Superintendent Benny Gooden asked her to run for an uncontested 3-year position when Cole told him she would serve the last year of a resigned school board member's unfinished term. While singing and leading a training session for PTA officers in Batesville, Cole's presence was also being felt across the state at the Family Care Fair in Fort Smith, which invites hundreds of families onto public school grounds each year. Cole, who served on that council, credits Gooden with making the fair a first-year success. At the fair, the children and their families receive free health screening of all kinds. There are games and free food for everyone. . . .
Parents can have their cholesterol tested while their kids go on a tour of a fire truck.
We just really have a frontier spirit in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and the award is clear because they're visionaries. She sets her sights on improving the world around her. I'd rather be doing something than sitting around.