One incumbent and three newcomers have been elected to the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. school board amid an unusually eventful season for board races.
For the District 1 seat, Jason A. Major won with 7,368 votes (43.69%), while Anakarina Hurtado had 5,705 (33.83%) and David Vincent totaled 3,791 (22.48%). Major will take the seat of outgoing board president Jill Shedd, who did not seek re-election. Major works at Cummins, Inc as a site quality leader at the fuel systems plant.
In District 2, incumbent Richard A. Stenner, Jr. won with with 8,544 votes (52.11%), with his opponent, Roy West, receiving 7,851 (47.89%). Stenner works for Columbus Regional Health Physicians in provider contract management and has been serving on the BCSC school board since 2010.
The District 4 seat was claimed by Dale Nowlin with 9,350 votes (53.92%), while fellow newcomer Eric Grow had 7,989 (46.08%). Nowlin replaces outgoing board member Julie Bilz, who chose not to run for re-election. He is a retired BCSC teacher and occasional substitute who previously ran for the Indiana House of Representatives District 59 seat in 2016, 2018 and 2020.
And for District 6, Logan K. Schulz won with 5,727 votes (33.65%). He was trailed by Cheryl K. Miles-Vieth with 5,060 (29.73%), incumbent Kathy Dayhoff-Dwyer with 3,957 (23.25%) and Mark Douglas with 2,273 (13.36%). Schulz works for Amazon as a workforce strategy leader for the maintenance organization.
In total, 11 candidates ran for BCSC school board this year, a considerably higher number than in years past.
While school board races are non-partisan, certain candidates in this year’s elections were sorted into different camps. Major, West, Grow and Schulz called themselves as “Dads 4 Change” and banded together in support of items such as parental rights, removing inappropriate materials from school libraries and scrutiny of BCSC’s budgeting practices.
Conversely, the Columbus Educators Association and the Indiana Political Action Committee for Education encouraged voters to support Hurtado, Stenner, Nowlin and Miles-Vieth, who differed from their opponents on certain issues such as their support for Social Emotional Learning.
“There’s some bittersweetness tonight,” said Major, in regards to the expected split outcome, as he awaited final results. He added that he felt blessed to be in the lead and that win or lose, he and other candidates have learned a lot about the process and how far they can push themselves to earn a seat on the board.
Stenner commended all 11 candidates who ran.
“Everybody stuck their necks out, said what they stand for, and participated in the process,” he said, as votes were coming in at 8 p.m. “It was a good race.”
Dale Nowlin
Logan Schulz
Rich Stenner
Jason Major BCSC School Board candidate District 1 Mike Wolanin | The Republic
