Kevin Horihan Candidate for Lanesboro School Board
1. Tell us about yourself.
I live in rural Lanesboro on a fourth generation farm with my wife Laura and our three children, Liam (6th grade), Fiona, (5th grade), and Rafe (2nd grade). I graduated from Lanesboro High School in 2001. I attended South Dakota State University and graduated with a degree in Agriculture in 2005. I’ve been operating our family farm for the past 16 years. We raise beef cattle, corn and soybeans. My wife is a high school English teacher at Mabel-Canton Schools.
2. Why are you running for office?
I’ve always felt that my siblings and I got an excellent education from Lanesboro Public Schools. Families are drawn to our school because it offers small class sizes, small town values, and a variety of extracurricular activities. Lanesboro teachers have high expectations and aim to give students the instruction they need to be successful in life. Our school has grown over the past decade. This growth has given students more opportunities, but we need to ensure that our class sizes remain manageable if we want to continue to provide a quality education for every student.
3. What do you hope to accomplish if you get elected?
If elected, I hope to find ways to better support our teachers. Attracting and retaining licensed teachers and trained paraprofessionals should be the district’s main priority. In recent years, the school especially has had difficulty retaining Special Education teachers. While this is a nationwide problem, the district needs to do more to ensure that all teachers have a reasonable workload and appropriate training. If we want our children to become caring, creative, innovative problem-solvers, we as a community need to model this type of thinking to solve problems inside and outside of our school.
Trent Olson Candidate for Lanesboro School Board
1. Tell us about yourself.
My name is Trent Olson. I live in Lanesboro. I grew up in Lanesboro and graduated from Lanesboro High School, class of ‘93. After graduation I attended RCTC studying Business management. In 1995 I was hired by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, with whom I am still employed. My wife Tracy and I have two sons that attend the high school. Peyton is a senior and Reid is a freshman.
2. Why are you running for office?
I am running for the school board because I believe the school is the foundation of our community. I want it to be a place where administrators, staff, and students feel safe in sharing their thoughts and ideas; where we can come together as one unit and continue to move the district to yet a higher level of excellence. I want to be a part of this movement.
3. What do you hope to accomplish if you get elected?
If I get elected, I would like to help create an avenue for administration, staff, and students along with people from the community to be able to address their concerns or ideas to better serve the students.
Steve Snyder Candidate for Lanesboro School Board
1. Tell us about yourself.
I’ve been a resident of rural Lanesboro for 30 years. I was born and raised in northern Iowa and graduated Iowa State University. My wife and I have four children, with one son still attending LHS. We truly enjoy living in SE MN and having had the opportunity to have our children graduate LHS #229. I’ve worked with the same crop protection company for over 36 years, working with the ag community. Some of my pastimes include prairie restoration, growing ornamental corn to decorate downtown Lanesboro, and announcing home football games.
2. Why are you running for office?
Continue to support the core mission of the Lanesboro Schools; by continuously improving the education of all our Lanesboro students. The continual distractions being witnessed from other school districts in the country, thus taking away the core learning skills that’s needed, is the primary reason I am running for another term on the school board. Preparing our students for their future plans is what we need to continually provide. Due to our committed teaching staff and our core mission, the enrollment at LHS has increased > 30% in the last five years.
3. What do you hope to accomplish if you get elected?
Keep Lanesboro Schools fiscally responsible while providing for the needs of our students. Maintain LHS as an independent school district. Efficiently utilize the expanded school facilities while also being willing to make capital improvements when necessary. Maintain exceptionally high graduation rates and test scores. Always attract the best talent to educate our students, which I’m very proud of.
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