Five applicants submitted letters of intent to fill a vacant Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District Board of Trustees seat, a Freedom of Information Act request with Starkville confirmed Tuesday.
The applicants are Sumner Davis, Rondeze Harris, Debra Prince, Anne Stricklin and Jeanette Taylor.
The school board position opened after Juliette Weaver-Reese resigned the post last month.
Aldermen are expected to make an appointment Tuesday, and the recipient’s term will expire in the spring of 2019.
The applicants
Davis is a former two-term alderman and current head of MSU’s Center for Government and Community Development, a division of the university’s extension service located within its division of agriculture, forestry and veterinary medicine.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in public policy and administration from Mississippi State University.
Davis served on Starkville School District’s strategic planning committee and helped pass 2005’s school bond. He also served as the interim head of the Southern Rural Development Center and chaired the Starkville Parks Advisory Committee and Starkville Visitors and Conventions Bureau board.
Harris is a former Mr. Starkville High and a graduate of the Starkville public school system.
He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration from MSU and worked at Sara Lee Foods, Severstal and Weyerhaeuser before moving to his current position as shift superintendent with Yokohama Tire Manufacturing in West Point.
Prince is an associate professor with MSU’s Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Foundations. She also serves on MSU’s Institutional Review Board and the Robert Holland Faculty Senate.
A copy of her curriculum vitae was not included in the materials released by the city, but in her letter Prince said she holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction and has served 30 years as a teacher and researcher.
Prince joined MSU after 13 years of public school teaching, and her research focuses on “the effects of poverty on the well-being and educational outcomes for children,” her letter states.
A letter from Dinetta Karriem, the counseling and educational psychology department’s student service coordinator, endorsing Prince’s nomination to the school board was submitted to the city.
Stricklin is a SHS graduate and a former high school and college instructor in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas.
She has also served as a member of SSD’s parent-teacher organizations in the last seven years, including stints as co-president of Sudduth and Overstreet schools’ PTOs as well as the president of the districtwide PTO’s executive committee.
A copy of Stricklin’s CV was not included in the materials released by the city, but 34 people signed letters of support backing her nomination to the school board.
Signees included Rex Buffington, who served on the consolidation study committee; past Starkville Foundation for Public Education President Nelle Cohen; former Alderman Jeremiah Dumas; Roy Ruby, a former MSU interim president, dean emeritus of the college of education and vice president emeritus for student affairs; and David Shaw, MSU’s vice president for research and economic development who also served on the consolidation committee.
Taylor is a retired educator with 27 years of experience in the field.
She most recently served as Caddo Parish, Louisiana’s director of high priority schools and special education, and previously served as Oktibbeha County School District deputy superintendent from 1998-2000.
She has taught at North Carolina A&T University, MSU, the former SSD’s Millsaps Vocational Center and other grade schools in Virginia.
Taylor holds master’s degrees in education and ministry from the University of California and the Birmingham Theological Seminary, respectively, and a doctorate in vocational special needs education from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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