Rehder retains District 148 seat; Rowland-Hubrecht wins 151st

Incumbent Holly Rehder will keep her state House seat in the 148th District after receiving 64 percent of the vote in Tuesday's primary.

Rehder, of Sikeston, Missouri, faced Illmo Special Road District board member Duston Stone of Scott City on the Republican ballot.

Stone was elected to the road district in April. If he would have won the 148th seat, state law would have required him to resign from his position with the road district.

Scott County numbers favored Rehder as well. Rehder received 2,031 votes of the 3,260 placed in the county. Total votes tallied in the race were 3,631, which includes a portion of Mississippi County.

Rehder said in an interview with the Southeast Missourian last week that if re-elected, she hopes to spur movement on legislation to create a statewide prescription-drug monitoring database and push through paycheck protection and right to work issues during her second term.

151st

Tila Rowland-Hubrecht

Republican Tila Rowland-Hubrecht took both seats she filed for in the primary. Hubrecht, of Dexter, Missouri, ran in the special election to fill the vacant District 151 seat left by Dennis Fowler and for the Republican seat on the November ballot against Brandon A. Cooper.

She received 64 percent of the vote in the special election against Democratic opponent Ryan Wm. Holder, of Advance, Missouri, and 76 percent in the primary election.

The seat was left vacant by Republican Rep. Dennis Fowler of Advance, Missouri, who resigned in December when Gov. Jay Nixon nominated him to the state Board of Probation and Parole; his nomination was never confirmed by the Senate.

District 151 covers Stoddard County and a small section of Scott County, including the Chaffee, Missouri, area.

147th

Gary L. Gaines took the Democratic win in the primary election for the 147th District.

Gaines faced opposition from Blake Hopper for a spot on the November ballot to face Republican incumbent Kathy Swan and Libertarian candidate Greg Tlapek.

Gaines received 375 votes to Hopper's 257.

Gaines, a retired engineer who served on the school board at Dexter, Missouri, for 12 years, ran unsuccessfully in the 2012 primary for state representative in the 151st district. It was a learning experience Gaines said he enjoyed, just as he's enjoyed going door-to-door over the past few months meeting voters in Cape Girardeau.