Meet the Republican primary candidates running for Horry school board
The June 9 South Carolina Statewide primaries are just around the corner. While this election season has been unlike any other, the democratic process continues despite an ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The Sun News sent a short questionnaire to all candidates seeking elected office this election season. Every candidate received the same questions emailed to the email they included in public election filing documents. Reporters with The Sun News took the answers and wrote summaries of the top priorities for each candidate, past political experience and what voters needed to know about the candidates.
This article includes just information for people running in contested party primaries. A full list of candidates seeking positions in November can be found on myrtlebeachonline.com and survey results from candidates not in a contested race may be used in future election stories.
Here are the candidates for Horry County school board races:
District 4 - Republican Primary
Incumbent David Cox, who was born and raised in Loris, has served on the HCS school board since 2009, previously in District 9 before moving to The Market Common and being elected to the District 4 seat in 2016. He retired from a lengthy career in the retail industry in 2018 and now sells real estate for Better Homes and Living Elliott Coastal Living. He believes the current board works well together to make HCS the best district in South Carolina, and he bases every decision he makes on what is best for the children. He’s particularly proud of his involvement in obtaining hourly wage increases for school bus drivers and helping to create a policy allowing employees to share sick days.
Challenger Mckean Nowlin, who grew up in Wyoming, is a longtime private tutor who has worked as an adjunct professor at Horry-Georgetown Technical College and Coastal Carolina University. She has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Economics and Associate’s degree in Culinary Arts, which she used by creating a culinary program for returning citizens. She believes the school board needs new, younger members to help it thrive in the digital world and wants to place a greater emphasis on expanding STEM programs. She has three young children, and she wants to see more personalized learning support for families.
District 5 - Republican Primary
Incumbent Janice Morreale, who grew up in New York but has been in South Carolina more than 25 years, has served on the HCS school board since 2013 and works as a paralegal at Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough. She’s happy with the current board’s ability to move forward with respect once decisions are made, though she wants to see some decisions made more quickly in the future. She’s emphasized building relationships with parents, students and teachers, so they trust her to speak on their behalf. As chairman of the board’s technology committee, she’s helping the district work toward pushing toward providing more electronic devices for students and teachers, and she plans to work toward a major renovation or addition to St. James High School and a replacement for St. James Elementary.
Challenger Howard Barnard, who was raised in Albany, Georgia is a previous two-term Horry County councilman, and served for 30 years in the U.S. Air Force and 15 years as director of Lay Ministries at Myrtle Beach First Presbyterian Church. He was also the co-founder of Wright Flight, an aviation incentive program offered to sixth-graders within HCS to discourage drug and alcohol use. He supports the current HCS board chairman’s encouragement of open discussions, but he believes more decisions need to be made in classrooms and by parents. He wants to reduce the board’s salaries and stop the practice of building “green” schools, which he believes have enormous costs, smaller classrooms and aren’t safe from school violence.
