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BucknerClarionFEB12DIGITAL

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7/ TheBucknerClarion.com February 12, 2015 School Board Seats Up Candidates Talk About Vision for District Q: Where did you grow up? A: I grew up in Eastern Independence and went to Truman High School. I began my student teaching out here (Fort Osage) in 1973 and never left. I moved my family out here in 1975 and decided it was a good place for me to work and it was a good place for them (his children) to go to school. I wanted them to be here and experience it. It was a good district then and it still is. After I finished my student teaching in 1974, I did some long-term subbing at both the high school and the middle school. In 1975, I got my contract to teach P.E. and history. Q: What degrees have you earned? A: I have a degree in physical education and a Master's in teaching from the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Q: What life experiences make you a formidable candidate? A: I have 41 years of experience working inside the district and I think that I can bring my experience knowing the workings, inside as an employee, to the board…It's important to have a view from an educator's side also. Q: What's your motivation to run? A: The district gave to me for several years, so now I want to give back to it. I've always said I would like to join the board after I retired and I did so last summer. I decided to keep my promise to myself and my family and always told others I wouldn't mind serving on the board of education. For 30 years I negotiated salaries for the teachers' group so I got to know the board and many of the board members that are currently on there. I decided with my experience of the inner workings of the board, it is critical that somebody knows a little bit about how the board operates, their expectations and goals. Of course coming from the salary side and the teaching side, I think it gives me insight into that. Q: What is your number one goal? A: That's a good question, but I think the number one thing has to be the students. I'm not sure there is a whole lot of change or goals that need to change over the next year as much as trying to maintain a quality school, quality students and quality community. Q: What challenges do you see in the district? A: There will always be challenges in the budget. I have assessed valuation and over the last six or seven years it has dropped $30 million. That's not the district doing anything wrong, that's the way the state distributes the money and they assess the valuation for Jackson County. Things kind of hit bottom there around 2008. Our assessed valuation dropped and that is one of our main points of our revenue, assessed valuation from local taxes. If you look at our budget and what we offer students out here, it is phenomenal. We are still able to offer programs and services that are way beyond what you would think we could offer. Q: Are you involved in any other educational or community based programs? A: No. I am in the Retired Teachers Association for the state of Missouri. I did spend 36 years as a reserve police officer in Independence, worked a lot of weekends and special events and retired up there in 2012 as a sergeant. Q: Is there anything else you would like to add? A: With the No Child Left Behind Act, we've got to maintain local control. All of the sudden you have this dumped on the local districts, who are already stretched for dollars anyway, and then you've got to fund these programs at the request of the federal government. That's one thing we've got to watch, local control. Fort Osage Board of Education candidates Floyd Hawkins (left) and Tim Brown (right). Four seats will become available on April 7, 2015. Q: Where did you grow up? A: I grew up in the Fort Osage area and graduated from Fort Osage. After that, I attended UMKC. Q: What life experiences make you a formidable candidate? A: I have run a construction business for the past 35 years. I've had four kids attend Fort Osage. I've just recently retired from Fort Osage Fire Protection District. I've just had a lot of life experiences and common sense type of stuff. Just knowing how to run a business, what the bottom line is on that… I'm a common sense, let's do what's right person. There's nothing out of the ordinary except 63 years of life and life experiences. Q: What is your motivation to run? A: I ran back in 1986 and I lost by 11 votes. I've always wanted to get back into it but life got busy and didn't think I had the time at that point to do what needed to be done. Now that I'm retired, I've got more time to dedicate to it. There are also issues with governmental intrusions in the school and I just think it would be good to have a positive voice in this arena. Q: What is your number one goal? A: I don't have an agenda. I'm friends with everyone there and I'm not running against anybody. Sometimes when people have been there for a while, ideas get stagnant. There is always room for new perspectives, different ideas or new ways to approach problem solving. I don't have any agenda to go in and change anything. That's not what I'm there for. I just want to see things in a different way that will be helpful for the district. Q: What challenges do you see in the district? A: Well one of the things is that we are limited because of federal mandates. I see a lot of things like government intrusion in the local schools, which the purpose of the local school boards is to do things and control what the school does at a local level. I see them losing that to a great degree. Part of that is students deserve the best education they can get and the patrons and the parents need to have tax dollars spent efficiently. I don't think government should dictate to us what we should serve our kids for lunch or what we should teach. I think we give them the best education, but as far as federal requirements, and I know cost gets in there, I think that's overreach in my opinion. I'm not sure what we can do about that on a local level, but as much as we can, we can try to get local control back to the district and out of the government's hands. Q: Are you involved in any other educational or community based programs? A: I am a Lay Minister in my church. I work with Community Services League. Our church sponsors some of that in our Buckner area. Previously, I was involved in scouts. I still work with the fire district. Q: Is there anything else you would like to add? A: Basically, I have three things I guess would be my campaign focus. To spend taxpayer funding wisely–to be the patrons' advocate when it comes to that; to maintain as much local control as we can; and just common sense. If we use common sense like we used to, it takes care of a lot of problems in a lot of situations.

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