Calloway unseats incumbent Dyar as Baileyton mayor
Published 9:03 pm Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Calloway unseats incumbent Dyar as Baileyton mayor
Jake Winfrey
jwinfrey@cullmantimes.com
BAILEYTON — There will be a new mayor in Baileyton.
Town Councilman and challenger Windell Calloway defeated incumbent Johnny Dyar on Tuesday night, garnering 163 votes to Dyar’s 126. Dyar had been seeking a fourth term.
Calloway said he felt “very fortunate” following the result and added he’s looking forward to getting started when he’s sworn in as mayor in October.
He also thanked everyone for their help and support.
“We’ve worked extremely hard seeing people door-to-door about what we wanted to do and ideas we had,” Calloway said. “As a group, we’ve really worked hard. Undoubtedly, it paid off. I think a lot of people wanted a change. Hopefully, we can do a good job for the town and for all the people who live in it and go from there.”
Calloway said he’s already started thinking about what he’d like to accomplish during his term.
“I think there’s a lot of things we’ve got to do,” he said. “I think we’ve got to do some road work. We are going to need some new equipment. Our weather siren doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in about a year, so that’s something we’ve got to work on. I think working with the companies to get the internet through here for our schoolchildren is extremely important. There’s not a lot we can do anymore about it, but if there’s anything we can help them with I think that becomes an important factor. And we want to work with our representatives to get money to do those road repairs and other things.”
In addition to the mayoral race, there were also a number of town council positions up for grabs.
Roy Shedd beat Deborah Moon (181 to 110) for Place 2 — where Calloway served for 12 years — incumbent Wendell Peterson bested Randy Gaines (183 to 101) for Place 3, Benny Guthrie defeated incumbent Myra Martin (147 to 139) for Place 4, and incumbent Greg Griffin downed Pat Dyar (161 to 126) for Place 5.
Dewayne Sumner (Place 1) ran unopposed.
All five council members will be sworn in in October as well.
