Of candidates, debates, forums & podcasts

I was 9 years old in 1960. I wasn’t totally understanding what was going on at the time, but even at that age, could sense something big, perhaps historic, was about to happen.

Having been born in 1951, I was the first American generation that grew up with a television in the home. For most families, that box with a video screen was the center of entertainment in households across the nation.

What was creating such a stir was the very first debate between the two major candidates for president to be shown on live television. Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat John F. Kennedy appeared in a Chicago television studio for the much-anticipated debate. It was a very big event for its time, the first of 4 televised debates during that election campaign.

But, can you answer this question…in what year was the next series of televised presidential candidate debates? It was 1976, 16 years later. We had a 16-year gap in holding television presidential debates. Televised presidential candidate debates did not become a regular, expected thing until 1976.

Why do I bring this up? Because we are in the middle of a very fierce Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School Board election. 4 of the 7 seats are up for election this year.

In 2016, the year I began my local podcast series, an invitation was extended to all the HSE candidates to appear on a podcast. All candidates accepted. I once again produced podcasts and invited all HSE school board candidates in 2018. All accepted and each appeared on a podcast.

In 2020, my first grandchild was born and my daughter’s family resides in another state. That took me away from Fishers to the extent I was not able to produce the local school board podcasts. There were two students that stepped forward and recorded podcasts with all HSE School Board candidates, no small task.

In 2020, after seeing how a student’s perspective would help in posing questions of the candidates, I asked the high school principals of HSE and Fishers to name one student each to handle most of the candidate questioning. HSE selected senior Kate Lantzer and Fishers named junior Casey Alexander. Both provided a majority of the questions in the 2022 podcasts, and both did an excellent job.

I have seen lots of online chatter about which candidates chose to appear on my 2022 podcast series and which did not. Let me offer a few observations.

First, no candidate is required to appear on one of my podcasts. I extended an invitation to all 10 active candidates for the board over the 4 districts. 5 candidates chose to appear on a podcast.

Candidates make their own decisions on whether to appear on one of my podcasts. I offer the time as a volunteer news blogger and podcaster, as a public service. It is the only opportunity for a candidate to sit down and publicly talk about their candidacy for about 30 minutes straight.

So, I make no judgement about any candidate based on whether that candidate does or does not choose to accept my podcast invitation. Every candidate makes that decision based on their own evaluation.

But, because early voting has already started, and election day is November 8, I have put all the 2022 podcasts I have into one post. The links to those podcasts are below.

Remember, in this round of balloting, you vote only on the school board candidates running within your district

DISTRICT 1