For The Times & Free Press

Dr. James Matthew Matousek was elected president of the Hennessey Board of Education at the board’s Monday night meeting.

He was elected to the board in 2011 and was also president in 2015-16.

The 1997 Hennessey High School graduate also earned a bachelor’s degree from OSU in 2000 and from the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine in 2004.

In addition to being a veterinarian, he also is a farmer and rancher and a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church.

He and his wife, Sarah, have seven daughters.

Other board members elevated were Joe Garrison, vice president, and Cristopher Choate, clerk. Garrison and Choate attended the meeting on-line via Zoom and joining Matousek onsite were outgoing president Patrick Griffin and outgoing clerk Luke Lough.

Also present on-site were Superintendent Dr. Mike Woods; Timberly Jech, business manager and board meeting recording clerk, and Jack Quirk, event center videographer.

Campus Police Department nixed

At the request of Woods, the board voted to discontinue the district’s Campus Police Department effective July 1. However, the superintendent suggested they continue to hire, or contract, an officer with the police or sheriff’s office.

Lough asked Woods the difference between having their on-staff police officer versus a resource officer supplied by the local police department.

“It’s just the difference in which the two officers conducted themselves,” Woods said. “If we hire someone direct then we’ll have to require more training.

“It’s a matter of do we want to hire an employee, or someone from a department,” he said.

“Tanner Becker (with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol) handled security for the dome with his company… We don’t have to act on that tonight.”

Finances

“We’re up about $600,000 (in the general fund) this month, but we won’t end up that way. We had $255,000 in gross production tax income. That’s from January gross production revenue and some of that is from a pipeline company settlement on a (tax) protest,” Woods said in his monthly report.

“Have we gotten any money on the wind farm’s protest of taxes?” asked board member Luke Lough.

“No,” said Woods.

The school’s gross production so far this year is $2.7 million with two months of income to go. Last fiscal year’s GP income was $3.25 million and 2017-18 was $2.344 million, according to a written report.

“We will get out of this year in good shape and the next year,” he said. “It’s the year after that where we could have some more problems.”

Free food for students

“We’re serving up 400 (drive-by) breakfasts and 400 lunches that includes a hot meal every day,” said Woods. “Hot food is unheard of around the state.”

“There are about 850 enrolled so we’re supplying about 50 percent of our students with food,” he told school board members.

There is a sign-up form on the school’s website for the free food service for students, he said.

Meals were served Monday-Friday each week until Thursday, April 16, when they started to include Friday meals with the Thursday packs.

That way the school can be disinfected on Fridays.

Event Center

“Seniors are wanting to have their graduation in the Event Center and we don’t know when we can safely do that because of the virus,” Woods said. But, he added, “the center is pretty much complete.”

He said they’d be moving their administration offices into the center April 23.

“We have moved phones. The scoreboard has to be put up…The locker rooms are complete except for some small plumbing items…Floor-wise the only place where we have sealed concrete is in the lobby… There are some other areas that need to be cleaned up.”

Plaque dedication

Woods asked the board to take no action again this month on an agenda item about a Masonic Lodge dedication plaque at the Event Center. Members agreed 5-0.

Schilde resignation

The superintendent announced, without further comment, that he’d accepted the resignation of Joan Schilde, high school special education teacher. Schilde’s hiring was approved last week by the Dover Board of Education, a district in which she taught for a number of years before coming to Hennessey.

Other business

In their consent agenda, board members approved several items that included declaring surplus property on band items of 62 uniform tops, 89 uniform bottoms and an “extremely old sousaphone,” plus a contract with Angel, Johnston and Blasingham of Chickasha for the 2019-20 audit and budget preparation for 2020-21.