HUMBOLDT — An otherwise uneventful election season approaches for city and school board candidates, with only a handful of contested races.
Perhaps most noteworthy is in Humboldt-USD 258, where five candidates are seeking to fill three Board of Education seats.
To help local voters become more informed, the Humboldt High School senior class will host a candidate forum at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 19 at the HHS Auditorium.
The HHS seniors are visiting with teachers, administrators, other students and district patrons to come up with questions to ask the hopefuls, explained student Cole Murrow.
The five candidates — Nathan Ellison, Helen Harrington, Kevin Heisler, Kristal Julich and Jamie Mueller — have been invited. The students themselves will pose the questions.
District patrons are invited to sit in the audience.
“Hopefully, this will help people see who they want to vote for,” Murrow said.
THE ONLY other contested races in Allen County this fall are for USD 257’s position 6, where Jennifer Coltrane and Tracy Lee are seeking to replace the outgoing Darrel Catron, who is not running for re-election; and in Savonburg, where Mayor Vern Cuppet Jr. is being challenged by Aaron Wilson.
THERE ARE no contested elections for Iola’s city council when voters go to the polls Nov. 7 — and in fact, there almost certainly will be at least one vacant seat afterward.
City Councilman Jon Wells is the only candidate for mayor, after Joel Wicoff did not file for re-election.
That means the Council will need to fill Wells’ seat if and when he becomes mayor.
Councilwoman Sandy Zornes also is not running for re-election to represent Ward 4. She is encouraging anybody who lives in her district to mount a write-in campaign to fill the seat. Ward 4 encompasses the southeast quadrant of Iola.
The other three Council positions are not contested. Councilwoman Nancy Ford (Ward 1) is unopposed, as is Ronald Ballard, who is running for Beverly Franklin’s seat in Ward 2. (Franklin declined to file for re-election.) Former Councilman Gene Myrick filed to fill the outgoing Donald Becker’s seat in Ward 3.
