From left to right: Robert Chappell, Maya Wade, David Woodward, William Roberts, Paris Williams, Congresswoman Karen Handel, Joseph McDermond, Aditya Mhaskar, Blaine McDonough of East Cobb, Connor McGurk, Hannah Percher of East Cobb, and Gabriela Boatright.
Three East Cobb students are among the 13 high school graduates appointed to attend U.S. military service academies by Congresswoman Karen Handel.
They include Connor Hasely of Walton High School (pictured below), who attended New York University. He was appointed to attend the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Connor Haseley
Another Walton graduate, Blaine McDonough, will attend the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y.
Lassiter High School’s Hannah Percher has been appointed to attend the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.
“The Sixth District produced an extraordinary group of candidates for our nation’s military academies this year,” Handel said in a statement. “This is one of the responsibilities I have relished the most during my time in Washington, and I’m so proud of these young men and women for their willingness to serve their country.”
A Pope High School graduate also has received an appointment by Congressman Barry Loudermilk. Sarah Sorensen will attend the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
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Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb won a special election runoff in June to succeed State Sen. Judson Hill. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
Atlanta attorney Jen Jordan won a Georgia State Senate runoff special election Tuesday that includes a portion of Cobb County. Her election also wound up a successful year of political campaigns in metro Atlanta and Georgia by female candidates.
In an all-Democratic race, Jordan easily defeated Jaha Howard, a Vinings dentist, to claim the Georgia State Senate District 6 seat vacated by Republican Hunter Hill, who is running for Georgia governor. Jordan received 10,681 votes, or 64 percent, to 6,017 votes for Howard, or 36 percent (full results here).
The district includes south Cobb, the Terrell Mill precinct in the Powers Ferry area and part of the city of Atlanta. Howard won the Cobb portion by a 60-40 margin, but Jordan, a self-described progressive, won her home base in Fulton by a 74-26 percent margin.
She was endorsed by former Cobb state representative Stacey Evans, who also is running for governor.
Tuesday also saw the second female elected mayor of Atlanta, as city council member Keisha Lance Bottoms edged fellow council member Mary Norwood in a hotly-contested runoff. Norwood, who was supported by Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first female mayor, has asked for a a recount.
Felicia Moore was elected president of the Atlanta City Council on Tuesday, and Roswell’s new mayor is Lori Henry, who succeeds longtime mayor Jere Wood.
Smyrna elected its first black member of the city council, Maryline Blackburn, and Cheryl Richardson won a seat on the Marietta City Council.
In conservative East Cobb, Republican women also won special elections this summer. Kay Kirkpatrick, a retired surgeon at Resurgens Orthopedics and a longtime civic leader with the East Cobb Rotary Club, won a special election to succeed State Sen. Judson Hill in District 32.
He resigned to run for the 6th District Congressional seat won by former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel. She downed heavily-financed Democratic novice Jon Ossoff in a race watched around the nation.
U.S. Rep. Karen Handel got strong support in East Cobb in her bid to succeed Tom Price.
Handel earned some of her biggest margins in East Cobb, where she was strongly supported by Cobb commissioners Bob Ott and JoAnn Birrell.
Birrell, who represents District 3 in Northeast Cobb, is up for re-election next year, and has already drawn Republican primary opposition from Tom Cheek, who sued Cobb County and filed an ethics complaint against former commission chairman Tim Lee over the Atlanta Braves stadium vote.
Handel and Kirkpatrick also have to run for re-election in 2018, as does East Cobb Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper, a longtime member of the state house. All seats in the legislature will be on the ballot, as well as governor and other statewide offices.
Two East Cobb posts on the Cobb Board of Education will also be up for election in 2018. They are currently held by Republicans Scott Sweeney of Post 6 (Walton and Wheeler high school districts) and David Chastain of Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry districts.
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