Rick Garcia and David Hamilton were sworn in during the board’s May 16 regular business meeting as the new trustees for positions 3 and 7, respectively.
Garcia was elected to Position 3 during the May 7 general election, when he received 9,131 votes—51.69% of the vote—over incumbent Jim Rice, who received 8,534 votes, or 48.31%, according to canvassed voting results from Fort Bend County.
Garcia, an IT project manager, comes to the district’s board of trustees with two children who attend Fort Bend ISD schools, according to a May 16 news release.
Hamilton, meanwhile, won the race for Position 7 with 8,387 votes, followed by Orjanel Kianna Lewis, who had 7,853 votes, and Shell McClue, who had 1,264 votes. The Position 7 incumbent, Dave Rosenthal, decided not to run for re-election.
Hamilton, who works in commercial insurance, also has two children attending Fort Bend ISD schools, according to the news release.
There are no runoff elections for FBISD seats, so candidates only needed a plurality to win, which means the candidate with the most votes wins.
Fort Bend ISD Superintendent Christie Whitbeck and Rosenthal welcomed the new additions to the board.
“Congratulations to all,” Rosenthal said during the meeting. “And best of luck.”
The board of trustees also elected Kristen Davison Malone as the new board president, with Judy Dae as vice president and Shirley Rose-Gilliam as board secretary. Ahead of that election, the board unanimously moved to suspend board operating procedures that require a board member to have served on the board for at least two years to serve as president or vice president. Malone and Dae both were first elected to the board in May 2021.
