Muhlenkamp won, Nixon ousted

Twenty-five years ago this week, Democrats in Jay County dropped one incumbent commissioner from their slate and narrowly sent another to the general election.

The May 8, 1996, edition of The Commercial Review featured coverage the primary election.

On the Democrat side of the ballot, incumbent south district commissioner Ed Nixon finished a distant third in a three-way race, picking up only 483 votes. Gary Theurer earned 844 votes while Randy May had 737.

“I feel either one, me or Randy (May) did really well for the first time out,” said Theurer, who was making his first run for a county office. “I guess the public decided it was time for a change. I cleared one hurdle. I’ve just got one more to go.”

Another Democrat, Ernest Muhlenkamp fought off a solid challenge from John R. Murphy for the party’s nomination for the north district seat.

Muhlenkamp, also the incumbent, won 1,109-876.

For the Republicans, Mike Leonhard cruised to victory with 1,428 votes in a three-way north district commissioner race over Bill Lawrence (656) and Jon Roughia (545). And in the south district, Jim Zimmerman earned the nod with 1,463 votes compared to 723 for J Littler and 530 for David Shaver.

Theurer would go on to edge Zimmerman — he later served two terms as commissioner — by a count of 3,801-3,747 for the south district commissioner seat in the general election, starting a run of three consecutive terms in office before he shifted to county council for another dozen years.

Leonhard defeated Muhlenkamp for the north district seat in the general election and also served three terms — from 1997 through 2004 and again from 2017 through 2020 — with a decade on county council in between.