Candidate for
Board Member; Sycamore Community School District

Pat Raffel has been an area resident for 54 years. For all but seven of those years, he has lived within the Sycamore School District. He has been married to Emily for 31 years and the couple has four children, all of whom graduated from Sycamore Schools. Stephen graduated with a business degree from the University of Cincinnati and is currently working in the family business. Nicki graduated from the University of Cincinnati and is currently pursueing an advanced degree in education. Diana is a semester away from graduating from Bowling Green in education. Maggie is currently a sophomore at Kent State working on a business and hospitality degree with plans of entering the family business.

Mr. Raffel has owned and operated Raffel's Catering Inc. since 1973. The business operates two banquet facilities in Blue Ash and Evendale. His business has sponsored several area youth sports programs each year for over 30 years. He has been personally active in local sports and school groups. He coached baseball, softball, soccer, football, and basketball for 20 years with area organizations for both girl's and boy's teams. He served as a board member for the Sycamore Athletic Club.

Mr. Raffel is a 30 year member of St. Paul's United Methodist Church where he served on the nursery school board for more than 12 years. He also served as a board member for People's Savings and Loan, which later became a part of Provident Bank. Mr. Raffel was recently appointed to the Reading Road Business Revitalization Committee for the Village of Evendale.

He also served six years on the Sycamore Schools Planning Commission, first as a member-at-large and later as chairman. He continued to serve the commission for two more years as the representative for the Blue Ash Civic League until being elected to the Board of Education in 2000.

Mr. Raffel currently serves as President of the Sycamore Schools Board of Education while sitting on the insurance and policy committees. Mr Raffel has twice served on Sycamore Schools strategic planning committees.