Gloria Symons and Mark Snell won the Ames School Board elections on Tuesday.

Results were posted on www.storycounty.com Tuesday night, and official results will be announced Friday.

Symons was the only officially registered candidate and ran against five declared write-in candidates: Snell, Gail Johnston, incumbent Mary Jane Bastiaans, Milan Dalal and Art Dixon.

Symons received 1,397 of the total 4,729 votes. Snell garnered 1,284 votes for the second open position.

Dalal, an ISU junior in political science, said although he did not win, he will still be active in the school district.

He received 207 votes.

“I don’t think it’s the end of my involvement with the school board,” Dalal said. “I’ll still be paying attention to the news and if I feel there is a need for me to go out and campaign for the issues, I will do that. I want to make sure taxpayers aren’t paying for unneeded expenditures.”

He said he was encouraged by the number of votes he received.

Dalal said he graduated from Ames High School and understands the people and issues involved in the district.

“Hopefully they’ll take notice of my suggestions so we can make improvements,” he said.

Dalal expressed concern over the possible one-cent local-option sales tax. He said many people support the tax to fund a new middle school.

“Everyone seems to be quick to jump on [the tax], but before I would advocate it I’d want to assess the situation and make sure all other options had been exhausted,” Dalal said.

Ames School Board Election Results

Number of people who voted: 4,729

Number of write-in votes: 3,332

Gloria Symons (the only officially registered candidate): 1,397

Mark Snell: 1,284

Gail Johnston: 1,266

Mary Jane Bastiaans: 411

Milan Dalal: 207

Art Dixon: 62

Other Write-Ins: 102

Source: www.storycounty.com