Eleanor Watson Duke, current District 2 Bogalusa City School Board member, announced she will seek re-election to the seat that she has represented for the past 12 years.

She is a retired school teacher with 32 years of experience, and according to her announcement, she understands the problems of attempting to educate hundreds of students with individual characteristic traits that must be addressed.

Her announcement conitues: “With a Bogalusa School System education during her entire youth, she was well-equipped to get her bachelor’s degree in four years by attending Louisiana College in Pineville and Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, graduating from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette.”

She has served with superintendents Greg Genco, Jerry O. Payne, Ruth Ann Horn, Louise Smith and currently Toni Breaux.

She said she remembers the individual creative endeavors that they endorsed and executed, with some of the results still being felt today.

Her district has undergone a large geographical change because of the federal 2010 census. Her district begins just beyond Highland Baptist Church and reaches south until Byrd Avenue School and eastward to Redmond Heights Housing and Bethlehem Baptist Church. She is the only female on the current board.

She is asking the people of District 2 to elect her for a final term.

She is married to Merlin Duke, and the couple has two sons: David Merlin Duke, an attorney, and Damon Watson Duke, a videographer for a local cable television company. Her daughter-in-law is Nikki Stewart Duke, a speech pathologist at St. Tammany Parish Hospital. She has one grandson, Finn Gabriel Duke, who is nearly 2 years old.

She is active in several community service, literary and social organizations, and she is a member of Elizabeth Sullivan Memorial United Methodist Church.