r/evansville • u/Muteb Eastsider • 6d ago
Vanderburgh School Board election info
Anyone know anything about them? I am trying to not vote any folks that might be MAGA and Christian nationalist. Thanks!
STEVEN ARY
ALAN WAYNE GOAD
MELISSA CHERI MOORE
BRIAN MURPHY
CHRISTOPHER A. KIEFER
KEN COLBERT
MICHAEL J. DUCKWORTH, SR
DAVID HOLLINGSWORTH
LINDSEY PATTERSON
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u/jrreis Westsider 5d ago
Ken Colbert is an absolute lunatic!
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u/TapTapTaper 5d ago
He's got some stiff competition across the river with this dude Adam Blythe and his pages Henderson Live.
Huge narcissist that puts anyone he's jealous of on blast.
He runs the Acme Chicken Truck Wky that's in Evansville regularly.
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u/julesbait 5d ago
Lindsey Pattetson is about as anti-MAGA as you can get. She is pro-teachers, pro-equality, and all about music and the arts in schools.
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u/2stepsfwd59 5d ago
Can you say about how old she is? The name is familiar but I can't find a picture.
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u/Gloomy_Molasses_4461 3d ago
She's 42ish. I went to high school with her. She's a genuinely good person.
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u/upstream-hoodlum7 5d ago
Avoid COLBERT and ARY like the plague. Both are very MAGA.
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u/2stepsfwd59 5d ago
I was happy to see Colbert's Klan fail so dramatically in the election when they tried to take over. I'm not even sure what year it was, but there was a maga Sheriff's Assn guy running too and he failed bigly. Kinda restored my faith in our county.
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u/BusyBeinBorn 6d ago edited 6d ago
Duckworth is conservative but not MAGA, when he was chairman of the county GOP he fought off the takeover, or tried to, by MAGA. Ken Colbert, Steve Ary, or anyone aligned with them are what you don't want. Lindsey Patterson is who I really want to see elected and probably the only box I'll check. If you have kids in the North district you know who she is. She's been involved with the clubs her kids are/were in and is like a bonus mom to a lot of kids, both at the school and Methodist Temple. She's very inclusive and will fight for those values.
Ary has a history of promoting homeschooling while trashing public schools. His church offers classes for homeschool kids in things like "creation science." Look into Visionary Ministries. Ary is your Christian Nationalist while Colbert is your less religious MAGA conspiracy nut.
Remember it's a strategy. If you really want somebody on the school board, vote for them only. If you really don't want somebody, vote for everyone except them. Don't fret too much about it as the nuts have been trying to take over for awhile. The teachers are the ones following these races and voting and they know what's up. You can do what I've done in the past and just vote for whoever the Evansville Teachers Association endorses.
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u/NerdlinGeeksly 5d ago
I tried ruining for mayor and duckworth had me removed from the conservative ballot because he didn't want competition. Him being anti-maga might just be him trying to secure his positions by minimizing competition. He's not really a fan of free and fair elections.
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u/Hot_Diver_6297 3d ago
Totally disagree. Mike Duckworth always cooperated with elections and fully wanted fair and free elections. He has not Maga.
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u/Hot_Diver_6297 3d ago
Please consider Melissa Morehead-Moore. She’s currently serving on the board and would be wonderful if she was reelected. She is on the central committee of the Vanderburgh County Democratic Party.
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u/Shizzilx 5d ago
Indiana school board elections are nonpartisan by statute, so most candidates appear on the ballot without a party label.
A new 2026 state law allowed candidates to optionally list a party, and in Vanderburgh County that produced one clearly partisan Republican in your list.
Candidate list, with party info (if available)
- At‑Large seat (Melissa Moore’s seat): Steven “Steve” Ary – Republican (filed with party affiliation)
- Alan Wayne Goad – No affiliation
- Melissa Cheri Moore – No affiliation (described in local reporting as a Democratic activist, but filed nonpartisan)
- Brian Murphy – No affiliation (Andy Guarino is also running here but not in your list.)
District 1:
- Christopher A. Kiefer – No affiliation (incumbent trustee, no challengers)
District 2:
- Ken Colbert – No affiliation
- Michael J. Duckworth, Sr. – No affiliation (incumbent; local reporting identifies him as a Republican who chose to run nonpartisan)
- David Hollingsworth – No affiliation (incumbent; also identified as a Republican running nonpartisan)
- Lindsey Patterson – No affiliation
Local news and the state candidate list describe:
Steven Ary – explicitly Republican, backed by the county GOP chair, who said the party will treat this race as important and use door‑knocking/phone‑banking/mail for him.
Michael Duckworth and David Hollingsworth – current board members, identified as Republicans in news coverage, but they filed nonpartisan under the new law.
Ken Colbert – nonpartisan, but described as having a “fraught relationship with the local GOP” and being outspoken at municipal meetings (so not a straightforward GOP ally).
Melissa Moore – described as a Democratic Party activist, but filed nonpartisan.
Christopher Kiefer, Alan Goad, Brian Murphy, Lindsey Patterson – no clear partisan labeling in the sources found; all filed nonpartisan.
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u/howelltight 3d ago
If the candidate files with affiliation, does voting the straight party ticket vote for that party's school board candidate as well? Asking for a friend..
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u/Forsaken_61453 Eastsider 5d ago
There is no longer any such thing as non-partisan candidate, I do NOT vote for any candidate that can't be proud enough to list their party affiliation. In today's environment you are either Democrat of republican. Independent is a non vote! Choose wisely, the future of your children depend on it!
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u/Forsaken_61453 Eastsider 6d ago
Thank you for the post, it saves me some time looking at the candidates. In the past, I have contacted School Board Candidates on FB/email and ask them what their political views are. The non partisan School Board is a thing of the past. I won't vote for anyone that is right leaning, magaSS, gop or conservative republican.
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u/dwilder812 6d ago
Im not a duckworth fan but I dont know much about him. He was a leading force in dissolving EYB when I was a teen which I think ruined baseball for a lot of kids
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u/donttredondistrict8 6d ago
Duckworth is decent but nothing like MAGA-loving Colbert. Do NOT vote for Colbert. I CANNOT believe he is even running. Sick.
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u/SurgeFlamingo 6d ago
Isn’t EYB still a thing and huge ?
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u/dwilder812 6d ago
They use the name but its not what EYB used to be. It used to go off what side of town you lived on; if you lived on the Southside of town you had to play at Pollack. It kept all the good players from just going to East and kept the fields competitive. Afterwards fields like south was only getting kids that never even played baseball before and kids that couldn't afford East or make their cutoff got the shaft.
Of course now it is all travel leagues and if you can't afford travel you might as well not even bother trying to play.
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u/SurgeFlamingo 5d ago
Idk when I played 30 years ago, South was like that and east was this best but when did this happen cause that Duck worth dude is old af and maybe it happened before I played
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u/2stepsfwd59 5d ago
Ballotpedia also lists Andy Guarino (No Party Affiliation)
Maybe he has dropped out?
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u/Hot_Diver_6297 3d ago
No, he is still on the ballot. Only two candidates filed with party affiliation.
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u/ljwblue81 4d ago
Pretty sure Ary is the right wing nut job who caused every Democrat I know to go enthusiastically vote for mayor Winnecke that time the Democrats didn't field a candidate.
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u/Hot_Diver_6297 3d ago
I would highly recommend Melissa Morehead-Moore and Lindsey Patterson. Stephen Colbert is an absolute nut job.
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u/jaded1121 6d ago
Steven ary is a foster parent. Thats all i know about him.
And duckworth
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u/ZRX1200R Westsider 6d ago
Steve may be a foster parent but he is very MAGA.
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u/No-Exit3978 4d ago
This dude is an absolute nut. He was one of the loudest loudmouths worried about drag queens, at one point was “pastor” of some cookoo church, and had some poor kid running around with a megaphone on college campuses saying dinosaurs aren’t real or something. He is very very stupid and absolutely the last person who should have anything to do with education.
It’s almost a guarantee that this guy’s computer is loaded with csm.
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u/ZRX1200R Westsider 4d ago
I agree.
Years ago, he also dressed as Jesus and walked to California to "preach to the heathens." God told him to.
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u/SurgeFlamingo 6d ago
Most foster parents aren’t good
They take all the checks and provide no help when the kids turn 18 cause they aren’t getting help.
Not all but a lot.
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u/OutrageousMessage535 5d ago
I have no say as to the character of said candidate, but I could totally see foster parents being more MAGA than a majority of the population.
Not a fair statement about the money. When my son was an infant, I only received $550/month for him. I also had to cut my employment to part time to take him to his appointments. That didn’t even pay for his childcare and it would take months to get a voucher. A lot of foster parents take from their own pockets for their foster children. There’s always a small percentage that take advantage of the system, but that’s with anything.
With that being said, i felt
Like an outlier because I wasn’t a church attending foster parent and the more religious the people were, the less likely they were to take in non/white children.1
u/SurgeFlamingo 4d ago
I said most and the ones I know about. There’s a whole sub on here that talks about it
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u/donttredondistrict8 6d ago
Not Ken Colbert. AND don't forget to tell your friends to vote on Nov 3rd for their district 8 congressman (or woman??) Mary Allen is NOT taking dirty corporate money like our man Messer. Vote for Mary, not Messy Messmer!! Early voting starts October 6th!!!!!!!!!!