Two join Soap Lake School District board

SOAP LAKE - Soap Lake residents Jerry Bessett and Steve Merriel are being sworn in as members of the Soap Lake School District Board of Directors Dec. 18.

Election results were certified Tuesday through the Grant County Auditor's Office. Bessett won with 62.6 percent of votes against position 3 incumbent Linda Hoffman, who died of cancer.

Merriel won 56.9 percent of votes against position 1 incumbent Dean Lundgren.

Unchallenged position 4 incumbent Newton Moats was voted into a new term on the board.

"Jerry and I were pretty pleased and quite surprised by the strong turnout," Merriel said.

Merriel mentioned an opportunity to create stronger communication in the school district while serving on the school board.

"I think after all this is settled down, I'm excited to be coming on board because I think we'll be able to open up communication a lot better," Merriel said.

At the last board meeting, a group of citizens showed up to talk about an issue, but they were not on the agenda and could not speak, Merriel said.

"We're going to change that, so it'd be easier to get something on the agenda," he said.

In addition, Merriel wants to see math performance improve.

Bessett said he is most excited about working on the district's sports complex.

"We're looking very quickly at getting work done for the football bleachers in the immediate time," Bessett said.

The district is going to look at a new field and track as a long term project, he said. The track is unusable, and students are using Ephrata's track, Bessett said.

"We haven't been able to (use ours) for a few years," he said.

A committee was formed to make sure the immediate improvements are complete by next fall, Bessett said.

"We've already started the steps to get the immediate stuff done," he said.

In addition to seeing construction done on the sports complex, Bessett said is looking forward to meeting school staff and finding out what their classroom needs are.

Merriel said not only can the sports complex be improved, but so can sports programs.

"We'd love to see our sports programs improved greatly," he said.

Merriel and Bessett agreed Soap Lake has a strong board.