Burns, Strong win county GOP primary races
From left: Merlin Atkins, Chris Burns, Randy Strong, and Darren White
Republican and Democratic voters on Tuesday selected their Nov. 8 general election candidates for a pair of Nodaway County offices.
Chris Burns will appear on the November ballot as the GOP standard bearer for North District county commissioner. Republican Randy Strong will seek the voters’ permission to pin on the sheriff’s badge in January for what would be the veteran peace officer’s first four-year term.
Burns received 533 votes, or 37.9 percent of Republican ballots cast, defeating GOP opponents Luke Giesken (424 votes) and Larry Haataja (413 votes).
Strong won in a landslide, carrying all precincts with a total vote count of 2,168, or 65.11 percent of all GOP ballots cast. His sole Republican opponent, Jamie Vicker, received 1,054 votes.
All vote totals are unofficial until certified by Nodaway County Clerk Karen Leader.
Democrats seeking the North District commissioner and sheriff’s jobs include political newcomer Merlin Atkins (251 votes) and incumbent Sheriff Darren White (651 votes). White is seeking a third term. Neither candidate had opposition in the primary.
Strong, 60, retired after a 31-year career as a Maryville Public Safety police officer and investigator and subsequently worked as an investigation supervisor for the Missouri Department of Corrections before accepting his current position as an investigator and deputy with the Holt County Sheriff’s Office.
During his law enforcement career, Strong has received numerous accolades, including Officer of the Year honors bestowed by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children in recognition of his role in the 2004 Bobbie Jo Stinnett murder and kidnapping case.
Following the Stinnet investigation, Strong was among the officers summoned to Washington, D.C., and congratulated personally by President George W. Bush.
He also received the Federal Law Enforcement of the Year award and was honored by the U.S. Attorney’s Office after participating in the investigation of the 1990 murder of Christine Elkins, which ended in the conviction of two suspects.
Strong’s professional associations include the Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri. Active in civic life, he is also a member of Maryville’s Host Lion’s Club and the Laura Street Baptist Church.
While still a Maryville detective, Strong served as a U.S. marshal’s deputy assigned to Task Force NITRO (the Northwest Missouri Interagency Team Response Operation), where he worked as an undercover narcotics officer.
Over the course of the primary campaign, Strong claimed that his long experience made him “the best candidate for sheriff.” He criticized White for failing to work cooperatively with other law enforcement agencies, and said that, if elected, he will seek to build bridges between local, county, state, and federal jurisdictions.
Strong has also pledged to reactivate the Northwest Missouri Major Case Squad and the Child Abduction Response Team.
A 1974 graduate of Plattsburg High School, Strong attended Northwest Missouri State University. He and his wife, Vicky, have three grown children and have lived in Nodaway County for 42 years.
Commission nominee Burns, 47, works as an independent contractor for Zurich Insurance and owns a pair of local businesses: Burny’s Upper Deck, a bar in downtown Maryville, and Motors & Cycles Sales on North Main Street. He grew up in Ravenwood and has lived in Nodaway County for 42 years.
Though new to elective politics, Burns has served on the Maryville Planning and Zoning Commission for 11 years. He sits on the St. Gregory Barbarigo Catholic Church finance committee and belongs to the local Elks Lodge and the Maryville Host Lions Club.
Burns also coaches boys basketball at St. Gregory’s School, the Northwest Force 10U softball team, and the Northwest Hounds Bantam Football team.
A 1987 graduate of Northeast Nodaway High School, Burns attended Southwestern Community College in Creston, Iowa, where he played basketball and baseball. He also attended Northwest Missouri State University.
During the primary campaign, Burns said the biggest challenge facing Nodaway County from a commissioner’s perspective is economic development, and that he wants to work with local officials, Northwest Missouri State University, and state legislators to build a stronger workforce.
On the Democratic side of the November ballot, commission candidate Atkins, 72, has intentionally refrained from setting forth any agenda other than “serving the people of Nodaway County” in his quest for the North District seat soon to be vacated by Robert Westfall, who is retiring.
After growing up on a farm in Holt County, Atkins moved to Nodaway County in 1966 and for many years, with 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.
White, 56, the Democratic nominee and incumbent sheriff, will seek to retain his office in November against GOP challenger Strong.
If successful, the county’s top uniformed law officer will serve a third four-year term at the head of a department comprising 11 sworn deputies and about 20 full- and part-time civilian staff members.
White has worked for the Sheriff’s Office since signing on as a deputy in 1985. He began his first-responder career in the late 1970s while still in high school as a part-time emergency medical technician in Connecticut. He later served as a paramedic in St. Joseph, Kansas City, and Nodaway County.
White said his accomplishments as sheriff include instituting 24-hour road patrols; a canine drug-detection program largely paid for by fundraisers and citizen contributions; increased involvement in the Western Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force; and the resurrection of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program in the county’s rural communities.
White said he has also worked with 4th District Circuit Court officials to promote work-release for employed offenders serving jail time.
On other fronts, White said he has sought to maintain the integrity of the Sheriff’s Office with regard to court-related responsibilities such as running the county jail, transporting prisoners, providing courthouse security, and the serving of summonses and other documents.
He admits his insistence on autonomy has at times created conflicts and fueled charges by opponents, including Strong, that he has failed to promote interagency cooperation.
However, White said such squabbles — such as a dispute with Maryville Public Safety over when and how prisoner bonds should be set — have arisen due to his efforts to make sure the Sheriff’s Office fulfills its statutory obligations.
“I’ll make no bones about that,” he said, “When people say ‘cooperate’ that doesn’t just mean roll over and do exactly what they say. The Sheriff’s Office has a larger responsibility … a responsibility to treat everyone fairly, and a responsibility to do our own work.”
While most of the local election news this summer revolved around the two contested GOP contests, other offices were on the ballot as well, such as the South District commission seat being reclaimed by three-term incumbent Robert Stiens, who is unopposed.
Other county officeholders returning to their seats in January after uncontested races will include County Clerk Karen Leader, County Collector-Treasurer Marilyn Jenkins, County Assessor Rex Wallace, and Public Administrator Diane Thomsen.
