By Polina Noskova
Incumbent John Higgins won re-election to the Buffalo District Board of Supervisors position.
With all precincts reported, his opponent Deb Weddle had 45 percent of the vote.
Higgins is the supervisor of the Rockbridge Regional Jail. Weddle is a retired female schoolteacher who hoped to bring diverse thoughts and experiences to balance the Board of Supervisors. 
Higgins has been serving on the Board since 2011, and was elected board chairman at the beginning of last year. He has been active on committees such as the Finance Committee and the Personnel Committee, and has served as the Superintendent of the jail since 2000. He has worked for the jail for 33 years.
Weddle, a long-time local resident, recently retired from the Rockbridge County School system after teaching for 24 years and substitute teaching for six. Besides lending diversity to the Board, which is currently all male, she campaigned on supporting school programs to prepare citizens for jobs.
Higgins said that his understanding of budgets, finance and policy procedure from working at the Sheriff’s office helps him with his work on the Board.
Weddle said that even though she’s been a local resident for a while, she still has an outside perspective on issues. She said the biggest issue in the county is that young people lack jobs once they graduate from high school.
Higgins identified the biggest problems in the county around the issue of economic development. For example, he said, neighboring regions might have more money than Rockbridge County to pay for water, sewer and other incentives to attract businesses.
The Buffalo district has a population count only slightly greater than the registered voter count of Lexington. As an “off-off-year” local election, voter turnout was projected to be low.
Two other supervisors were re-elected without opposition. They are David W. Hinty of the Natural Bridge district and Ronnie R. Campbell of the South River district.