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An incumbent member of the Stanly County Board of Commissioners won reelection Tuesday to the board with a resounding win over a former Stanly Board of Education member.

Scott Efird earned his third term on the board receiving 27,849 votes (84.33%) while Melvin Poole, who served two decades on the Stanly school board and is a current member of the Red Cross Town Council, ran as a Libertarian and received 5,173 votes (15.67%).

Regarding his reelection, Efird said he believes it is because he thinks he is doing something right.

“I think I’m doing what the people want done,” Efird said. “My parents always said, when you do something, always leave it better than you found it, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

Efird said he uses a common sense approach.

“I just try to think of what the people would want to do.”

Efird said the county, including all the municipalities, are “all in this thing together. We have 64,000 people that we have to look after. It’s not about the parties. It’s about the people.”

Efird said what’s most important for the county moving forward is to continue to increase the budget, but not increase taxes.

“We’ve got to be mindful of people and their taxes. We’ve got a (revaluation) year coming up, and that’s going to be huge. Public safety and public education are the two most important things.”

Poole said this campaign was “the most fun I’ve ever had in politics.” He said he ran as a lark but felt “overwhelmed” to get more than 5,000 votes as a third-party candidate.

He said he appreciated votes for “looking past the letter in front of my name,” referring to the Libertarian Party, “and being willing to vote for me based on what they know about me.”

When asked about whether he would run for office again, as he is going off the Red Cross council next month, Poole said, “as long as I’m breathing, I’m gonna be running.”