by Kelly Hurt Since I’m not originally from Allen, I thought I might share a little of my personal history. As many of you know, I am married to Christina Hurt, our local home baker extraordinaire. We have two children, Kelsey and Christopher. Kelsey is a senior at Allen High School and finishing up her freshman year of college via concurrent enrollment at OU. She plans on going to OU in the fall. Christopher is a freshman and is focused on hunting, all sorts of outdoor adventures and cars. They are the fifth generation of the family to live on our little farm, and Christina’s side of the family has lived here since Allen was named Cold Springs.

I was also the fifth generation to grow up on a family farm, but mine was in Ripley, MS. I attended Mississippi State and earned a B.S. in Geology and Ph.D. in Environmental Science. I came to Oklahoma to work for the National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences in a post-Doctoral research position at Robert S. Kerr Lab in Ada. Since then, I’ve created a ranch brokerage and construction business under the Land Doctors brand. Last year, we were in the top five percent of sales for all ranch real estate companies in the Southwest US. We also build custom homes, lodges, barns, and lakes on the ranches that we sell.

I know I am blessed, and I am very thankful. I also know that I owe a lot of my success to the quality primary education that I received in a small, rural school. It’s the foundation that the rest was built on and I value it.

When I joined the Allen School Board five years ago, the new gym was a huge controversy. People were angry, the community was in an uproar and accusations were being thrown around. Before that, Allen had always been a nice place where everyone got along with one another. Thankfully, once the gym was completed, things gradually seemed to settle back down. The school board was able to return its focus to improving the school, and making sure our students got the education they needed. Since then, we’ve continued to try to strengthen our math and science programs and maintain our reading and comprehension at a high level. There is a nationwide teacher shortage, and we are very fortunate to have a full complement of teachers. I’m thankful for every one of them, especially when I see other schools around us with 5 or 10 unfilled teacher positions.

We’ve worked very quietly and diligently to improve our school security. That’s something new that most of us never thought about when we were in school, but it’s an issue that we must stay on top of today. In addition, school finances are in a much better place today than five years ago. We have built up our carryover funds to the point that we can survive cuts in state funding and downturns in tax revenues. In addition, we have started participating in a state tax credit system that allows our supporters to direct their state taxes directly to the school for special projects not covered by state funding.

In short, the school has benefited from five years of relative peace. Peace is a difficult state to achieve, and it takes a light touch to maintain it. Overall, the school system provides a good primary education to our children and if we maintain our current path, it will continue to gradually improve over time. If you are upset and looking for big changes, don’t vote for me or you will be sorely disappointed. If you agree with me that things are pretty good and slowly getting better, then I’d appreciate your support in the upcoming school board election. If elected, I will be happy to maintain the current steady course on your behalf. Ultimately, this election will measure how the community perceives the state of the school system and that matters more than my assessment of the situation, so I look forward to seeing the votes counted.