Here they are, from the County Judge’s office:
Place 1
Ramsey Isa Ankar
Katherine Ballard Blueford-Daniels
Era N. Ford
William Reinhardt Frazier
Place 2
Jevon German
Janice W. Hines
Melissa Louise Noriega
Austin Ryan Pooley
Kyle Anthony Scott
Place 3
Oluwapelumi Adebola Adeleke
James J. Bill
Melody Genneane Ellis
Mark V. Goloby
Amy Ngo Lacy
Ericka McCrutcheon
I told you about some of these folks in the last update. I can also tell you, thanks to research done by my friends Ashleigh and Rosie and commenter Souperman, that Ramsey Ankar, James Bill (who left a comment on that post), and Janice Hines are Dems of varying flavor, while Amy Ngo Lacy is a Republican. Now let’s talk about the new names on the list.
A couple of them are familiar. Kathy Blueford-Daniels is a former HISD trustee who just finished serving a term as an appointed HCAD Board member. She is eligible to run because she is no longer an elected official. Melissa Noriega of course is a former At Large #3 City Council member and State Representative in HD145.
The rest I had to search for. Here’s what I can tell you:
If you search for “Era Ford”, you’re going to get a lot of automotive results. I can confirm there’s someone by this name registered to vote in Harris County and living in HD147. After that, we’ll have to wait.
Jevon German was a candidate for HISD Board of Trustees in District II in 2019, getting 9.5% of the vote in a race ultimately won by Kathy Blueford-Daniels. Judging from his Facebook page, he’s likely a Democrat.
I didn’t find anything at first when I searched for “Oluwapelumi Adebola Adeleke”, but when I took the middle name out I got here, which told me this person was a graduate of the Harvard Business School. Looking at the other search results I saw a LinkedIn profile for a Houston person and Harvard Business School grad named Pelumi Adeleke. That can’t be a coincidence, right? And sure enough, Pelumi Adeleke on Facebook has a cover photo announcing her candidacy for the HCAD Board of Directors. Scrolling down a bit I see she attended an HCDP meet-the-candidates event in 2022, so I’d say she’s a Dem.
Mark Goloby apparently ran for Governor in 2022 as a write-in, gathering all of 394 votes. (This is one of those times when the exclamation “Geez, I could have done that!” seems appropriate.) He still has a website that clearly IDs him as a Republican.
Melody Genneane Ellis is strangely hard to pin down on Google, but fortunately I had a better resource at my fingertips: a group of pals I’ve been chatting with about this race. The consensus there is that she is the sister of Commissioner Rodney Ellis. I can confirm there’s only one registered voter named “Melody Ellis” in Harris County, and Commissioner Ellis mentions having a sister named Melody in a few Facebook posts.
So there you have it. We have ourselves a field. I’m told the Houston GLBT Political Caucus will screen for endorsements after the primary. I remain hopeful we will eventually get some news coverage of this race. I will of course keep an eye on it, and my plan is to eventually do some interviews. Let me know if you have any questions.