School board hopefuls on deck

WASILLA — Mat-Su Borough School District school board candidates will face off Thursday at the Alaska Club Theater.

The forum, sponsored by the Greater Palmer and Greater Wasilla chambers of commerce, begins at 5:30 p.m.

Three seats are up for election this year. The only candidate who didn’t draw a challenger is Susan Pougher, currently the board secretary. That means seats F and G are where the action is this year. The school board has no term limits and elects members at large, meaning the entire borough votes for each seat, unlike the borough assembly, where each seat represents a specific district.

Seat F

Colleen Vague, the current board president and incumbent in the race, said that between the time commitment serving on the board demands and her personal and professional commitments, she weighed whether to run again very heavily.

With all the changes on the administration side of the district — a new superintendent started this summer and there have been a number of other big changes at the top — Vague said she just wants to make sure the district stays on track.

“I think our schools are going a good direction,” she said, adding the superintendent, Ken Burnley, is a big part of that. “I just can’t say enough good things about him.”

There’s got to be continuity somewhere, Vague said, and she can help provide that.

Neal Lacy is challenging Vague for her seat. He doesn’t share her views on the district. Most notably, Lacy thinks the board overpaid to bring the new superintendent onboard.

“As a taxpayer, we’re not getting our maximum dollar out of our school board,” he said.

Lacy is a retired vocational education teacher who works for the state in the Department of Public Safety. He said he would like to cut administrative costs at the district and plow that money into music, physical education and vocational education programs.

Seat G

Myrl “Boone” Thompson is the incumbent in this race. Much like Vague, he said he feels good about the district’s direction and would like to keep it going.

“I thought I’d at least try to give it two tries,” he said.

Thompson is former head coach of the Wasilla High School baseball team. He coaches American Legion baseball and is a lifelong Alaskan who says he enjoys his work on behalf of the school board.

Lynn Gattis, his opponent, said she’s at a point in her life where she can consider serving on the school board and would like to give it a go.

“My last son just graduated from school so I no longer have to do the mom duties, but it means that I can stay up until midnight when the school board meetings are happening,” she said.

Gattis serves on a few advisory boards for the Point MacKenzie area, where her family owns three hay farms. Unlike Lacy, she doesn’t see much she wants to fix with the current board.

“I don’t know that there’s anything wrong. We could just do better,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.