Although more residents of the Lamar County School District than not voted to approve the proposed bond that that would have allowed for the construction of three new schools in the district – along with a new office building and other spaces – that measure recently failed to pass for a lack of the necessary percentage of the vote.
According to results from the May 14 special referendum, 1,530 residents voted for the measure, while 1,313 voted against the measure, for a total of 2,845 votes. However, because those results did not meet the requirement of 60 percent approval from the voters who cast a ballot in the election, the bond issue failed to pass.
“I guess the best word you can use (for my feelings) is 'disappointed,' but there’s a lot of positives,” said Steven Hampton, superintendent of the Lamar County School District. “I think in a county with a population of almost 60,000, I think that was a low turnout, but I really wanted to hear the voice of our community and residents, to see what they thought.
“So it’s one of those things where you’re disappointed, but we’ve got a lot of positives going on in the school district. It’s one of those things that we’ll learn from and move forward.”
Given the aforementioned numbers, 53.82 percent of voters chose to approve the measure, while 46.18 percent voted to decline it. That included a total of 125 absentee ballots, of which 41 were in favor of the bond issue and 84 were against it.
During the special election, residents in the school areas of Lumberton, Oak Grove, Purvis/Baxterville and Sumrall had the opportunity to head to the polls to determine whether to pass the measure, which district officials said is necessary to accommodate the steadily increasing student population, which is currently at 10,532 and growing.
Broken down by precinct, the results are as follows:
- Lamar Park: 45 votes (72.58 percent) for the bond; 17 (25.42 percent) against.
- Okahola: 27 votes (60 percent) for the bond; 18 (40 percent) against.
- Richburg: 78 votes (65.55 percent) for the bond; 41 (34.45 percent) against.
- Northeast Lamar: 25 votes (83.33 percent) for the bond; 5 (16.67 percent against.
- Lumberton: 18 votes (15.93 percent) for the bond; 95 (84.07 percent) against.
- South Purvis: 114 votes (50.89 percent) for the bond; 110 (49.11 percent) against.
- Yawn: 8 votes (38.10 percent) for the bond; 13 (61.9 percent) against.
- Wesley Manor: 5 votes (45.45 percent) for the bond; 6 (54.55 percent) against.
- Pine Grove: 34 votes (51.52 percent) for the bond; 32 (48.48 percent) against.
- Baxterville: 8 votes (16.33 percent) for the bond; 41 (83.67 percent) against.
- Greenville: 24 votes (20.51 percent) for the bond; 93 (79.49 percent) against.
- Purvis: 158 votes (52.15 percent) for the bond; 145 (47.85 percent) against.
- Arnold Line: 49 votes (63.64 percent) for the bond; 28 (36.36 percent) against.
- Mill Creek: 29 votes (46.03 percent) for the bond; 34 (53.97 percent) against.
- Midway: 66 votes (49.25 percent) for the bond; 68 (50.75 percent) against.
- Oak Grove: 94 votes (63.51 percent) for the bond; 54 (36.49 percent) against.
- Lake Serene: 214 votes (78.10 percent) for the bond; 60 (21.9 percent) against.
- Kingsmill: 51 votes (94.44 percent) for the bond; 3 (5.56 percent) against.
- Canebrake: 78 votes (61.9 percent) for the bond; 48 (38.1 percent against.
- Breland: 75 votes (75.76 percent) for the bond; 24 (24.24 percent) against.
- Oloh: 17 votes (41.46 percent) for the bond; 24 (58.54 percent) against.
- Rocky Branch: 40 votes (38.46 percent) for the bond; 64 (61.54 percent) against.
- Sumrall: 197 votes (48.05 percent) for the bond; 213 (51.95 percent) against.
- Oral: 76 votes (49.67 percent) for the bond; 77 (50.33 percent) against.
Had the bond passed, it would have helped with funding for the following items throughout the district:
- Lumberton: A new physical education facility.
- Oak Grove: A new Oak Grove Middle School, which would be a two-story structure on U.S. 98 on 16th-Section land which the school already owns. The building would feature a competition gymnasium and band hall. The current Oak Grove Middle School building would be renovated for the 11 Oak Grove Pre-K classes, and the back of the campus, on the Old Highway 11 entrance, would be converted into career and technical education classes. A new office building at Oak Grove Elementary School also would be built and the current office space would be converted back into classrooms.
- Purvis/Baxterville: A new two-story Purvis High School would be built on Highway 11 on school-owned 16th-section land. That building would feature a competition gymnasium, a band hall, choral space, practice/PE fields and JROTC.
- Sumrall: A new two-story Sumrall High School would be built on school-owned 16th- section land. The building would feature a competition gymnasium, a band hall, choral space, practice/PE fields and JROTC.
Hampton said despite the results of the election, officials still want to move forward with those plans.
“We’re looking at maybe doing another election in the fall, and get some more feedback and more information about what was some of the negative (of this election),” he said. “I do feel like there was a fairly good bit of misinformation that people perpetuated on Facebook and social media, and we did our best to combat that and give correct information.
“So we’ll move forward with trying to get a better understanding of what exactly we’re doing. I’ve heard people say that we’re trying to hide things and we’re trying to sneak things under, and that wasn’t the intent. All the information and the impact and everything was right there on our website for everyone to see, (and we also held several community meetings).”
