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By Kevin Allen
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Connie Smith struggled to describe how she felt Tuesday evening after learning that she is going to be Rappahannock County’s next sheriff.
“I don’t think it’s all sunk in yet,” she said. “It almost doesn’t seem real.”
Lt. Smith, a 20-year veteran of the Rappahannock County Sheriff’s ‘ Office and the office’s lead investigator, celebrated her victory with friends and family at the Castleton Fire Hall. After months of campaigning, the 40-year-old Amissville resident was finally able to take a deep breath and savor reaching a goal that she set when she was just a little girl growing up in Castleton.
Smith won four of Rappahannock’s six precincts Tuesday and garnered 42.8 percent of the 2,992 votes cast in the threeperson race to be the county’s top law-enforcement officer.
Maj. Chris Williams, the RCSO’s deputy sheriff, finished second in the election with 34.2 percent of the vote and Sgt. J.C. Welch, of the Town of Culpeper Police Department, finished third with 23 percent of the vote.
“I’m just amazed and overwhelmed with the amount of support,” Smith said, adding that she was nervous about the outcome of the election. “When it’s three people, you just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Smith has worked with both Welch and Williams, and said she felt bad that they lost the election. But “somebody had to lose,” she said.
This year’s sheriff’s election was the first time in more than 30 years that an incumbent was not running for the office of Rappahannock’s top police officer. Sheriff Larry Sherertz is retiring at the end of the year after
84.0%