Atkins joins County Commission race
TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Merlin Atkins, shown here at the Nodaway County Ministry Center, where he serves as a board member and works as a volunteer, has declared his candidacy for the North District seat on the Nodaway County Commission. Running as a Democrat, Atkins is so far unopposed in the Aug. 2 primary. Local businessman Chris Burns is seeking the Republican nomination for the same office.
Retired farmer and food pantry volunteer Merlin Atkins has entered the race for the North District seat on the Nodaway County Commission.
So far Atkins is the sole Democrat seeking the office, which is being vacated by Commissioner Robert Westfall, who announced earlier that he would not run for reelection after 12 years of service.
If no other Democrat files for a spot on the Aug. 2 primary ballot — the filing period closes March 29 — Atkins will face the Republican winner in the November general election.
As of Friday, local businessman Chris Burns was the sole candidate on the GOP side of the ledger.
Atkins, 72, is a retired farmer who now lives in Maryville. After growing up on a farm in Holt County, he moved to Nodaway County in 1966, and for many years he and his wife, Kay, operated a family farm west of town, growing row crops and raising livestock.
In announcing his intention to seek office, Atkins mentioned no specific issues and said only that he wished to contribute “my knowledge and my thinking about the people of Nodaway County.”
Atkins served for 27 years on the Nodaway County Community Building board, the panel exercising control over the youth livestock facility adjoining Northwest Missouri Regional Airport. He has also served as a board member for the Public Water Supply District of Nodaway County and in various lay capacities at the First Presbyterian Church of Maryville.
Since the late 1990s Atkins, along with his wife, has perhaps been most visible as a founding board member of the Nodaway County Ministry Center, where he continues to work as a food pantry volunteer as many as six days a week.
The South District commission seat is also open this year, and incumbent Robert Stiens announced last month that he intends to seek a fourth full term.
Stiens, a rural Ravenwood Democrat, was appointed to the commission to fill the final 10 months of an unexpired term before winning the seat in his own right in the same 2004 election that brought Westfall to office. So far, he is unopposed.
Presiding Commissioner Bill Walker, the third member of the three-person governing board, is currently in the second year of his first four-year term.
While several sitting county office holders have filed for reelection, the only actual primary race so far is a two-way contest for the Republican nomination for sheriff.
Vying for the chance to unseat Democratic incumbent Darren White in November are former Maryville Public Safety detective Randy Strong, who currently serves as a deputy/investigator with the Holt County Sheriff’s Office, and Nodaway County Deputy Jamie Vicker.
Strong retired from Maryville Public Safety in 2012 after a 31-year career as a police officer and accepted a Missouri Department of Corrections post as investigations manager for six penal institutions in the department’s Western Region.
He resigned from DOC after two years and currently commutes from his Maryville home to his investigator’s job in Oregon, Missouri, the Holt county seat.
Vicker has been with the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Office for 10 years, having served under both Sheriff White and White’s predecessor, Ben Espey.
White has also filed for the primary but as yet has no Democratic opposition. He is seeking election to a third term as sheriff, having been sworn in as the county’s top peace officer in January 2009 after defeating Espey. He won reelection in 2012.
