By John Dobberstein, Editor
A new face will be appearing at the Broken Arrow Board of Education this year, as Kate Williams won a decisive victory in Tuesday’s primary election over two other candidates.
Garnering just over 50% of the vote, Williams defeated incumbent Jerry Denton (34%) to represent Zone 5 in what was Broken Arrow’s first contested school board election in 25 years. Bruce Allen Lamont (16%) finished a distant third. Williams totaled 680 votes to Denton’s 403, and Allen totaled 199 votes.
The Zone 5 school sites are Oak Crest Elementary, Rhoades Elementary, Rosewood Elementary, Timber Ridge Elementary, Broken Arrow Options Academy.
Williams moved to Broken Arrow from Michigan in 2010 and has two sons in the district at Sequoyah Middle School and Early College Academy. Her family transitioned into the district in 2019 from Holy Family Cathedral School, where she served as vice president and president of the Home and School board.
Williams graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Tulsa and teaches composition at TU and Tulsa Community College. She is also a business owner – her company, People First Content, works with businesses worldwide to create content ranging from website and email copy to white papers, research articles and full-length books.
Williams has previous board experience as the secretary for Oklahoma Women in Technology.
Williams said she wanted to run for school board because currently there is nobody on the board serving that has students enrolled in the school.
“I feel like that’s kind of a key thing missing. I have two kids in the schools — so one, I’d like to be more involved in the school district. Then two, I’d bring that parents’ voice and bridge that parent gap on the board,” Williams told the Sentinel in an interview.
“I think we need to do a better job working together with other districts too. In teaching high ed I’m seeing what’s happening with the kids coming out of all these local schools and I’m getting a good feel for the things we’re doing great, and there are a lot of things we could keep working on.”
Denton, a project administrator at Spirit Airlines, was elected to the Board of Education in 2010 and was serving as the board’s vice president.
Denton is a U.S. Navy veteran and 1983 Broken Arrow High School graduate and the parent of two BAHS graduates. Denton said that for two decades he had been “advocating for our district to be the best in Oklahoma in terms of academics, athletics, fine arts, and innovation.”
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