Ken Mengerink enters VW mayoral race

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

After two decades as a Van Wert City Board of Education member — with more than a decade of that time as school board president — Ken Mengerink is looking for a new challenge.

Mengerink, who was unable to complete the petition process for the May Republican primary because he had to help his daughter recover from an injury, has now filed as a write-in candidate for mayor. He will run in November against Republican Don Farmer, who won the Republican nomination over incumbent Mayor Louis Ehmer and Second Ward Councilman Kirby Kelly back in May.

Although Mengerink is a longtime member of the city school board and also has spent a number of years on the Vantage Board of Education — also serving as president of that board — he also has experience as a city official, logging eight years as an at-large member of City Council back in the 1980s.

A former employee of Central Insurance Company who retired last year after 37 years with the company, Mengerink spent served mostly in the information technology department. He also served six years in the U.S. Army Reserve after graduating from Van Wert High School in 1968.

Mengerink is also the school board’s representative on the Van Wert Area Performing Arts Foundation (VWAPAF), the group that operates the Niswonger Performing Arts Center of Northwest Ohio.

Coupled with Mengerink’s filing as a write-in mayoral candidate was his decision to drop out of the school board race, which leaves three candidates running for three positions there. In addition to current Board President Mike Morrow, two first-time candidates, Ben Cowan and Jessica Weiss, are also running for city school board. Current VWCS board member Marylou Smith earlier decided not to run for re-election.

Meanwhile, Mengerink said he knows it will be tough, but not impossible, to win in November. Traditionally, write-in candidates don’t fare well against incumbents or those who win primary nominations.