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Ford wins seat on Benton school board |
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Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
 Bill Ford
Ford, 47, defeated Susan Jumper, 36. The vote was 525 to 402.
Both candidates were at the county clerk’s office while election results were being tallied, and at times the two studied preliminary results side by side.
After Ford was declared the winner, he said, “First off, I want to thank Susan for a good, clean race.
“I’m looking forward to serving on the board, and I can’t say enough to thank the teachers and school district support staff of the Benton schools,” Ford said.
Both the Benton Education Association and the Benton Association of Support Staff endorsed Ford’s candidacy. Leaders of both groups were at Burton’s office to support Ford.
“Last, but not least, I want to thank my family and friends for helping me,” Ford added.
He is a district chief with the Benton Fire Department, where he has been employed for 28 years.
Jumper congratulated Ford on his victory and said she had not been running against him.
“I’ve wanted to do this for several years, and we just decided to do this [seek a board seat] at the same time,” she said. “I think God has a plan for me, and there’s a reason I didn’t win.”
Jumper, employed on a part-time basis at Saline Pediatric Therapies, commended Ford on conducting “a good race.”
She wished him “good luck,” adding, “Work hard. I have three kids in this district, and I’m going to be ringing your phone.”
Ford will replace Bruce Thomas, the current chairman of the Benton board.
A 1978 Benton High School graduate, Ford is the son of Betty Ford of Benton and the late Charles W. “Bill” Ford.
He and his wife, the former Judy Peterson of Little Rock, have a son, Andrew, a third-grader at Howard Perrin Elementary School.
When he announced his candidacy, Ford said he had “no personal agenda” in seeking the board position.
“My only agenda is that I have an 8-year-old son in the Benton school system,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about running for the school board for a long time and I feel that this is the right time to do this.”
He said he looks forward “to working with the administration and other members of the school board.”
“The only promise I will make is that I will keep the students’ best interests first and foremost,” Ford said.
He is a charter member of Local 2765, International Association of Firefighters, and a member of the Arkansas Professional Firefighters Association.
He attended University of Arkansas at Little Rock and was trained as a paramedic at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He has received additional training through Southern Arkansas University.
He is a member of New Hope United Methodist Church and attends Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, where his wife is a member.
Jumper is a lifetime resident of Benton and a 1988 graduate of Benton High School. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in communication disorders in 1992 at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia and a Master of Science degree in speech/language pathology from University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1994.
She was a speech/language pathologist at Rivendell for nine years and has worked for the Dawson Educational Cooperative in its early intervention program with 3-5-year-olds in Saline County.
Married to Tommy Jumper Jr. for 13 year, the two have three children — Lindsey and Lacy, 7-year-old twin girls, and their son, Jack, 9. She is the daughter of Mary and Jimmy Lynch, a former Benton board member.
At the time she announced her plans to seek a board seat, she said she was “running for the school board as a way of giving back to this community for the education I received and to ensure that my children, as well as other children in this district, continue to see growth and better education opportunities.”
She said she supports a “positive relationship between teachers, administrators and the community,” saying this is essential for educational growth and success.
Jumper said she had no specific agenda. “I am doing this mainly just for my kids and others and because I want to continue to see our education system grow.”
She also said she supported a millage increase in order for the district to build better facilities and to make teacher salaries more competitive.
‘We have wonderful teachers here and I personally think teaching should be the highest-paid profession,” she said. |
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Razorbacks