Marblehead High to hold second quote vote

MARBLEHEAD – An 18 percent voter turnout just didn’t seem sufficient to choose quotes that will stand at the entrance to Marblehead High for generations to come – so the high school is scheduled to hold a second election for that purpose later this month.Quotes from Erasmus, Martin Luther King, Albert Einstein and Ralph Waldo Emerson are in the running, selected from a field of 13 after input from class officers, students, school administrators, teachers and the School Committee.Two will be chosen for engraving on plaques to fill two blank spots at the school entrance, as the class gift from the Class of 2009.Class members want the entire school, including teachers, students and staff, to vote on the final choices. When ballots were distributed in the cafeteria Dec. 17, amid the noise and turmoil of lunch, about 200 votes were cast. The high school has 978 students and 154 teachers and staff, for a total of 1,132 potential voters.Class Advisor Patricia Clough, Principal John Ziergiebel and the class officers want to try again with ballots distributed in homerooms. The results of the previous election and the ballots are being discarded.The quotes are listed in two categories.The education category includes, "The main hope of a nation lives in the proper education of its youth," Erasmus, and "Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education," Martin Luther King.The choices in the leadership category are, "The important thing is to never stop questioning," Albert Einstein, and "Do not go where the path may lead; instead go where there is no path and leave a trail," Ralph Waldo Emerson.The quotes that didn’t make the cut included the words of educators John Dewey and Allan David Bloom, inspirational writer William Arthur Ward, pioneer scientist Galileo Galilei, spiritual leader Confucius, poet William Butler Yeats, political leaders Nelson Mandela and John F. Kennedy and educational activist Marian Wright Edelman.