And now for the ‘Maine’ event ...

By SCOTT BAUGHMAN

Gaffney native Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell won her race for the District 24 Maine State Senate seat. Now living in Vassalboro, Mitchell is a Gaffney High School graduate. Ledger Staff Writer

While Republicans may have made major gains nationwide in the 2004 election, one Gaffney native is celebrating a Democratic win in Maine’s state senate.

Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell won her first bid for the District 24 Senate seat, coming off a budding political career and riding her statewide renown earned earlier as Maine’s first female Speaker of the House in the state House of Representatives.

Mitchell was victorious over Republican candidate Julie Ann O’Brien by a tally of 10,376 votes to 9,423. Her victory secured a razor-thin Democratic majority in the Senate by a margin of 18 seats to 17 seats.

Focusing on security issues and economic development in her campaign, Mitchell pledged to voters, “I will listen to you. I will work for you. I will share your concerns. Nobody will try harder to make my towns — our towns — a place to live in peace, to raise children in a caring community, and to work with pride and dignity.”

And from the back of her horse Navajo in a Fourth of July parade in Augusta, she added, “We can build our communities without bankrupting our communities. It is the only way. I’m hearing times are tough. Libby Mitchell is a leader for tough times.”

Mitchell’s sister Joyce Harrill Childers still lives in Gaffney and traveled to Maine to help in her sibling’s campaign.

A resident of Vassalboro, Maine, Mitchell has lived in the state for 30 years. She is the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Charles Harrill. She and her husband, Jim, who is a Judge of Probate, have two daughters, Elizabeth, of Portland, and Emily, who lives in Spain; and two sons, Will, of Peaks Island, and Charlie, of Washington, D.C.

She is a graduate of Gaffney High and Furman University.