We’re extremely gratified that so many people are running for seats on the Oxford Board of Education.

Nine people running for three, four-year seats is fantastic!

More candidates, more input, more ideas, more voices – it’s all good. But this is a race and there can be only three winners.

We recommend voters cast their ballots for Dan D’Alessandro, Jennifer Guthrie and Heather Shafer.

We believe these candidates represent just the right mix of experience and new blood to help continue steering the district in the positive direction it’s been heading ever since Superintendent Tim Throne took the helm.

All three candidates are heavily involved in the schools and in the community. All three seem to be knowledgable about what’s going on in the district, passionate about improving things for students and ready to listen.

The Oxford school district suffered enough under the reign of the previous superintendent, who cared about nothing outside his own glory and bank account. People lived in fear of him and suffered whenever they crossed him.

But those dark days are done. It’s a completely different district under Throne’s leadership, which has been like a healing balm. People are happy again. People feel like they can breathe again. People feel like they matter again. People feel like this is their school system again.

We want all this to continue and the best way to ensure that is by electing candidates who are focused on moving forward, not mired in the past.

We need to elect candidates who are interested in building something and encouraging others, not tearing down everything and everyone around them.

We need to elect candidates who truly have the best interest of the district at heart and don’t just view being a school board member as yet another platform from which to grandstand and beat people over the head with their views.

D’Alessandro, Guthrie and Shafer are the best choices among the current crop of candidates and we endorse them without reservation.

As voters head to the polls on Nov. 8, may they remember the wise words of the great 18th-century Irish statesman Edmund Burke – “It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”