 Drive around Veneta and you can’t help but see the signs here and there urging one to vote for Mark Ghent for the Fern Ridge School Board. But who is he, why is he running, and what does he hope to accomplish if elected?
Ghent, a ten-year resident of Veneta who was born in Wales and still speaks with an accent, admits to having no experience when it comes to serving on a board, but he feels his adult life spent in uniform will be of help. Initially, he served in the British Navy but came to the United States when he met his wife. He then served in the Coast Guard Reserves before becoming a police officer in San Diego, and now works for the Eugene Police Department where he says his listening skill while dealing with various people in various situations should be of benefit should he be elected to serve on the Fern Ridge School Board. When asked why he wants to serve, Ghent, the father of a son in fifth grade at Veneta Elementary and a son in seventh grade at Fern Ridge Middle School, states that while he has great faith in the district’s teachers, he is concerned about what he says are a lot of distractions that are causing standards to go down in subjects such as English and math. To back up this assertion, he states statistics from the Oregon Department of Education that show third grade reading proficiency going from 84% to 39% while math has dropped from 75% to 40%. Fifth grade scores show reading proficiency dropping from 77% to 47% and math dropping from 73% to 31%. Ghent says he feels that a lot of the distractions come from DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) as well as I.E.P. (Individualized Education Programs) as all students, he says, are held back along with the students who are struggling. Teachers, he says, do their best to be creative, but Ghent feels that the curriculum and wasteful spending combined hold them back. States that are poorer than Oregon are having more success than Oregon is and are looking at ways to help students pass. People in this area Ghent has talked to are not happy with how things are currently, and he knows that teachers sometimes find themselves having to parent their students rather than instruct, but that he has a lot of faith in them nonetheless. If he is elected to serve on the Fern Ridge School Board, Ghent vows to put students first. While he is not against diversity in things such as Oregon Battle of the Books, he thinks the reading material should at least be enjoyable and he hopes to help the board become a conduit between the community and the schools. Parents and teachers, he says, are not always able to have a say, have a choice in what takes place in the classroom, and he wants to see this change. He vows to listen and to look at other states’ practices to see what works, hear what parents’ and teachers’ ideas are, and see that kids get equipped to achieve success. There is plenty of good the schools are doing, he says, but there is obviously room for improvement that he wants very much to see happen. As a police officer, Ghent has spoken at times with people such as nurses who have expressed that they have difficulty with the younger generation being able to work in a high stress field, being able to work in a hierarchy, and being able to receive a critique without it becoming personal and Ghent would like to see this dynamic change for the better with as kids are better equipped in the schools. To demonstrate his seriousness about serving on the board, Ghent admits to keeping a copy of the state guidelines on his desk so he can frequently look them over and study them while he determines what he thinks is the best plan of action.
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 Kristina Holton loves her community. She grew up in Junction City, graduating from Junction City High School in 2000, and after living briefly in Eugene, now lives here again. She is active in the Scandinavian Festival and as a mother, she is also active in the local Girl Scouts. For the past four years she has also been an active member of the Junction City School Board and hopes to continue this service after May’s election.
Holton’s background has been one of academia as she worked hard to receive a Bachelors in Mathematics, a Masters in Education and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership en route to a teaching career in middle and high school math followed by becoming a full-time math faculty member at Lane Community College and now, as the Dean of Science, Engineering and Mathematics at Linn-Benton Community College. This background has served her well as a member of the school board and during her time she has served on a wide range of committees such as Long-Range Facilities Planning, District Visioning/Monitoring, Classified Staff Negotiations, Licensed Staff Negotiations and Policy Rework. Since February 2022, Holton has also served as a Vice Chair for the board. When asked why she wants to run again, Holton says that the biggest cost in education is human and she wants to do her part to make the schools a place where students, including her own two daughters, Kylie, a junior at Junction City High School and Jana, who is in seventh grade at Oaklea Middle School, can learn and thrive. Her own experience as a student in Junction City schools was a positive one and Holton hopes to be able to make other students experience equally so by the creation of educational opportunities and the providing of a strong academic foundation. Oregon, Holton says, is not funded in a way to keep up with educational needs and this has led to the need for those in charge to become creative in coming up with solutions. There is a lot riding on the election and Holton hopes residents will support the bond measure being put before them. With passage of the bond there will be control locally to maximize community investment and a committee of citizens will oversee all spending, which will guarantee transparency and accountability. Laurel Elementary is in need of expansion and dangerous materials such as asbestos will be removed for the safety of students and staff alike, and contemporary safety systems such as updated fire alarms, security cameras, secure entryways as all schools and advanced locking systems will be installed with the passage of the bond. Necessary repairs such as fixing roofs that leak, replacing pipes that have become outdated, upgrading HVAC and electrical systems will be undertaken without the need to transfer funds from classrooms and ensure that classrooms will be warm, safe, dry, and advantageous to student learning. Overcrowding will also be addressed. Holton hopes people will see how important the bond is and vote in favor to ensure that a quality education can be had in the Junction City schools.  David Voltz is fairly new to Veneta, having lived in the city for only six years. An electrician by trade, he is concerned about the direction he sees the district taking and the deleterious effect these changes stand to have on kids such as his two sons, sixteen-year-old Zachary and thirteen-year-old Benjamin. When incumbents on the school board opted not to run again, Voltz decided to throw his hat into the ring in the hopes of bringing balance to a board that he says has a greater conservative presence than he would like and cites the plan to remove the gay/straight alliance from the schools which he says provides students an opportunity to expand their viewpoints. While his own children do not fall into the LBGTQ category, Voltz still worries about the effect of proposed these changes on them. “When things are demonized, kids get hurt,” he states matter-of-factly. It is important, he says, for schools to have representation for all kids and he saw what happens when it isn’t there while growing up in the Midwest in the 1990’s. When more conservative people are on the board, the district, he fears, will go backwards and he wants to be able to prevent this by offering some balance. Voltz would also like to maintain and expand the arts program in the high school, which he says is lacking as the district, the school, tends to focus more on sports. The band, he says, is nothing more than a guitar jam and the choir, which was down to two students who have since left, is nonexistent. Voltz would like to put more of a focus on all arts and he would like to get parents interested in coming to the school and seeing what their children are doing. If possible, he would like to give everyone a voice and allow all kids to be heard.  *This story focuses on suicide, those who are taken far too soon from those who love them, and those who are left behind. Five years ago, Veneta resident Donna Smith received the call no parents wants to get. Her beloved son, Heath Purpura, had taken his life in Sandy, Utah after losing a struggle with mental health issues at the age of 39. The grief of this loss was unbearable and the celebrating she had done about her daughter Heather’s and her sons Trevor and Tyler’s accomplishments came to a screeching halt. The tears were unending as she grieved the loss of the little boy she had raised and who had grown into a man who was known for his kindness, who loved dogs and volunteered at his local humane society, a man who loved to swim and workout and took great pride in helping others. Now, he had tragically become one of the over 30,000 people who lose their lives to suicide every year and Smith wasn’t sure how to go on after such a tremendous loss. Eventually, she began to attend a support group, but this soon came to an end when Covid shut everything down. Not to be deterred however, Smith began to hold a small support group in her front yard with several other women who had been through various losses. It was also at this time that Smith began, along with a friend who had also lost a son to suicide, to construct a memorial garden as a way of keeping Heath close to her and to have a nice place to sit and visit with him. The memorial garden is small but lovely, with an ornamental Japanese maple in the center and surrounded by such flowers as grape hyacinth’s, tulips, heather, and English daisies. Solar powered lights and decorative rocks including the heart shaped rocks she has found repeatedly while at the coast also inhabit the memorial while landscaping bricks form a circular border. Smith also decided to construct a memorial box that now sits on a post at the end of her driveway on 7th Street. Constructed by a neighbor who does crafting for the Emporium, the box resembles a Little Free Library but rather than contain books, it contains courage rocks that Smith has found during her trips to the coast and polished along with a note informing those who take one that the rock is to be used to draw strength when the owner is struggling with such things as loneliness, depression, addiction or rejection. The outside of the box has In Loving Memory of Heath in careful script along with his birthdate and the date of his death and a small painting of a bronco in a nod to his fondness for the Denver Broncos. When Smith travels to the coast and to Mexico, she takes some of the courage rocks with her to share with others there. Because the grief over Heath’s death was so crushing, Smith traveled to Sedona, Arizona, to attend a retreat at Selah Care Farm which is run by Joanne Cacciatore, author of Bearing the Unbearable. Begun with a donkey Cacciatore rescued from the Grand Canyon where it was being abused, the farm is home to other rescued animals that visitors who are grieving can visit with as they slowly learn that grief and joy can coexist. While there, Smith ironically encountered the mother of one of Heath’s friends who shared a fond memory of Heath’s carrying her groceries into the house for her and taking her garbage out to the curb as that was the kind of man he was. Smith traveled to the farm more than once and it was after a visit during which Cacciatore told Smith that she deserved to be happy that Smith adopted a Yorkie puppy she named Chance. The little dog has been great for both her physical and emotional health and taking care of him has done tremendous things to lift her spirits. Still, she grieves for the son who used to joke that Heath candy bars were named in his honor and Smith considers it a message from him when she finds a heart-shaped rock as he continues to tell her how much he loved her despite feeling like he couldn’t continue to struggle. Smith has also been seeing a lot of hummingbirds since Heath’s death as she sits by his memorial garden and talks with him and this, too, gives her comfort though her heart will never be whole again. The loss of a loved one to suicide is a pain that no one should have to endure but for far too many it is a tragic reality. Sometimes the pain can be so great, the burden so heavy, that one can stop seeing any chance for the darkness to end and the sunshine to return. It is then those thoughts of suicide began to take hold, and it can seem like the only way for the pain to stop is through death. No one wants to take this step and put their family through such pain, but when one’s mind is not in a good place, it can seem like the only alternative even though it isn’t. Help is out there and there are many people who care. If anyone reading this is having these sorts of ideation, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Lifeline provides confidential support to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. The sun can shine again.  The memorial garden Donna Smith and a friend made in memory of Smith's son Heath Purpura  Donna Smith poses proudly with son Heath Purpura |
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