Districts finalize school board elections

Several local school districts with uncontested races are not holding elections, while others have listed the final candidates in their board races.

Box Elder, Chinook, Harlem, Hays-Lodge Pole, Rocky Boy and Cottonwood Elementary school districts will hold elections May 8.

Big Sandy, Chester-Joplin-Inverness, Havre, North Star, Turner and Davey school districts do not have any mill levies or contested trustee races, and their trustees will be elected by acclamation without a vote being held.

In North Star, no one filed to take the seat being vacated by Terry Hybner, and a trustee will have to be appointed by Hill County Superintendent of Schools Maureen Odegard.

Voters in the Cottonwood Elementary School District will vote on two mill levies, Serena Dawson, Cottonwood and Davey school-clerk and business manager, said Monday.

Voters will decide on whether to approve a $12,054.30 mill levy for the school’s general fund. If passed, Dawson said, the levy will cost the owner of a home with a taxable value of $100,000 an additional $4.98 a year in property taxes

A second mill levy request for the district’s building reserve will also be on the ballot, Dawson said. If approved, the levy would generate $15,000 over a three-year period and mean an extra $2.07 in property taxes for the owner of a home with a marketable value of $100,000.

No one filed to run for the two seats open in the district and the county superintendent will have to appoint people to fill the seats being vacated by Beverly Peterson and Brian Riley Johnson.

Board member Jana Strausser, who was appointed last year, also missed the filing deadline, but did meet the April 5 deadline to file as a write-in, Dawson said.

A full board must be in place by May 23 when board members elect a chair, Dawson said.

People interested in being appointed to a school board can contact Odegard’s office for more details.

Box Elder Schools will have two trustee positions up for election, Box Elder Superintendent Jeremy MacDonald said today.

Incumbent Calvin Jilot and challengers Thomas Parisian Sr. and Manny Duran Jr, will compete for the two seats.

The Chinook School District will have two seats and three mill levies on the ballot, Superintendent Darin Hannum said Monday. Elementary Trustee Joel Prutis faces a challenge from Daniel Dahl, and High School Trustee Viki Tilleman will have to fend off a challenge from Jamie Macleod.

The district will also have votes on three mill levies, Hannum said, a proposed increase for the technology development mill levy from $49,000 a year to $60,000 and keep it at $60,000 a year for 10 years. This is $17.34 a year for a $100,000 property and $36.60 for a $200,000 property. A $12,029 mill levy for the elementary school will cost property owners an extra $3.48 on a house with a taxable value of $100,000, Hannum said. A high school mill levy if approved would generate $35,773.35 and cost property owners of a house valued at $100,000 an additional $6.06 a year in property taxes.

Harlem School Clerk Teresa Cornell said six candidates are running for two three-year positions on the Harlem Board of Trustees. Incumbents Clayton TalksDifferent and Valerie Blackcrow are each running for re-election and Nathaniel Mount, Mike King, Donald Long Knife and Kellie Rasmussen are running against them, with the top two vote-getters elected to the positions.

Trustee Kahleen Adams is running for another one-year term and faces Tesscile “Tess” Bell. Toma Campbell-Hoops, Melvin Hoops Jr. and Journi Johnson.

The website of the Rocky Boy School District says incumbents Russell Gopher and Josh Seaton are up for re-election, facing challengers Jody A. LaMere, Thomas Limberhand, Martin Parker, Paulette Standing Rock and Russell Standing Rock.

Hays-Lodge Pole School Clerk Daralyn Shambo said Monday that incumbent John K. Hawley and Maria Doney, Hawkan J. Haakonson and Kenneth W. Morin will be on the ballot for the two three-year positions on the ballot.

The top two vote-getters will win the seats.

Shambo said that Carol Doney is also mounting an unopposed write-in campaign for an open seat.

In the districts with unopposed elections, high school Trustee Aileen Couch and elementary trustees Ed Hill and Harvey Cappellan will be re-elected by acclamation, as will Chris Maloney in Turner, Jeri Proulx Roth and Heather Pleninger in Big Sandy and Violet Davey in the Davey school district.