Recently honored Burrell School Board member is former coordinator of national sports broadcasts

Tricia Shank credits her experience coordinating the logistics of national sports broadcasts for ESPN and other national media outlets for providing the business acumen necessary for her role as a Burrell School Board member.

Shank and former Burrell School Board member Genia Koziarski recently received Pennsylvania School Boards Association Honor Roll awards. The award recognizes eight or more years of school board service, leadership and work for the betterment of public schools.

“I was surprised that so many years have passed,” said Shank, who is in her ninth year on the Burrell School Board. She has also been on the board of the Burrell Education Foundation since 1999.

Shank, 52, is a Spanish teacher in the Leechburg Area School District. She is the mother of two children, Alex Krnacik, 27, and Zack Jones, 13, and wife to Darren Jones. She has a horse named Bee on her Lower Burrell farm.

One of the greatest personal assets she brings to the board is her capacity to listen.

“I can learn about someone else’s views and seriously consider what they say to me to make the best decisions,” she said.

“The loudest person or group is not always right and might not represent the majority,” Shank said. “Although there are times where there is a bit of truth embedded within their thoughts.”

For Shank, being a school board member is all about putting children and education first.

“You want to do what is best for the kids and the district, while being financially responsible,” she said.

The financial part of district budgets is often more time-consuming than the public realizes. The board meets for months working with the district business manager, superintendent and others.

“Every year we say we don’t want to raise taxes,” she said. But new financial challenges arise frequently.

“I want the public to know it’s not a frivolous process,” Shank said. “We start to look at the budget in January and work through to the June meetings sometimes.”

Shank credits her early-in-life career as a logistics coordinator for NEP Broadcasting in Harmar, which took her to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona for NBC coverage. She worked to assemble television crews, working with ESPN, Golf Channel, NBC and more for various sporting events.

Shank worked with budgets of $1 million to $2 million for just one national event such as a golf tournament.

She loved the career and the travel until she started to raise a family.

“If we were doing a golf event in San Antonio and a piece of equipment broke, I was on the phone working out the problem,” Shank said.

“That job was a 24-7 job where I was never not available.”

Shank switched professions more than 20 years ago.

Before her television production work, she earned her undergraduate degree in linguistics with a minor in Spanish at Penn State. She returned to school to become a teacher.

In 2002, she graduated with a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Pittsburgh.

After stints at some local school districts, Shank settled in at Leechburg Area.

“I love the small-school environment, not that I didn’t like the other schools,” she said. “It is a good fit for me.”