Waldron counts building upgrades as high priority

School Board candidate Jim Waldron is no stranger to the challenges facing Hutchinson District 423.

Waldron was co-chair of a bond referendum committee in 1992, working to pass a $989,000 addition to the middle school and $500,000 general fund excess levy.

He also served on a citizen task force in late 2005, researching the district’s educational and facility needs.

In April 2006, he was appointed to finish the remainder of then-Board Member Steve Borstad’s term, after Borstad resigned. It was Waldron’s first time serving in public office. “I just felt there was a need for someone to step forward and help education advance in Hutchinson,” he recalled.

Past experience
Waldron’s first election bid followed in the fall of 2006. He missed out on a School Board spot by a 51-vote margin.

Waldron doesn’t know if he’ll change much about his election strategy from two years ago. “I don’t know that anything has changed,” he said. “My campaign strategy was built on taking care of what we have — developing preventative maintenance plans and then carrying them out.”

Waldron is focusing his message on the district’s facility needs because he feels that’s the one area where the district needs the most improvement.

For more on this story, which is part of a series of profiles on School Board candidates, see the Leader’s Oct. 9 print edition.

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)