Kinnaird weathers Carey's challenge

Incumbent Ellie Kinnaird easily turned back Democratic opponent Moses Carey Jr. to seek her seventh term in state Senate District 23 this November.

Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Orange-Person district, but Kinnaird said she would campaign hard against Republican challenger Greg Bass on Election Day.

"I want to make sure people know who I am," she said. "I think that's only fair. There are new people coming in, and they deserve to know where I stand and what I've done."

Carey gave up his commissioner's seat to run for the Senate and said he had no immediate political plans. His sixth term expires at the end of the year.

"I've lost elections before, and life goes on," Carey said. "I don't plan to withdraw from public life."

School board gains 3 new members

Voters on Tuesday elected former Orange County Commissioner Steve Halkiotis, along with Eddie Eubanks and Tony McKnight, to the Orange County Board of Education.

Halkiotis, the top vote-getter, served as principal of Orange High School for 15 years and as an Orange County commissioner for 20 years.

With the election of Eubanks and McKnight, the board gains some racial diversity.

"It's really exciting because it's really needed," said E'Vonne Coleman-Cook, who is a member of the predominantly black North Orange Education Task Force. "The board needed some diversity in the voices, particularly when they've been making very important policy decisions."

The seven-member board has been all-white since Brenda Stephens chose not to run for re-election in 2006. That year, McKnight was unsuccessful in his first run for the board.

McKnight, an apprenticeship and training consultant for the North Carolina Department of Labor, identified school funding and employment opportunities for career-track graduates as the biggest challenges for the district.

Eubanks worked for 38 years as a social worker, nine of them at Orange County Schools tackling dropout prevention of at-risk youth.

Kost and Cross advance in Chatham

Chatham County Commissioner Patrick Barnes was ousted by challenger Sally Kost on Tuesday night, according to unofficial election results.

With all but one of the 19 precincts reporting, Kost led Barnes, 60 percent to 40 percent.

Kost, 55, will face Republican Jeanna Bock in the November election for the District 1 seat.

Kost said she wants Chatham County government to respond to citizen concerns and find more money for schools.

"We need to be much more collaborative," said Kost, chairwoman of the county's planning board.

"We've got to make schools our highest priority," she said. "We do that by finding money in the budget, by establishing goals and priorities."

In the other Democratic primary, District 2, incumbent Mike Cross appeared to have held off a spirited challenge from Jeffrey Starkweather. Cross led by 10 percent with 18 of 19 precincts reporting.

Cross will square off against GOP candidate Andy Wilkie in November.

Cross, 64, who has served one term, said fixing the county's infrastructure is a top priority. He also said he wants to keep the issues of concern in his district at the forefront.

They're often pushed aside, he said, because his district hasn't seen quite the population boom as other areas of the county.

Starkweather's campaign mirrored Kost's, focusing on education, smart growth and a more open, accessible government.

Starkweather, 61, said he wanted to attract clean industries to Chatham County to help pay for schools, roads and other needs without property tax rate increases.