Schwickerath knocks off Larsen in New Hampton mayoral race

New Hampton elected a new mayor on Tuesday as challenger Bobby Schwickerath knocked off incumbent Deb Larsen by a relatively large margin.
Schwickerath, the 32-year-old president of the New Horizons-Chamber who serves as the warehouse manager and in sales at Dungey’s Furniture and Flooring, received 566 votes, or 59.6 percent, while Larsen garnered 384 votes, or 40.4 percent.
“I’ve been extremely nervous the last week or so,” Schwickerath said, “but we had a lot of positivity and a lot of good things came our way. The support we had was just amazing.”
Larsen, who won a three-way special election in March 2016, congratulated Schwickerath in a Facebook post, and also said she was “thankful for all the wonderful support I have received from some great people.”
Those elected in Tuesday’s election will be sworn into office and early January, and New Hampton will have one new council member as Bob Boos beat back a challenge from Jason Speltz, who had mounted a late write-in campaign for the Ward 3 seat being vacated by Scott Carey.
Boos received 149 votes while the total write-in vote was 101. The exact number of votes Speltz received was not known Tuesday night as Chickasaw County Auditor Joan Knoll said those votes won’t be tabulated until Wednesday or Thursday.
Two New Hampton incumbents, Ward 1 incumbent Cory McDonald and At-Large incumbent Joe Denner ran unopposed while three incumbents – Perry Laures, Andrea Rochford and Steve Murray — all were re-elected to the Park Board.
Also earning second terms were two New Hampton School Board incumbents as both Nate Schwickerath and Jay Matthews ran unopposed.
— For more on the election, refer back to nhtrib.com and see the Nov. 12 edition of the Tribune