Published: June 26, 2009 11:23 am      

Davis, Buckner leaving Mercer Courthouse posts

PRINCETON — Two of Mercer County Courthouse’s longest-serving elected leaders are calling it a career.

Circuit Clerk Brenda Davis and Magistrate Harold Buckner will retire and leave their posts, effective July 31, according to court orders handed down this week.

Davis, who was still on the job this week, said the choice to leave her occupation of 39 years was “one of the most difficult decisions” of her life.

“I love my job — the people I work with, the work that I do,” she said. “I know I’ll leave a piece of my heart at the courthouse.”

Buckner, who said during his 2008 re-election campaign that this term would be his last, decided to leave earlier than expected.

He has served 16 years as a magistrate and eight as Mercer County sheriff. He told the Times late last year that he would turn 65 during his next term.

“I figure it’s time to hang it up then,” he said.

Since both Davis and Buckner will leave their seats before the end of their elected terms, the job of finding replacements fell to Mercer County’s Ninth Circuit Judges, who have named Julie Ball as the next circuit clerk and former magistrate James Dent as an interim magistrate in Buckner’s court.

Ball is a veteran employee in the Mercer County Circuit Clerk’s Office, and Dent will return to a post he held until he stepped down to run for sheriff in 2004.

Both appointments will take effect Aug. 1, and both positions will appear on the ballot in the 2010 primary and general elections.

— Contact Tammie Toler at ttoler@ptonline.net.