ESTEVAN - The two Estevan trustees for the South East Cornerstone Public School Division's board were elected by acclamation.
Craig MacDonald and Kevin Keating were the only two who filed their nominations by the Oct. 9 deadline. MacDonald is a newcomer, while Keating is returning for his second term for Estevan and has been on the board for 15 years.
MacDonald, who hails from Edmonton, has resided for most of his life in Estevan. While he is new to the board, he has extensive experience working for the division.
"I came here in 1965 to work in the oilpatch. Throughout most of my career, I was self-employed. I owned two different businesses. I worked in the oilpatch until 1999 and retired from oilpatch and did some consulting work until 2008," MacDonald shared.
"I retired but my wife didn't think I needed to retire so she put my name in out at the South East Cornerstone Public School Division to be a caretaker. I was there for 13 years and through that time I ended up becoming the head caretaker at the school, and then I went onto the division looking after 11 schools."
MacDonald worked for the SECPSD until 2021, and after retiring thought he would run for the school board if it was to come up.
"I could see where they needed some help in decision making. And I've got 13 years [of experience working] on the other side of Cornerstone so if I can make a difference as a trustee, I think it'll be a big asset to the decision making for them," MacDonald said.
"I'd like to see the board, when they're making decisions on different things, to have the most information they need.
"I hope I can make a difference for them. Over the years, some of the decisions they made were pretty hard to make and I don't think they were as informed as they could have been," he added.
Keating was the maintenance supervisor for SECPSD before he retired and ran for the school board, and now he has vast experience of being on the board. Prior to moving to the Energy City, he was the trustee for Subdivision 4, which includes Bienfait, Lampman, Alameda and Oxbow.
Keating's been a trustee for Estevan for the last term, and said he looks forward to continuing to work on several projects in this corner of the province.
"We have a really good board, and we have extremely good staff. Four years go by pretty quickly and, COVID is over, we're thankful for that. But the four years have gone really well. The board has worked well together," Keating said.
"We are working towards finances with the government, of course. And we have a good working relationship with our teachers and our staff; of course, that's in arbitration right now, but hopefully that will come to fruition here fairly quick."
He noted that one of the highlights for the division is having the new school being built in Carlyle. But there are more projects he'd like to see become a reality.
"I'm still on the facilities committee for getting a new K-6 school in Estevan, which would involve the separate school division and ourselves. We're still working on it. We put it in the budget every year, but so far, [it hasn't happened]."
The last term Keating was on the board alongside Eric McCrimmon, who Keating thanked for his input.
"I found him [McCrimmon] really informative and really good, so I think we'll miss him now that he's decided to step down," Keating added.
