Newcomers and incumbents put their names forward for school board elections

FILE: Fulton Board of Education board President Emily Omohundro and Vice President Todd Gray have filed for re-election.
FILE: Fulton Board of Education board President Emily Omohundro and Vice President Todd Gray have filed for re-election.

Voters will have the chance to put new faces on school boards across the county in April.

In Fulton, three seats on the Fulton Public Schools Board of Education are up for grabs. Four candidates have filed for election.

Board President Emily Omohundro and Vice President Todd Gray have filed for re-election. Newcomers Joseph Davis and Connie Epperson have also joined the race.

Davis is a parent who attended Fulton schools as a student. He's currently the chair of undergraduate education programs at William Woods University and is completing a doctoral decree in educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Missouri. He previously worked as a teacher and an administrator in Fulton schools.

Epperson retired from Fulton Public Schools in May. During her career, she was principal of Bartley Elementary School for 17 years. She also worked as an administrator at Fulton Middle School, McIntire Elementary School and Fulton High School and as a physical education teacher at Fulton Middle School for nine years.

Board member Matt Gowin, whose term expires in April, is not seeking re-election.

"Having a wife and four children, and a full-time job, I value my time immensely. Hence, I measure the use of my time compared to the enjoyment I get from it. The past three years on the school board have not measured up for me to consider re-election," Gowin wrote in an email. "The school system has a lot of nuances and self-serving interests within it, thus making it difficult to implement changes for improvement."

In New Bloomfield, four new candidates - Brooke Edwards, Angie Robinson Sullivan, Gina Clark and Josh Woods - have filed to run for three seats on the New Bloomfield Board of Education.

North Callaway voters are set to elect four school board members. Sandy Lavy, a board member since 2011, has filed for re-election. Also competing for the seats are Timothy Jon Safranski, Ann Kathryn Schmidt, Jamie Leigh Hill, Rebecca P. Wall and Kendall E. Pipes.

Three spots are up for grabs in South Callaway - Janice Howard, Board Vice President Stephanie Laney and Penny Felkner have filed for re-election. Robert Munford has also entered the race.