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Staff writer
Hardy District School Board representative Herb DeGroft will not seek reelection this fall. DeGroft withdrew his petition for candidacy Monday.
In his letter to Isle of Wight County Registrar Lisa Betterton, DeGroft wrote, “With the certification of two very good quality citizens, Tina Hill and Alvin Wilson, Hardy Election District citizens will be well represented by either of these fine citizens come 1 January 2014.”
Hill, a nursing supervisor and wife of Smithfield High School Band director Aaron Hill, and Wilson, a business owner and longtime educator in Isle of Wight and Surry counties, Franklin and Hertford County, N.C., announced their candidacies last week.
DeGroft said he talked with his wife Mary Ellen, and decided not to run because two other qualified candidates had stepped forward. Both candidates will “bring a lot to the job,” said DeGroft.
DeGroft cited Hill’s nursing background as her strengths, and Wilson’s service in education as his.
He recommended that Wilson vote not as an assistant superintendent (a role he filled at Surry County Schools), but as a business owner.
When asked how much the criticism over his forwarding of several off-color emails had to do with his decision, DeGroft said he didn’t want the issue to resurface in the fall.
“Why put people through an election time with something that will be old news that doesn’t need to be resurrected?” he said. “We don’t need to raise its specter again when we really need to concentrate on who will be a good representative for the Hardy District.”
The Isle of Wight School Board asked DeGroft to resign his seat, but he has declined to do so.
With his decision not to run in this fall, his term will end Dec. 31.
The election for Hardy District School Board member will be held Nov. 5. (Subscribe!)
