Board to have a pair of races

One candidate filed to run for Jay School Board prior to Friday’s noon deadline, giving local voters a pair of contested races.
Amanda Campbell joined the District 6 race in which she will take on Krista Muhlenkamp, and District 1 also has a pair of candidates with incumbent Kristi Betts facing a challenge from Mitch Waters. Former Jay County High School principal Phil Ford is uncontested in District 4.
In the 2014 school board election, all four candidates were elected without opposition. There was only one contested race in 2012.
Campbell and Muhlenkamp will square off for the seat representing Wabash, Noble, Madison and Pike townships. Incumbent Greg Wellman, who served three terms on the board after defeating Duane Starr in 2004, chose not to run for re-election.
Betts, who was selected by her counterparts as the board’s president in January, is seeking her second term after defeating Jim Sanders and Kirk Comer in 2012. Waters is making his first run for office for the seat that represents the City of Portland.
Ford will join the board without opposition in November’s election after he was passed over for the seat earlier this year. That position became open following the Dec. 31 resignation of then-board president Mike Masters, who had a year remaining on his term representing Knox and Richland townships outside the City of Dunkirk.
The remaining board members selected Tammy Bennett from a group of five applicants — the others were Linda Brackman, Jeff Geesaman, Travis Shawver and Ford — to fill the seat. Bennett chose to not make an attempt to retain the position.
Other board members, whose seats are not up until 2018, are Mike Shannon, Beth Krieg, Ron Laux and Cory Gundrum.