Billy Davis
The second-place finisher in Tuesday’s special election faces a big challenge: close a sizeable gap to defeat the well-known incumbent.

District 2 Supervisor Vernice Avant finished first with a comfortable lead in the supervisor election, garnering 46 percent of 1,347 votes cast. But she failed to get the coveted 50 percent plus one, setting up a runoff with William Pride.

Pride finished second with 280 total votes, which amounted to 21 percent – 334 votes behind Avant.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Pride said after the election, referring to the vote totals between first and second place.

He would not describe any campaign plans for the runoff – “can’t give anything away,” he said.

For a come-from-behind win, he has less than three weeks to pull it off. District 2 voters return November 24 for the District 2 runoff.

Tuesday’s vote totals show Avant led Pride and all other challengers at all six voting precincts. Her best showing came at the South Sardis precinct, where she bested Pride 196-64.

Pride’s most narrow loss came in the Curtis community, where he lives, 90-81.

In the nearby Macedonia-Concord precinct, Avant defeated Pride 64 to 38.

Avant also led with absentee ballots – 78 were counted for her compared to 15 for Pride. Forty-six of those absentees came from the South Sardis precinct.

Pride did describe one plan for the runoff: he presumes Mrs. Avant is running on her late husband’s record, so he intends to challenge voters to name accomplishments from the former District 2 supervisor.

Robert Avant was serving his fifth term as county supervisor when he passed away August 8, 2008.

Mrs. Avant was then appointed to her late husband’s seat, which made her the incumbent in the current county race. She had been seated for 14 months by Election Day.

 “They started putting gravel on driveways last week,” Pride said. “If you’re taking care of things, you don’t have to fix roads before the election.”

The north portion of Panola County, once a prosperous community, has hemorrhaged jobs, families and taxable properties for several decades.

The Board of Supervisors has been told the tax base continues to shrink in the north, leaving the more prosperous south portion of the county to fund county services, and pay for roads and bridges.

Mrs. Avant, when reached after Tuesday’s election, said she intends to discuss housing, public education and jobs as she readies for the coming runoff.

“Don’t forget the green,” she added. “We want to be a cleaner community, too.”

In Tuesday’s election, the remaining votes were split among four remaining candidates, with Tim Holliday finishing third with 161 votes.

Candidates Paul Henderson and Clyde Sellers tied with 114 votes, and Johnny D. Salter finished last with 64 votes.