Fulton Sun

Sixteen Callaway County Democrats gathered Thursday night in Fulton and elected eight people to represent the county at the April 26 Ninth Congressional District Democratic Party Convention in Mexico.

Missouri Democratic Party rules required an equal number of men and women to be elected as delegates and alternates.

Based on the number of votes for the Democratic candidate for president in the last general election, Callaway County was allotted eight delegates and eight alternates.

Elected as the four male delegates were Steve Moore, Lee Fritz, Bryant Liddle and Lynn Pasley.

Elected as the four female delegates were Pam Oestreich, Pam Murray, Marian Logan and Janet Gruer.

Callaway County Democrats were allowed to have eight alternates, but since only six women attended the caucus, they were able to elect only two female alternates and two male alternates.

The two male alternates elected were Rodney Garnett and Fred Case.

The two female alternates elected were Sharon Fischer and Gracia Backer.

Rodney Garnett, former Callaway County Western District commissioner, said the small turnout of only 16 people was disappointing.

“But this is the result of not having any contest for president. This is quite a contrast to the Callaway County Democratic caucus four years ago. At that time we had 70 people appear at the caucus and we had Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running against each other. We had a real contest then,” Garnett said.