Judi Hunter has a vested interest in serving as a trustee for Rocky View Schools.

The Springbank resident has eight grandchildren who all attend schools in the division and she wants the very best for them, and for all children in Rocky View Schools.  

Hunter was elected last night (October 16) to represent the newly drawn Ward Five in Rocky View, representing Bragg Creek, Springbank, Bearspaw, Westbrook and Rural Cochrane. 

Hunter garnered  959 votes compared to 761 for second place finisher Dan Cavanagh and 606 for Kristyn Schmidt who came third.

Hunter is grateful for the support she received and wants to earn people's trust.  She says the key to winning the election in Ward Five was good old fashioned door knocking.

"You get out there and put on the miles," she laughs.  People want to talk to you and know that you cared enough to get to their door step."

The retired principal in the Calgary Board of Education says one of the first things she wants to see for the division is an evaluation of each school by the new slate of trustees. 

"What I'd really like to see is if all of the trustees can make it to each school to evaluate where each school is at.  What are the facilities, what's the demographic, what's the enrollment, what's the technology.  So when we go to look at things we have a pretty good idea of the needs at each school and you can make good decisions because you've got some data."

Engagement with the RVS community is also high on Hunter's list of priorities. 

"You have to hear from the community and when I was door knocking I heard lots of things that people had issues with.  I think there are lots of changes coming, not only in the world in general but some of that's going to impact education so you want to know where people are headed with those ideas.  I'd like to open up those discussions because I think they're important, not that they'll maybe change in the four years, but you'll at least get the dialogue going."

Hunter is also hoping to improve on the community engagement within Rvs.  

"One of the ideas I've been toying with is how do we do that better.  You could have a website for the trustees where you can put those questions out and people can actually directly talk with you.  Those are things I'd like to explore."

Here are the rest of the Rocky View School Trustee results:

Ward One: City of Chestermere:

Shali Baziuk is the new trustee for the City of Chestermere.  She finished with 1,987 votes compared with 1,135 for her opponent Shallu Bajwa.

Ward Two: Rural Chestermere, Indus, Langdon:

Patty Sproule (Acclaimed)

Ward Three: City of Airdrie:

JIm Forrest, Melyssa Bowen and Todd Brand have been elected trustees to represent the City of Airdrie on the Rocky View School Board. Forrest was the top vote getter, receiving 4,345 with Bowen second at 3,645, and incumbent Brand receiving 3,579.  Pam Thursfield and Jason Spratt finished fourth and fifth in the voting.   

Ward Four: Rural Airdrie, Crossfield, Beiseker, Irricana, Kathyn:

Norma Lang (Acclaimed)

Ward Six: Town of Cochrane:

Fiona Gilbert (Acclaimed).