The Crookston Area Chamber held its Candidate Forum last Tuesday night to allow the public to hear from the current candidates for the open spots for the Crookston Public School Board, Crookston City Council, Polk County Commissioners, State Representative District 1B, and State Senator District 1. The forum was moderated by Crookston Area Chamber Executive Director Mark Landa and Monica Custritz of the University of Minnesota Crookston. The forum had the candidates introduce themselves to the audience and answer two questions submitted by the public, then give a closing statement to the public.
The candidates for three spots on the Crookston School Board are incumbents Patty Dillabough and Tim DuFault with their opponents being Marcia Meine, Marianne Isaacs, and Mary Gosse. We asked each candidate to introduce themselves and why they are running. However, Marcia Meine was not present at the forum.
Q: Would you please tell us about yourself?
Patty Dillabough: I’m Patty Billabough, I was born and raised in Crookston all my life. My parents attended school in Crookston, while I attended school at Lincoln, and then at Highland Middle School, which is what it used to be, and then Central High, and graduated in 1976. I married my husband, Dwayne Dillabough 41 years ago and we have raised six children, who have all been through the Crookston School systems. My kids have been pretty successful, we have a business owner, a teacher, a law enforcement, and my youngest who just graduated from law school last month, and I thank the school system for giving them the foundation to further their educations. We also have seven grandchildren. The oldest one is graduating from UND in the spring and my youngest starts preschool in Washington, so we still have kids going through the whole system. This is my third time running, and I’m very honored to be here. Crookston’s a wonderful town and we have some fantastic teachers, great administration, special needs teachers, music teachers, and theatre teachers and I’m choosing to run again because I think Crookston provides a wonderful education for our children and we need to keep our children growing.
Tim DuFault: My name’s Tim DeFault, I farm east of Crookston and I’m a fourth-generation farmer. I graduated from Crookston Public Schools a few years ago and started in a one-room schoolhouse, I went to first grade at the township school, three-quarters of a mile from my house. To get there, I can truthfully say when I went to school, I had to walk uphill both ways. I attended the St. Joseph’s Academy for a few years and graduated from UMC, and NDSU with a degree in agricultural economics and have been farming ever since with my wife, Marlene. We raised three children; all graduates of Crookston School District and they all got an excellent education. They’ve all graduated college and got graduate degrees, jobs, and great lives started. So, I thank the Crookston School District and all of the staff for what they’ve done.
Marianne Isaacs: My name is Marianne Isaacs, and no, that is not a familiar name in Crookston. I am originally from Central Indiana, but you might know me as Jacob’s wife or Lucy’s mom. So, it is my pleasure to introduce myself as Marianne Isaacs and I am absolutely overjoyed for the opportunity to run for School Board. My husband and I moved to Crookston by choice. I told my husband as we sat in the pandemic, “I’m okay to leave Indiana, but you have to take me where there is snow,” and I can tell you my first winter in Crookston, it delivered. So, I apologize, there are ladies in the community that say all of that snow and blizzards were my fault. Before I became Lucy’s mom, I was a public school teacher, I taught secondary Social Studies and then I went on to Purdue University where I thought I wanted to be an administrator. Then I decided, “What is this University Supervisor role?” So, I became a professional in preparing teachers, so I have worked over 20 years in education, and as my daughter is absolutely in love with Washington Elementary School, that is what gave me the seal of telling my husband, “Yes, you can take the job at UMC, the teachers here are happy, and smiling.” I had over 100 student teachers and I have been in hundreds of schools and the difference is in the administration and what the kids will learn all depend on how happy the teachers are. So, I’m here to put my education to use to serve our community.
Mary Gosse: My name is Mary Gosse, and my motivation for serving on the school board is based on the desire to serve my community the best way that I can so that the students of the Crookston School District receive a top-notch education with access to various educational opportunities and great extracurricular activities. I also believe our school board should have many different voices as part of this conversation and the decisions that this board makes truly impacts every student and resident within our community. For those that may not know me, my husband, Jimmy, and I moved to Crookston about eight years ago, and he works at AURI, here on the north end of town and we have two kids. Our son, Aaron is in eighth grade here at the High School and my daughter, Eva is in sixth grade at Highland. I’ve been a member of the PTO at Washington and at Highland for many years now and it’s really a joy to serve my community in this way, and support the teachers, and school staff in our education system. I strongly believe that the community support of our teachers and staff is essential to making our schools the best that they can be. I currently work as the school secretary at the Our Savior’s Lutheran School here in town and this will be my sixth year on staff there. Both the schools here in town fall under the Crookston School District and we share many of the services of the School District, such as transportation, Special Ed and Title services, and orchestra and band lessons, and I think that I can offer this unique perspective, having ties with both the public and private schools in our area.
Q: What are you hoping to accomplish if you are elected as a part of the school board?
Dillabough: I’d like to see our school widen some of its classes. We do great with Farmers of Future America (FFA) and I think we need to get in nursing and mental health basic learning for the kids. I enjoy watching our kids grow and I hope they’ll all come back and live in our Crookston community. We have a great school, we have some fantastic teachers, and great support staff, and they all have the best interest of our children in mind and that is so appreciated. This will be my third time running and I’m hoping to complete one more term. All of my children have graduated from Crookston and now I have grandchildren in Crookston, the oldest is in college and my youngest is in preschool, so we have an array of all kinds of ages, and it’s fun to watch them learn and grow in Crookston. So, my big thing is to make sure that our kids is getting what is in their best interest and what is it they can learn.
DuFault: With Dr. Olson retiring this spring, and we hired Dave Kuehn as the interim for one year, we will be starting the process of hiring a new superintendent this winter and that gets a little involved. I’ve been on two different hiring missions for the school, and I’d like to hire another wonderful candidate. Dr. Olson was outstanding, and I don’t know if we’ll ever find anybody as close as he is, but maybe we’ll find that diamond in the rough and I’d like to be there for that. Also, this athletic complex that we need to pass, I was heartbroken in August when it lost by nine votes, I thought we had it since everybody I talked to had positive vibes about it, so I guess we didn’t tell our story correctly. I feel like I should return and try to complete that and do a better job with the storytelling, to get our explanation out for what it’s for, why are we looking for it, what’s it going to do, and how much will it cost.
Isaacs: For me, it’s most important to listen. As a parent, it’s important that I listen to my child, and her teachers, and I know that there are a number of parents that want to be heard. My former neighbor was the school’s former Superintendent, so I had the opportunity to learn about the schools, not so much through him, but through his daughters and they were quite a joy. I can tell you that the excitement that they came home with, but then I would also read the articles that would be published from school board meetings, and I know that these children are loved and have parents that are listening to them. So, what’s going to happen then for parents where they’re coming and voicing their concerns to the school board, how do they get heard? I just want them to know and be the person who listens. I have a background in education, I taught multiculturalism and education for pre-service teachers, and I prepared beginning teachers for the classroom. But, here I am as the parent, and so, I want to say that I’m going to use all of that as best as I can to listen to all parties involved. Our administrators, teachers, students, and parents. It’s a community effort, so I’ll pull it all together as best as I can, and I know I’m the newcomer but I’ll give it my best.
Gosse: I think that lots of different voices from lots of different people make a board or group stronger. So, coming from someplace outside of Crookston, we have lived here for eight years, but I’ve lived in the Twin Cities and a variety of other places and states. So, bringing those experiences to this board, I work as a school secretary at Our Savior’s Lutheran School and bringing the perspective and contacts from one of the parochial schools in town along with the contacts from the public schools in town. Both of my children attend the public schools, both at Highland and the High School. So bringing in another perspective, helping to add to the board make those tough decisions, and making our Crookston Schools a better place and where families want to send their kids to.
Pictures of the candidates and a link to the live stream can be found below-
