County Clerk

County Clerk, Nancy E. Rister

Photo of Nancy E. Rister Nancy E. Rister was appointed County Clerk on June 5, 1998 and won election to the office with 81.7% of the vote in the general election of November, 1998. She received her Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a major in Accountancy and Information Systems from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa. Her management career in several businesses has given her extensive experience in the supervision of employees, preparation of operational and capital budgets and financial statements, formulation of policies and procedures, and hands-on experience in running an office efficiently.

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County Clerk

The County Clerk is one of the oldest of all state governmental offices, established in 1836 and authorized by the Texas Constitution which states in part:

There shall be elected for each County, by qualified voters, a County Clerk, who shall hold his Office for four years, who shall be Clerk of the County and Commissioners' Courts and Recorder of the County, whose duties, perquisites and fees of Office shall be prescribed by Legislature ...

Nancy E. Rister is the Williamson County Clerk managing an office organized into these divisions:

Clerk of the Courts

Records

Commissioners Court

County Clerk Receives Five Star Vital Award for Fourteenth Consecutive Year

During the 57^th Annual Conference on Vital Statistics in Austin on Dec. 7-9th, the Williamson County Clerk’s office was presented for the fourteenth consecutive year the Five Star Vital Registration Award by the Texas Department of Health, State Health Services Vital Statistics Unit. This award is presented annually for exemplary work in the area of Vital Registration. The criteria for qualifications of this award include timeliness of filing registrations entered into the state database by the clerk’s office, annual training at conferences, use of the Texas Electronic Registrar (TER) for all birth, death and marriage registrations, completing an assessment survey and providing documentation of recruiting physicians to sign up and use State Dept. of Health required banknote paper. This year's competition included over 529 local registrars, out of which there were only 31 local registrars across the state that met the five specific criteria needed to achieve this prestigious award. Fifteen were County Clerks' offices who met the exemplary designation. Three employees in the Vital Statistics area attended the conference, Shirley Merkord, Linda Jons, and Paula Faris. Mrs. Rister attributed the twelfth consecutive win to her staff who have strived to maintain the high standards. The annual three-day conference included topics on Nuts and Bolts of TER Birth Registration, Detecting Fraud, Homeland Security and Identity Theft, Data Quality and System Integration, Statutes Governing Marriage Registration, Nuts and Bolts of TER Death Registration, Supplemental Registration, Remote Birth Access, Passport Fraud, Paternity Certification and others. This is only the fourth time that the designation of "Exemplary" has been achieved as the requirements become increasingly tough to reach this top designation. This extremely difficult designation was also achieved in 2003, 2008 and 2010.

Image of Award

The 2011 Exemplary Five Star Vital Registration Award

Linda Jons, Nancy Rister, Shirley Merkord, and Paula Faris accept the 2011 award

Shirley Merkord receives her Master Registrar Certification at the 2006 Conference in Austin