Rendleman, Poshard, Clark win seats on Logan College board

With all votes counted in Williamson, Jackson, Perry, Franklin and Randolph counties Tuesday night, the three hotly contested seats on the John A. Logan College board will go to Glenn Poshard, Jake Rendleman and Brent Clark.

Finishing out of the money were former Marion city commissioner Angelo Hightower and John Streuter of Carterville, a veteran of the banking industry.

With all precincts counted, the unofficial tallies are: Poshard, 5,232; Rendleman, 4,988; Clark, 4,505; Hightower, 3,664 and Streuter, 3,310. All totals are unofficial until the votes are canvassed.

Poshard, of Murphysboro and Rendleman, of Carterville, are incumbent members of the board. Clark, of Pittsburg, is the executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators, and a newcomer to Logan's board. He will assume the seat now held by Ray Hancock, who did not run for reelection.

All three trustees elected Tuesday will have six-year terms.

Poshard, the former president of SIU who was also a southern Illinois congressman and Illinois state senator, was first appointed to the Logan board in September 2016, following the death of Trustee Bill Alstat. He was elected to the board in his own right in 2017, for a four-year term.

"I congratulate everybody who chose to run," Poshard said Tuesday night after all the precincts were counted. "I just talked to a good friend of mine in Mattoon, and he said they can't get anybody to run for community college board in their area.

"The fact that we had five spirited candidates to run is a tribute to Logan and the district."

Poshard said rebuilding the enrollment at Logan and maintaining a campus safe from COVID-19 are both his immediate and longer-term goals.

"We've got work to do," he said. "Every community college has been hurt by this pandemic. We're going to get our enrollment back up, and no matter how long this pandemic lasts we're going to have a safe campus."