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Wichita BOE District 2 Candidates Share Passion For Community Service

Hugo Phan
/
KMUW
Julie Hedrick, Trish Hileman and Debra Washington at the Voter Empowerment Forum in late September.

The three women running for the District 2 seat on the Wichita Schools Board of Education have a record of volunteer service in the community.

The winner will replace Joy Eakins as the representative for the east Wichita district.

Candidate Julie Hedrick is on the board for Grace Med and previously served on several city boards. She spent 28 years working for the Wichita School District.

"I was a key player in establishing 'safe rooms' in all of our buildings and also in getting the safe entries into the offices in our buildings," Hedrick said at a recent public forum.

Candidate Trish Hileman is the president of a neighborhood association and held leadership positions for parent-teacher groups at several Wichita schools.

"I just want to serve. I want to make education better in Wichita. I think we can do that by really leading positively and openly," Hileman said at a recent public forum.

Candidate Debra Washington has volunteered for City of Hope, Urban League of Kansas and the Wichita Black Arts Festival. At the Voter Empowerment Forum last September, Washington explained her decision to run for the Board of Education after serving as a youth mentor for the Wichita Children’s Home.

"That’s what motivated me to see the skills that were lacking in our kids—the decisions that they were not making—due to not having critical what I call life skills," Washington said.

Board members set district policy and oversee a budget of more than $680 million.

Also up for election on Tuesday, the District 1, District 5 and District 6 seats.

Board of Education members serve a four-year term.

Tuesday will be a districtwide election. People who live in the Wichita School District can vote in each of the four district races on the ballot—not just the district where they live.

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Follow Deborah Shaar on Twitter @deborahshaar

 
To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.