By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Two incumbents and a former school board member were elected to the Hays USD 489 school board on Tuesday.
Curt Vajnar, the current president of the board, was re-elected, receiving the most votes—2,531.
Vajnar is a former ag teacher at Hays High School. This will be his second four-year term.
Ken Brooks and Craig Pallister tied with 1,948 votes each.
Brooks, an incumbent and the current vice president of the board, will be serving his second four-year term. Brooks is a loss control safety specialist for Insurance Planning.
Pallister is a retired educator who served as principal of Hays Middle School for 21 years. He served four years on the school board, but narrowly lost re-election to the board two years ago behind Jayme Goetz.
Meagan Zampieir-Lillpopp lost her bid for re-election, receiving 1,294 votes. Kelly Ancar rounded out the slate of candidates, receiving 1,603 votes.
All three winning candidates focused their comments on completing the bond projects.
The district opened a new high school building in August. A renovation and addition have been completed at Roosevelt Elementary School.
Work is underway to renovate the former high school building into a middle school. Students will move into that space in January. Work is ongoing on a renovation and expansion of O'Loughlin Elementary School.
Once the current middle school is vacated, work will begin to renovate it into a four-section elementary school.
Vajnar said, "I just want to get the bond issue stuff completed and on budget. ... I just want to make sure we continue on doing a good job educating our youth. That's why I ran, making sure we have a good education system for kids who come through our school system."
Ken Brooks said, "I hope to keep us on track as we finish the bond project, and I am excited about what the next four years are going to bring. I hope I can continue serving as I have."
"I want to thank Curt and Craig, and I also want to thank Meagan [Zampieri-Lillpopp] for four great years of service," Brooks said.
Pallister said he looked forward to rejoining the board and also hoped to work toward finishing the bond projects.
The candidates will begin their new terms in January.
Results will not be final until canvassing at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12. The canvass will be in the county commission meeting room at the Ellis County Administration Building.
The canvass includes consideration of any provisional ballots, as well as any eligible mail-in ballots received within the next three days.