4 incumbents, 2 newcomers filed to date for Sumter school board

Four incumbents and two relative newcomers had filed through early Friday afternoon for the five Sumter school board races that will be ballot in the November general election.

The Rev. Ralph Canty (Area 3), Tarah Johnson (Area 4), Matthew "Mac" McLeod (Area 6) and Phil Leventis (Area 8) are the incumbent board members who are now officially seeking reelection to Sumter School District's Board of Trustees after filing this past week at Sumter County Voter Registration and Elections Office.

The two-week filing period for the five open school board seats ends Monday, Aug. 17, and essentially midway through only McLeod has a challenger. In Area 6, which includes the Pocalla and Lakewood High School areas, Venitia Reebel has also filed.

The lone incumbent who has said publicly a few times that he does not intend to run again is board Chairman Shawn Ragin in Area 5, which includes the Wedgefield and Pinewood areas.

Former longtime F.J. DeLaine Elementary School Principal Roosevelt Miott is the only candidate to file so far in that area.

Both Reebel and Miott spoke to The Sumter Item on Friday.

Reebel is an educator who has served about 15 years in education, she said. Her K-12 education career has predominately been in private schools. Currently, she is a teacher at Laurence Manning Academy in Clarendon County and also an adjunct professor at University of South Carolina Sumter.

Miott spent about 45 years in teaching and administration, mostly in Sumter's public schools, he said.

The majority of his time in K-12 education was in the former Sumter School District 2. Miott served 27 years as principal at the former F.J. Delaine Elementary in Wedgefield. That school closed in 2018 due to low enrollment but is still used as a resource facility in Sumter School District.

Miott is also first vice president with the Sumter County branch of the NAACP, he said, and a member of Wayman Chapel AME Church in the Stateburg area.

The school board filing period closes on Aug. 17 at noon, and all candidates are instructed to file at the Sumter County Voter Registration and Elections Office, 129 E. Liberty St., in downtown Sumter next to First Baptist Church. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Those offices are where The Item was formerly located until 2016 when the newspaper operation moved to 36 W. Liberty St.