SCHWAB WINS RACE FOR ADMINISTRATOR

JACKSON, Mo. -- Phyllis Schwab of Jackson easily defeated incumbent John Ferguson and Kenneth Bryan to win the Republican nomination for Cape Girardeau County public administrator.

Schwab will face Democrat Michael Hurst in the November election.

Schwab, the wife of state Rep. David Schwab, piled up 3,787 votes, or 55 percent of the vote. Ferguson received 2,092 votes, or 30.4 percent. Bryan had 995 votes or 14.5 percent of the vote.

Schwab ran well throughout the county.

She said she spent a lot of time going door to door to talk to voters.

"I took Sundays off because I don't believe in intruding in other people's Sundays," Schwab said.

Schwab said she was still talking to voters on Monday night.

She said she did a lot of walking in neighborhoods. "My feet can attest to that," said Schwab.

"I think my opponents ran good campaigns," she said. "But I think my group just worked really hard."

Schwab said she and her husband have a lot of friends in Cape County and that that helped her in this race.

"You have to try, and then if you lose, you don't have anything to regret," said Schwab, who has been active for years in Republican politics.

The 58-year-old Schwab said she kept to the issues.

She preached the need for the county to have a public administrator with compassion for his or her clients and their needs.

The public administrator handles the financial and personal affairs of disabled, incapacitated and deceased adults and certain minors.

Schwab has said she would devote full time to the job of public administrator.

Ferguson has served as public administrator for the past 11 years. He initially said he wouldn't run for re-election. He was considering running for the 158th District House seat in Cape Girardeau.

But in the end he chose to seek re-election to his current job.

Bryan, an account executive with Concord Printing in Cape Girardeau, also had stressed the need for the county to have a compassionate public administrator.