Ruth Ulrich

What I submitted is not what is on the screen. This is a candidate in an election in 16 parishes who obtained more than 60,000 votes. She is also a radio personality in northeast LA.

Billy Hathorn 22:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Ruth L. Ulrich (born ca. 1962) is the Republican candidate for the open District 5 seat on the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in the November 17, 2007, general election. The district includes sixteen parishes in north and central Louisiana. Ulrich faces Democrat Keith K. Guice for the right to succeed 15-year Democratic incumbent James Stafford. Ulrich is a businesswoman and a producer and sometimes on-air replacement for conservative radio talk show host Moon Griffon (pronounced GRE FONN), who broadcasts statewide from his studio in Monroe, the seat of Ouachita Parish.

Both Ulrich and Guice reside in Monroe. Ulrich led Guice in the October 20 jungle primary, 60,085 (39 percent) to 42,258 (27 percent). Two other Democrats, Walter B. Gatlin and James E. Lee, received 31,585 votes (20 percent) and 22,083 ballots (14 percent), respectively. The three Democratic candidates hence collectively polled 61 percent in the preliminary election.

In addition to Ouachita Parish, District 5 includes the north-central parishes of Caldwell, Catahoula, Concordia, East Carroll, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, La Salle, Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Rapides (the home of Gatlin), Richland, West Carroll, and Union. Ulrich received pluralities in nine parishes in the district: Grant, Jackson, La Salle, Lincoln, Morehouse, Ouachita, Rapides, Richland, and Union. Lee led in Concordia and Tensas. Guice led in the other five parishes, Caldwell, Catahoula, East Carroll, Franklin, and West Carroll.

Ulrich indicated that she is particularly interested in addressing discrepancies in the Minimum Foundation Plan, which provides state funding to school districts: ""Rural parishes are suffering because of the inequity of sales tax."

In her website, Ulrich lists the following goals she would seek to accomplish if elected to the board:

Full funding of public schools
Making schools accountable to parents and taxpayers
Increase quality of teachers
Improve the classroom environment
Permit parents to choose the school that best serves their child
Promote reading instruction

Guice, a director of youth programs for the Workforce Investment Board, told reporters that he is committed to bringing common sense to the board: "We'll look at accountability and temper those rules and regulations with reason." He contends that accountability standards have placed undue stress on teachers and students without improving the educational product.

Shortly after the primary, Ulrich and her husband, Marcus B. "Mark" Ulrich (born ca. 1959), were traumatized when a large pine tree struck their Monroe home. The Ulrich family escaped injuries.

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