By Jerrie Whiteley / Herald Democrat
The elections in 2024 continued a trend toward changes of the guard in local government. Elections this year saw changes to the sheriff’s position as well as two county commissioner’s spots and the district attorney position. There was also a change to the local state representative’s spot and to the county’s two largest cities mayoral spots.
Newly elected officials on the commissioner’s court will join two commissioners and a county judge who are just into their first terms in their positions. It is the first time for such a turnover in county government in decades.
Many of the changes that happened in county government in 2024 started with the announcement that the current office holders planned to retire at the end of the year. That included both commissioners’ spots and the sheriff’s spot.
Grayson County Precinct 1 commissioner Jeff Whitmire announced his retirement after being elected to his third four-year term on the court.
“I don’t feel elected office should ever be a career,” Whitmire said of the decision recently. “When I ran for my third term, I made it clear that it would be my last.” His decision left the seat up for election and in the Republican Primary, Terry Thomas, Scott Renfro and Josh Marr competed for the right to move forward to the November election. Josh Marr won that contest. In November, he beat Democratic Challenger Andre Luper to claim the spot on the commissioner’s court.
In Precinct 3, Lindsay Wright will replace commissioner Phyllis James who also served three terms on the court and decided to retire this year. Wright ran unopposed in the Republican Primary and the November election.
A retirement also brought about the change in the sheriff’s position when Grayson County Sheriff Tom Watt announced he planned not to seek re election to the post he had held since January of 2017. He was elected to replace retiring Sheriff Keith Gary, who actually asked him to come onboard early as the chief deputy so Watt’s service at the SO began in May of 2016. His successor, Tony Bennie, ran unopposed in both the March Primary and the November elections.
Retirement also impacted the spot for justice of the peace in Precinct 2 when David Hawley announced he would retire at the end of the year with two years left on his current term. After receiving applications from several candidates, Grayson County commissioners approved Grayson County District Attorney’s Investigator Dennis Michaels as the person to serve out the remainder of Hawley’s term.
Michaels had a long career with the Sherman Police Department before joining the DA’s Office. He has said he does intend to run for the office in his own right once this unexpired term ends.
Arguably the most talked about county race was that for the district attorney in which incumbent Brett Smith faced challenger Kermit Hill in the March Primary. When all of the primary votes were tallied, Hill had 589 more votes than Smith. Hill went on to face Democrat Brandy Douglas in the November election.
Out of the 66,107 votes cast in the race, Hill collected 47,258 and Douglas collected only 15,642 leaving Hill the person to replace Smith in January of 2025, but there were still more twists to come. First, Smith announced that he would leave office in October of 2024, leaving Assistant DA Nathan Young in charge until January. But before the ink was really dry on that paperwork, Grayson County commissioners decided to go ahead and install Hill as DA early.
Shelley Luther will represent Grayson County in Austin as part of District 62 when the new year rolls around. She unseated local attorney Reggie Smith in the Republican primary. Though Smith had the lead in early voting for the primary, by the time all of the votes were tallied on election day, Luther had collected 872 more votes than Smith. She went on to beat out Democratic challenger Tiffany Drake by thousands of votes in the November election.
The city of Sherman also saw changes to the leadership of its government when Shawn Teamann moved up from the deputy mayor’s spot to the mayor’s chair when Sherman’s mayor of nine years, David Plyler reached his term limit.
Teamann was the only person to file for election to replace Plyler.
The city of Denison also welcomed a new mayor after 12 years. Robert Crawley was elected to replace Janet Gott in May as mayor. He won that right by beating out challenger Brian Hander. Crawley had previously been on the Denison City Council for five years.
