When the person he thought was the best candidate decided not to run, Mark Burris filed for the USD 257 board at-large position.
“It left a big gap when Deanne (his wife and two-term incumbent) decided not to run,” Burris said.
He is opposed by Virginia Warren.
Burris wants to continue to nurture what he thinks is a “very good staff and a progressive school board. I don’t want to see any changes. It’s important for the school system to be supportive of the faculty and administration. They all work together in a positive way and that needs to continue.”
Students and their education are the focal point for Burris.
“We need to stay ahead of the competition,” he said. “That’s our children’s future. We have to prepare them so when they get into the real world they’ll have every opportunity to succeed.”
New facilities would give students an advantage, he said.
“I’d love for our students to have the latest and greatest in schools and facilities,” he said, but that has to be weighed against costs during current economic times.
Burris said he hadn’t had a chance to determine specifically what improvements were needed and what they might cost.
“Things could look different in the future, depending on what happens in state aid,” he said. “We’ll have to adapt as best we can, but it’s always important to put students first.”
The BOE has some adapting to do, Burris observed, “to deal with funding cuts and also with a new superintendent (Brian Pekarek)” coming on board July 1. “The board will have a lot of challenges and I think I’m well-positioned to do my part and help make the right decisions.”
Burris works three days a week in Wichita, where he is president of Sentry International, a pump jack and oil drilling equipment supplier. He said the position won’t interfere with him attending BOE meetings. “I can adjust my schedule to be here whenever I’m needed,” he said.
Burris said he thinks consolidation of school districts is on the horizon. It should “be a conversation we’re having with neighboring districts. It worked in Coffey County,” where Le Roy and Gridley joined together, “and we really need to look at the pros and cons to see how we can accommodate each other.
“It could give students a lot more opportunities than they have today. I would love to sit down with board members from other districts and see what can be worked out,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt to talk.”
With state funding a challenge today and promising to be into the immediate future, he also thinks a primary responsibility of board members will be to keep teachers motivated.
While he would rely on his years of business experience, “You can’t run a school like you would a business,” Burris said. “But you can use some business principles in school systems.
“Deanne’s time on the board and mine, if elected, are a way for us to give back to the community that has given so much to us and to the district that gave me a foundation,” Burris concluded.
BURRIS WAS graduated from Iola High in 1979 and earned an engineering degree from Kansas State University in 1983.
After graduation he returned to Iola to work in his family’s oil production business until buying Precision Pump in 1990. He sold that business in 2008 to Cameron Industries and is on the cusp of starting assembly of pipeline closures and throttles in his latest venture, Superior Products, in Iola’s Ray Pershall Industrial Park.
His sons, Brigham and Bryce, both students at Kansas State, helped move much of the company’s inventory from Oklahoma City to the Superior warehouse last week during their spring break.
He and wife Deanne also have a daughter, Briann, a junior at Iola High.
