The Pendleton School District needs solid leadership, and Briana Spencer is the right candidate to fill Position 7 on the board.

Briana is a strong leader. She believes in a community focus and investing in the future. She knows the issues, and she does not shy away from hard discussions. She would also bring some diversity and needed community engagement to the board.

Briana knows the community well and is invested in seeing it succeed. She’s grown up in the Pendleton community and attended Pendleton schools. She identifies with the community and its needs. She knows the challenges the community faces in educating its children in a changing world with limited state funding and a local economy where the hospitality industry and local businesses have been hit hard.

Briana would bring more diversity to the school board and is a credible voice on matters of racial equity. She multicultural and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

She is a long-time, dedicated volunteer, activist, and leader for many social justice causes since she was young. From her grassroots activism as the founder of the Pendleton Community Action Coalition, which advocates for human rights and accountability, to being a being a speaker on the Hermiston Cultural Awareness Coalition’s MLD Diversity Panel, Briana celebrates diversity and works for social justice. This is an especially important quality for a school board member to have — to exemplify all the kids in the district, the district’s employees, and the broader community are valued and supported and that will she work diligently to that end.

Briana is an impressive candidate, and she will make an even more impressive member of the Pendleton School District School Board. I urge you to support her with your vote.

Kristine Adams-Wannberg

Hillsboro

The East Oregonian does not run endorsements of more than 400 words.

The East Oregonian will institute a deadline for letters to the editor, so we can be fair with all the letters we receive and allow for responses before Election Day, if necessary.

We run the letters on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please submit your endorsement letters to the editor by 5 p.m. on Friday, May 7. You can email them to editor@eastoregonian.com, or mail them to East Oregonian, c/o Andrew Cutler, 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton, OR 97801.

We will publish our last letters on Saturday, May 15. Any letters received after the deadline will not run. Election Day is May 18.