Ms. Kendig, a two-time county PTA Council president, first took office in 1983, when the county's 23,000-student population was dropping by 400 to 500 students a year. The county was closing schools instead of building them.
She ran for a second term because of her continuing concern about high schools and the way they prepare students for the future.
"I was concerned, as I am now, that kids who don't go to collegewe didn't do well by them," she said.
Some of the recent criticisms that parents and the community have lodged against the school board are misplaced, she says.
Parents who complain that the school system has neglected aging schools to build new technologically advanced ones don't know the history, she said. Since she first took office, the school system renovated or built additions to more than half of the schools. It wasn't until the student population began mushrooming that the school system was forced to shift money to build new schools, she said.
And teachers who complain about low pay scales should realize that starting pay for new teachers has nearly doubled in 11 years to $26,600 this year, she said.
The issue of year-round education, a sure-fire question at every school board candidates' question-and-answer forum, is really a moot point, Ms. Kendig said.
"I think the politicians have backed away from it because the community has said we don't want it," she said. "On the other hand, if there's a capital budget problem, then it becomes a spending issue."
She looks forward to her retirement.
She's been slowly discarding her old school board reports and memorandums to make room for the stacks of books on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War that she's been yearning to read. And she plans to volunteer driving cancer patients to hospitals.
"I'm going to miss the people," she said. "School people are really caring. You seldom find more caring people."
