MANSFIELD — Gary Bishop, like most Republican candidates on Tuesday night, was ecstatic when unofficial results revealed his upset win over incumbent Bambi Couch Page in the Richland County Prosecutor’s race

“I’m very humbled at the same time, and grateful to the citizens for the giving me the opportunity to serve them,” Bishop said minutes after the board of elections tallied the last votes from the county’s final precinct.

Bishop and Couch Page were close toward the beginning of the night. Bishop led Couch Page by 1.7 percent when the board of elections reported results from seven precincts. His lead grew to a 5.5-percent edge when 33 precinct votes had been tallied.

Bishop finished the night’s race with 55.6 percent of the county’s vote to Couch Page’s 44.3 percent.

A total of 51,635 citizens voted for the county prosecutor seat. Bishop garnered 28,773 and Couch Page had 22,862.

The county’s projected new prosecutor attended a GOP party at Bucks Bar and Grill in Lexington to celebrate. The overjoyed candidate said the first thing he would do was go on a vacation.

“I’m going to take a three-day, well-deserved rest and take time to clear my head and take some of this stress off,” he said.

During his campaign, Bishop said he wanted to bring integrity to the office and a sense of safety to the streets. Before he could give specifics, he said he would have to get a feeling for what needed to be done.

“I’ll start meeting with the sheriff, chiefs of police, township trustees and other organizations,” Bishop said. “I want to find out what’s been going on since I left.

“If there are problems, I want to work to fix them. I’ll build a team that works together and respects one another — that has good morale. There’s nothing we cant accomplish when we’re working together.”

Couch Page took over the Richland County Prosecutor’s Office in September 2014, when James Mayer Jr. died. Bishop worked under Couch Page’s authority for about six months before moving to Ashland County as a trial attorney in April 2015.

He decided to run for the Richland County Prosecutor’s seat when he said he began to be contacted by law enforcement workers, former co-workers and victims of crime urging him to run.

“I want to thank the citizens of Richland County, for their confidence and trust. It’s very humbling and I’m very grateful,” Bishop said.

Couch Page could not immediately be reached for a comment.

Experience

Bishop served for six months as Wood County’s interim while Alan Mayberry ran a campaign for the Common Pleas judge seat.

During Bishop’s 17-year tenure at the Wood County prosecutor’s office, he reported 100 convictions in felony jury trials, some of which included aggravated murder trials and one death penalty case.

Before that, he received a political science degree from Bowling Green State University, along with an English minor. He finished law school at the University of Toledo in 1986 and while in school, worked on both sides of the criminal aisle in the public defender’s office and the city’s prosecutor office.

From there, he moved on to work as a judicial law clerk under Frederick H. McDonald, who would later go on to serve as a judge for the Lucas County Common Pleas Court. He was then recruited by Betty Montgomery to be her juvenile prosecutor before she became the state’s first female Attorney General from 1995 to 2003.

In late 2005, Bishop said he moved home to Richland County to help his mother take care of her husband after a debilitating stroke. Upon moving back, he received a job in Mayer’s Roffice, where he worked for nine-and-a-half years.