By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. has been re-elected in a landslide victory, handily trouncing two challengers for his seat.
Owens, the incumbent and Democratic Party nominee, buried both the Republican Party nominee, Arturo Rodriguez, and former Val Verde County Judge Efrain Valdez, who ran as a write-in.
In the most recent tally of unofficial results of the election, released to the 830 Times Thursday, Owens garnered 5,918 votes of the total 9,338 total votes cast in the county judge race, or 63.37 percent of the total votes.
Owens had two opponents in the race – Republican Party nominee and political neophyte Arturo Rodriguez and Valdez, who in addition to formerly serving as county judge, has also served as mayor of Del Rio. Valdez ran as a write-in, though, a formidable handicap.
Owens’ closest opponent, Rodriguez, came out of the race with an unofficial total of 2,547 votes, or 27.27 percent of the total votes cast in the race.
The total number of write-in votes in the county judge’s race – all of them presumably for Valdez – totaled 859 votes, less than 10 percent of the total number of ballots cast in the race. A total of 14 write-in votes were not assigned.
It took just over five hours for the election results to be announced outside the front door of the historic Val Verde County Courthouse.
During that time, dozens of Owens’ family members, including his wife Sylvia and his mother, son, daughter and grandson, as well as a number of supporters and well-wishers, gathered on the courthouse lawn.
Owens wandered among them, admitting to nerves about the race.
When County Clerk Generosa “Janie” Ramon opened the front door of the courthouse about 12:15 a.m. on Wednesday and began to read the results, Owens hovered at the back of the small crowd that had converged.
When she announced the results of his race, Owens, visibly overcome with emotion, took a deep breath and wept.
A few minutes later, he spoke to the 830 Times about the victory and what it meant to him.
His voice still shaking, Owens said, “How do you describe it? I said the other day, this is hard, hard on the families, and people don’t realize, when you put your name on the ballot, what your family goes through, but it’s one of those things, where, when you look back over everything we’ve gone over the last four years, I think people remembered.”
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Contact the author at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
