Pinellas County School Board candidate Kent Curtis is taking advantage of every minute in his battle to unseat incumbent Peggy O’Shea.
Curtis, a USF St. Pete professor, took to the corner of 38Avenue North and 4 Street with a gang of six supporters including two elementary-aged kids with signs hoping to lure a few more votes before polls close at 7.
Earlier today, Curtis waved signs at the corner of Tyrone Boulevard and 66 Street and spent part of the day calling voters.
“In many ways I’ve been running against the status quo,” Curtis said. “I think people are tired of [that.]”
Curtis’s opponent, O’Shea, has been relatively quite in her campaigning. She missed at least one chance to woo voters at a Suncoast Tiger Bay luncheon earlier this month. And her website has been down, is still down, for maintenance. That’s something Curtis sees as a likely advantage.
“In the eleventh hour if people are looking for information, they can’t find it,” Curtis said.
Curtis is perhaps most well known for his work on the Edible Peace Patch, which teaches kids how to garden. Supporters campaigning for him lauded that as something that makes him a breath of fresh air for people concerned about the trajectory of Pinellas schools.
“There could not be a better candidate,” Stonewall Democrats president Susan McGrath said. “He’s already done so much with students.
Win or lose, Curtis and his supporters will be at the Three Birds Tavern in St. Pete.
“But, I never planned to lose,” Curtis said. “I plan to win.”
