Murray school board member resigns, replacement named

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June 19, 2012

Murray school board member resigns, replacement named

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Tue Jun 19, 2012, 07:13 AM EDT

Murray Board of Education member Kay McCurdy has resigned from her District 2 post to run for tax commissioner, and the lone candidate to qualify for the office for the November general election has been appointed to take her place.

Sam Bright, 46, a Republican, father of two children in Murray County Schools and a 1984 Murray County High School graduate, was appointed by the Board of Education. He is set to be sworn in and take office before the board’s next meeting on July 16.

Board member Becky Whaley said the board by law had to appoint a replacement within 15 days of McCurdy’s May 29 resignation.

“He ... was the only one who ran for it, so in January he would be taking the seat anyway,” Whaley said.

McCurdy, a Republican, contacted The Daily Citizen by email to say she had resigned effective May 29 to run for the other Murray County office.

“She was a very valuable member of the board,” said Whaley, who explained the two are friends and are both in their fourth year on the board. “She had insight. She did her homework, took extensive notes, and she’s going to be hard to replace.”

Bright has one daughter who is a rising senior at Murray County High School and another daughter who will be in fourth grade at Coker Elementary School. Traveling to other schools in his job with Southtel Communications in telephone and computer networking allows him to see plenty of examples of what works well and what doesn’t work well, he said.

Yet he doesn’t have the same agenda he had four years ago when he ran against McCurdy and lost. At that time, he was focused on opening up more vocational education opportunities for students. He still values that kind of education, he said, but he also recognizes that because of the economy the school system won’t be able to accomplish everything he’d like it to.

“We’re under a lot more budget problems because the economy did a nosedive,” he said. “I’m just going to have to get in there and see what we can do because our budgets are tight.”

He said he wants to make sure teachers’ jobs aren’t cut as the board makes budget decisions though he is still familiarizing himself with information to make those decisions.

Bright ran two years ago for the school board’s at-large seat now held by Jackie Rogers. He said he was surprised no one qualified to run against him, but he said that’s partly because the current board members are doing such a good job that people are satisfied with their leadership.

“This board here and now seems like they’ve done a very good job because you don’t hear much complaints,” he said. “I’m glad to be a part of it.”

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Murray school board member resigns, replacement named

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