Former teacher wins Highland race

The at-large seat on the Highland School Board has been won by former Highland teacher Nick A. Smith, according to unofficial election results from the Washington County Auditor?s Office.

Smith captured 45 percent of the vote, garnering 119 of the 266 votes cast. Laura Temple Scheetz received 55 votes, 21 percent of the total. Alan G. Beers received 48 votes (18 percent) and Dwight Houseal received 44 votes (17 percent).

Smith taught English at Highland for 28 years until retiring earlier this year. He said he wants to keep Highland on the path it has been following for years. One thing that he likes about Highland is the resources the district dedicates to students with disabilities. Smith enrolled his three children at Highland even when he lived in Iowa City.

?One of my kids had a learning disability,? he said. ?I saw that the number of students at Iowa City who were handled by a single resource teacher was about six times more than what was at Highland. We felt that our child would get so much more attention at Highland.?

The other three seats open on the Highland School Board were unopposed. Michael Golden was elected to District 2 with 203 votes. Megan Allen was elected to District 4 with 187 votes. Cindy Michel won re-election in District 6 with 235 votes.

The Mid-Prairie School Board election saw five candidates vie for four at-large seats. George Schaefer received the most votes of any candidate, 212. Randy Billups received 198 votes. Matthew Frascht won 164 votes, and Charles ?Chuck? Freeman raked in 148. Those four candidates won seats on the board. Write-in candidate Jeremy Pickard received 134 votes. Six people voted for ?Scattering.?

The Washington School Board races were uncontested except for District 2 in which no one was on the ballot. Incumbent Troy Suchan, who was a write-in candidate, won that election with two votes. He also received the only absentee vote cast for that race.

Suchan said in a previous interview with The Journal that he planned to run in the school board election. However, he did not deliver his petition to be on the ballot before the deadline.

There was a four-way tie for second place. Write-in candidates Steven Gault, James E. Almelien, Patricia Lipski and Tricia Kroll each received one vote. One person wrote in the word ?no.?

Stephanie Ellingson was re-elected in District 1 with 59 votes. Eric Turner won re-election in District 3 with 82 votes. Ericka A. Raber, who was running in District 4 to fill the seat left by the exiting Richard Bordwell, won the race with 74 votes.

Karen Gorham was running unopposed for director of Kirkwood Community College. Gorham received 714 votes.