Miller appointed new CCSD No. 2 board member

At its Monday meeting held at Elk Mountain School, the Carbon County School Board No. 2 Board of Trustees appointed a new member of the board to fill a position vacated by Jim Hinkle.

After a public session where trustees read aloud letters of interest and conducted informal public interviews with the candidates, the board entered into an executive session closed to the public to discuss the candidates. After returning to open session and seeking public comment—of which there was none—the board voted to appoint Georgia Miller to fill out Hinkle’s term.

Miller, an Encampment resident, works at Rawlins National Bank in Saratoga and has children that attended CCSD No. 2 schools, according to a letter of interest she submitted for the position. The other two candidates were Karen Condict, a rancher and Owen Williams, a rancher outside Elk Mountain.

In voting, Williams received three votes to Miller’s five. Because Miller received five votes in the first round of voting, she was declared the winner without further voting.

Joe Gaspari, chairman of the CCSD No. 2 board said the decision was difficult since there were two other very qualified candidates.

Miller was sworn in after the board voted to appoint her to fill Hinkle’s position, which expires next year. Miller will serve out the remainder of Hinkle’s term and will be required to run for election in 2018 if she wants to retain the seat beyond then.

During an informal interview conducted by board members, Miller said her children were about to be out of school but she was deeply concerned about the quality of education available to all children in CCSD No. 2, and that she would work to “Keep our schools moving on the upward trend we have seen in recent years.”

“Kids are my passion and it would be an honor to be a part of their educational success,” Miller wrote in her letter.

Miller sat in for the rest of the CCSD No. 2 board of Trustees Meeting Monday evening. One of her first appointments by the board is to hand out diplomas at the upcoming graduation ceremony at the Encampment School.