By KENDALL OWENS
T-H Staff Writer
The official winner has been declared in the race for St. Francis County Treasurer.
Incumbent Ann Harbin was challenged for the position by Tammy Talley. In last Tuesday's primary, Harbin won by a slim margin. Talley requested the ballots be recounted, a move which cost her about $750.
According to numbers from the recount, the margin of victory for Harbin increased by over 100 votes, taking the election totals to 2,757 for Harbin to 2,543 for Talley. The recount gave Harbin a 214-vote margin of victory with 52 percent of the vote.
Last week, Harbin won the election by 111 votes, with some of those votes coming in a precinct which some officials have said is under investigation by the Arkansas State Police for possible voter fraud.
According to St. Francis County Deputy Prosecutor Chris Morledge, St. Francis County Clerk Elizabeth Smith requested that the ballot box for the Rawlison area be thrown out after discrepancies in the number of registered voters in the area and the number of ballots cast in the treasurer's race revealed huge differences.
Lt. Henry Lamar with the ASP Investigation Division said the ASP is not currently investigating any problems with the Rawlison box, nor would they. "We haven't had anything on any boxes in St. Francis County yet," said Lamar. "If there was an investigation, I would know about it because it would have to cross my desk, but we wouldn't be investigating it anyway. At this time all matters involving the elections are being turned over by this office to the FBI for investigation," Lamar added.
Last week, Talley received 61 votes from the Rawlison precinct while Harbin received only three. In Tuesday's tally, Harbin still only received three votes but a 55 vote difference showed for Talley. According to Morledge, the criminal investigation of the Rawlison precinct did not stop the results of the box from being counted Tuesday. According to the voter sign-in sheets, 10 people had signed in at Rawlison, and in Tuesday's recount only 10 ballots were counted.
According to Smith, her request for the box to be thrown out came after a discussion with officials in the Secretary of State's office regarding the irregularity.
"I talked with the Secretary of State's office last week, and I was told that it was my duty to oversee this portion of the election. If I didn't make the request, then I could be listed as an accessory to any voter fraud found in the investigation," Smith said.
According to Talley, her request for a recount was not in hopes of changing the results of last Tuesday's election, but it was an attempt to satisfy concerned voters that she said felt that their voting rights might have been violated.
"I requested this recount not necessarily to overturn the results of last week's election, but because of the voters that called me and talked to me and told me that they felt their rights had been violated. I ran for the office to work for the people, and that is what I will continue to try to do," Talley said.
"I wanted each ballot to be accounted for, and there were problems that people told me about that caused me to question that," she added.
Harbin again thanked her constituents for their support saying, "I'm pleased with the turnout of this tonight, and I give all the praise and thanks to the Lord. I would like to again thank the citizens of St. Francis County for showing their trust in me and for believing that I would continue to serve them as I have. I will continue to serve all the citizens of St. Francis County as I have in the past."
Talley also thanked her supporters following the recount and hinted that another run for office could come in two years. "I would like to thank all of my supporters for the work and the effort they put out during this campaign. I've had so many people call me supporting me, and I appreciate that support and the confidence that they've given me."
In response to the question of whether another run for treasurer would come in 2004, Talley answered, "I've had some tell me that I don't have much choice, and I probably will run, but two years is a long time, and I'll just have to see where things stand then."
Following the recount, election commissioners certified the votes for all of the primary. There will be a runoff election for the Madison Constable position, and a statewide race for the land commissioners office.
By DAVID NICHOL
T-H Staff Writer
U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln told farmers this morning that the new Farm Bill took a lot of fighting, but said it has a lot of good things in it for farmers.
She also warned that there was still fighting to be done.
"Making this bill a reality was no easy thing. I told some gentlemen I work with in Congress that I was glad they finally got to feel what childbirth is like," she joked. "We labored with this thing for months."
Then turning serious, she said, "I've got to tell you though, it's not over. Because the issues we fought for in this bill, particularly in terms of our payments...these are issues on which people are going to come back at us time and time again."
The bill increases agriculture spending by nearly 80 percent, increasing payments to grain and cotton farmers and adding many others.
Lincoln said the fight will become harder, because it seems that fewer and fewer people have an understanding of the particular problems farmers face. For instance, she mentioned work-intensive and capital-intensive crops like rice and cotton.
"Let me tell you, I'm quickly becoming outnumbered in Washington, by people who have never been on a farm, people won don't understand farming and particularly don't understand the way we do it," Lincoln said.
On the commodities payments, she said, "I understand farming, and I understand how important they (the payments) are.
"I caught a little grief yesterday from a couple of people who aren't farmers. They said, 'I can't believe you fought so hard for that bill. All that money going to those farmers.' And I said it was interesting they immediately adopted what they read in the papers without really understanding what the issues are."
The larger payments, she said were a safety net not just for farmers, but for the entire country.
"It's going to help us maintain the market shares in the global economy, to keep us a thriving, producing nation. And to keep you, the farmers continuing to produce," Lincoln said.
"It's something people truly enjoy, whether they admit it or not. Sometimes they don't realize -- when they go to the grocery shelves and they get a food that costs less per capita income than anywhere else in the world, and grown in a safe manner -- where it came from. Those are things we have to remind the American people of, time and time again."
Some subjects outside the farm bill were also addressed during the meeting. There were some complaints by farmers of a personnel shortage in local USDA offices, which Lincoln said she had also heard from other sources.
She was also asked about some proposals which one farmer said would limit or eliminate altogether ground water use by farmers. The farmer said use of surface water was not practical in all areas. Another farmer complained that environmentalists sometimes make it difficult for farmers who try to build reservoirs to conserve surface water.
Lincoln agreed that water is an issue.
"When I first ran for Congress in 1991, the first thing my daddy said to me was, 'The biggest issue you will deal with in your entire life is water rights and water resources,'" she said.
An infant was suffocated by its mother while she was experiencing a seizure Tuesday morning.
Reanna Nicole Koons, the one-month-old daughter of Michael and Tracy Koons of El Campo, Texas, was found dead inside the sleeper cab of her parents tractor-trailer truck, according to St. Francis County Sheriff's Department Chief Investigator Glenn Ramsey.
Ramsey said the child's mother had a history of seizures, and had reportedly had three seizures earlier in the day, but refused her husband's request for hospital treatment.
A short time later, however, Ramsey reported the mother was taking a nap with the child in the truck's sleeper when she apparently had another seizure and rolled over onto the child, causing her death.
The father told police he stopped at the Truckstops of America at Shell Lake and called police. The baby was later pronounced dead at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Forrest City.
A large amount of money has been reported stolen from an unlocked filing cabinet inside the band hall on the Forrest City High School campus.
Christopher Tate reported to the Forrest City Police Department Tuesday morning that five bank bags, containing about $2,000 in cash and $11,828 in checks, were stolen between 3:30 Friday afternoon and when he discovered the theft about 9:30 Tuesday morning.
According to the police report, someone with a key to the building and knowledge of the band building's alarm system, is believed to have entered the building and deactivated the alarm system before unlocking the office door. Once inside the office, a key was used to unlock a padlock on a closet which contained the filing cabinet that could not be locked, police reported.