{"id":15337,"date":"2010-12-06T20:35:25","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T00:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=15337"},"modified":"2010-12-06T20:35:25","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T00:35:25","slug":"jet-alum-j-d-sparks-elected-magistrate-and-justice-of-the-peace-in-kentucky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/12\/06\/jet-alum-j-d-sparks-elected-magistrate-and-justice-of-the-peace-in-kentucky\/","title":{"rendered":"JET Alum J.D. Sparks elected Magistrate and Justice of the Peace in Kentucky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to JET alum Terry Vo<\/strong> of the Consulate General of Japan in Nashville for sharing this press release.\u00a0 Terry also serves as President of JETAA Music City<\/strong><\/a> (i.e., Nashville).<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Pewee Valley, Oldham County, KY \u2013 November 2, 2010<\/em> J.D. Sparks<\/strong>, A former JET participant and current JETAA member, was elected as Magistrate and Justice of the Peace to Oldham County\u2019s Fiscal Court for Oldham County\u2019s fifth Magisterial District.<\/p>\n

JD ran as a Republican in the Primary against incumbent Iva Davis and won the slot as the Republican Candidate on the ticket.\u00a0 He was then unopposed in the General Election.\u00a0 This is JD\u2019s first election for public office.\u00a0 The duties will include evaluation of budgets for the county, new ordinances, taxing issues and a host of other public duties to insure the welfare of the community. In addition the Justices are able to marry people in the County.\u00a0 The position includes the traditional title of Squire.<\/p>\n

Along with Mr Sparks there were a number of first time nominees that won their elections and a new Judge Executive.\u00a0 While the position is considered full time most members traditionally maintain their regular jobs and serve as part time citizen legislators.\u00a0 JD will maintain his position as Executive Vice President of Public Equity Group, a firm that does international financing.\u00a0 JD says, \u201cI hope my years of international business operations and political volunteerism will help me in this position.\u201d\u00a0 And goes on to say, \u201cI want to be the People\u2019s voice on the court and uphold the ideals that I was elected under.\u201d<\/p>\n

JD and the others in this new administration will be sworn in on December 3rd at the Oldham County Court House.\u00a0 Their first meeting will be the following day to discuss the business of the Community and his position has a four year term.\u00a0 He will represent the 5th Magisterial District, which encompasses the southern part of Oldham County to include the outlying areas of Pewee Valley, Crestwood and the Worth districts.\u00a0 Oldham County is recognized in Kentucky as the county with the highest mean income per household and best schools in the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

While on the JET program, JD was a member of the AJET national Council<\/strong> as Vice Chair<\/strong> and served on his local AJET board for 3 years.\u00a0 He is married to Japanese national and former Middle school teacher Yuko Sunaga Sparks<\/strong> of Ogama-machi, Japan<\/strong>.\u00a0 She currently teaches at the The Greater Louisville Regional Japanese Saturday School<\/strong> hosted at Indiana University South East.\u00a0 They are also members of the Japan Club of Greater Louisville.\u00a0 They have two sons:\u00a0 Manabu and Kenta Sparks.\u00a0 JD is very proud of his Japanese Heritage (his family came from Kitsuki Japan in 1905) and has a minor in Asian American Studies from Loyola University Chicago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to JET alum Terry Vo of the Consulate General of Japan in Nashville for sharing this press release.\u00a0 Terry also serves as President of JETAA Music City (i.e., Nashville). Pewee Valley, Oldham County, KY \u2013 November 2, 2010 J.D. Sparks, A former JET participant and current JETAA member, was elected as Magistrate and Justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[318,304],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jets-in-the-news","category-notable-jet-alums"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-3Zn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15340,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337\/revisions\/15340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}