Trish Coleman, 43, of De Soto was appointed to the De Soto Board of Education on Oct. 20.
She will fill a vacancy created after Pamela Midgett turned in a letter of resignation on Aug. 31. Her resignation was effective after the board voted unanimously Sept. 15 to accept it.
Coleman will be sworn in to serve on the board at its Nov. 17 meeting.
When Midgett resigned, she was in the middle of her second three-year term, and Coleman will serve until after the April 2023 election. The winner of that election will serve for one year until the full term comes up for election in April 2024.
Four people had applied to fill the seat, and the board’s remaining six members voted unanimously to appoint Coleman.
“I think the timing was just right now,” Coleman said of her reason for applying. “For the past two or three years, people have been suggesting that I should run for the school board, and I considered it last year, but my oldest son (Caleb) was a high school senior and there was a lot on our plate, with senior activities and college. With Caleb out of town (at Drury University in Springfield), I’m in a better place with my time. I thought I’d try it now.”
Coleman, the head of Innovation and Customer Solutions at Cigna (an insurance company), is a 1997 De Soto High graduate who earned two associate degrees from Jefferson College, a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Missouri Baptist University and a master’s degree in business administration from Webster University.
She said she will bring the skills she employs every day to the board.
“I have a lot of skills on the strategy side,” she said. “As the mother of four boys, I have been involved in all the district buildings and seen how the district works from kindergarten through 12th grade, so I’ve seen how they work together, but I don’t necessarily know everything about education. I have a curiosity and want to learn.
“But I’m not coming in to change things, change this and change that. I have areas of concern that I’ll be looking to learn more about, but I want to come in and listen first and then ask questions, explore things.”
Coleman played volleyball and ran track at De Soto High, and she’s part of the 1997 school record-holding 3,200-meter relay team.
“I keep cheering for the girls to break the record, but so far, it still stands,” Coleman said. “I still love to run. On Nov. 14, I will have run at least one mile a day since that date in 2013.”
She was a founder and director of Get Healthy De Soto’s Winter Flakes event, is a member of the De Soto Youth Soccer League Board of Directors and was active in the promotion of the district’s Proposition Kids ballot issue in April.
Coleman said even though a spot on the school board was on her mind, she still did her due diligence before turning in her application.
“I did a lot of informal interviewing, talking with respected friends and board members whom I know about what goes into it, how much time you have to devote to it,” she said. “Someone at Cigna from New Jersey is on a school board there and we talked about how it worked.”
Coleman said she drafted her application letter on the first day they were accepted, but she waited almost two weeks later, until the afternoon of the Sept. 30 deadline, to submit it.
“I wanted to consider everything,” she said. “I think I’ve done my homework.”
While she said anything can happen, she intends to seek the one-year term when filing opens for the seat in December.
Coleman and her husband, Charles, have four children: Caleb, 18; Blake, 15, a ninth grader; Kyle, 11, a sixth grader; and Dylan, 10, a fourth grader.
She said she intends to listen more in school board meetings in the early going but won’t be hesitant to ask questions or offer her opinions.
“I want to be able to speak up and say what I need to,” she said.