Elections being held in G-L, Northport and S-B on May 6.

Eleven people are seeking seven seats on county boards of education in the May 6 election.

The greatest amount of interest appears to be in two 4-year seats available on the Suttons Bay Board of Education, where five people are candidates. Longtime board member Liz Venie will step down at the end of her term, and the term of trustee David Buffum is expiring. Buffum is seeking re-election, and will be joined on the ballot by Colleen Makin, Kenneth Eike, Chris D. DeJong and A. Brooks Darling.

Buffum is a 1979 Suttons Bay graduate who first attended the old stone school on St. Mary Street. He earned an associate’s degree in business administration from Northwestern Michigan College and a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Eastern Michigan University. He is also vice president of lending at Traverse Bay Area Credit Union. He serves on the board’s finance, building and grounds and curriculum committees. Buffum’s daughter, Cassandra, is a junior at Suttons Bay.

Makin, is the mother of two Suttons Bay high school students, junior Jess Hammersley and sophomore Michael Hammersley. She has been an active participant at her sons’ schools, serving on the board of directors of the Leelanau Children’s Center when her boys attended. At Suttons Bay, she has served on the district’s technology committee for the past six years. She has also been a member of the school’s District Advisory Committee since its inception in 2003, and participated in the public interview processes in the hiring of superintendent Michael Murray and principal Raph Rittenhouse.

She is a database development specialist and can also be seen at her husband’s new store, Brilliant Books, in Suttons Bay.

DeJong is a member of Suttons Bay’s District Advisory Council and a founding member of the Suttons Bay Spirit Club. She works part-time at the Suttons Bay Law Center and is the mother of two boys attending the school, Alexander, a third grader, and Nicholas, a first grader.

Eike is employed as the director of information services at Munson Medical Center and has served the district in numerous capacities since his daughter, sophomore Rebecca, entered school at Suttons Bay. Eike served on the committee that helped get the district’s most recent bond issue approved. He’s also a soccer official and basketball coach, and has been involved with the Suttons Bay Jogathon.

Darling is an attorney and is a partner with Zimmerman, Kuhn, Darling and Boyd in Traverse City. His oldest son, Ben, graduated from Suttons Bay last year and attends Kalamazoo College. He also has a son in eighth grade at the school, Mason. Darling is currently secretary of the Suttons Bay Sports Boosters and has served as a middle school soccer coach.

There will also be race in the Glen Lake school district, where board president Joan Hawley, Ken Fosmore and Ross Hazelton are seeking the two 4-year posts available.

Hawley is completing her third term on the Glen Lake Board of Education and has three grandchildren attending Glen Lake School.

Fosmore has been a resident of the community for 38 years. He worked for Century Telephone for 33 years and after retirement started his own company, I-Kon Construction, which he owned for three years. Now fully retired, Fosmore had two sons graduate from Glen Lake – Brad, who is currently the Lakers’ junior varsity boys’ basketball coach, graduated in 1988, and Bryan, who graduated in 1992. He also has two grandchildren in the Glen Lake system, ages 7 and 4.

Fosmore is a charter member of the Glen Lake Booster Club, which began in 1972, and spearheaded the drive for new lights for the football field.

Hazelton did not return calls from the Enterprise.

Frank Skrocki of Empire is the only candidate for the partial term of David Harris, who stepped down last year. Skrocki was appointed last spring to serve through the next election.

In the Northport school district, where candidates filled the ballot last year after it was suggested that Northport close its high school, only two candidates are seeking office. Board trustee Lois Counterman is not seeking re-election, and Jeffrey Dyer, who was appointed last year to serve the remainder of Richard Wiebe’s term, is seeking a four-year term.

Seeking election to the other 4-year seat is Thomas M. Wetherbee.

Wetherbee, a designer of micro-controlled based electronic products, graduated from Northport and lived in larger cities for 17 years before returning to the community in 1992. He and his wife, Deb, live in Northport. They have two grown children — Neil and Tegan — who graduated from Northport and attended the University of Michigan.