By Michael Prochaska
Staff Writer
 
Within the first day of Independent candidate qualifying, two candidates headed over to the Board of Elections office to sign up for an election that’s months away.
 District 2 Board of Education (BOE) incumbent Nelson Hale and District 4 Board of Commissioners (BOC) incumbent Ellen Warren qualified Monday to run as Independents in the Nov. 6 General Election. Because they chose to run as non-party candidates, Hale and Warren were not on the ballot on Tuesday’s General Primary Election.
Other potential Independent candidates have until 12 p.m. Friday, Aug. 1 to qualify for the Nov. 6 General Election. As of press time, Hale and Warren did not have competition in their respected elected offices.
Warren is also currently the chair of the BOC, a position that is voted on not by constituents but by the board itself.
She is a Morgan County cattle farmer and a retiree from Delta Air Lines after 33 years of service.
Hale, co-owner of Harris Home Furnishings and Senior Lender at United Bank , is a life-long resident of Morgan County. When he first announced in 2004 to run as an independent for the BOE, he told the Morgan County Citizen BOE should be a non-partisan race.
“What I don’t want to do is get mixed up in party politics,” he said. “It’s not really relevant at this level."

Printed in the August 2, 2012 edition.