By James Bell
Hays Post

Phillipsburg – With a full house watching, Republican Precinct leaders in the 110th district chose a replacement to serve the remaining term of former Representative Travis Coutrue-Lovelady, who resigned his seat to take a job with the National Rifle Association late last month.

After the final vote was counted, Ken Rahjes took the majority vote 33-24, winning the seat.

“I want to thank the voters in the 110th, the majority gave me the opportunity now to represent them in the House,” he said after the meeting.

But after the warm thank you to the room, Rahjes seemed to want to jump right in and get to work – the very thing he promised during the meeting.

“We still have to continue to defend our Second Amendment rights, we have to continue to work out our tax issues, that the three legged stool continues to be fair and through those we can adequately fund education and other services and we need to make sure that we are not putting the heaviest of burdens on our local government units,”

When asked during the meeting which committee he may want to serve on Rahjes said he felt the Tax Committee might be a good fit.

After the meeting he expanded on his message of keeping jobs in the area.

Rahjes said he hopes education can be funded to allow students the opportunity to move back to the rural areas of the district after college and said agriculture and the area gas industry are also a priorities for Rahjes.

He said we’ve got to do something to make sure good jobs in those fields find a voice in the legislature would help find ways to keep workers in those industries working.

Thirty seven delegates – with an attached 20 proxy votes – nominated three people during the meeting, Ken Rahjes, Don Steeples and Robert Pinkerton.

In first round voting Pinkerton had 23 of the 57 votes available, Rahjes carried 28 and Steeples carried 6.

With no majority being obtained Steeples was dropped from the ticket.

In the second vote Rahjes carried 33 votes and Pinkerton carried 24.