Gilbert is new Cooke County sheriff

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Terry Gilbert defeated Jim Carter in Tuesday's runoff race for Cooke County sheriff. Gilbert will take office in January. Courtesy photo
Drew Springer was the winner in the runoff election for District 68 state representative. Springer defeated Trent McKnight. Courtesy photo

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August 2, 2012

Gilbert is new Cooke County sheriff

By GREG RUSSELL, Register Staff Writer Gainesville Daily Register The Daily Register Thu Aug 02, 2012, 08:52 AM CDT

Gainesville — State and county election day results, delivered late Tuesday, verified the victories of incoming Cooke County Sheriff Terry Gilbert and District 68 Representative Drew Springer.

In his primary runoff race against Cooke County Deputy Jim Carter, Gilbert took a county vote total of 3,334 out of 5,282, leaving Carter with 1,948 votes.

Gilbert said Wednesday that he doesn’t intend to announce any policy or personnel changes in the sheriff’s department until Jan. 1, when he begins service.

“It’s too soon,” he said. “You wait until you get into office before you do that.”

Carter, who has served the sheriff’s department since 1997, indicated Tuesday that in light of Gilbert’s win, he’ll retire from the department in January, along with outgoing sheriff Mike Compton. And prior to the announcement of his victory late Tuesday evening, Gilbert explained his main focus will be improving the public relations level of the sheriff’s department.

This, he said, is key to increased law enforcement.

“We want public input,” Gilbert said Tuesday. “We want the people to help us do our job and we need to improve our public relations to make that happen.”

In the runoff race for District 68 representative, Springer [R-Muenster] garnered 8,429 votes against the 6,520 for opponent Trent McKnight [R-Throckmorton]. The district has 22 counties — and 4,511 of Springer’s votes came from Cooke.

On Tuesday evening, Springer said he looks forward to serving the local and regional areas of his new district through the use of rural values.

“With a strong conservative platform,” he said. “And I think at the end of the day, I was elected because this district sees itself as conservative, and they looked at who represented those values the most. And that’s who they picked.”