In unofficial results, Julie Swinehart, Dawn Aubert, Michael Thomas and Jill Grech were elected to four-year terms on the Lyons Township High School Board.
Swinehart of La Grange had 20.5 % of the 21,750 votes tallied as of Monday, April 12. Aubert had 18.8%, Thomas had 17.1%, and Jill Grech had 15.7%.
“It was a very friendly and amiable race,” said Swinehart, who lives in La Grange and is the chief financial officer of RPAI, (Retail Properties of America) based in Oak Brook. “I’m very much a collaborator and reached out to the other candidates and introduced myself.”
Six candidates had filed to run for the four positions with four-year terms that would open on the LTHS District 204 School Board in May.
Tim Albores of La Grange Park and Ricardo Martinez of Western Springs finished fifth and sixth, with 14.2% and 13.6% respectively, of the votes tallied by April 12. Albores works as the director of student services in Plainfield School District 202. Martinez, who ran unsuccessfully in 2019 for the LTHS Board, is a commercial analytics and insights manager at Breakthru Beverage Group.
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“We were a diverse board in background and experience, but we were aligned in our core values,” Swinehart said. They talked frequently in the months leading up to the April 6 election, she said.
“We agreed that whichever four of us would be elected, we would encourage the others to stay involved,” said Swinehart, who is an LT alumna, as was her late mother.
Swinehart, 45, and her wife, Andrea Hornickle, will have three children in LTHS next year, a freshman and twins who will be sophomores.
“I tapped into my networks,” which included her nuclear family, relatives in the area, work colleagues and families she met while coaching youth sports.
Swinehart said she was the only candidate who lives in La Grange School District 105. One of her twins attends Gurrie Middle School in La Grange.
“I didn’t tap on the most doors. I did not put out the most signs,” Swinehart said. Facebook was the social media platform where she was the most active. “I tried to be true to myself, collaborative and transparent.”
“I had a widespread network I didn’t even know I had,” Swinehart said.
“I’m excited and honored to serve (on the LTHS Board) with the other newly elected candidates and with Kari Dillon and Alison Kelly,” who were elected in 2019, she said.
Thomas, who lives in La Grange Park with his wife Yulonda and their 16-year-old son, was the only incumbent on the School Board ballot. Thomas was appointed to fill a vacancy on the LTHS School in October. He was a member of the La Grange District 102 School Board when he applied for the open seat on the LT School Board.
Thomas, who also is an LTHS alumnus, is customer marketing manager with Dart Container Corp.
Aubert had eight years serving on the District 102 School Board before seeking election to the LTHS Board.
A La Grange Park resident, Aubert has a sophomore at LTHS this year and two older daughters who recently graduated from the high school. She works as market development director for Pioneer Worldwide, a maker of balloons, banners and other promotional products.
Jill Grech, a web strategic marketing manager for Loyola University, lives in La Grange with her husband Chris and three children, an LT freshman, an eighth-grader and a sixth-grader.
Jill Beda Daniels won election Tuesday to a two-year term on the LTHS Board. She had no competition for the position after current LTHS Board member Jessica McLean decided not to run for reelection and withdrew from the race.
The terms of school board members Thomas Cushing, George Dougherty and Molly Murphy Bruton also expire in April. None of them chose to seek reelection.
Vote totals on the Cook County Clerk’s Office website includes early voting, in-person voting on Election Day, and the mailed ballots that have been received and processed.
Cook County official said mailed ballots postmarked by April 6 will be counted as long as they arrive at the Cook County Clerk’s Office by April 20.