*Correction: Wesley Frank filed to run against Commissioner Cindy Cameron after making a filing mistake. He has since withdrawn his candidacy.  A newer, more accurate version of this article is available — Frank concedes election after filing mistake.

Wesley Frank will take on Muskingum County Commissioner Mollie Crooks (R) this November as an Independent candidate after being certified by the County Board of Elections earlier this week.

Frank, an 18-year-old who received his Maysville High School diploma Tuesday afternoon, looks to unseat Crooks who first ran for commissioner back in 2014 and lost in the Republican primary to Jim Porter before successfully being elected in 2017, beating out Democrat Jerry Lavy.

“I’m very excited. I’m extremely ready for this,” Frank said when he discussed how he felt when he learned he would be the youngest candidate ever to run for the position in the history of the county.

Frank sees his age as a strength, having two years of college already under his belt, he believes his age plays a pivotal role as he looks to call Muskingum County home for the foreseeable future.

“If something goes poorly, I’m going to see the consequences of it,” Frank explained, mentioning how the financial decisions being made now will affect generations of county residents long into the future.

“I’m more confident than ever that now is the time for fiscal responsibility. I don’t think that the current commissioners are following through with their promise to taxpayers to use their money wisely,” said Frank.

As county unemployment is near record highs and many local businesses are struggling to survive due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Frank said he is disappointed at the commissioners’ failure to maintain campaign promises to run the county like a business and to be good stewards of taxpayer money.

“I don’t think it was very business-like to give a raise to someone that didn’t ask for it, I was pretty shocked by that,” Frank discussed briefly around the controversy surrounding aired out on social media in which Commissioners Mollie Crooks and Cindy Cameron voted to give an insurance broker a substantial unrequested raise while Commissioner Jim Porter was away at a medical appointment.

For Frank, campaigning during a national pandemic makes getting his message out to voters more difficult as many events and get-togethers have been canceled, but he says he is already planning to start going door-to-door to get his message out directly to voters in the coming weeks.

The state has yet to make any concrete decisions as to if the November election will allow constituents to cast their votes in person or if Ohio will follow other states like California and mail a ballot to every registered voter.