NEWBERRY — The elections are next Tuesday, and on the local level Hugh Gray is running for reelection as a write-in candidate for School Board District 5. Gray has lived in Newberry County for nearly 30 years, moving here in the 1990s.
“I went to a small school in Allendale County, very similar to Newberry County’s size. I went to Clemson for undergraduate, started a graduate degree there, realized how much more lucrative the job was than staying in school,” Gray said.
Gray would get his Master’s degree from Regis University, years later, in Denver Colorado. He earned his degree in nonprofit management. Prior to this, Gray started his career in an internship that would become a full time job in technical writing.
“I came to Newberry in 1991, there was a position open for a grant writer, using my English degree, and my master’s degree I was working on was in technical writing. So that is how I kinda got my foot in the door in the agency, at that time it was Newberry Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, which became Westview Behavioral,” Gray said.
Gray would eventually move on to work for the Newberry County School District as a public information officer as grant writer, a job he held for eight years until it was eliminated due to budget cuts. After that, he went to work for the Alternative School, where he did some teaching and some public information work. For a short time he worked for the Army, but then returned to Westview, where he would eventually become the executive director, a job he still holds today.
Gray first ran for School Board in 2010, he said he ran because working for the District Office for eight years, he felt like he had a good understanding on how the District Office worked.
“I felt that would be useful while on the School Board. That continues to be one of the reasons I want to continue, those eight years were very helpful and helping me understand how the School District works. As a board member, it gives me a perspective that many other folks on the board don’t have,” Gray said.
Gray added that his career experience has given him an understanding of strategic planning.
“I believe education is the most important thing you do as a social program, and so I want to spend that experience working on what I see as the most important program we do in Newberry County,” he said. “With the strategic planning experience, I look at the strategic plan and understand how things have been nested, the end result outcome has to be nested in the objective, in other words, making sure talking about apples and apples. Nested in a goal, goal nested in a strategy.”
For what Gray would say to voters to get their vote, proven.
“I’ve been proven in all the things we are talking about, I’ve been proven in my commitment to Newberry, I’ve lived here for 28 years, worked in the community for 28 years. Worked on not just big boards, but small boards, going back to the 90s. My commitment to Newberry is proven, my experience is proven by the things I’ve done, how I can use my experience as a benefit to the District,” he said. “Proven my commitment to Newberry, proven to the fact I can do the things I say I can do.”
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