Incumbent Santrail Hunt-Kuykendall won a Tuesday special election to retain her Education District 7 seat on the East Tallahatchie School District Board of Trustees.
A paltry 15% of eligible registered voters cast a ballot.
Hunt-Kuykendall, 38, defeated fellow Charleston resident James “Honey” Johnson, 70, by a final count of 125-67, garnering 65% of the vote.
After serving a little more than one year since being sworn in as the winner of November 2022 regular elections, Hunt-Kuykendall now settles into the remaining four years of the position’s five-year term.
Johnson, who had finished last among a three-person field that also included Tawanda S. Shannon, filed an election challenge on Nov. 28, 2022, a day before a scheduled Nov. 29 runoff pitting top vote-getter Shannon against Hunt-Kuykendall. In the runoff, the latter enjoyed a narrow victory and assumed the post in January 2023.
Johnson’s challenge led to a court hearing and ruling by a special judge who, citing multiple irregularities, tossed those prior results and ordered a new election.
Shannon later withdrew her name as a candidate for the seat.
Only 192 of the 1,246 registered voters living within the boundaries of Education District 7 bothered to cast a ballot in Tuesday’s election do-over, which involved the Charleston 1, 2 and 3, and Spring Hill voting precincts.
