THE REV. CHARLES BUCK LEAVES SIKESTON SCHOOL BOARD FOR SPRINGFIELD

SIKESTON -- The Rev. Charles Buck called his 18 months on the Sikeston Public Schools Board of Education a short but special time.

The other members of the school board seemed to feel the same way as none of them was eager to accept his resignation last week.

Buck, who has been on the board since April 1994, has been the pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Sikeston for nine and a half years and said he had to give up his seat when he decided to become the senior pastor for the King's Way United Methodist Church in Springfield.

"I am a Methodist clergyman, and that means to me that we move as we are appointed and asked sometimes," he said. "It came very quickly. Matter of fact, on Veteran's Day I received a call from my church superiors. It is an opportunity and challenge and I thought about it and realized it was time to let the people here have a new voice to listen to."

It is Buck's voice that will be missed most by the Sikeston school board.

"He has a very friendly way with people and he communicates extremely well," Sikeston Superintendent of Schools Robert Buchanan said. "He's very articulate and very well educated. The connection that he has with a very large constituency is not available to many board members."

Buck said he was able to combine his service to his church and to his community in the school board.

"As a pastor in the community I'm always involved with various segments of the community that some of the board members are not in ready contact with," he said. "I felt that gave me the opportunity to be a voice and to be an ear to the constituents of the cross section of the community."

Last week's school board meeting was a somber affair for Buck and his peers. When he announced his resignation he asked that it go into effect immediately, allowing time for potential replacements to enter the race. The deadline for filing for the position is Jan. 14.

Two men, Steve Matthews and Ricky Anderson, had filed by Wednesday to run in the special election to fill Buck's term, which expires in 1999.

No one on the board was willing to make a motion to accept Buck's resignation until Glenn Pinkerton reluctantly sent the matter to a vote.

"I was humbled by the fact that some of the people I serve with on the board are going through some emotional things too," Buck, who served on the school advisory and the drug advisory committees before running for the school board seat, said, "For all of us it is just an emotional journey but a very compassionate and caring journey."