04/07/2025
To prepare for the interview I posted earlier, I was given a list of questions to answer. In the interest of keeping the videos from being 15 minutes long, we were asked to summarize our answers. If you interested in reading my full answers to the questions, see below:
1. Please tell us about your family:
I moved to Nevada in 2008 with my wife (who was born and raised in Nevada) who was starting her first teaching job right out of college. She still holds that job as the K-2 music teacher, now at Weber Elementary. I have three children who are all students in the Nevada R-V School District, our oldest daughter is currently in 7th grade, our youngest daughter is currently in 2nd grade, and our son is in 1st grade.
2. What is your occupation?
I am an Associate Director at the Osage Prairie YMCA. In my role at the Y, I am responsible for all of the youth sports programming throughout the year, I am responsible for overseeing the operation of aquatics programming and the operation of the aquatic facility, and I manage/coach the Nevada Neptunes Swim Team.
3. What is your educational background?
I graduated from Pittsburg State University in 2007 with a degree in commercial graphics. Since then my career has taken many turns from working as a journalist, to a director of marketing, and now program management. We joke that teaching is our family business because among all the aunts, uncles, and cousins we could staff a K-12 school. I, too, have dipped my toe in the world of being an educator. I spent 5 years teaching a night class at Cottey College where I learned a great deal about what is expected of educators both in and out of the classroom.
Additionally, being married to a teacher in the district, I'm familiar with the life of an educator. The time outside the classroom that goes to making the most of the time in the classroom, the love and passion a teacher has for their students, and the challenges and successes educators face on a daily basis.
4. Please describe your goals for the District:
If elected, I plan to do my part to help put our staff and students in the best position to be successful. I want both the staff and students to feel like they have the potential to grow. I want to make sure that the staff and students feel like they are supported and encouraged. This can be achieved, in part, by continuing the follow and enhance the district's Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (CSIP). The CSIP is a wonderful document that was put together to give direction and a path forward to improving the district. There is a lot of wonderful things that have come from that plan, and many more to come in the future.
While there are a lot of great things going on, there is room for improvement. For example, I feel like the district could do a better job communicating news, updates, and announcements with the community. There are a lot of great things going on in the district that I feel are going largely unnoticed.
5. Any additional comments you would like to add:
I was asked when someone found out that I was running for school board, what my "platform" was. It's pretty simple ... Be a decent person, use common sense, and do what I can to put our district in the best position to be successful. The goal is simple, but I know the path will not be. The future of educational system is uncertain right now, and it's going to fall on the members of the school board to make sense of it and make decisions to the best of their ability. It won't be easy, but I believe I'm up to the task.
