HERMANN – Just days before she oversees the last election in a long career, Gasconade County Clerk Lesa Lietzow is scheduled to be recognized for her service to the citizens of the county.

Lietzow, who is closing the books on a career spanning 40 years in local government, is retiring at the end of this year. Deputy Clerk Danielle Norsic is her presumptive successor, the only candidate to file for the office that will be filled in the Nov. 3 General Elections.

Lietzow is among several local officials who will be recognized by the members of Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC) during the agency’s Annual Dinner and Awards Program set for Bear River Ranch in Rolla on Thursday, Oct. 29.

After two decades of working in the County Clerk’s Office, Lietzow was elected to the post and has served as the county’s chief budget officer, chief elections officials and keeper of the county’s records for 20 years. She is one of several veteran Gasconade County government officeholders who will be retiring this year or who have left their offices in the past year.

Lietzow’s final year in office has not been a quiet one for her as the chief elections officer. Along with the often-difficult task of recruiting the necessary number of poll workers, she has had to deal with ballots crowded with tax-and-bond issues and controversial items such as property tax-break measures sent down from the state. This year’s General Municipal Elections ballot in April, which included a variety of municipal, school district and local-government agency issues, was the most crowded ballot she has overseen during her tenure.

Between election days, Lietzow and her staff have dealt with the uncertainty of maps regarding the U.S. House of Representatives elections, a successful petition campaign that resulted in a second countywide property tax-break issue on the November ballot and potentially being put in legal jeopardy by a recalcitrant secretary of state regarding congressional district maps before being cleared to proceed by the Missouri Supreme Court.

And now,this. Lietzow noted at last week’s session of the County Commission that election authorities around the country have been receiving envelopes containing a white powdery substance, sparking concern that hearkened back to the days of the anthrax scare. According to news reports, thus far non of the letters received by election authorities have contained harmful substances, but, as Lietzow noted, the receipt of such a letter is enough to give election officials pause during one of their busiest times of year. Thus far, Gasconade County has not received such a letter, although she told the Commission such letters have made it into parts of Missouri.

Lietzow’s term officially ends at midnight Dec. 31.

MRPC last held is annual dinner in Rolla in 2015. It was held in Hermann a few years ago at the Hermannhof Festhalle. The event serves not only to recognized elected officials who are stepping down, but also the many citizen volunteers and organizations throughout the eight-county Meramec Region working to improve life for the region’s residents.

Formed in 1969 under legislation signed into law by then-Gov. Warren Hearnes, MRPC is a voluntary council of governments for the region that contains Gasconade, Osage, Dent, Washington, Pulaski, Crawford, Phelps and Maries counties and the cities within those counties. There are regional planning commissions (RPCs) — or its urban-area counterpart, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) — in every state. Of the several in Missouri, MRPC is seen as one of the busier, if not busiest, agencies with a variety of programs in place.