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From left, incoming Wood County Board of Education member Simon Hargus and Parkersburg City Councilwoman Wendy Tuck share a laugh with Vienna Mayor Chad Emrick while waiting for election results Tuesday evening at the Wood County Courthouse. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPARKERSBURG \u2013 Haley Meredith, Simon Hargus and incumbent Debbie Hendershot appear set to serve on the Wood County Board of Education, according to final, unofficial election results.
\nMeredith led the race with 7,492 votes, while Hargus had the second-highest total with 5,078 votes. Hendershot was in position for the third seat with 3,928 votes.
\nMeredith said Tuesday night she was grateful for the support but still waiting for the results to become final.
\n\u201cI\u2019m still feeling nervous, but excited,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are a lot of emotions, and I\u2019m excited and I\u2019m happy, and I\u2019m just very grateful.\u201d
\nMeredith said she viewed the vote totals as a sign that some residents want a change on the board. She also acknowledged the number of candidates who ran.
\n\u201cI think that it\u2019s awesome so many people ran this go-round,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot to put yourself out there and try for this, and it\u2019s a lot of time and effort.\u201d
\nMeredith said her focus on the board would be listening to parents, teachers and residents.
\n\u201cI want everyone to be excited about the schools,\u201d she said. \u201cI want everybody to be proud of our schools.\u201d
\nHargus said Tuesday he was encouraged by the results.
\n\u201cCongratulations to Haley,\u201d Hargus said. \u201cI\u2019ll preemptively say, probably, congratulations to Debbie too. Looking forward to working with them.\u201d
\nHargus also spoke positively about John Merritt, who ran in the same district.
\n\u201cI know John Merritt, and he\u2019s a really, really good guy, so I enjoyed seeing him out there on the campaign trail,\u201d Hargus said. \u201cI thought he ran a great race.\u201d
\nHargus said one of his main priorities would be improving communication between the board, teachers, service personnel and the public.
\n\u201cFirst order of business is just to really create some feedback loops and some better communication,\u201d Hargus said. \u201cThat is the No. 1 thing I heard on the campaign trail.\u201d
\nHe said the board will need to listen to employees and residents before making decisions.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to learn and a lot to do, but I think it starts with listening to folks and then bringing those ideas to the board,\u201d Hargus said.
\nHargus said his interest in the board is tied to his own background with Wood County Schools.
\n\u201cI grew up here. I went to the schools. I went to Wood County Schools,\u201d he said. \u201cMy kids are going to Wood County Schools. So this is really exciting for me.\u201d
\nHargus said he also expects the board to address issues related to school funding and state-level decisions.
\n\u201cOne of the headwinds we\u2019re facing are the decisions being made in Charleston, and it\u2019s undermining our funding,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to be vocal about, like, we\u2019re going in this together to solve those problems. But we should also point out some of the sources of those problems.\u201d
\nHendershot stated she was thankful for the support for the community and excited to continue her work on the Board of Education.
\n\u201cI am honored to be back on the board,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to thank everyone who helped me, stood behind me, voted for me and called me.\u201d
\nHendershot focused on projects she wants to see to completion on the board.
\n\u201cThe priority is the building of the new schools,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have three new schools in Wood County, and I am looking forward to being back on the board and working on those.\u201d
\nBoard President Justin Raber finished sixth in the race with 2,797 votes, behind Jason McCrady (3,529), Merritt (3,373) and Jim Stout (2,851). In a statement posted to his campaign Facebook page Tuesday night, Raber said the results were not what his campaign had hoped for, but he was grateful for the opportunity to serve Wood County Schools for the last eight years. He said serving the students, families, employees and taxpayers of Wood County was \u201cone of the greatest honors\u201d of his life.
\n\u201cTogether, we helped move Wood County Schools to the top in the state, and I could not be more proud of what we accomplished through hard work, accountability and an unwavering commitment to putting students first,\u201d Raber said in the post. He also thanked voters, said he respected their decision and congratulated Meredith on her victory.
\nKevin Burkman received 1,525 votes, and Allen W. Shultz got 981.
\nGwen Sour can be reached at gsour@newsandsentinel.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From left, incoming Wood County Board of Education member Simon Hargus and Parkersburg City Councilwoman Wendy Tuck share…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,278692,451,59645,3,452,453,278664],"class_list":["post-645840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-hargus-and-hendershot-set-for-wood-county-board-of-education-seats","tag-headlines","tag-meredith","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-zweekendnewsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}