McComb’s Ward 4 residents chose a recent college graduate over a longtime incumbent in a run-off election Tuesday.
Challenger Donovan Hill defeated incumbent Melvin Joe Johnson in the Ward 4 run-off. Hill received 189 votes (69 percent), while Johnson got 83 (31 percent).
Pike County election commissioner Trudy Berger, serving in an advisory capacity to the city’s Democratic party which oversaw the election, said that of the 11 affidavit ballots counted at city hall Tuesday night, only seven were accepted and all were in favor of Hill.
Johnson, who was first elected in 1998, observed ballot counting at the Ward 4 voting precinct, LifePointe Church of the Nazarene on West Presley Boulevard.
After the announcement that Hill had won the election, many people approached Johnson to thank him for his years of service to the city.
“I served 15 years, and I served the citizens,” he said. “I’m a public servant, and I’ll still be a public servant in the city. But now I have more time to be with the grandkids and more time to dedicate to the veterans.”
As the youngest selectman in McComb’s history, the 22-year-old Hill was ecstatic to learn he had defeated the man who was his own representative most of his life. Hill said he walked around Ward 4 most of Tuesday to round up a handful of last-minute voters.
“Any time I got a chance to campaign, I was knocking on doors, I was in the community, I was doing clean-ups, I was making sure the community sees my face and understood I was serious about this campaign,” Hill said at an election party at the home of a supporter.
“I most definitely did some campaigning in the last two weeks — Facebook, text-messaging. Any way I could reach the citizens of Ward 4, I did it. I didn’t want to take that chance of not reaching that one voter, because every vote counts.”
Hill also thanked Johnson for running a clean campaign and Donald Burkes, the third-place finisher in the May 6 primary, for endorsing him before the runoff.
Hill said he would spend most of his time involved with a summer reading program at Higgins Middle School this summer before he officially takes office July 1.
Hill’s victory helps paint a clearer picture of the makeup of the next city board. During the primary, Ronnie Brock won the race for Ward 5 selectman, replacing Andranette Jordan, who chose not to seek re-election after serving one term. In addition, Ward 3 Selectwoman Tammy Witherspoon is running unopposed.
McComb voters will return to the polls on June 17 to vote for mayor, selectman at-large and selectmen in wards 1 and 2.
