"Dyer County General Sessions Judge Tony Childress picked up an application for the vacant Chancery Court post seconds before the deadline to pick up a petition ran out.

"Childress had to rattle the door to get the county election commission workers to unlock the door, which had been closed for the weekend at 4:30 p.m. Friday..."

Those two paragraphs were published in last Sunday's edition of the State Gazette as part of an article on the competition for the Dyer and Lake counties Chancery Court post.

The troubling truth is, almost none of it is true.

Childress did not pick up an application, but filed a completed petition, thus qualifying him to run once the document was submitted and the Dyer County Election Commission certified the ballot.

He did not turn in the document "seconds before the deadline to pick up a petition ran out." The commission office closes at 4:30 p.m.; Childress arrived at 4:20 p.m. So Childress did not have to "rattle the door," because it was not locked.

And the deadline to submit petitions was not until noon Wednesday.

Readers should be able trust their newspaper to rely on solid information.

CHRIS RIMEL

Editor

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Below is the original content:

Dyer County General Sessions Judge Tony Childress picked up an application for the vacant Chancery Court post seconds before the deadline to pick up a petition ran out.

Childress had to rattle the door to get the county election commission workers to unlock the door, which had been closed for the weekend at 4:30 p.m. Friday.

Childress, elected to the county judgeship in August 2006, is the second person in the hunt to fill former Chancery Court Judge Steve Stafford's spot on the bench. Stafford on Thursday was appointed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Western District.

Dyersburg attorney Mark Hayes, a partner in the Wilkerson, Gauldin, Hayes and Jenkins law firm, filed his petition on Wednesday.

The deadline to withdraw from consideration and keep a name off the ballot is noon Friday, June 20.

State law mandates the deadline 50 days before the August 7 ballot to assure military ballots can be returned on time, said Tennessee Division of Elections assistant coordinator Beth Henry Robertson.

Gov. Phil Bredesen then chooses the candidate to fill the judgeship.

Noon on Tuesday, June 18 is the deadline to turn in petitions to election commissions in either Dyer or Lake counties.