During this campaign we had three qualified professionals step up to be considered.  You can look at their introductions in the comments section below this post.  The opportunity to fill the open position is past.  The next opportunity will be to file next August to be on the ballot next November (2015).  I've kept the original post.  After that I added some fresh thoughts.  Don't forget to look and the Candidate intros and encourage them to pursue a seat through election. 

Original Post:
Are you considering becoming a School Board Member? You must apply by Today to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. Ellis' resignation. 

I was just re-reading my Oct 16, 2014 edition of the Courier. The first page article talks about Mr. Ellis resignation and the filling of the vacancy.

"The board will meet at 6 pm on Thursday Nov 6 at Weisenborn…… The board anticipates naming a new member at the Nov 6th meeting. Any community members interested in considering this board position which will run for about one year one one month, can contact Superintendent Susan Gunnell.

Mrs Gunnell's school phone number is 937-237-6300

Looks like they will decide in executive session starting at 5:00 pm and then vote at 6 pm.  There is no chance for public comment so you must let them know by email or phone today if you want the position or if you support one of the others that do.  
http://huberheightscityschools.org/board/

• I'm heading to work. Here is what I'm hoping happens today.  Find the Facebook thread at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/424944654277713/permalink/575781712527339/ 
  
  The next time I look at this post, I hope I see a hundred people or more have Liked one of the possible candidates. Make sure you tell us about yourself if you'd like the position.
  
  This morning I hope you email the current board members with a message like this:
  
  Dear Board member, I know you will be considering appointing a new Board member tonight. I am hoping that more than one qualified candidate will contact you today, as well as, many others from the community in hopes of gaining appropriate consideration for a fresh perspective for the open position.
  
  Later in the afternoon you email the current board members with a message like this:
  
  Dear Board member, I think ( ) would be a great contributor if you appointed her/him to the board.
  
  Finally, I hope to see you at the Board Meeting Tonight.   
  
  
  
  Post meeting update and thoughts ————————————————————————————————————-
  
  The Board appointed the candidate they had identified on Oct 20th as being their choice.  The main meeting started late because the Executive Session was extended. 
  
   I'm was impressed that all three of the possible candidates, Brian, Nick and Megan attended at least a portion of the meeting. Earlier in the day I thought we needed at least 100 likes for the candidates and thirty people to show up in order to sway the understandable resistance to making a last minute change.  This would have been a last minute change. Those goals weren't achieved (although it was a big room - there were decent number of people familiar with this effort there. However, you can tell from the emails I got from Mark Combs and Ms Gunnell and the fact that the executive session discussion on this subject lasted 5 to 10 minutes into the start of the regular meeting that the opportunity was there.  It is important for you to look at the Candidate intros in the comment section below and see that it is possible to find intelligent, well educated professionals to weather the political arena in order to contribute to the community.  Lets make sure we encourage them so they keep that interest because we need their expertise and experiences as a city and a community.  
  
  
  
  So I spent a lot of time coordinating this today.  What lesson learned can anyone take away from the experience? 
   
  Who, What, Where, Why and When!
   
  It seems like every time I talk with a school official I always have to say, "Who, What, Where, Why and When".  Tonight school board members exhibited both intrigue and frustration that they hadn't received any interest from the public about filling the open seat until the last 24 hours and then there was a lot of interest. 
   
  The best I can determine the article in the Courier about Mr. Ellis' resignation was the primary means the Board used to publicize the Open Position.  This article came out online prior to the paper copy that came out on Oct 16 but even so the way it was interweaved into the article the mention of the vacancy would not prompt many people into thinking to put their name in the hat.  It is not surprising to me that on Oct 20th they still hadn't gotten any word that there were "community members interested in considering this board position".  As tempting as it might be for some of us to cry conspiracy — its not!  It's just that no one in the school system seems to have learned a basic 5th grade lesson –  Who, what, Where, Why and When.
   
  5 days ago my twelve year old asked me to kick the soccer ball around with her.  After telling her we could do it each of the previous 4 days I finally decided to leave work early enough to make it happen today.  This put me running a little late for the board meeting.  On the way out I realized I hadn't checked to see where the meeting was going to be held.  I had the website easily available since I had posted it here a number of time already today.   
   
  Who, What, Where, Why and When 
  
  
  
  
  I'll poke one board member a little here.  In our post meeting discussion he kept saying that it shouldn't be necessary for the Board to go out and beg the public to come and do the job.  Of course the Board is on record as telling the public they went out and asked the person they appointed to come do the job.  
  
  Everyone that is politically involved was pretty busy until this past Tuesday.  This includes  me and all the members of the School Board.  I'm glad to see that those that read this blog and those that participate in the Social Media discussions on Facebook and similar sites showed the flexibility to transition to another important issue like the School Board Appointment so that the Board at least had the opportunity to examine and evaluate a number of qualified candidates.
  
  Update 8 November 2014 ———-
  
  Now that we've had another sunrise since the flurry of activity, I've awoken realizing that I could have done better with my Facebook postings.  Re-reading the original campaign here at HuberResidents.org, I'm pretty happy with the message that was conveyed.  However, I could have done much better addressing the fact that Mr. Fisher's resume is pretty impressive and he was asked to step forward by Board Members.  What is obvious now is that I should have taken both of these into consideration while the campaign was ongoing. 
   
  As a minimum I should have tried to reach out to Mr. Fisher and let him know I have a strong enough conviction that we need a fresh perspective that I was actively pursuing finding other candidates.  In the Courier report it stated he was stepping in because no one else was stepping up.  If I were more politically sensitive a frank conversation with him may have produced an ally.
   
  I'm less sympathetic toward the Board because they made a lot of missteps in the searching and announcing process.  This doesn't change the fact that in order to get past the "embarrassment factor" of asking someone to step in and then not, we would have needed an almost heroic amount of public participation to get the Board to seriously consider a candidate within this short a time period.  Or better yet, an ally that was willing to wait through a last minute vetting of last minute candidates.
   
  The other very real concern the Board must of taken into consideration and one that I was worried about was how well could we know the candidates that we brought forward in this short of time period.  There was actually much more time available than what was portrayed.  However, the board could have really had a dilemma if they did not show enough respect to the already identified candidate and it turned out they needed him.  I'm confident all the candidates we brought forward and made themselves available in this short time period are top notch.  I didn't know that would be the case when I started the Facebook campaign at 9:26 pm, 20 hours prior to the last possible time to get applicants in front of the Board.