That final push worked! Dana Boke unseats 13-year incumbent Jerry Krambeck as Spearfish mayor. Here are results from the Black Hills Pioneeer Facebook feed:
City of Spearfish - Mayor
Dana Boke wins with 899 votes [53%]
Jerry Krambeck received 790 votes [47%]Spearfish City Council
Paul Young wins with 290 votes [55%]
Mitch Moe received 240 votes [45%]Spearfish School Board
Jeff Sleep wins with 1,043 votes
Dave Bressler wins with 933 votes
Brett Rauterkus received 611 votes
109 votes separating Boke and Krambeck... folks waving Boke signs at three major intersections in Spearfish in the snow all day long could well have made the difference in that tally. Smart campaigning, Dana!
But Mayor Dana Boke—Spearfish will now enjoy three years of bland management-speak at the helm... while new Lead Mayor Jerry Apa drinks Spearfish's milkshake.
Update 21:27 MDT: When I visited the polls at 17:40 MDT, 1,428 city folks had voted. With 1,689 votes in the mayor's race, that's 261 more votes... a large number of which would have been early/absentee ballots. The back of my envelope says total turnout in the mayoral race was around 24%.
p.s.: We play "It's a Wonderful Life" on TV every Christmas. Every Election Day, big or small, we should play the "Democracy in America" episode of Northern Exposure.