Newcomer files for Cape Girardeau School Board

Two Cape Girardeau School Board incumbents will face at least one challenger in the upcoming April election.

Lynn Ware, a 15-year employee of the Cape Girardeau Police Department as coordinator of the Cape Girardeau Safe Communities program, filed for candidacy Friday. She will run against six-year incumbent and former board president Kyle McDonald and Deneke' Murphy, who was appointed to the board in August to replace Luther Bonds. Bonds left the board to take a position as a resource officer within the Cape Girardeau School District.

In area districts, two seats are available on each board for three-year terms, and the two candidates with the most votes in the April 3 election will win the seats.

Ware said her decision to run for school board comes from a desire to serve the community in her best capacity. She is familiar with many negative issues in area schools, she said, that arise from a lack of parental involvement and guidance at home. She has spent time in the Cape Girardeau School District's alternative school, giving presentations that help students to make good choices, she said.

In addition to her job as a program coordinator for the police department, Ware serves as a liaison for Missouri Department of Transportation Child Passenger Safety program and is a former member of the National Child Passenger Safety Board and the Cape Family Resource Center Executive Board. She has one adult daughter who attended Cape Girardeau public schools.

Tuesday is the last day -- and the only day this week -- candidates can file for elections. Many district offices will be closed Monday due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday. Members of a school district's board of education must be U.S. citizens and resident taxpayers of the district, must have resided in Missouri for one year preceding their election or appointment and be at least 24 years old.

Interested people may file at their district's board office during regular business hours, which vary by district.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

301 N. Clark Ave., Cape Girardeau, MO