Bud Kennedy 
What would the Donald say? New trustee can guess
Previous Columns
Bud Kennedy
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Florida debate on bumper ornament bill gets cut off Friday, May 9
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Eats Beat: Last-minute places for mom Thursday, May 8
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Mayoral candidate hints at endorsement from on high
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Wednesday, May 7 -
City Council candidates wasting no breath of clean air Sunday, May 4
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Lay blame for JPS where it belongs Friday, May 2
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Texas literary pioneer subject of book, university exhibit Wednesday, April 30
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'Black Like Me,' but not quite like a presidential candidate remembers Sunday, April 27
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There's no place like Rhome for city council high jinks Friday, April 25
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Did removal of sect's kids open a door that can't be shut? Wednesday, April 23
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To Perry, 'Governor for life' sounds all right Sunday, April 20
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Misinformation abounds over plans for Botanic Garden Friday, April 18
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Want to help real charities? Try this direct, safe method Wednesday, April 16
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You're driving our money, so we need some answers Sunday, April 13
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This time, innocent kids get caught up in rush to judgment Friday, April 11
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It's the big one! Quick, someone grab the dominoes! Wednesday, April 9
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Doing my part to bring the Metroplex closer together Sunday, March 30
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Ice cream franchise fails to generate cold cash for YWCA Wednesday, March 26
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Targets change; bashing is the same Sunday, March 23
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There's fine line between graffiti, political expression Friday, March 21
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He got beat by the football team from Friday Night Lights.
Then Donald Trump fired him off The Apprentice.
At 30, Arlington marketing executive Bowie Hogg is no longer living a life straight out of reality TV. He now has a genuinely tough task: serving on his hometown school board.
Hogg keeps Trump's number in his iPhone.
"If I called, he would tell me, 'Hard work pays off,'" Hogg said Saturday, gathering with friends in suburban Pantego to celebrate his first victory in politics.
Hogg imagined how The Donald might analyze the campaign.
"He would say, 'You out-marketed the competition,'" Hogg said. "He always said that it's all about your reputation and whether people respect you. People respect him because he's tough."
That was four years and 20 million viewers ago.
On Saturday, Hogg was elected not only off his TV fame, but also off the reputations of his schoolteacher parents and the respect they earned in 40 years in Arlington.
Great public school trustees always have a passion for their city's children. Hogg rattled off his legacy: Duff Elementary, Bailey Junior High and Arlington High School, where he played guard on Colts state playoff teams, including the 1995 team eliminated by the Odessa Permian Panthers of Friday Night fame.
Football is both Arlington's passion and its problem.
The district has a proud history of state champions and playoff victories. But lately, Arlington is having more problems with youth discipline and violence, partly because it has large, impersonal, powerhouse-size high schools instead of more, smaller neighborhood schools.
Hogg does not sound interested in changing that.
"Football and sports are critical because they build a town," he said. "Big schools can offer more programs. At small schools, there's more direct involvement with each child and the parents, but you don't have the participation."
North Fort Worth voters also voted out of passion -- but maybe for the past.
New school trustee Carlos Vasquez, 40, is an outspoken former principal about to start a new job teaching at Texas Wesleyan University.
He defeated District 1 trustee Camille Rodriguez, 39, by arguing that north-side schools were better under predecessor Rose Herrera and the last superintendent, Thomas Tocco.
That might be true. Both were vocal education leaders. But they were also horrendous tax watchdogs and sloppy business managers.
"There was a flier saying that I wanted the 'days of corruption' to come back," said Vasquez, the son of teachers in Brownsville and most recently a spokesman for a textbook publisher. "Look, Tocco made mistakes. But the children in this district were better off."
The board president's race remains undecided. For the first time in more than 20 years, the Fort Worth school board president will not come from the Paschal High School neighborhood.
But a June 14 runoff will match Ray Dickerson, 56, a banker and former Texas A&M baseball shortstop living in the Arlington Heights neighborhood, against current school trustee Chris Hatch, 61, an accountant and a former Republican candidate for the Texas House. Hatch lives in the Southwest High School neighborhood.
Suburban school districts went to the voters for bond money, and not all of them won it.
Eagle Mountain-Saginaw, which already had nice schools, got voters to go along with building more campuses and improving current schools to match expected booming growth.
Across Eagle Mountain Lake, neighboring Azle has never had posh schools. And it won't anytime soon.
The "no" vote was 65 percent.
That's a message worthy of Donald Trump.
