Chapter 27

The semester was winding down at Riverside before the recall election was held. It was no longer a real big deal in Spearfish Lake as things had died down in the months that had passed since the petition had been circulated during the school board meeting. There was a story about it in the Record-Herald, of course, briefly outlining the issue, and containing quotes from both Battle and Aho.

They were there late that evening since it was a night the Spearfish Lake City Council met. Mike had covered the meeting, while Susan had stayed home, and had only gone over to the board office after the polls were closed to get the results. While the election had not exactly been a foregone conclusion, Aho was ousted, but it had been by a wider margin than Mike had predicted. "I guess there were enough memories long enough to seal the results," he commented to Susan in the Record-Herald office once he made it back from the council meeting.

"So, now what happens? Do they have to elect a new board member, or what?"

"If I recall correctly from the last time a board member had to leave in the middle of a term, the board will name someone to fill out the term until the next election, which is in June. Usually what they try to do is to bring someone back who has previously been on the board, and Mike Bell, who went off last June, probably would be willing to fill in for that long."

"What do they do about a new board president?"

"Well, Battle was the vice-president, so he'll move up into the job. Of course, they'll elect new board officers at the organizational meeting next summer, so whether he keeps it is up in the air. My guess is that he will. He's the senior board member now and he has some idea of what he's doing."

"Well," Susan sighed, "at least Aho is out of there."

"I'm not so sure that's such a good deal," Mike shook his head. "Basically, Glenn was doing an adequate job until the thing with Gingrich blew up. I'm not so sure George is going to do any better, and if I had to bet, I'll bet that he doesn't turn out to be an improvement."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, Glenn had his idiosyncrasies, like whatever it was that he had going for Gingrich. So does George. He's a football nut, and for whatever reason he's a big backer of Jerome Weilfahrt and thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread or canned beer. After the third year of a two-and-seven record I'm not exactly convinced of it, but it's not my decision to make, I guess. I suspect we'll be seeing trouble about that up the road somewhere, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

The following Monday, Susan went to the School Board meeting. It was relatively quiet; the search committee had hired an executive search firm, and they had come up with several possibilities for a new superintendent. The committee had narrowed the applications down to three, and the board had to interview each one of them, which they'd done over the previous week. At the meeting, there was considerable discussion, with Battle again bringing up his contention that they needed an experienced superintendent from outside the district, someone who understood how grant funding worked in order to shore up the school finances. Susan had heard that from him way back in September, so it was nothing new. Her own opinion was that it should be someone who was experienced in the district and understood how things worked in a small town, but she kept that to herself. It wasn't her decision to make, after all.

In any case, the background search on all three of the finalists had been extensive, and nothing particularly derogatory had shown up. Each of them had good records in their previous positions, and good references that had checked out. Nothing showed up in a criminal background check either. Still, everyone remembered the troubles back in September, so the interviews had been intensive, and there was no clear leader among the three at the meeting.

The talking went back and forth for over an hour before the board finally settled on Charles DeRidder. DeRidder was a former assistant superintendent of a large school district in the Chicago area, and had been the superintendent of a small rural district in Wisconsin for the last year and a half. The vote wasn't unanimous; it came down to a five to two decision after one of the candidates had been rejected.

Once the decision had been made, Battle called DeRidder to inform him of the vote; he returned a few minutes later with the information that DeRidder thought he could be on the job after school started up again after Christmas break. Harold Hekkinan was happy at the news; he was glad to be out of having to deal with both jobs, especially with much of the next several months having to be spent on the school budget. To Susan, it looked like all the troubles that Gingrich had caused were now in the past.

Another week went by. Classes at Riverside broke for the semester, a week before the Spearfish Lake system closed for the Christmas break. Susan received her grade report from Riverside, and was pleased to discover that it consisted of nothing but A's. She'd known from her midterm grades that she was handling the work, which hadn't been very challenging, and she had that much college credit to show for it. The way the scheduling worked, she decided to take eighteen hours the next term, which would involve late nights on both Tuesday and Thursday. If the classes were no harder than the ones she had taken in the fall, she had little concern about being able to handle the extra work. She hoped that those grades held promise for Southern the next year.

By then, Susan had received the anticipated rejection from Michigan State, not a surprise, although it still was a bit of disappointment. If she'd been able to talk to an admissions officer who knew his job and wasn't a total jerk she might have been going there, but it wasn't to be and that was that. She'd also received an acceptance from Grand Valley, but by the time it arrived the decision to go to Southern had been made. It was now sure where she was going to college, and she could make more detailed plans.

In the first few days they were out of classes, Susan and Mizuki decided to make a fast trip to Hawthorne to take a look at the apartment situation, which they hadn't investigated at all on their trip in October. It didn't look that promising; there were a lot of students living off campus, and rents were higher than indicated previously. There was one apartment in a four-unit structure that would be free in the spring they especially liked, but the rental was just plain out of reach, and reluctantly Susan told the lady who owned the place.

"Well, if you can't, you can't," the woman said. "But I'll tell you what, I sure would like to sell this place."

"Just out of curiosity, how much would you have to have?" Susan said, mostly to make conversation.

The woman named a price that seemed surprisingly low, considering the cost of the rentals. On the way back, Susan and Mizuki talked about the place, and Susan did some figuring on a piece of scratch paper – and came up with a surprising answer. Assuming that a loan at a reasonable interest rate could be found, the rental for two of the apartments would cover the payments, and it seemed likely that the rental for the third would cover the other expenses. "That means if we bought the place we could be living there rent free!" Susan finally exclaimed.