes, consuming more of your tax dollars. Just sayin.

  11. Some of the names who made the cut and some that didn’t come as no big surprise. I voted for who I hope will serve the students and community best. Michelle Antoine was a surprise.

    • Get in line. I’m waiting for her factual evidence that the 2020 election was fraudulent. She also believes that Democrats want to allow abortion up to 28 days after birth. She’s a nut who thinks a Proud Boy is what JOCO needs on its school board.

      • Evidence of the fraudulent 2020 election can be see in the documentary 2000 Mules. If you are in Benson, or close, its showing at a local church here Sunday the 22nd 7pm. Let me know if you are interested and I will tell you where.

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