Mo. Governor Jay Nixon announced the appointment of Jim Fleischaker and student representative David Sigars to the Board of Governors Tuesday.

Fleischaker said this application was his second attempt to join the board. He believed after his initial failure that he was done with trying to apply for the board, but others encouraged him to apply again.

“Recently in the past year I had been approached by people in the school and the University asking if I would consider being on the board,” he said. 

“I had support in the past from bipartisan groups or individuals. I know some Republicans and some Democrats indicated they think I would be a good board member. I guess my initial reaction was, ‘Is this something I want to undertake at this point?’ And I guess after being urged to do so I would give it a shot and hopefully be able to contribute to the Board of Governors.”

University President Bruce Speck said he is happy to see Fleischaker join the board.

“I’ve seen Jim Fleischaker in various contexts,” he said. “He’s been a very active member of the community. He goes to various chamber events. He’s very well known in this area. He seems to be a very reasonable person and I think he’ll do a great job as a board member.”

Fleischaker will take Dwight Douglas’ chair.

Sigars is the Student Senate treasurer. He said the positions would not clash.

“I report on what students have been doing over that month, what was successful, what was not,” he said. “I report on different RSO [registered student organizations] and what they’re doing, especially student senate. Any concerns brought to me by students, I discuss with Darren [Fullerton] and then I discuss what action to take. Pretty much, I am here to be a voice for the students.”

Speck is also happy to see a member of the student senate as the student representative of the Board of Governors.

“Last time the student representative was not on the senate, so the student representative went to the senate and was made available but it’s a different dynamic … so he’ll be able to report a little more accurately I think in terms of what’s actually happening in the student senate,” he said.

Speck said the Board of Governors is to have equal political representation, never allowing more than four members of each political party to be represented in the board.

“The appointment of the board is based upon political affiliation so no more than half the board can be one political party, so that means we have it pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans,” Speck said. 

“We happen to have on our board an Independent, so I think when that happened it was a Democrat slot and they put an Independent in there.”

Missouri Southern’s Board of Governors still has an open position. 

“Jones is still vacant, so they have yet to fill Jones’, but Jim is replacing Dwight Douglas, so … they still have one position to fill — that would be David Jones’ position,” Speck said. “And actually Rod Anderson is in that position and hasn’t been appointed but has been in there for going on two years.”

Both new appointees will attend the next meeting of the Board of Governors.