Staunton SB grabs new faces

By Bob Stuart

Published: May 6, 2008

Sarah Crenshaw, George Ballew and Daniel Stuhlsatz won Staunton School Board seats Tuesday, while incumbent and write-in candidate Ron Ramsey fell short in his bid for second term.
Crenshaw, who previously served on the Staunton School Board, led all candidates with 1,851 votes, or 27 percent of the total cast.
Ballew, a regional mortgage manager with BB&T, followed with 1,686 votes, 25 percent of the total, and Mary Baldwin College professor Stuhlsatz had 1,412 votes, 21 percent.
Placing fourth in the bid for the three school board seats was John Hart with 1,230 votes, 18 percent.
Ballew, who narrowly lost a board election bid two years ago, said he looks forward to visiting Staunton’s schools and its teachers.
“I want to see what they are working with and what they need,’’ he said. “They [teachers] are the basis for a good education for our children and I want to keep the good ones around.”
Stuhlsatz is a Kansas native and professor of sociology at Mary Baldwin. He said he has a particular interest in the Staunton Schools because his 7-year-old son is a student in the system.
Stuhlsatz is impressed with several of the system’s initiatives, including an energy saving program and an intervention program for elementary students to help them maintain high academic standing.
The Staunton Electoral Board is to meet this morning and do an official count of the write-in votes for Ramsey.
Just 698 people cast write-in votes Tuesday.
Ramsey had to mount the write-in campaign after his efforts to meet the 125 qualifying signatures for the ballot failed.
“This is one added little twist to the end of the story,’’ Ramsey said Tuesday night about the final tabulation of write-in votes for him.
Ramsey spent 13 hours working the polls Tuesday, telling voters they needed to type in his name so that he could earn a second term on the school board.
Ramsey also had about a dozen supporters working the polls telling voters to write his name in.