An incumbent and a newcomer were elected to the State Fair Community College Board of Trustees during Tuesday’s municipal election.
Tim Carr retained his seat and Amie Breshears was elected to the board. Carr received 3,500 (38.04%) votes, Breshears received 2,488 (27.04%) votes, Billy Foster received 1,795 (19.51%) votes and Christopher Guffey received 1,388 (15.09%) votes. Voters in Benton County and the City of Otterville also elected Carr and Breshears to the board.
Carr was appointed by the board in March 2021 to fill a vacancy left by Jim Page, who had four years left in his six-year term. The Board policy states that the appointee could only serve until the next election, after which, a candidate must be elected for the remaining two years of Page’s term. This is why there is a two-year term that will be filled by Tom Oldham, who was uncontested in Tuesday’s election.
Carr said “humble” is an overused word but that he was humbled by the support he had from all the SFCC taxing districts.
“I would just like to commend the other candidates,” Carr said. “We kept this race completely positive from the start to the finish and I, for one, think that's what our voting public wants. They want to see ideas that are innovative, progress and not ill-spirited.”
Carr’s biggest goal is to work with the incoming SFCC president, Brent Bates, and help establish the foundation for his administration.
“The experience of running for this board has been so different than when I was appointed because now I truly feel like I have a mandate from the voters as opposed to simply being accepted from the other sitting trustees,” Carr said.
Breshears, who lives in Benton County and works in Pettis County, said she is also humbled to receive a seat on the board and has a lot of respect for the other candidates.
“I think State Fair would have been in good hands no matter who, out of the four us, was chosen and I’ll do my best to live up the faith that they put in me,” Breshears said.
Breshears mentioned several times during her phone interview how nice it was to get to know all the other candidates.
“My biggest plan is to listen and to learn,” Breshears said. “There’s so much about State Fair, even though I’ve learned a lot during the campaign and even in some of the projects I have worked with them on in the last few years, I know there is so much I have to learn. So, I am ready to listen, to learn, to ask questions and to take care of the students, staff, and everyone associated with the college.”
Breshears said she has encouraged the candidates who didn’t win in Tuesday’s election to go back and run again.
Foster said that it was interesting to see the results and it will be interesting to see what happens going forward for the school.
At the moment, Foster doesn’t know if he plans to run again but still plans to be involved with SFCC.
Guffey did not respond by press time.
