Woody Woodruff signs in to vote on the school bond issue at the Cherry Lane Community Center. Also shown are (from left) David Woodruff, Peggy Shaw and Carolyn Ebright.

School bond is defeated decisively

A measure to pass a $7.5 million bond for the construction of a middle school and other school needs failed Tuesday by a wide margin, preliminary vote totals released by the Alleghany Board of Elections showed.

The results, which are considered unofficial until after the vote canvass, indicate that 1,626 votes were cast against the measure (62 percent), while 988 (38 percent) were cast in favor.

The total number of votes cast, 2,624, represented about a 38 percent turnout of the county's 6,830 registered voters.

For the first time in Alleghany County, the majority of votes cast in the election were cast prior to Election Day through early voting. One Stop alone accounted for 1,364 votes, while about 1,224 votes were cast on Election Day. Total early turnout was about 1,400 votes.

The measure was defeated in every precinct in the county, as well as in One Stop voting. Absentee votes, of which 36 were cast, were split evenly between 'yes' and 'no' responses. In the final results, the Gap Civil total showed the closest race, with 480 votes in favor and 490 against. While the measure failed, the totals were fairly close in Cranberry and Cherry Lane. However, the school bond failed by a wide margin in Glade Creek, Piney Creek, Prathers Creek and Whitehead. Soon after the first totals were released showing that the measure had been defeated, Superintendent Jeff Cox said he and other school officials were "obviously very disappointed." The Alleghany Board of Education already had scheduled a meeting for March 12 at 5 p.m. to discuss the outcome of the vote. The meeting is open to the public.

Most of the board's members were on hand on election night to hear the totals.

Cox said, "We're going to get to work tomorrow looking at plan B. There still are several million (dollars) in needs that haven't been met. Glade Creek is bursting at the seams." Cox said overcrowding will remain an issue at both that school and Sparta School-an issue that would have been helped by moving some students from each school to a middle school.

Cox said all options will be looked at to remedy the situation. "The board will come back together and re-evaluate to see where we need to go."

Cox said the board has not focused on the plan for the future if the bond failed, hoping instead for a positive outcome on the vote. He said the board will now go to work on an alternate plan.

Precinct Totals

In the final unofficial results, in which One Stop votes are divided into the precincts from which their voters came, the results were as follows: