Separated by only one vote as of Tuesday night, both candidates for the District 4 seat on the Leflore County School Board said they have learned a lot during the campaign.
Jeanette Brown, 61, who has served on the board 8½ years and is its president, is running against Glenda Boyd-Neal, 40.
With absentee and affidavit ballots still to be counted, Brown had 315 votes, and Boyd-Neal had 314.
This is the first time Brown has faced opposition in a board election. She first joined to serve the remainder of a previous member's term, and then she won a full term unopposed.
She said she learned that a campaign requires a lot of work, so she put in all the effort she could and hoped for the best.
Brown said the election seemed to go smoothly as far as she could tell. She did a lot of door-to-door campaigning and also spoke to church groups and the Greenwood Voters League.
People seemed to respond to her message, too, she said.
"It was great," she said. "I have no complaints."
Boyd-Neal, an administrative assistant for the Delta Research and Cultural Institute at Mississippi Valley State University, said the campaign had been a long, trying process.
Like Brown, she spent plenty of time campaigning and knocked on many doors. But she learned along the way what she needed to do and what she needed to improve on. She said her family gave her great support, and and others in the community also responded positively.
But with the race still in doubt, she said Tuesday that she just planned to "stay at home and get some rest and wait on tomorrow."
