Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 1, 1995 TAG: 9511010030
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER |STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Marion Roark, a candidate for the Catawba District seat, and Carol White, who is running in the Cave Spring District, contend that a mother's perspective is needed on the all-male board.
So far, the switch to an elected board in Roanoke County has not been kind to women.
When the change in the method of selection was made last year, the two women on the board - Barbara Chewning and Charlsie Pafford - chose not to run to keep their seats.
The two women who tried to replace them - Evelyn Ball and Lisa Merrill - were beaten, leaving the five-member board without any women.
Except for one year, there has been at least one woman on the board in the past two decades. Between 1982 and 1994, there were two women on the board - making up 40 percent of the members.
White said that the absence of a woman on the board has created a void in the past year. "You need a mother's perspective, and I can provide that," she tells voters.
White has two children at Penn Forest Elementary School. She said candidates who have school-age children are more familiar with schools.
Vern Jordahl, one of White's opponents, agrees that parents are more interested in schools, but he argues that gender should not be an issue in the election.
"We are talking about the need for parents on the School Board. It doesn't matter if you are a father or mother," he said.
Jordahl has a daughter at Cave Spring Junior High School. William Irvin, an insurance executive who also is running for the Cave Spring seat, has a son at Hidden Valley Junior High School and a daughter at Green Valley Elementary School.
"All three of us have children in school, so I don't see that as an issue," said Jordahl, an ethics professor at the College of Health Sciences.
White, a medical technologist, said a mother's perspective can be different from a father's. "The board needs both, and that's why it needs a woman.''
Almost one-third of school board candidates in the region and the state this year are women.
In Western Virginia, 22 of 75 school-board hopefuls are women. At least one female candidate is running in each of the nine counties in the region; the largest number is four each in Floyd and Pulaski.
Statewide, 201 of 678 school board candidates are women, according to the Virginia School Boards Association.
Women made up 34 percent of the board members in the state during the past school year, compared with 39 percent nationally, said David Blount, governmental relations officer for VSBA.
Roanoke has three women on its seven-member board. One of Salem's five members is a woman.
In the Catawba District race, Roark said she has received a good response to her call for the election of a mother.
"Whenever I have mentioned it at meetings, I have gotten a loud applause," she said. "We need to elect not just a woman, but a mother."
Roark, who runs a computer software business, is the mother of two grown children who attended county schools.
"Sometimes mothers and fathers look at things differently," she said.
John Reed, one of Roark's opponents, said he hasn't given the gender issue much thought. "I think it would be nice to have a lady elected to the board the next time there is an election," he said.
Ball, who lost the bid for the Vinton District seat last year, said she fears that county schools might be the loser if neither Roark nor White is elected.
Ball said she doesn't want "token women" on the board, but she thinks the board can benefit from a woman's viewpoint. "A woman has a different outlook sometimes, and we won't have that input unless one of the women wins next week," Ball said.
Ball lost in a three-way contest that was won by Michael Stovall. She said she doesn't think gender was a factor in her defeat. She said she thinks Stovall won because he had higher name recognition and ran a more aggressive, organized campaign.
Merrill, the other female candidate last year, lost the Windsor Hills District seat by 20 votes to Tom Leggette.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB