The Clymer Central School Board welcomed two potential candidates to fill the vacant board seat to their Sept meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

CLYMER — Clymer Central School’s Board of Education welcomed two guests to their most recent meeting who have expressed their interest to the board in filling the vacant board seat.

The seat was opened after former board member Mike Einink resigned in July. The board received letters of interest from community members Bethany Collins and Justin White to fill the seat for the rest of the year.

Both potential candidates introduced themselves at the meeting and gave the board a chance to ask them some questions, with Collins introducing herself first.

Collins said she has served before with all of the board members except for Rachel Kinal, who she has served with in other capacities.

“This school is very important to me,” Collins said. “My kids are here. I live here primarily because of the school. While I could try to help in other ways I think teachers wouldn’t want me and teaching assistants and some of the other things that are very well respected by me are also well outside of my capabilities, but serving on the board I think is within what I can do to serve the school.”

Collins added she would enjoy serving alongside the current board members until the next election if they felt she was a good fit. Board President Edward Mulkearn asked Collins about her feelings on sharing services between schools, giving an example of Clymer and Sherman sharing their food service director, Sue Watrous. Collins said she was fully behind the idea of schools being able to still operate but also share their resources, and working with what each school has is thinking outside of the box, and something she thought would have to continue in the future. She added that she saw some of the services being shared over the last few years and that she thought doing that was smart.

White introduced himself after Collins, saying that after graduating from Clymer Central School in 2012 he moved away for a time before recently coming back to the area. He went to college in Indiana and met his wife, and then the two moved back to Clymer.

“We ultimately wanted to come back just because we love the area so much,” White said. “I’ll be honest, this is the first time I’ve ever been to a board meeting, or anything like this of any caliber. So, I’m coming in very much with fresh eyes, I’m not going to put a blank notion on that, I’m very fresh to any of this.”

Despite being newer to the idea of serving on a school board, White said his goal was to come in, figure out and learn from the current board how everything functions, adding that his grandpa served a long time ago and he had a desire to fill those shoes as much as he could.

The board asked White to give some more of his background over the last 10 years. White went to a little Christian college in Indiana, where he met his wife, and does video motion graphics for a big technology company out west. While his wife is not from the Clymer area, White said she loved the idea of coming back even more than he did, adding that they do not plan on going anywhere.

Mulkearn asked White the same question about shared services, and White said he agrees with Collins, and that it is important to find things that will work and make sense for the school.

The motion to officially fill the seat will be taken at the Oct 8 meeting.