Election Tuesday
Published 5:27 pm Thursday, December 6, 2012
PRINCE EDWARD – County voters will go to the polls Tuesday to select their new County treasurer. While it will be the only office open in the special election, there are five candidates to choose from.
The winner will serve the remaining three years of retiring Treasurer Mable Shanaberger's term.
Taikein Cooper is running as an Independent. Cooper is a 2006 graduate of both Southside Virginia Community College and Prince Edward County High School. In 2010, he graduated from the University of North Carolina where he majored in Public Policy Analysis.
Cooper feels his experience and training in financial planning and compliance, governmental reporting, and maintaining financial records and collections has prepared him to serve as Prince Edward County's next Treasurer. He also believes his analytical, interpersonal, communicational, and presentational skills are all necessary when meeting the statutory compliance of the office.
Benjamin Ray Murdock is also running as an Independent. Murdock earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business with a major in Accounting from Virginia Tech. He previously worked for Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville for more than 22 years. Murdock states that his experience in collections, financial statement preparation, accounts payable, personnel management, budgeting, and customer service uniquely qualify him to serve as Prince Edward County's next Treasurer.
Murdock grew up in Roanoke and has lived in Prospect for 26 years, where he currently resides with his wife, Jackie, and their daughter, Grace.
Donna Bowman Nunnally is the Democratic Party nominee. She is a lifelong resident of Prince Edward County and has been a County employee for 14 years. Nine of those years she was a shared employee, working in both the Treasurer's Office and the Commissioner of the Revenue's Office. She believes her working knowledge of the Treasurer's Office has allowed her the opportunity to evaluate areas in which the office can improve and be more efficient to the public. Prior to her County employment, Nunnally served as the Teller Supervisor at Central Fidelity Bank.
Nunnally is a 1986 graduate of Prince Edward County High School.
H.D. “Brock” Robinson Jr. is the Republican Party nominee. Robinson is a lifelong resident of the county, with family roots dating back to the early 1700s.
Robinson cited in a release that as a young man he excelled in sports, was a volunteer fireman, was/is active in church, was a little league coach, is a Freemason and enjoyed learning how to farm from his parents and grandparents. After working for CMH Homes, Inc. for three years he became one of the youngest top salesmen on the East Coast. In 2003 he was promoted to General Manager of, according to his press release, an under productive lot for that same company. Robinson soon turned it into an award-winning branch, the release states.
Robinson became a real estate agent in 2004, working for State Wide Reality Co.
Marshall Womack is running for Treasurer as an Independent. He is a native of the county with family having resided here for three generations.
“I have handled other people's monies for over 30 years as a banker, and that coupled with numerous accounting classes, certainly qualifies me as being able to safeguard the County's money,” he outlined in a release.
He also noted, “During my 30 years in banking, I have not only analyzed but also taught classes to others in how to analyze financial statements. I am expertly versed in the preparation of such statements as well as other financial reports such as budgets, etc.”
