LOGAN – A new chair of the Cache County Republican Party emerged from the GOP local convention on Saturday.
Geoff Cox won that post in the second round of balloting by members of the county’s GOP Central Committee at Ridgeline High School in Millville.
Former chair Shellie Giddings was eliminated from contention in the first round of balloting, garnering only 111 votes compared to Cox’s 130 votes and 141 votes for Kim Hamblin.
In the second round of balloting, however, Cox edged Hamblin by 24 votes (194 votes for Cox and 170 votes for Hamblin).
Cox has an undergraduate degree in finance from the University of Utah and a master of business administration from Brigham Young University.
He has been a senior manager of manufacturing at Ophir-Spiricon Inc. in Logan for more than a decade and has also been active in Republican political circles.
All other GOP candidates for local leadership positions, who were running unopposed, were confirmed by acclamation.
They were Natalie Levi as vice chair; Pamela Budge as party secretary; and John Drew as treasurer for the local GOP.
The GOP precinct officers, ex-officio members and county delegates who gathered Saturday also elected four members of the state central committee from a field of eight candidates.
The winning candidates were Clair Ellis (275 votes), Jon-David Jorgensen (263 votes), Rick Meyer (169 votes) and Shawn Milne (155 votes).
The convention attendees from the county’s Northeast District also selected Jana Atkinson as their district chair over Leslie Carpenter by a margin of a margin of 11 votes (44 to 33).
All other district chair candidates were confirmed by acclamation. They are Sigrid Roderer for the North District; Tim Lindsay for the Logan 1 District; JoAnn Bennett for the Logan 2 District; Rick Mayer for the Logan 3 District; and Mike Porter for the South District.
The newly elected representatives of the Cache County Republicans are now looking forward to the State GOP Organizing Convention to be held Saturday, April 22 on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem.