Eight people, including former candidates for Wake County commissioner and State House, are among the people who’ve applied to fill the open seat on the Wake school board.
School officials Monday released the names of the six people who filed at the last-minute before Friday’s deadline for the open seat from District 1 that was vacated by Chris Malone. He resigned to take a seat in the state House. Two other applicants had filed ahead of the deadline.
The new applicants are:
• H. Wade Minter, a Democrat from North Raleigh, who unsuccessfully ran in 2002 and 2004 as a Libertarian candidate for state House.
• Ben Clapsaddle, a Democrat from Wake Forest, who unsuccessfully ran in 2011 for a seat on the town’s Board of Commissioners.
• Shinica Thomas, a Democrat from Wake Forest, who has a child at Heritage High School and is on the school board advisory council for District 1.
• Hilda McCullers, a Democrat who lives in an unincorporated area near Knightdale.
• David Menaker, a Democrat from Wendell who is a developer.
• Don Mial, a Democrat who lives in an unincorporated area near Knightdale, who unsuccessfully ran in 2010 for the Wake County Board of Commissioners and last year for the N.C. House.
The other two applicants are Tom Benton, a Democrat from Zebulon who is a retired Wake principal; and Wendy Ford, a Republican from Wake Forest who served 19 years on a school board in upstate New York.
The board is officially non-partisan, but it’s led by a Democratic majority.
Malone’s old seat covers Wake Forest, Rolesville, Wendell Zebulon, part of Knightdale and part of North Raleigh.
One of the issues the school board will need to decide is whether to interview all of the applicants or just some of them.
School board chairman Keith Sutton has said he wants the board to fill the vacancy by the end of January.
Malone’s replacement would finish out his term, which runs through November. The new board member could also run this fall for a full four-year term.
Hui: 919-829-4534
