HERMITAGE School board appoints principal

She is the fourth of five administrative appointments being made before school starts.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- The Hermitage School Board's selection of a raft of new administrators for the opening of school in the fall is nearly complete.
The board voted 8-0 Monday with Victor Ellenberger absent to appoint Bonnie L. O'Mahony to the vacant post of principal of Artman Elementary School.
O'Mahony will be paid $64,000 a year and begins her duties Aug. 1.
Hers is the fourth of five administrative appointments being made by the board, leaving only the post of assistant high school principal to be filled.
Others appointed: Over the past few months, the board has appointed Karen Ionta superintendent; Eric Trosch Hickory High School principal; and Carol Gurrera, former principal at Artman, the district's director of administrative services.
"I am so excited and thrilled," O'Mahony said after her appointment, explaining that it is a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to be part of an almost entirely new administrative team in a school district.
She said she was also humbled to be selected from a list of 20 applicants for the job, many of whom she knows.
O'Mahony worked as a regular and special education teacher in the Sharon City School District for 22 years and served as elementary principal and director of special education in the Commodore Perry School District for the last two years.
She and her husband, Patrick, and their two sons, Shamus and Patrick, live in Sharon.
Education: She earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education from Edinboro State University and her certificate in special education from Slippery Rock University. She earned an elementary/middle school principal's certificate from Westminster College and a certificate as a Pennsylvania supervisor of special education from Slippery Rock.