Through the 2017 Municipal Election season The Eagle 100.9 and Okotoks Online will be bringing you profiles of candidates to help you make an informed decision.

There are nine candidates running for two School Board Trustee positions, and Laurie Copland is one of them.

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

"Well I'm a mother of two grown boys who have gone through the school system in Okotoks, we've been here for about 21 years. I worked at Safeway in Okotoks for a little while, and I'm the incumbent, the returning Trustee, I've done that for 13 years."

What is your platform?:

"I never want to call it a platform, I like to call it things that I want to work to help our kids become better learners and better people. I think platform is kind of this is exactly what I want, but I think you have to listen to parents, kids, and other stakeholders, they're hands on more than I can be sometimes so we need to listen to them. One of the big ones is getting more supports into the schools, I'd like to see a Special Resource Officer in all of our schools, or one for each ward in the division. I think sometimes police officers get a bad name, and I think if we get one besides a DARE officer to come out to schools and help kids if they need it I think that's important. I think another big thing for me, it's a hard one just because I believe it's the flavour of the month and a change of the government but it's all this LGBTQ, gay straight alliances and all that stuff. I don't like to call it a flavour because I know it's very important to people, but so is being a redhead, being overweight, and being different in any way. I wish we could all look at everybody, and look after everybody regardless of anything. We're spending too much time I believe just with all this LGBTQ stuff, I wish that we could take a break and try to make everybody happy with it."

Why do you believe you'd make a good Trustee?:

"I'm not quiet and shy one in the group, I'm kind of like a dog with a bone. I believe we need to stand up for our kids, and we need to work hard with them and parents, because everybody's important and we need to remember that, I don't mind taking the hard calls," she says. "I will fight to the bitter end to make sure that all sides are heard from, I don't mind taking on anybody that I believe I need to take on."

Every Okotoks candidate running for the 2017 municipal election will get to opportunity to explain who they are, their platform and why they are running. The candidate profiles are posted at random. If you are a candidate and have not been contacted, please email news@okotoksonline.com

Questions, comments, or story ideas? Email us at news@okotoksonline.com