School Board Elections

Paul Sandry, Dana Whitney and Wendy Miller are running for two open positions on the Bigfork school board.

Two trustees will be elected to serve three-year terms to represent the Bigfork elementary school district as a school trustee.Trustee Doug Fraley’s term has expired. The election will be by mail-in ballot only, and no polls will be open. Ballots will be mailed out this week, and ballots must be returned to the Bigfork school district office by 8 p.m. on May 6.

Jessica Martenz was the only person filing for the trustee position representing Swan Lake and Salmon Prairie elementary district. She will elected to the position at the Bigfork school board’s April 30 meeting.

In elections for higher education, Thomas Sward of Bigfork is running for one of two open positions on the Flathead Valley Community College board of trustees.

Sward is a Flathead Valley native. He has a business background and was commissioned out of Idaho into the Marine Corps. He graduated from the National Defense University in 2000 with master’s degree in national security strategy. He retired from the Marine Corps in 2007.

Sward has spent the last seven years working for a company that supports international defense. He and his wife, Toot Sward, have a son who is a student at the college, and another son who works in the culinary arts program at FVCC.

“There are so many