By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
It was not just national elections that had to wait a few weeks for final counts to determine the outcomes, the Wyoming Public Schools has been waiting for two weeks to learn who would win write-in race for the second seat on its Board of Education.
The newly elected board member is Jennifer Lewis, who was one of two write-in candidates seeking the seat in the Nov. 6 election. Brian Jirous had filed for one of the two six-year seats that were being vacated by Tom Mott and Susan Sheets Odo. Jirous received 9,255 votes.
“I’m not sure I can say I know all the people who voted for me,” Jirous said with a laugh. “I am pretty certain some people were just filling in the boxes. But to be honest, I was not that worried about it.”
The harder part, Jirous said, was waiting to learn who the other new board member would be. Because write-ins have to be counted by hand, the process can take up to two weeks, according to school officials. The Wyoming Public Schools was notified this week that Lewis, who received 262 of the 762 write-in votes was the winner. The other write-in candidate, Adriana Almanza, received 84 votes. The remaining write-in votes are either invalid names or voters filled-in ovals with no names attached, according to city officials.
“We have some big shoes to fill with Tom Mott and Susan Sheets Odo vacating from the board,” said Lewis, who is a personal insurance agent and an alumnus of Wyoming Park High School. “They have been in the community for awhile. I have been in the community for awhile as well, working on a number of projects in and for the schools. Looking forward to and ready to take on the challenge.”
Lewis said she had considered running for the board but did not put her name on the ballot as her oldest son was graduating from Wyoming Public Schools last spring and heading to Michigan State University.
“I didn’t know how that transition would go, so I did not want to make a commitment to something,” she said, adding that it all went very smoothly. But when she learned that only one person had filed for the two open seats, she reconsidered and decided to seek one of the seats as a write-in candidate.
Jirous, who is an AT&T mobile technician and alumnus of Wyoming Park High School, said while he lives only a few doors down from Mott, it was actually his interest to serve the district in another capacity that made him decide to run.
“I wanted to be more involved, not just in the day-to-day but in a higher level,” Jirous said. “I wanted to learn how a district is run and this is an good opportunity and a good time in my life to do this.”
Both Jirous and Lewis will be sworn in at the Wyoming Board of Education’s first meeting of 2019, Monday, Jan. 14, at 6 p.m.
