LAKE LURE, N.C. — Two Lake Lure residents have announced write-in campaigns for mayor in the Nov. 3 municipal election, giving voters an organized alternative to Mayor Carol Pritchett for the first time since she filed for reelection without opposition this summer.

Kathy Tanner, a longtime volunteer leader with the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge, launched her campaign Thursday, Sept. 10, with a formal press release. John Edmonds Kozma, an entertainment executive who grew up in Bostic and Lake Lure, announced his campaign on Facebook and video about two and a half weeks earlier, on Monday, Aug. 24. Neither is on the printed ballot — regular candidate filing for Lake Lure's mayor's race closed at noon on July 17, with Pritchett the only person to file — so both campaigns are asking voters to write their names in on Election Day.

Tanner: "Restore confidence in our Town Hall"

Tanner's campaign announcement frames her candidacy around transparency and consensus-building. "Lake Lure needs a fresh voice and leadership that listens," Tanner said in her launch statement. "I am running to bring our community together and restore confidence in our Town Hall."

Tanner is best known locally for her work with the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge, the pedestrian garden bridge that was heavily damaged in Hurricane Helene and is now being rebuilt. She was a member of the steering committee that helped create the Flowering Bridge gardens and has served on its board since 2011, including as secretary, garden chair and board chair, guiding the organization through the post-Helene rebuilding effort.

A UNC Chapel Hill graduate with a master's degree in early childhood education, Tanner began her career as a second-grade teacher before a long run of community and nonprofit leadership roles, including with Wing Haven Gardens and the Junior League, both in Charlotte, and as a Rutherford County Master Gardener.

Tanner's stated priorities as mayor are restoring trust and transparency in town government, rebuilding relationships with neighboring communities and regional partners, strengthening communication with residents and businesses, and building consensus around a long-term vision for the town. "My approach is simple," she said. "Listen first, build consensus, develop a plan, create partnerships, find the resources and get to work."

Her campaign says she plans to hold events and attend meetings in the coming weeks to hear directly from residents. More information is available at kathyforlakelure.com.

Kozma: A hometown case against "distractions" at Town Hall

Kozma's campaign leans on his family's roots in the area. He grew up in Bostic and Lake Lure and attended Bostic Elementary and Rutherford High School. His father, John Kozma, taught, coached football and baseball, and served as an assistant principal at East Rutherford High School, leading the 1976 East Rutherford baseball team to a state championship; his mother, Ann Kozma, taught at Alexander Mills, Sunshine, Bostic Elementary and East Middle School.

"Rutherford County isn't just where I'm running for office. It's home," Kozma wrote in his campaign announcement. "My parents taught me that leadership means showing up, working hard, serving others, and leaving your community better than you found it. Now I want to put those same values to work for Lake Lure."

Kozma is the CEO and founder of Bang Productions, an entertainment company, and hosts the "Unimpressed" podcast; he has built a career in media and social strategy, including work credited with helping build comedian Darren Knight's ("Southern Momma") audience.

His campaign message argues that Town Hall has misplaced its priorities. In a campaign video, Kozma said the town's focus on "Paul Brock, Lured, and a boathouse dispute" — a reference to the town's ongoing litigation with the operators of the Lured Market and the adjacent boathouse, which Lake Lure Insider has covered extensively since last month — is "the wrong priority" when recovery, housing and economic growth "demand real leadership." He is proposing a teacher-housing tax incentive, developed with regional housing partners, as one way to attract and retain educators.

"Leadership is not about chasing distractions," Kozma said. "It is about setting a direction, protecting the people who bring value to Lake Lure, and delivering results."

And Then There's Edmund

No write-in mayoral field in Lake Lure would be complete, apparently, without Edmund — the Kiko goat who has spent the last several weeks building a following (and a campaign store) as Lake Lure's unofficial "G.O.A.T. candidate." Edmund has not filed anything anywhere, because goats don't file paperwork, but that hasn't stopped supporters from floating a third write-in name alongside Tanner and Kozma.

There's one problem, according to the geography of it: Edmund's home turf, the hills off the Rocky Broad River where he's lived since wandering away from his old herd, sits up the river in Chimney Rock — not Lake Lure. That makes him, technically, a Chimney Rock resident and therefore ineligible to hold office in a town he doesn't live in, the same residency requirement that applies to every human candidate on this list.

Edmund, we can report, is unmoved. Consistent with prior reporting on his platform and general demeanor, his campaign's posture toward the residency question amounts to daring officials to come prove it — catch him if they can.

Why this is happening as a write-in fight

Under North Carolina's municipal election calendar, candidate filing for Lake Lure's mayor and council seats ran through noon on July 17. Pritchett, mayor since 2019, filed for reelection and drew no opponent, which would ordinarily have left her name alone on the November ballot — with a blank write-in line beneath it, as shown on the sample ballot below.

Tanner and Kozma's campaigns are both organizing after that filing deadline, meaning voters who want to back either of them will need to write in their names on that line rather than mark a printed choice.

The write-in campaigns arrive amid a stretch of Town Hall controversy that has drawn sustained local coverage: the Lured Market/Second Mountain litigation and boathouse dispute, a monthlong gap in published council minutes earlier this year, and questions raised at recent council meetings about the town's public statements on Hurricane Helene's death toll. Both candidates are campaigning, in different ways, on restoring public trust in how the town is run — a message a certain goat, in his own way, is arguably running on too.

Lake Lure Insider will continue to cover both campaigns — and Edmund's continued refusal to concede the geography — as they hold events and answer voter questions ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Sources: Kathy Tanner for Mayor campaign press release, Sept. 10, 2026; John Edmonds Kozma campaign announcement and video, posted to Facebook, Aug. 24, 2026, and johnedmondskozma.com; Rutherford County municipal candidate filing records via WCAB News; Lake Lure Insider's prior reporting on Edmund the goat and Town Hall's current controversies.

Last updated: 2026-09-11