Craig wins

Incumbent Bob Craig held his seat in the Republican primary for despite a challenge from former Ector County Independent School District board member Randy Rives.

Craig, who spent the evening watching a Texas Tech basketball game and checking returns, sounded elated over his victory.

"I think this is a victory for the students, the teachers, the parents; and we can continue to move forward in education," Craig said.

Rives said he challenged Craig because he was "not a real conservative" based on his voting record. Craig said that he had never been anything but a conservative, he just didn’t believe in politicizing education.

During the race, Craig said he supported strong academics and flexible course offerings for students, that he wanted to textbooks to be fair, balanced and accurate and supported a physically conservative Permanent School Fund.

Rives said he wanted to bring his conservative values to the board, wanted to ensure that textbooks reflected those values and that the Permanent School Fund would continue to be controlled by the board.

Rives may not have liked the way Craig, who has served two terms, votes on the State Board of Education, but the voters liked Craig just fine.

Across District 15, Craig got 65.2 percent of the vote while Rives got 34.79 percent.

Rives was disappointed by the loss but said it was understandable considering how late he got into the race.

"We got in late, and we knew it was going to be an uphill battle … I don’t know if anyone could’ve done any better," Rives said.

Rives said he knew the race was over when he saw the Lubbock returns.

As winner of the March 2 primary, Craig will face Libertarian John Pekowski in the November election.

"Now we’re just getting ready to run, and I hope we’ll do as well in the general election," Craig said.

FACT FILE

>> Seat: State Board of Education District 15.

>> Term: Four years.

>> Salary: None.