Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 21, 1993 TAG: 9301210257
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOL BOARD HOPEFULS SPEAK
The Montgomery County supervisors interviewed the last of the candidates for the Christiansburg seat on the county School Board Wednesday night and will hold a public hearing on Feb. 8 before picking a winner from among the seven contenders for the seat.The board must choose someone to finish the unexpired term of former School Board Chairman Daniel Schneck, who resigned in December.
The questions to the candidates indicated that the handling of the school budget is probably the supervisors' biggest concern.
Cynthia Jennison, a consultant to social service organizations, said she was applying for the board seat out of "a deep sense of obligation" to the county's schoolchildren and a need to serve the community.
A graduate of Kansas Wesleyan University, Jennison, 36, has been a volunteer for PTA, a Girl Scout leader, a Sunday school teacher at the Christiansburg Presbyterian Church and involved in other children's activities.
Among Jennison's concerns, she said, was a rising tide of intolerance among some community sectors.
She would favor keeping the non-religious name of "winter break" for the end-of-the-year school holiday, noting that the break would include Christmas Day.
When Supervisor Nick Rush of Christiansburg, a supporter of returning to the traditional Christian name of "Christmas break" for the holiday, attempted to push Jennison on the issue, Jennison decided she had had enough.
"I really don't want to dwell on this," she told Rush. "Our children have so many needs that to discuss these holiday names over and over again is really belittling those needs." Homelessness and teen-age pregnancy were among the problems facing children, she said.
David Moore, a calibration technician for Corning and a member of the county's Human Relations Council, said he would approach the school budget with the idea of having the highest quality product at the lowest possible cost.
Moore, 32, a 1987 graduate of Bluefield State College, said one of the biggest problems facing county graduates was the lack of social skills, particularly as the population becomes more diverse.
Candidate Mike Sowder, a former board member, stressed his opposition to a number of spending proposals that the School Board unsuccessfully tried to include in the current year's school budget, angering some supervisors in the process.
Rush then asked Sowder why he had, in the end, supported the School Board's budget proposal.
In defense, Sowder said the budget was drawn in response to needs expressed by the public at a series of hearings. "Sometimes you have to do what you think is right and suffer the consequences," he said.
On the same subject, candidate Mark Helms, a manager in the buildings department at Virginia Tech, told the supervisors that it makes it easier when the School Board knows how much it has to spend before it begins work on its budget.
Still, it's important, he said, that the School Board tell the supervisors what the school system needs that cannot be paid for within the restraints of its budget.
Helms, 35, is, like Sowder, a county native. His wife, Kimberly, is a former School Board member and currently a kindergarten teacher at Prices Fork Elementary School. They have two children at Falling Branch Elementary School.
Helms said he didn't think the fact that his wife and a sister work for the county school system would create a problem for him as a board member.
The board candidates interviewed Monday night were Robert Anderson, Phillip Gilley and Anne Greene.