Our third School Board inter­vie­wee is Lau­rie Alford.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

Laurie Alford My name is Lau­rie Alford and I am here to give the peo­ple in the 5th School Dis­trict a Bet­ter Choice for their school board rep­re­sen­ta­tive. I have lived in Knoxville most of my life, I attended Bear­den Ele­men­tary, Bear­den Jr. High, and grad­u­ated from Bear­den Sr. High school. My hus­band Mike and I have been mar­ried for 16 years and we have one GREAT son, Patrick who attends Rocky Hill Ele­men­tary. We live in the neigh­bor­hood that I grew up in and we are very active in it, my son’s school, his activ­i­ties, and our local gov­ern­ment. I am per­son­able and very hon­est and open.

I am run­ning for School Board because I CARE! It is the right time for me to be involved at a higher level. I can do a bet­ter job in com­mu­ni­cat­ing, rep­re­sent­ing, and get­ting things done. I am the Busi­ness Con­troller for the Ten­nessee Press Ser­vice and no stranger to bud­gets and what it takes to cre­ate and stay within one. I work with enti­ties that are on oppo­site sides of the coin in the daily process of our busi­ness and I am able to lis­ten all sides to come up with the best solu­tion. One of my company’s related enti­ties is an edu­ca­tional foun­da­tion. We are very involved with NIE (News­pa­per in Edu­ca­tion), and they sup­port stu­dents in the jour­nal­ism field through grants and schol­ar­ships. They were on the fore­front and con­tinue to sup­port the Books from Birth Foun­da­tion, which sends a book a month to chil­dren from birth until they are five years old. We host a recep­tion for our state leg­is­la­tors each year and I have met and spo­ken to the 85% who attend. Two of our highly respected lead­ers, Stacey Camp­field and Frank Nice­ley have endorsed me for this seat. We have got to stop talk­ing and start doing. We have some of the best teach­ers in the indus­try and noth­ing is more impor­tant than our children.

2. We think it’s bet­ter know­ing what not to do rather than hav­ing an exten­sive plan. What areas or inter­ests would ben­e­fit Knox County not to ven­ture into?

Every state has a press ser­vice sim­i­lar to our own. When we imple­ment a new project or start a new endeavor we never try to “rein­vent the wheel”. We talk with the press ser­vices that are sim­i­lar in size to find out what has worked for them. Knox County needs to not try to “rein­vent the wheel”.

3. What 5 things could you not live without?

Make-up (I wear it as a cour­tesy to oth­ers!)
Cof­fee
My 5 older sis­ters
My 2 big broth­ers
My hus­band who puts up with me and the pre­cious son he gave me