Sharon Long, a former Evergreen school board member, will run as a Republican for the 49th legislative district seat held by Democrat Rep. Jim Moeller.

Long, 59, served on the school board from 1985 until she resigned to move to Colorado for work in 1995. She returned to Vancouver a few months later and now works as an office manager for a Vancouver paint company.

... Long said she is running in part to encourage a closer relationship between schools and the business community, an issue she worked on as a member and president of the Business Education Consortium during her tenure on the board.

While on the board, Long also got involved in textbook censorship issues. She said she never favored censorship but did support changes in selection criteria for textbooks, along with the rights of parents to control their children's access to books on school library shelves.

Asked why she is running, she said, "My children are all grown now. I no longer have the responsibility of being a mom. I have the freedom to be able to go up to Olympia and work on behalf of the issues that I believe are important to the 49th and to Clark County."

Among those, she said, is protection of children from sex predators. She favors passage of "Jessica's Law Plus," an initiative to impose mandatory minimum sentences of 25 years on those who use a position of trust to sexually exploit children. Backers of the initiative are circulating petitions statewide to get the measure on the November ballot.

Full story at: http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/06062006news33870.cfm