Six candidates to be interviewed for open CWC Trustee seat

(Update at 4:10 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 11: A seventh candidate was added to the list on Monday. John W. Mercer Jr. will seek the seat. His application came in late in the day on Friday after the original list was released.)

By Joshua Scheer, reporter, county10.com

(Riverton, Wyo.) – The application deadline to fill the seat left by formal Central Wyoming College Trustee Judy Pedersen has passed, and the college received six completed applications for the seat.

Executive Assistent to the Board of Trustees Linda Bender said at the end of the day Friday, the six were received and a number of other individuals had inquired about the position but didn’t apply.

The applicants are: Gloria Philp, Nichole Schoening, Tim Payne, Phil Christopherson, Robert Heuermann and Jack Hildner. Schoening and Payne both ran against Pedersen in November 2012′s general election.

The seat was left vacant after Pedersen tendered her resignation verbally at the start of the CWC Board of Trustees Jan. 16 meeting. The board formally accepted her resignation a week later.

The six applicants will be interviewed at the start of the Feb. 20 meeting, which begins at 7:15 p.m. in the Intertribal Education and Community Center.

“Each candidate will be brought into the board room one at a time to deliver up to a three-minute prepared statement of interest,” Chairman Charlie Krebs said during the Jan. 23 special meeting. “And that will be timed.”

Eight prepared questions will be asked. The questions will be provided to the candidates ahead of time. The responses will be timed for up to one minute.

Following the interviews, which will last a maximum of 20 minutes, the board will go into executive session to discuss the appointment. The selected candidate will be appointed and sworn in at the meeting.

Read more about Pedersen’s resignation here. To read more about the replacement process, see this story.