West Grand School Board candidates vie for three seats

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Five candidates recently submitted their petitions to run for the November election. Of the three seats, two held by Travis Hoesli and Michele DeSanti were term-limited. Hoesli also gave up his seat early to move to North Carolina. The third seat is held by Jeremy Bock, and he is seeking re-election. Others throwing their name into the hat are Bryan Klotz, Jess Buller, Rebecca Guthrie, and Rhonda Shearer.

Those elected will join current board members Everett “Shorty” Lemon, Jessica Smiley, and Michael “Mitch” Lockhart.

November’s election will be a mail-in ballot, and ballots will be sent out October 15.

The Grand Gazette will be featuring each of the candidates in a weekly forum where a question is answered by each candidate every week. The public is encouraged to send questions to grandgazette@gmail.com.

Candidates appear in the ballot order, this week they were asked to give a brief introduction of themselves and include why they are running.

Rebecca Guthrie

Rebecca Guthrie

Hello West Grand! So I moved to Kremmling in 2001 with my husband Eric, later we welcomed our son Wyatt in 2007. I am the owner of Re/Max Red and enjoy spending time with my family and friends at the lake, hiking and hunting.
Wyatt is now in the 7th grade. I have been attending the WGSD board meetings for the last couple of years on behalf of the Grand Gazette and believe that this will help to hit the ground running. I am happy to answer any questions feel free to contact me!

Jeremy Bock

Jeremy Bock

I am Jeremy Bock, a West Grand graduate. I am running for re-election after serving a four year-term. I am proud of the direction the school is heading with culture and climate. I believe in finishing a job. Now that I have learned about the school district, I look forward to enacting change in my next term. I was also asked to run again by many in the community.
I was born in Kremmling and believe there is no greater community service than helping with the education of your children.
I also serve Kremmling in the capacity of Superintendent of Kremmling’s Sanitation District. My wife is Kendra Bock and we have a daughter, Brooklynn in the 4th grade. She is the 4th generation to live in Kremmling.

Bryan Klotz

I am a 32 year old Kremmling native with four young men at West Grand Elementary.

I partner with a local, family-operated, electrical contractor Grand Power LLC. I have been married 10 years to my wonderful wife Brittany, who gifted me our four boys Aiden, Caleb, Christopher, and Parker. I am an Alum of our very own West Grand High School. I obtained an industrial electrician certification upon completion of a rigorous 4-year apprenticeship and hold a Colorado state electrical license. I also spent six years training in communications repair with the Colorado army national guard.

I’m running for the board as a blue-collar father. I feel I can bring new energy and fresh eyes to our District. I have a large place in my heart for our schools and our community and I look forward to the opportunity to get more involved.

Jess Buller

Jess Buller

Greetings, West Grand Community! My name is Jess Buller and I will be on your upcoming ballot for one of the open WGSD school board seats. My wife, Andrea, and I are active members of the community, and I am sure you have seen us at Chamber and school events over the past four years. Andrea and I have been blessed with four children: Jakob (16), Elisabet (14), Karsten (12) and Brantley (8).
I have been involved with public education my entire adult career—specifically in the rural and small rural areas of Nebraska and Colorado. As a child, I attended school in Henderson, Nebraska, a town of around 1,000 citizens where I was in the same building from Kindergarten through 12th grade. In college I earned a degree in German and English and started teaching at the secondary level in the fall of 2000.
My first job was at a school outside of Omaha, Nebraska. While I enjoyed the school and the faculty at that school, it was growing very rapidly, and Andrea and I knew it was not the place we wanted to raise our children. The values instilled in children from smaller communities are something that Andrea and I value greatly and are what we wanted our own kids to benefit from. Since 2005, I have worked as both a teacher and as an administrator at small schools—most recently as the K-8 principal at West Grand.

As an educator, I have been involved at the state level in bringing recognition to rural and small rural schools. While it is true that rural schools are faced with larger funding issues and challenges related to our remoteness, our students are just as capable as those who do not face these types of issues. And although I am no longer an employee of the West Grand School District, I am continuing this mission through my educational non-profit work at Colorado AeroLab. At AeroLab, we build upon the great experiences that take place in schools on a four-day week by providing an experiential, project-based learning environment on Fridays and after school.

For me, joining the West Grand school board is the right thing to do. As a parent, an active community member and a business owner in this great community, I want to see our school district achieve optimum success. As a principal, you learn to assess a situation from as many angles and perspectives as possible prior to making a decision that is fair and unbiased. You learn to make decisions that are in the best interest of your #1 stakeholders—the students. As a board member, I see no difference in the decision-making process. It will be my goal to critically evaluate our curriculum, our budget, our policies and our superintendent against these criteria. If elected, I will be an active listener to the community on these and other school-related matters and will follow the proper steps in order to get them properly addressed.

Rhonda Shearer

Rhonda Shearer

Hello! I am hoping to be able to contribute to the school board with my 11+ years of board involvement. I have volunteered time for peewee sports, the high school after graduation party, the Booster club, West Grand Activities (who tried to form a Rec District), and various other groups. As my kids grow older and I transition out of these groups, I would like to find other areas that I feel are important and are a benefit to the youth at West Grand.

I am married to Mike Shearer and I have two children, Mikayla and Wyatt, who both attend West Grand High School. My husband and I are also West Grand graduates.

I am currently working in Human Resources at Middle Park Health, and was previously employed by the Town of Kremmling as the Town Clerk.