By Rupert Howell

Trustees postponed a decision concerning which of three proposed redistricting plans to  adopt to forward to the U.S. Justice Department during Thursday’s monthly meeting of the South Panola School District trustee board.

Absent for her last official meeting was trustee Sarah Dale Gray, whose husband, Buddy Gray, was elected to her position after she decided not to run for re-election.
He did attend the meeting as an observer and former trustees decided, after some preferred plan one and an alternate plan three, that they would wait until Gray was sworn in next month before making the decision.

School board attorney Colmon Mitchell advised board members that when a plan is forwarded to the Justice Department, a unanimous vote may send a message of harmony and expedite approval.

He had previously noted that all three plans were within Justice Department guidelines.
Trustees favored the first of two plans submitted before holding a public hearing earlier this year.
Following the hearing, a third plan was submitted that took into consideration Harold (Pee Wee) and Martha Lynn Johnsons’ concern that with current lines and two new proposals, their area was represented by a trustee from the other side of the county while suggesting lines be redrawn that put their area into a more regional district.

The five school trustees are elected from sub-districts within the school district and are subject to the one-man, one-vote rule of the 1965 Voting Rights act which calls for equalizing population within the districts following each 10-year census.

South Panola trustees generally meet on the third Tuesday of each month, but met last Thursday due to Christmas holidays.