Deputy Coroner Ronald C. Regan was appointed by supervisors Monday to be coroner until a special election on Nov. 7 to replace L.W. “Bump” Callaway III.

Regan said he will also seek the office in the special election to fill the remaining three years of Callaway’s term.

“If I am elected, I will continue to serve Vicksburg and Warren County to the best of my abilities,” he said.

After 25 years as coroner, Callaway was named Aug. 7 to replace Luther Warnock Jr. as head of the Vicksburg Warren County Emergency Management Agency. Monday’s vote for Regan’s appointment was unanimous.

Regan, 47, has spent seven years as deputy coroner; and he was acting coroner for nine months while Callaway was on military duty in Bosnia.

Also throwing his name into the race Monday, 42-year-old John Thomason said he and Regan are the two best-qualified people in the county for the position.

“I felt that I owed it to myself to run this time,” Thomason said.

He ran for coroner in 1983, but lost to Callaway.

Regan and Thomason are both funeral directors. Coroners make rulings on deaths that result from trauma or when a person is not under a physician’s care.

Other local and state positions being decided in the Nov. 7 vote are the election for District 1 Place 3 seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court, the election for all five seats on the county election commission and the District 2 seat on the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees.

Candidates for coroner, school board and election commission have until Sept. 8 to qualify with the Circuit Clerk’s Office to appear on the ballot.

Supervisors will meet again at 9 a.m., Monday at the Warren County Courthouse.