Kathy McFetridge: Asa's best choice for state education panel

Today, I have to give credit where credit is due.

Governor Asa Hutchinson, has once again, gotten it right.

Our Republican Governor has gotten it absolutely correct with his announced choice of Kathy McFetridge of Springdale, to the State Board of Education.

McFetridge will serve a seven-year term until 2025.

And what a great choice she will be to set policy for the education of public school children all across Arkansas.

Since 1991, she has been a school board member of the Springdale Public Schools. I doubt there are very few other individual citizens who have seen the changes and innovations of public education from a front-row seat -- other than paid school personnel - during that same time period.

McFetridge, a small business owner in Springdale, has proved to be a stalwart on keeping public schools very public and decisions affecting the schools very open to the public.

She has also looked into keeping the bills paid and paid on time. She is a stalwart advocate for keeping teachers, not only well compensated, but encouraged and challenging them to be the best professionals they can be as they educate school-aged children.

She is a co-owner of Ozark Film & Video Productions since 1983. Prior to that she worked as a pharmacy tech at Washington Regional Medical Center and was all this time a wife and mom.

To say Kathy McFetridge and I are friends is not a reach.

I have from a distance for the longest time, since I have been in Northwest Arkansas, admired her "can do" attitude in school business.

She ran for and was first elected to the Springdale School Board in 1991. She was at times, one of the lone voices for classroom excellence, while the majority of the school board members were men and somewhat more focused on athletics (in the early 1990s, Springdale High was a juggernaut in football, basketball and other sports) than the nuances of grading, assessments or standardized testing.

But she stayed to the task, also learning to appreciate the perspiring arts of the junior high and high school sports. She is just as big a Springdale High Bulldog or Har-Ber High Wildcats fan as anyone in Springdale.

She had opposition one time at the school board level, handily defeating former candidate, Henry Pudder Hudson, by grabbing over 80 percent of the votes cast in that school board race.

She will be replacing a very vocal and yet needed voice on the State Board of Education in Mireya Reith, also of Springdale.

To serve on the State Board of Education, by law and by personal ethics, McFetridge had to resign from her elected post on the board of Springdale Public Schools -- the same post she has held since 1991. That, for her, must have been a hard decision.

But she did resign that post a week before the appointment was announced just to make sure she dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's, as is her habit and her personal integrity and ethics.

Her only political loss was back in 2006, when an "open state House of Representatives" seat was there for the taking.

She came up short by 228 votes to a young man named Jon Woods. Woods won the House seat down in Little Rock, while McFetridge returned to the school board and focused her attention on school matters.

I won't focus too much attention on that old political race.

Kathy McFetridge, instead, will make a great member of the State Board of Education for ALL Arkansans. She will work these next seven years with this governor and even possibly the next governor, to set goals, policy and direction for our school children of this state for decades to come.

Asa Hutchinson, as I've said, got it right.

His best choice for a new State Board of Education member was right here in Springdale.

And for that I am glad he made his choice -- the best choice.

-- Maylon Rice is a former journalist who worked for several northwest Arkansas publications. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Editorial on 07/18/2018