And Tony Ayub makes three

There was a lot of talk about whether long-time Montwood area band parent Tony Ayub would run for the Socorro Independent School District Board of Trustees this May. Late on Friday he made it official: he is. Ayub filed the necessary paperwork to be on the ballot and joins Joe Sarabia and Paul Guerra as the only official candidates so far in the race to select two at-large trustees. The incumbents, Charlie Garcia and Barbara Perez Pena, have picked up the application to file for re-election, but neither has officially filed.

Ayub, who in this picture can be seen on his frequent role of band booster, is being heavily supported by the people who normally post on a cleverly-named online forum. The people on that forum say they will back both Ayub and Sarabia chiefly because of their opposition of Superintendent Sylvia Atkinson.

This election should prove very interesting if Garcia and Perez Pena decide to run for re-election. They both have been supporters of the superintendent and their controversial extension of her contract should come up during the campaign. The people on the forum often claim that their grassroots efforts were responsible for the failure of the $397-million bond election last November, and say they can regroup to help elect their candidates to the board. This May's election will be a test of whether that's true or not.