By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

At the courthouse Tuesday night, Vice Mayor Ruth Herbel watched vote numbers on a screen in the hall way as her future as a Marion City Council member evaporated.

Across town, soon-to-be-former mayor David Mayfield, city councilmen Zach Collett and Kevin Burkholder, successful council candidate Tim Baxa, mayoral-elect Mike Powers and others partied at Marion Country Club.

When a reporter showed up to take photos of the group, Powers hurried over to yell that the reporter had to leave.

“Why are you here?” Powers said. “You have no right to be here!”

Told the reporter was there to get photos, Powers continued yelling. He said he had rented the country club and the reporter must leave.

Powers, the only candidate on the mayoral ballot, won with 539 votes to 21 write-ins.

Burkholder, the only candidate for the unexpired term of Chris Costello — a seat he was appointed to fill in the interim — got 493 votes to 39 write-ins.

Running for two council seats were Baxa, with 445 votes; Amy Smith, with 418 votes, and Herbel, with 236.

In other contested races, Eugene Pearson and Mary Strotkamp won two available seats on Burns city council with 22 and 33 votes;.

Robert Gayle won the Florence mayoral seat with 68 votes. Kenneth Hoffman won Florence’s Ward 1 city council seat with 35 votes. Mark Slater won Florence Ward 2 with 25 votes.

Catherine Weems won the Peabody mayoral seat with 106 votes; and three Peabody city council seats were won by Kevin Burke with 154 votes, Linda Martinez with 121 voted, and Draxa Langley with 90 votes.

In contested school board elections, Position 3 on the Centre school board was won by Michelle Hajek with 19 votes. Four positions on the Peabody-Burns board were won by Brian Simmonds with 251, Paige Barnes with 232, Travis Wilson with 205, and Hope Reynolds with 202.

Position 3 on the Marion-Floence board was won by Mitch Guetterman with 448 votes. Position 7 was won by Jillian Edmundson with 418.

Four positions on the Durham-Hillsboro-Lehigh board were won by Sarah Fesnke with 266, Jimmy Janzen with 304, Jared Jost with 404, and Roderick Koons with 295.