[/24/04]As the deadline approaches, two people have filed for the District 5 school board seat and five in District 1.

Tommy Shelton, 51, on Thursday joined the race for the District 5 seat on the Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees. He joins Joanne Gibbs, who filed earlier.

Bryan Pratt, 36, has become the fifth candidate in District 1.

Already filing were self-employed roofing contractor Jerry Boland, 45; Ergon director of system engineering Steven Elwart, 51; Grand Gulf Nuclear Station reactor operator Shawn McKeever, 33; and former Vicksburg High School secretary Brenda Theriot, 52.

The deadline to file for the two seats is a week away, at 5 p.m. on Oct. 1. Qualifying papers and instructions are available from the Warren County Circuit Clerk’s Office, where completed papers may also be returned.

Oct. 1 is also the cutoff date for anyone who has not registered and wants to vote in the Nov. 2 presidential and other contests.

Shelton, an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Mississippi Valley Division, has one child attending a district school and two others who have graduated. He narrowly missed winning the post six years ago, trailing former trustee Kay Aasand by 27 votes in an election wit about 2,800 cast.

Pratt, director of information technology at Ameristar Casino, said he has two children attending a district school and a preschooler he plans to enroll in the 8,800-student district. He is a first-time office-seeker who said he is a lifelong resident of Vicksburg.

Both seats became vacant through resignations this year, and interim appointees are serving in them. School-board members are elected to six-year terms, with the terms for one or two districts expiring every other year. Stipends for service are about $2,400 per year.

Also on Nov. 2 ballots will be seats on the county election commission, two seats on the state Supreme Court from the Central District and the U.S. Representative from the state’s 2nd District.