Republican county leaders have chosen two nominees to be on the ballot for magisterial seats in the November general election, following a meeting of the Clinton County Republican County Committee on Monday night, June 4.

Terry Buster will represent the Republican party as its nominee in the 3rd Magisterial District race, while Hershell Key will represent the party in the 5th Magisterial District this fall.

The vacancies came about as the result of two magistrate resignations, that of 3rd District Magistrate Willard Johnson in April and 5th District Magistrate Charlotte Bernard in May. Both Johnson and Bernard are Republicans.

Since those resignations, Gov. Steve Beshear has appointed former judge/executive Larry Hatfield, a Democrat to serve in Johnson’s vacant 3rd District seat until after the general election but as of press time Tuesday, had yet to name a temporary replacement on the fiscal court for Bernard in the 5th District.

Buster and Key will run against whomever the Democrat party selects as its nominees in the fall election and the winners will serve out the remaining two years of the unexpired terms.

The Democrat County Committee has yet to select their nominees.

The GOP county-wide committee, made up of officers and three precinct officials–the chairman, co-chairperson and youth captain in each of the 13 precincts were eligible to vote in the County Committee caucus on Monday and about 38 of the just over 40 total eligible to vote cast secret ballots for the nominees that were presented at the one-long session.

In District 3, which takes in the Snow, Seventy-Six and Piney Woods precincts, two nominees were voted on, including Buster and Richard Cash. District 5, which is comprised of the Speck and Illwill precincts, saw three nominees, including Key, former magistrate Jerry Lowhorn and Mike Langford.

A motion had been made at the meeting that the person who received a majority vote among the nominees would be the winner, and Key won a majority of the votes cast. If neither nominee had received a clear majority of the votes from among the 38 who cast ballots, there would have been a second round of balloting between the two who had received the highest number of votes.

Each nominee was given a chance to speak to the committee prior to the votes and each gave a brief presentation about themselves and goals they would like to see accomplished as a member of the fiscal court.

Buster will not be new to the election ballot, having sought the Republican nomination in 2010 and losing a close race in the primary to Johnson, who was then the incumbent.

Key, although being involved in local Republican politics for many years, will be making his first run for public office. He is currently employed with the Lake Cumberland Community Action Agency, a position he said Monday night that he will have to vacate sometime in the near future in order to seek the magisterial seat.