Clarke County Board of Education member LaKeisha Gantt will announce her candidacy for mayor today, giving speeches at three points of significance to her life.
Gantt will begin the day at 9 a.m. at 297 Hawthorne Ave., near the entrance to the Columbia Brookside mixed-income development. She grew up in what was formerly the Jack R. Wells public housing complex, better known as Pauldoe.
At 9:45 a.m., Gantt will stop at the now-shuttered Frank C. Maddox Center on Magnolia Street, where she attended daycare as a child. The tour will conclude at 10:30 a.m. at City Hall.
“How I run the race is as important as winning,” Gantt said in a news release. “I’ve spent my life helping people heal, and I know that we as a city are not healthy unless everyone feels heard.”
Gantt graduated from Clarke Central High School and holds a master’s degree in community counseling and a PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Georgia.
She worked as a career counselor and behavioral specialist for the school district before being elected to the school board representing District 7 in 2018 and again in 2022. She served as its president from 2019–2024, during which time she was a consistent supporter of controversial former superintendent Demond Means.
One of Gantt’s colleagues on the school board, former Athens-Clarke County commissioner Tim Denson, is also in the race. So is current commissioner Dexter Fisher, a former CCSD and UGA administrator.
Gantt’s campaign website is lakeishaforathens.com.
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