NIC trustee races set

COEUR d'ALENE - The race is on for two seats on the North Idaho College Board of Trustees.

With Wednesday's 5 p.m. filing deadline come and gone, there are two candidates vying for each of the positions that will be on the ballot during Idaho's general election on Nov. 2.

Both positions are nonpartisan, four-year terms to NIC's five-member governing board. Trustees are elected from within Kootenai County for staggered terms, and receive no compensation for their service.

Attorney Ken Howard and business owner Ron Nilson will be going head to head for Seat A, now held by Rolly Williams, who is not seeking another term.

Howard, who lives in Kootenai County outside Coeur d'Alene, is a trial lawyer known for his work on the 2000 civil suit that resulted in the dismantling of the Aryan Nations compound in Hayden.

Nilson is CEO/president of Ground Force Manufacturing in Post Falls and chairman of the 45-member North Idaho Manufacturing Consortium. Nilson is vice chair of the executive committee governing the Kootenai Technical Education Campus high school that will be built on the Rathdrum Prairie.

Incumbent Christie Wood, a Coeur d'Alene police sergeant, will try to hold on to Seat B as she faces a challenge from Robert Ketchum, the former director of NIC's Workforce Training Center.

Wood has been chair of the NIC board since November 2008, and served since 2004.

She served as a board trustee for the Coeur d'Alene School District from 2000 to 2008.

Wood is a supervisor in the detective division of the Coeur d'Alene Police Department and serves as the agency's public information officer.

Ketchum, who holds a Ph.D. in vocational-technical education, was with NIC from 1990 until the college eliminated his position in January. He has a new business, The Ketchum Group, a Coeur d'Alene-based venture that offers customized and structured on-the-job training programs to employers.