Sheriff

Tammy Mowry was elected sheriff of Box Butte County, Nebraska in November 2022 and took office on 1 January 2023, becoming a joint first-woman-elected sheriff in Nebraska state history. Jayme Reed of Pawnee County won her county's sheriff race in the same November 2022 cycle (Reed had previously been appointed in 2006 to fill a vacancy after the prior sheriff's resignation; her 2022 race was her first contested electoral win). Contemporary Nebraska press records them jointly as the state's first elected women sheriffs.

Mowry won the Republican primary and defeated her male Democratic opponent by 82 votes in the general election — the narrowest documented competitive margin in the dataset's sheriff entries.

The Reed event in Pawnee County is treated as historical context inside this dossier rather than as a separate Nebraska state-first entry, on the principle that the two events constitute a single joint first. Reed's earlier 2006 appointment is similarly noted as context, not as a standalone entry, because the editorial rule excludes appointment-to-fill-vacancy pathways from first-woman entries even where the appointee later wins an election as the incumbent.

Sources

• Lincoln Journal Star — Two break through as first elected female sheriffs in Nebraska