By Roger J. Di Paolo
Record-Courier Editor
You can't get much closer than the down-to-the-wire finish that left Jerry Fiala the apparent winner in the Kent mayor's race by a razor-thin margin of two votes.
While the final outcome of Fiala's race against Councilman Rick Hawksley won't be resolved until provisional votes and other outstanding ballots are counted, the election night tally was the closest in history for any Kent mayoral race.
But the 1961 race between Mayor Redmond Greer and Robert Byrne ended up being even closer, thanks to a recount.
The final count ended in a tie. And Greer retained his job as the city's chief executive because a half-dollar landed heads up.
The contest 48 years ago was a rematch between Greer, a Republican seeking a second term, and Democrat Byrne, whom he had defeated for mayor two years earlier.
The campaign between the two was a spirited one -- "one of the most intense ... in (Kent) political history," in the words of the Record-Courier -- and both sides expected the outcome would be close.
Byrne lost the 1959 race by 143 votes, but Kent had seen a much closer finish in 1955 when Mayor Carl Meeker was unseated by Raymond Manchester by seven votes.
More than 4,400 voters turned out at the polls on Election Day, Nov. 7, 1961. The count was close throughout the evening as the paper ballots were tallied by hand.
The night proved to be a long and anxious one for both sides.
Mayor Greer's daughter, Nancy Hansford -- who later held the mayor's office from 1982 through 1986 -- remembers the feeling of uncertainty as the count progressed.
"I had spent all afternoon decorating a cake for my father on Election Day," said Hansford, who had presented the mayor with a similar token when he won the 1959 election, "and then wondering if it mattered."
The victory cake seemed to be in order when the final vote was tallied.
Mayor Greer held a 53-vote lead over his Democratic rival until the last ballots came in from Precinct I-C, which Byrne won by 42 votes.
That still left Greer with an 11-vote win and apparent victory in his bid for a second term. The election night tally was 2,221 votes for Greer to 2,210 for Byrne.
But the race wasn't over. Byrne demanded a recount in all 19 precincts.
That took place 10 days after the election. The 4,431 ballots were counted by hand at the Portage County Board of Elections office at the courthouse.
"Dad watched the count," Hansford recalled. "They did it one ballot at a time and you needed to be careful how it was done." Byrne also was on hand for the recount.
The count lasted from 1 p.m. to 8:25 p.m. with a single break for coffee for the counters.
Greer lost nine votes and Byrne gained two. That left them tied at 2,212 votes each.
Ohio election law allows ties to be broken by the flip of a coin.
Election board chairman Bryan Jones was ready for that. Taking out a half-dollar, he told the two candidates, "Heads, you win, Greer. And tails, you win, Byrne." Then he tossed the 50-cent piece.
"The coin went high, struck the ceiling, came down upon a table and bounced about the floor," the Record-Courier reported.
It landed heads up. Redmond Greer retained the mayor's office.
Byrne told the newspaper he still planned to go forward with a victory party he had scheduled for that night. "After all, we didn't lose the election," he said. "I got as many votes as he did."
The victor and the vanquished "went across the street for a goodwill toast," the R-C reported.
Even though Byrne didn't win the coin toss, he did gain something in the recount. He left with 50 cents more in his pocket -- the half-dollar that decided the closest mayoral race in Kent history.