2 primaries will decide 3rd District party candidates

Six people want to represent Missouri's 3rd Congressional District beginning next January.

But only five of them are involved in primary election races.

The winners of the Democrat and Republican party primaries Aug. 5 will join Libertarian Steven Hedrick on the Nov. 4 general elections ballot, for the right to represent East-Central Missouri in the U.S. Congress.

The Democratic candidates are Velma Steinman and Courtney Denton.

The Republican candidates are incumbent Blaine Luetkemeyer, seeking his fourth two-year term, Leonard Steinman and John Morris.

As state lawmakers in 2011 were redrawing the congressional district boundaries to reflect the population changes reported in the 2010 federal census, and the state's loss of one seat in Congress because other states grew faster than Missouri, the 3rd District became known as the "Lobster Claws" district because of its large body in Mid-Missouri - including Cole, Callaway, Osage, Miller, Gasconade and Maries counties, and a part of Camden County - and its two arms that stretch all the way to the Mississippi River through most of St. Charles County on the north, and through the middle of Jefferson County on the south.

The district's current boundaries went into effect in January 2013, after the 2012 elections.

The five candidates were asked to answer the same set of questions for this story - Hedrick, Warrensburg, was not included in this story because he has no opposition in the Aug. 5 primary battle. Only the Steinmans and Morris responded to the questions. Information found via the Internet is included on Luetkemeyer and Denton.

In the Republican primary, voters must choose among:

• Luetkemeyer, 60, is a St. Elizabeth native whose careers have included farming, banking and insurance. He served in the Missouri House from 1999-2005, including work as chairman of the Financial Services Committee and of the House Republican Caucus. In 2005, he became state Tourism Director in the Gov. Matt Blunt administration. When then-U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof ran for governor in 2008, Luetkemeyer ran for Hulshof's seat and won. He now is a member of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, and is the vice president of the Mississippi Valley Flood Control Association.

He's a Lincoln University graduate.

He and his wife, Jackie, have been married 38 years, have three adult children and four grandchildren.

• Leonard Steinman, 62, is a 1970 graduate of Jefferson City High School and, since then, has been a long-haul truck driver and a small business owner.

While in the U.S. Navy, he said he attended the Seabees' Heavy Equipment Operator School and took Hazardous Material Clean-Up training. He also learned hotel, motel and bar management from Mira Mesa College, San Diego in 1975. He studied welding technologies at Columbia Basin College, Pasco, Washington in 1982 and at Nichols Career Center in 1984.

• Morris, 61, has been a printer for 38 years and now works for "community living."

He earned a GED in 1972, "while in the military hospital at Fort Leonard Wood."

The Democrat primary has only two candidates:

• Velma Steinman, 54, has been a small business owner and held secretarial and administrative aide positions.

She attended Jefferson City High School, and earned her GED in 1978.

She earned an associate degree in accounting from Ashworth University (now known as Ashworth College), an online school based in Norcross, Georgia, and currently is working toward a bachelor's degree in paralegal studies from William Woods University's online program.

• Denton, age not available, graduated from Bishop DuBourg Catholic High School in St. Louis, then earned a bachelor's degree in English from Rockhurst University, Kansas City, in 2009; a master's degree in education from Lindenwood University, St. Charles, in 2012, and a master's degree in theatre from Fontbonne University, St. Louis, in 2014.

She's a teacher, married and has one child.