Gardner Wants To Run Small School District

Former Gov. Booth Gardner is one of six semi-finalists vying for the position of superintendent of the Eatonville School District, district officials said.

According to a Sunday report in The News Tribune, Gardner, now a U.S. delegate in international trade, has put his name down to run the vast but sparsely populated district in south Pierce County.

“There’s only two things I’ve ever wanted to do in my professional career,” Gardner wrote in a letter to the school board. “One was to be governor of the state of Washington and the other was to be superintendent of a small school district.”

Chris Hansen, Eatonville School Board president, said Gardner was a semi-finalist but would not comment further when contacted by The Associated Press on Sunday.

Hansen said she preferred not to disclose the names of the other candidates.

Gardner rushed his application and the letter to the district just before the March 15 deadline.

He’d rather run a small school district than a big one, Gardner said in his letter, because he wanted to be “where I can make a difference.”