Joe Walker Named to Pocahontas County Board of Education

The Pocahontas County Board of Education on Tuesday evening chose Hillsboro resident Joe Walker, also a salesman at Neathawk Lumber, as its newest member.

During a brief open-session meeting, which followed a closed session of interviews with candidates, the board announced their decision and welcomed Walker to the board.

Emery Grimes, board president, said the decision was a difficult one. Five county residents applied to be on the board.

“I would like to say this: we had some of the best candidates. It took us a long time to figure out how we was going to do this because we had some really good candidates, and I do, I really appreciate you all’s interest in the Pocahontas County Board of Education,” he said.

“It’s going to be a couple hard years coming up. And I hope that people that are here tonight run for that position in a year in a half or two years because we had some good candidates, we really did. Good people to choose from; people in education, people that’s been in education, pillars of the community. So, welcome Mr. Walker,” he said.

Walker will replace Suzanne Stewart, whose term expired. In the recent election to fill two board seats, Steven Tritapoe ran unopposed.

Walker said he looks forward to learning more about the school system.

“I was born and raised here in Hillsboro, graduated from Pocahontas County High School, went on to a couple different colleges, and currently married, live in Hillsboro, with two kids that are out of high school now, one working, and one in college, and my wife works at the Greenbrier Valley Medical Hospital, and I work at Neathawk Lumber Co.,” he said.

He said that being a parent was another incentive for him to apply for the position.

“Just being a parent over several years with my two kids coming through there was a lot of things that I would like to endorse and a lot of things that I didn’t agree with to be honest about it. So I thought it was opportunity to make a difference, hopefully, and had a lot of people from the community asking me to do so. So maybe just an opportunity to give back a little bit,” he said.