Dorsey vows school support, win or lose

Ben Dorsey hadn’t thought of becom­ing an elect­ed offi­cial until Ashley Ritchie-Rowland and some oth­ers talked with him about fill­ing a seat on the Clark County Board of Education that had been vacant for sev­en months.

“I nev­er real­ly had much of an inter­est in pol­i­tics,” he said, look­ing back on that time three years ago when the school board was still recov­er­ing from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and a peri­od of divisiveness.

The tim­ing didn’t seem right. His wife, hav­ing become dia­bet­ic, was deal­ing with her health sit­u­a­tion, and the cou­ple was already busy with their work and their children’s school activ­i­ties. His par­ents tried to dis­suade him.

But when it looked like no one else was going to do it, Dorsey fig­ured, why not him?

“I was the one who stepped up,” he said. “I felt like I could add a dif­fer­ent perspective.”

Dorsey was first appoint­ed to the District 4 seat and then elect­ed that year. He said his being elect­ed to the board was “kind of the cat­a­lyst” of changes that began with the new board, which includ­ed Ritchie-Rowland, Bill Taulbee, Carl Kiser, and Paula Branham Thomas.

“I just kind of end­ed up being a good fit,” he said.

This was when the board hired Superintendent Dustin Howard, who has put togeth­er “a great team,” Dorsey said, and led the dis­trict in “grow­ing great­ness,” a ref­er­ence to the Clark County Public Schools slogan.

Achievements have includ­ed con­struc­tion projects, more than 100 seniors grad­u­at­ing with enough dual cred­its to have asso­ciate degrees, Partners in Education with local busi­ness­es, a part­ner­ship with Bluegrass Community and Technical College cre­at­ing career path­ways for stu­dents, improv­ing the area tech­nol­o­gy cen­ter, and mov­ing toward pre-kinder­garten for all.

“Pre-kinder­garten enroll­ment is sky­rock­et­ing,” he added.

And the board played a part in all that, he said, while tak­ing the com­pen­sat­ing tax rate and “try­ing to man­age the bud­get as best we can.”

“We’re drain­ing our pri­vate schools’ edu­ca­tion funds because kids are want­i­ng to come to the pub­lic schools, because of what we built,” he remarked.

Dorsey, who just turned 45, is mar­ried to Erica Bishop. They have a son, Bryce, 16, and a daugh­ter, Peyton, 14. Both of his kids play soc­cer, as their dad did, and that keeps him “pret­ty busy,” he said.

He works as a resource man­ag­er for a spe­cial inspec­tions and geo-engi­neer­ing firm in Lexington, where he has been employed for sev­er­al years.

He tries to attend as many school events in Clark County as he can, from sport­ing events to school plays and ban­quets, and “stay up to date on what is hap­pen­ing in our community.”

Dorsey was born in Northern Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati; he and his broth­er were adopt­ed by par­ents from Winchester. His moth­er was a book­keep­er for the pub­lic library, and his father worked at Rockwell.

He attend­ed both pub­lic and Catholic schools and, upon grad­u­at­ing from Lexington Catholic in 1999, went to Marshall University on a full schol­ar­ship to play soc­cer. He was there for a lit­tle over two years before return­ing home.

“I spent a lit­tle too much time in the bars par­ty­ing with the team and my friends and not enough time in the class­room, and it didn’t end up work­ing out well for me,” he admits.

He got arrest­ed for crimes such as drug pos­ses­sion and assault with minor injury, but he said he has changed his lifestyle.

“It’s part of what made me who I am. I’ve nev­er denied those parts of my life. I can only say that I am not that per­son any­more,” he said.

Dorsey was arrest­ed ear­li­er this year, along with Ritchie-Rowland, in con­nec­tion with the alleged mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of mon­ey from the Winchester Youth Soccer League, whose board they served on. 

The two were indict­ed by a Clark County grand jury in October on charges of felony theft of more than $10,000. They are expect­ed to be arraigned in November. An indict­ment is an accu­sa­tion, not proof of guilt, and he is pre­sumed inno­cent until proven guilty.

Dorsey said he can­not dis­cuss the alle­ga­tions because the case has not been resolved.

“The only thing I can com­ment on is that I am vig­or­ous­ly defend­ing myself against the charges,” he said.

Dorsey is up for re-elec­tion this year, and his name is the only one on the bal­lot. However, there are two write-in can­di­dates who are chal­leng­ing him for the District 4 seat: Katie Brashear Jones, a moth­er of sev­er­al chil­dren in the local schools, and Valerie Frost, a for­mer teacher.

“I don’t real­ly feel it affects my abil­i­ty to serve our com­mu­ni­ty and my dis­trict,” Dorsey said of the theft case.

He wants to con­tin­ue to con­tribute to the growth and improve­ment in Clark County Public Schools.

“I feel like we’ve made great strides . . . and we’re on the right track,” he said.

“I’m hap­py with what­ev­er deci­sion the com­mu­ni­ty makes on Election Day,” he men­tioned, adding that he would remain involved in the schools even if he isn’t re-elect­ed to the board.

“Regardless of who’s in the 4^th District seat, I’m going to be as sup­port­ive as I can,” he said.