PORT ANGELES — Katie Marks has won a seat on the Port Angeles School Board.
Marks was leading Arwen Rice 64.54 percent to 35.1 percent, or 2,479 votes to 1,348 votes, after the count of ballots Tuesday night, with 3,000 more overall ballots to be counted. The Clallam County Auditor’s Office planned another count of ballots in the all-mail election late Wednesday. Those totals are not reflected here because of press deadlines.
“That was kind of severe,” Rice, 50, a writer and a seasonal Clallam County park ranger, said Wednesday of the results.
“I’m preparing to move on with my life.”
Marks, 48, director of college analytics and institutional research at Peninsula College, is preparing to be a school board member.
“I’m honored to be chosen by the voters to serve on the school board,” she said. “I look forward to diving in and getting to work.”
She will fill the seat being occupied by Dr. Joshua Jones, who did not seek re-election.
Marks said she purchased 75 campaign signs, her main expenditure, and spent well under $2,000 to get elected.
“My campaign was a little bit more organized,” she said.
“I think people appreciated seeing signs going out early; they liked hearing me on the radio.
“You want to place them in areas that are high traffic and [we] also wanted to locate them where I knew I could get them back, so there was a lot of racing out to friends and having them put them in their yards.”
Rice did not distribute campaign signs until late in the campaign.
“I wanted to do a zero-budget campaign and just rely on talking to people,” Rice said.
“She had a lot more visibility out there than I ever tried to do.”
Arwen Rice
Rice, a former Peninsula Daily News reporter, also said she saw Marks’ fliers everywhere and that Marks ran more of a concerted campaign.
“We just had very different styles,” Rice said.
“I’m kind of a balls-to-the wall person, and some people like it, and some people don’t, and I think it comes down to people’s preference on how a person represents themselves, because our views are almost in lockstep.”
She said she and Marks disagreed on very little.
“What it kind of came down to was style and the way we campaigned,” Rice said.
Marks said she has diverse ties in Port Angeles and many community connections.
She said the strongest difference between her and Rice is that she has children that are currently enrolled in the school district.
“Parents know how fast things are changing and appreciate someone who actually has kids in the school district,” she said.
There was “nothing remarkable” in terms of any differences in campaign styles, Marks added.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
