Two candidates raised thousands of dollars in bid for Bentonville School Board seat

BENTONVILLE -- The two men running for the Bentonville School Board Zone 7 seat combined to raise more than $11,000 for their campaigns, according to the candidates' preelection campaign contribution and expenditure reports.

Joe Quinn, the incumbent seeking his second full term, collected more than triple the amount raised by his opponent, Mike Swanson.

The election is Tuesday. Early voting started Oct. 26, with 247 votes cast as of the end of Friday, according to Dana Caler of the Benton County Clerk's Office. The winner will receive a five-year term on the board.

Only registered voters in Zone 7, which covers southwest Bentonville and parts of Centerton, Rogers, Highfill and Cave Springs, are eligible to vote in the election. There are 14,140 registered voters in the zone, Caler said.

Both candidates filed their preelection campaign reports Tuesday with the Benton County clerk.

Quinn collected 62 donations totaling $9,070, an average of $146 per donation. His largest donation was $1,000 from Shannon Bedore of Bentonville.

Quinn also received donations from other elected officials in the area, including $200 from Matt Burgess, a fellow Bentonville School Board member; $200 from Gayatri Agnew, a Bentonville City Council member; and $50 from April Legere, a Rogers City Council member.

Graham Cobb, president and CEO of the Greater Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Nelson Peacock, president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council, both gave $200 to Quinn's campaign.

Swanson raised $2,381. That included 13 donations of $50 or more and another $376 in nonitemized monetary contributions. Donations of less than $50 do not have to be itemized.

The largest donation to Swanson was $950 from the political action committee CIA-PAC 2, according to his campaign finance report. Joe Maynard of Fayetteville and Brenda Vassaur-Taylor of Springdale were listed as officers for the PAC when it was registered with the Secretary of State's Office in 2016. Maynard and Vassaur-Taylor are co-founders of the conservative group Conduit for Action.

Swanson also reported lending his campaign $600.

As for expenditures, Quinn spent $6,253 while Swanson spent $1,944.

Swanson paid a combined $1,701 to two companies for push cards and signs. He spent another $243 on nonitemized expenditures.

Quinn's largest expenditures were $1,964 for printing and mailing services, $1,500 for consultant fees and $846 for yard signs. He has a campaign fund balance of $2,817.

Swanson, 32, is an analyst for General Mills. He is the father of three: a 4-year-old, a fourth-grader at Evening Star Elementary School and a first-grader who attends school at First Baptist Rogers, he said.

Quinn, 65, is a self-employed consultant and executive director of the Arkansas Good Roads Foundation. He has two adult children. He ran unopposed for the board in 2016, one year after the board appointed him to a vacant seat.

Both candidates live in a part of Rogers that's within the Bentonville School District.

Most school districts in the state held board elections in May, but Bentonville opted for a November election.

School board positions are unpaid in Arkansas. There are seven seats on the Bentonville School Board.