Early voting starts Monday in runoff election
By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
Early voting starts Monday for the Dec. 8 runoff election for Copperas Cove city council place 6.
Voting will take place at the Copperas Cove Early Voting Center, located at 508-B Cove Terrace Shopping Center.
Polls will be open from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday, Nov. 30 through Friday, Dec. 4.
Voting on Election Day, Dec. 8, will also take place at the Early Voting Center, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Vonya Hart and Terri Deans are on the ballot after being the top two vote-getters in a four-way race for Place 6 in the Nov. 3 general election.
Vonya Hart, raised in Rhode Island, first moved to Copperas Cove with her late husband via the military in 1998. She holds a Master’s degree in Counseling and Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. The mother of three boys, Hart is a Licensed Professional Counselor, currently employed as a Military Family Life Counselor.
Theresa “Terri” Deans and her husband moved to Texas from North Carolina with their two daughters in 2003 when Deans was offered a job at the U.S. Army Operational Test Command at West Fort Hood as an Education Development and Training Specialist. Deans worked at USAOTC until 2011 before transferring to a temporary assignment in Kuwait as a civilian personnel actions liaison, then returned to USAOTC. She retired with 37 years of federal service in 2014. Deans and her husband are members of Central Texas Disaster Action Response Team (CEN-TX DART) and are certified instructors for Community Emergency Response Training (CERT).
After the upcoming runoff election, half of the Copperas Cove city government will be female. Presently, three women serve in city government, Bradi Diaz, Joann Courtland, and Dianne Campbell.
Diaz was elected mayor in a January 2019 special election. Courtland serves in Place 1, and Dianne Campbell serves in Place 5. Courtland was elected to office in Nov. 2018, and Campbell was elected in Nov. 2019.
Although there have been as many as two women serving on the council, there have never been four in elected office at one time. Diaz previously served in office during the same time as former councilmembers Annabelle Smith and Charlotte Heinze. Prior to Diaz’ first round in office, Jeanne Durham also served on the council.
Following Diaz, Smith, and Heinze, Cheryl Meredith was elected to the council. She served two terms in Place 1, from 2010-2015, and did not run for reelection due to term limits. Marty Smith was then elected to office in 2013, to replace Danny Palmer, who was term limited. Smith resigned in 2016.