Elections
Lawyer files for District 6 school board seat
Jarrod Ownbey may not be a graduate of a Georgetown County school, but he has a strong interest in the district.
His oldest daughter is a graduate of Waccamaw High School, his two younger daughters are students at Waccamaw High and Waccamaw Middle, and his wife, Stacy, teaches at the middle school.
They are why Ownbey, a Spartanburg native, wants to represent District 6 on the school board. He filed as soon as the books opened last Friday for the July 8 special election.
“I think it’s the most important investment you can make into a community is to invest in the education of their children because they’re the ones that come back to be the doctors and work on the roads, work at the restaurants and keep everything going,” Ownbey said. “To me that’s why. It’s to make sure that we have the best possible education for our children and put that investment into them, but also to give this area a chance to have a voice in Georgetown.”
Ownbey, who lives in Litchfield Country Club and is a lawyer with the Mullins Law Firm in North Myrtle Beach, has heard from parents who think they don’t have enough of a voice on what goes on in schools.
The District 6 seat became vacant when Kristie Baxley resigned last month. She was unopposed in November and resigned after selling her home in Litchfield Country Club.
Of the eight remaining board members, the majority do not have school-age children.
Ownbey believes that as a parent – and spouse of a teacher – he is in touch with what’s going on in schools on a day-to-day basis and can find ways to correct problems.
“It gives me a different perspective coming in so I can evaluate and help try to bring different people together to get the best result we can for our kids,” he said.
One of Ownbey’s major concerns for the district is teacher retention.
“We’re losing a lot of teachers, a lot of good teachers to counties north [of us], counties south,” he said. “The gut reaction everybody has is just to throw money at the problem and I don’t know that [money is] necessarily the problem.”
Just as important, Ownbey added, is that teachers have a community that they can rely on and that is supportive.
“Quality of life is something that we can add that really doesn’t cost us a whole lot,” he said.
As a lawyer, Ownbey is used to asking tough questions. He would not be afraid to do that as a board member, he said.
“Sometimes you have to ask tough questions and really have a hard look in the mirror to see if we’re doing the things we need to be doing to make everybody successful or to put them in a place to be successful,” he added.
This is not Ownbey’s first foray in politics. He filed to run as a Democrat for House District 108 in 2012, when the Kevin Ryan, a Republican, stepped down after one term.
Ownbey was among dozens of candidates around the state who were removed from the ballot after a state Supreme Court ruling said their filings were incorrect even though they followed the procedure outlined by their party.
The District 108 seat went to Stephen Goldfinch, who was unopposed.
Filing for the nonpartisan election closes Monday at noon.
The district covers parts of Pawleys Island from Waverly Road north to the southern end of Murrells Inlet.
