The Rutherford County School Board Zone 2 race pits Republican nominee Stan Vaught against Robert Brooks, an independent with endorsements from Republicans.
The election also offers geographical differences with Vaught coming from Milton, one of the many rural communities on the county's northside, and Brooks residing in Smyrna near the Nissan automobile factory and being closer to La Vergne.
Brooks, for example, has the backing of Tammy Sharp, a school board member from La Vergne who won reelection unopposed as a Republican in 2022 for her Zone 1 seat.
"He’s going to represent everybody," said Sharp, a former board chairman who worries that the majority of the board has been ignoring the needs of students from La Vergne.
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Vaught has support of school board vice chairwoman Claire Maxwell, a fellow Republican unopposed in the Aug. 1 election for the Zone 5 seat.
"I think he’s a great guy, a strong conservative God-fearing church man," said Maxwell, noting Vaught taught Sunday school for her children at First Baptist Church on East Main Street in Murfreesboro.
Fellow Republican Butch Vaughn also backs Vaught. Vaughn is unopposed as the GOP nominee in the Zone 6 county school board election to replace retiring Chairwoman Shelia Bratton .
The Zone 2 ballot also includes independent John Duncan , but he doesn't appear to be actively campaigning after facing a criminal investigation that recently cleared him. Duncan agreed to resign from his former teaching job at Daniel-McKee Alternative School after the Rutherford district accused him of taking an inappropriate photograph at his previous teaching job at Stewarts Creek High School.
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Local GOP chairman calls Sharp a RINO
The vice chairwoman's husband, Austin Maxwell, is the chairman of the Rutherford County Republican Party. He questions why Republicans such as Sharp are backing Brooks.
“Republicans who don’t support the Republican nominee are RINOs, Republican in name only, and that’s for Ms. Sharp and anybody else," Austin Maxwell said.
Sharp stands by her record as a Republican who views Brooks as a conservative who should have been allowed to compete in the March 5 GOP primary against Vaught.
"According to Mr. Maxwell, I have a perfect Republican voting record," Sharp said. "I have lived in Rutherford County for over 22 years and have consistently voted Republican in every primary, presidential, and general election."
Sharp noted that she was impressed with Brooks when he spoke in opposition to a mask mandate fall 2021 impacting his autistic child. While serving as the board chairman for a year in 2022-23, Sharp appointed Brooks to the board's policy committee as a parent representative.
Vaught has a strong record of supporting the Republican Party, which requires that its bona fide candidates vote in three of the last four statewide GOP primaries, Austin Maxwell said.
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Brooks could not run as a Republican because he voted in the Democratic primary in 2018, said Austin Maxwell, who also won a nonpartisan election in 2022 to serve on the Murfreesboro City Council.
"We do not support independents when we have a Republican on the ballot, and we do not support independents especially when they’ve previously voted Democratic," Austin Maxwell said.
Brooks said his viewpoint aligns with conservative Republicans even if he voted in a Democratic Party primary in 2018 and has been bona fide as GOP candidate with the state Republican Party since 2022.
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La Vergne officials back Brooks
Brooks has backing from other officials representing La Vergne, including Mayor Jason Cole .
"Robert is the only candidate for school board for La Vergne this cycle who has actually inquired about La Vergne’s needs with the school system," Cole said. "No other candidate has done that."
Although serving in a nonpartisan office in La Vergne, Cole said he views himself as a center-right Republican and sees similar values expressed by Brooks.
"Robert Brooks is a fiscal conservative and he believes in parental involvement with the schools, and that I believe as a parent is essential to our schools," Cole said.
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Brooks also has the backing of Laura Davidson, a fellow independent who won her Rutherford County Commission seat to represent District 5 in central La Vergne, which is a different part of the city than the northern area represented by the school board Zone 2 seat. She serves on the commission's Health and Education Committee that includes examining school board funding requests.
"I look at the person. I don’t look at the party," said Davidson, noting that she's known Brooks for many years. "He’s a fine upstanding young man. I feel like he would be a wonderful asset to our school board."
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Vaught seeks the county to build career and technical education centers
Vaught touts a background of being a sixth-generation resident, and owning and operating a farm in Milton on the far northeast side of the county. He's also a longtime real estate auctioneer and manages two real estate offices.
Vaught also serves as an appointed chairman for the county's Public Building Authority, which includes oversight of public health and safety building projects with combined fire and ambulance stations.
Vaught previously served as an elected member of the Rutherford County Commission from 1986 to 1998. He recalled being one of the strong advocates on the commission in the 1990s to keep high school grades at Eagleville School on the far southwest side of the county when district officials considered dropping grades 9-12 from the campus.
"That community high school has thrived," said Vaught, adding that he will support the needs of students throughout Zone 2 and the county. "I'm a very strong advocate for community schools."
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Vaught also advocated for magnet schools for high achievers, including McFadden School of Excellence where his sons attended. One of his sons graduated from the county's Oakland High School and Vanderbilt University in Nashville; and the other graduated from the county's Central Magnet School and Rhodes College in Memphis.
"Education has been very important to me," said Vaught, who earned a degree in education and agriculture in 1985 from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro before pursuing his career in real estate. "My mother was a high school teacher."
His late mother, Nettie Laura Vaught, taught home economics at Central High (now Central Magnet) and Oakland High.
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Vaught said one of his goals will be to help the school board build two or three career and technical education (CTE) centers that would be open to students throughout the county to pursue training for jobs. He visualizes the county winning government grants and donations from businesses needing a skilled workforce to help fund the CTE centers.
Teaching trades maybe a great opportunity for teens who'd rather avoid the burden of student loan debt from college educations, Vaught suggested.
"I think we owe it to our young people to allow that path," Vaught said. "The vast majority of the people are in a trade that may not need a college education."
Home builder John Floyd, founder and owner of Ole South, supports the CTE proposal because "not every kid needs to go to college."
"What Stan is talking about is 100% correct," said Floyd, adding that more workers are needed to build houses, apartments and commercial buildings. "There’s such a huge demand in the trades."
Vaught said listening to parents is important. He also wants to bring a voice that helps calm a sometimes divided school board.
"There's been a lot of dissention on that board a few years now," Vaught said. "That’s not a good way to get things done."
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Brooks advocates for parent choice and parent voice
Brooks and his wife, Toshua Brooks, manage Tennessee Baptist Adult Home for special needs residents.
The couple have four children, ranging from age 2 to the oldest pursuing a doctorate at Michigan State University. The family has one child attending Smyrna High School and the other is a homeschool student, Brooks said.
Brooks said he wants to make a difference in the community by advocating for parents to make decisions for their children.
"I want to make sure the parent voice and the parent choice stays at the forefront of our education system," said Brooks, who spoke to the board in April in opposition to limiting public comments to meeting agenda issues.
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Brooks supports quality charter schools that offer parents other choices for educating children.
"I’m always a firm believer that we can always do better," Brooks said.
Brooks has the backing of Al Evans , a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and 39-year track coach, including at La Vergne High School (1991-2012) and Oakland High (2012-18).
"I’ve known Robert ever since he was a freshman at La Vergne High School," Evans said. "He and my son (Lee) played basketball and track at LHS. Robert was one of the best team leaders I’ve ever had. I never had to ask him what was right, and he knew what I expected out of every athlete.
"Robert Brooks is what our community needs and seeks in a leader."
Brooks said one of his priorities as a school official will be for the district to improve the county's literacy rate that he views as being too low.
"You have to find ways to be more innovative, to be more creative," Brooks said.
Another goal is for the school board to move faster to purchase land to build needed schools to keep up with growth and relieve overcrowding in a district that depended on 179 portable classrooms this past year, Brooks said.
"We should be planning for what’s coming and not sitting idle," Brooks said.
"My hope is that the charter schools will bring some relief until we can actually get some plans put in place."
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Reach reporter Scott Broden with news tips or questions by emailing him at sbroden@dnj.com. To support his work with The Daily News Journal, sign up for a digital subscription.
Election schedule 2024 for Rutherford County
- Election Day for Rutherford County and Murfreesboro offices, as well as primaries for state and federal legislative offices: Aug. 1
- Election Day for president and offices for federal, state, Eagleville, La Vergne and Smyrna: Nov. 5
- Last day to register to vote in Nov. 5 election: Oct. 7
- Absentee by mail voting period for Nov. 5 election: Aug. 7-Oct. 29
- Early voting period for Nov. 5 election: Oct. 16-31
Source: Rutherford County Election Commission website
This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: Rutherford school board Zone 2 race gets divisive with RINO insult to GOP officials
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