Most county school board races not contested

Thursday, September 3, 2020

By JARED JERNAGAN, Editor

NOTE: This article has been updated to reflect JaceAnn Troutt's candidacy for the Jackson Township, Owen County, spot on the Cloverdale School Board.

With 11 school board races to appear on the ballot throughout Putnam County this fall, most voters will be left without a choice of who will fill the positions.

In fact, the dearth of candidates leaves only voters in the North Putnam district with any contested races at all.

The deadline to file for a school board position was Aug. 21.

In the northern district, Monroe Township incumbent Dustin Osborn will face a challenge from Rachel Mandeville.

Meanwhile, in Russell Township, former school board member Jacquelyn Simpson is facing off against Eric Oliver.

Current Russell Township member Darrell Wiatt is retiring from the board.

For the other two open North Putnam positions, Amber Greene is uncontested for another term in Franklin Township and there is no candidate for the lone at-large member.

Like Wiatt, current at-large member Mark Hoke did not file as a candidate.

While most of these positions are drawn from individual townships, they are elected by all voters in the North Putnam District, which includes Russell, Franklin, Jackson, Clinton, Monroe and Floyd townships.

Meanwhile on the Cloverdale School Board, current Cloverdale Township representatives Donna Fidler, Katrina Lewis and Joe Mann are the only three candidates in an at-large race for three spots on the ballot.

Incumbent JaceAnn Troutt is unopposed in her candidacy for the Jackson Township, Owen County, seat on the board.

Voters in Cloverdale Township as well as Jackson, Jennings and Taylor townships in Owen County will have all the Cloverdale School Board positions on their ballots.

In the South Putnam district, Hollie Hutcheson is unopposed in her bid for a second term in Marion Township, while Lisa Cooper is the only candidate in Washington Township.

There is no candidate for the at-large position currently occupied by Anthony Heavin.

All voters in Washington, Warren, Jefferson and Marion townships may vote for South Putnam School Board.

Comments

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This happened at North Putnam before when member John Hays was appointed to fill a term that was vacated and he did not run for the office the next election. However, nobody else ran either so John was re-appointed to another 4 year term which will surely be the case here.

-- Posted by infiremanemt on Fri, Sep 4, 2020, at 9:22 AM
Just a thought ,don't vote for any unopposed candidate

-- Posted by Falcon9 on Fri, Sep 4, 2020, at 6:04 PM
Rainbow6 -

That is an excellent suggestion, and something I do frequently.

Unfortunately the under-vote doesn't get much recognition in its importance, especially from media.

-- Posted by dreadpirateroberts on Wed, Sep 9, 2020, at 12:55 PM
Why would I take a stance of not voting for someone who is unopposed?

Is it their fault? Will that make people run? What if I think that person is a good candidate?

I have left parts of my ballot blank before- Office of the President in 2016 was the last one, but to just take a blanket approach isn't logical to me.

-- Posted by beg on Thu, Sep 10, 2020, at 10:13 AM
I would think it would have been prudent to publish this prior to the register deadline rather than 2 weeks after. Smells fishy.

-- Posted by Dream-123 on Mon, Sep 21, 2020, at 6:42 PM

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