County
gets two
new
school
board
members
By Afton Fairchild
Advocate staff writer
The Montgomery County
Board of Education will have
some new faces in January, as
two of the three school board
seat winners beat out incumbents in the highly anticipated
race.
Sharon Smith will represent
District 3, replacing Board
Chiar Fern Reed, Alice
Anderson will represent
District 4, replacing Steven
Osborne and Donna Wilson
will retain her seat as the
District 5 representative.
Final results for District 3
were Smith with 870 votes
(53.77 percent), Reed with 450
votes (27.81 percent) and
Teddy Hughes with 298 votes
(18.42 percent). District 4
results showed Anderson with
768 votes (45.61 percent),
Osborne with 551 votes (32.68
percent) and Charles Barnes
with 366 votes (21.71 percent). Wilson took District 5
with 1,264 votes (56.28 percent) to Justin “Moose”
Cockrell’s 43.72 percent.
Smith said she is looking
forward to continuing her
involvement with Montgomery
County Schools.
“I’m just so excited to be
trusted and have the community’s support to know that I’ll
make the right decisions,”
Smith said. “It’s just exciting
to know that so many people
have faith in me to make the
right decisions and do what’s
right for Montgomery County
citizens.”
After hearing of the results at
the courthouse, Anderson said
she was overwhelmed, and
thought the election would
have been closer.
“I would like to thank everyone who voted for me, who
helped support me in any way
form or fashion,” she said.
Wilson said she is appreciative of the large amount of
support she has received during her campaign.
“I just feel really privileged
to have served the board of
education for the past four
years, and I’m really excited
about the opportunity to work
on the board a second term,”
she said. “I just want everyone
to know that I will continue to
make decisions on what’s best
for students, parents, school
personnel and the community
like I have done the past four
years.”
Smith said she is looking
forward to serving on the
board and wants to work on
communication between the
district and the community.
“The first thing I really want
to do is bring the trust back
between the community and
the school system, especially
the school board and central
office,” she said. “To me,
there’s not enough communication as to what’s going on,
and that communication is
usually a little bit late.”
She also stressed that she
wants to be a proactive board
member instead of a reactive
one, and take care of any issues
or concerns up front.
Anderson said she wants to
make sure students and community members are getting
the best from the district, and
wants to take a good look at
the budget and the current
projects and direction of the
board.
“I’m not out to make great
changes, I just want to keep
things flowing for the kids as
smoothly as possible,” she
said.
Wilson said she wants to
keep the district progressing to
make sure students are getting
a quality educational experience.
“My No. 1 focus would be to
continue our emphasis on student achievement by providing
all the programs and resources
that we can to help children
learn,” she said.
She also noted that she wants
to keep searching for grants in
hopes of being able to fund
new programs and opportunities without burdening the taxpayer.
“I would also like to wish
Justin Cockrell the best,
because he’s a very fine young
man who would have made an
excellent board member,”
Wilson added.
All winners thanked those
who came out to vote and
showed their support.
As of press time, Reed and
Wilson could not be reached
for comment. The new members will be sworn in in
January.