Will Fowlkes, chairman of the Cobb County Democratic Party, said Patrick Stafford, a Vinings area resident, qualified on Friday to challenge Holli Cash in the Post 2 Cobb school board race.
Fowlkes said he is very pleased with the caliber of candidates that have qualified this week for his party.
"It's challenging to have inter-party candidates run against each other. That's not the optimal scenario, but it's inevitable," Fowlkes said. "I'm ecstatic over the state-level candidates. As of this (Friday) morning, we had Democratic candidates in 10 of our 14 House races. I'm very pleased with that."
Democratic candidates qualifying on Friday for Georgia Assembly included, Matthew D. Adams, 22, a grocery clerk from Acworth who is running for the District 35 State Representative seat; and Mark G. Koch, 53 of Marietta, who is running for District 37 State Representative. Koch is a bus driver with the Cobb County School District, said Doug Goodwin, the district's spokesman.
Cobb County Republican Party Chairman Scott Johnson said no more Republicans candidates qualified Friday at the local level.
"I was a little bit surprised there were no late qualifiers," Johnson. "Everybody qualified that I expected. We have a great line-up of candidates. We're excited about the folks who stepped up to run. They're top-quality candidates who will serve our county well."
Republicans qualifying on Friday for the Georgia Assembly included: Frances "Beth" Pollard, 50, a quality manager from Smyrna running for State Senate District 6; Craig Prewitt, 39, a Realtor and charter boat captain from Powder Springs running for the District 33 State Senate seat; D. Scott McDearman, 40, a businessman from Smyrna running for State Representative District 40.
In an unexpected move, perennial candidate Bill Bolton, D, of Marietta, qualified to run for governor. Bolton, 62, a management technical consultant, ran for mayor of Marietta in 2009.
For the U.S. House, Hank R. Dudek, a Republican from Smyrna, qualified to run for the District 13 seat. Dudek, 41, lists his occupation as sales.
This week brought out several surprise candidates in both parties, including former Cobb Board of Education member Betty Gray's qualification on Thursday for District 39 state representative against incumbent Alisha Thomas Morgan. Gray, 76, a Democrat of Mableton, served on the Cobb school board for 16 years before losing her seat to David Morgan, husband of Alisha Thomas Morgan, in the 2008 election.
Another relatively surprising Democratic candidate to qualify on Thursday was Rick Welkis, who qualified to run for the Post 6 Cobb County school board seat. Welkis' wife, Carrie Nicholas-Welkis, is leading the recall effort to remove Dr. John Crooks from the Post 6 seat he holds currently on the board.
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His wife probably isn't too happy at home.
Not only is she about to be ousted. It won't be long before he is too.
You can make us laugh David, but you don't really do anything now do you? When was the last time you were really passionate about anything happening in that board room?
Get out of there and let someone who can run this school district in!
Come on, give the kids back their school.
It isn't like you can't find the money.
Oakwood is the only high school closing. Isn't that a little unfair?