LORDSTOWN Six candidates seek to fill vacant school board seat

The board will interview the candidates in public session Tuesday.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LORDSTOWN -- The village mayor, a mother critical of a decision to eliminate the school nurse and a former member are among six applicants seeking to fill a seat on the school board.
J.C. Gibson, who was elected in 1999 and named vice president, resigned last month, citing personal reasons. Board members plan to meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday to interview the candidates.
Superintendent Ray Getz said the interviews will be conducted in public session.
The people who filed applications by Friday's deadline are:
U Edward Chiles, South Tod Avenue, an employee at Heckett Multiserv in Warren. He was appointed in 1996 to finish the unexpired term of a board member who resigned and he later ran unsuccessfully for the board in 1993, 1997 and 1999.
U Arno Hill, Palmyra Road, Lordstown mayor since 1992 and a tool and die maker at Delphi Packard.
U Gary Koch, Mary Drive, an administrator at Electronic Data Systems, Warren.
U Beth Krempasky, Radtka Drive, who is in training to be a bank teller at Second National Bank's Elm Road branch.
U Richard Logan, Elizabeth Drive, an employee at Leaseway Auto Carriers, Lordstown.
U Mark McGrail, Goldner Lane S.W., manager of California Pizza & amp; Wings in Lordstown.
Petitions: Krempasky, who has a diabetic son at the elementary school, circulated petitions earlier this year when the school board and state commission overseeing district finances voted to eliminate the school nurse position.
Signatures on the petitions were from people opposing the move. Krempasky and other parents argued that eliminating the nurse left no one in the school district to respond to medical emergencies.
Both panels have voted to reinstate the nurse position.
Mayor: Hill said he would continue in the mayor's post if selected for the board slot.
"Ohio Revised Code says a mayor can sit on a school board," he said.
Second to quit: Gibson was the second board member to step down from the panel in less than a year.
In October 2000, Richard M. Lohr Jr., also a board vice president, resigned when he moved out of the school district.
Timothy J. Rech was appointed from a field of six to fill Lohr's term. Those interviews also were conducted in public session.
Chiles and McGrail also applied to fill that vacancy.