CAIRO — Howard Thrower has been elected Cairo’s next mayor.

Thrower, a 69-year-old retired investment adviser, defeated private investigator Emory Thomas in Tuesday night’s special election by a margin of 453-175.

A fifth-generation resident of Cairo, Thrower’s great-grandfather, W.H. Robinson, served as the city’s mayor during the World War II and also helped form the local Chamber of Commerce. The now-retired Thrower, also a Sunday school teacher at First United Methodist Church, said he was happy to win with 62 percent of the vote.

“I’m looking forward to working with our city council and our other agencies including our county commission on projects that are ongoing and projects that we want to create,” he said Tuesday night.

Thrower will be sworn in as the city’s new mayor at the city council’s next regularly scheduled meeting June 22. He will be filling the unexpired term of former Mayor Booker Gainor, who was disqualified from office earlier this year after qualifying to run for a seat in the state legislature.

Thrower’s term will expire in December 2021.

In Grady County’s races, Rmore than 2,500 absentee ballots were to be counted after the polls closed, and approximately 400 were left to be counted at around 10 p.m.