During its first monthly meeting following the passing of board member Allan Dreyer, the Warren County R-III School Board announced its decision to leave Dreyer’s seat vacant.The board chose to wait until the next school board election in April 2020 to fill the seat, rather than seeking candidate applications from the community and conducting panel interviews to determine a temporary appointee to Dreyer’s position.“The main focus on this was really trusting our community to pick the right person to be on the school board,” said Superintendent Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith. “We wanted to make sure that option was available to us.”The community nomination format has been used in the past with the addition of Dr. Chad Smith to the board in 2017. However, at that time the board had nearly a complete year before the next election. Klinginsmith said the tighter turnaround impacted the board’s decision.“With filing happening in December and January, by the time they’d interview somebody, it would be at the earliest November, and that kind of endorses a candidate, as opposed to just trusting our community to pick the best person,” said Klinginsmith.This means the board will proceed with its six current members until April, which should not pose any foreseeable challenges, according to Klinginsmith.“Having six members is not a problem,” he said. “It was the mid-’90s when all school districts had six members, and they switched to seven at that point.”Concerning Dreyer’s role as board treasurer, member Rodger Tucker was unanimously selected by his colleagues to fill the office.“We appreciate Rodger stepping up to be the treasurer,” added Klinginsmith.The board started its October meeting by sharing sentiments about Dreyer, a longtime educator and administrator in the community. Board members presented a plaque to Barb and their son, Blake, commemorating his service on the board.Dreyer had participated in the Sept. 12 school board meeting, just two days prior to his death.Warren County R-III School District logo