Gilbert Public Schools board re-elects leadership 

By Tom Blodgett
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Twitter: @sp_blodgett

The Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board re-elected its 2022 leadership for the coming year at its annual organizational meeting Tuesday, Jan. 10. 

Lori Wood will continue to serve as president and Sheila Uggetti as clerk for 2023 after the board vote. Both were nominated with recommendations for continuity as two new members join the five-person board. 

Chad Thompson and Ronda Page joined the board for the first time at the meeting, having won spots in November to replace Charles Santa Cruz and Bill Parker, both of whom declined to run for re-election. 

The board also voted to continue meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday generally on the first and third weeks of the month for business meetings and 11:30 a.m. Tuesday the second week of the month for policy committee, which is a committee of the whole board. 

The board divvied up its committee and liaison assignments: 

• Wood: city of Mesa liaison; 
• Uggetti: insurance trust committee; 
• Jill Humpherys: Gilbert Education Foundation, audit committee, legislative liaison alternate; 
• Thompson: legislative representative; 
• Page: town of Gilbert liaison. 

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert
@sp_blodgett

tblodgett@iniusa.org

Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.

Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism. 

Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.  

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).