- Harvey Kenton (R-36th District)
On the campaign trail, Harvey Kenton talks the talk with farmers. “If you go to the farm when they are combining, you don’t stop the farmer—you jump in the combine with them,” he said. “It makes it nice pulling into a farm and being able talk their language.”
Shop talk with farmers comes easily for Kenton. The Republican candidate for 36th Representative District spent most of his career in sales, for a Milford fertilizer company and later for an insurance and real estate agency. He is a lifelong resident of the rural Milford area.
Kenton says he worries about Delaware’s farmers. “Agriculture is very important in Delaware,” he said. “The EPA and DNREC [Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control] make mandates, but there’s no money that comes with it. The farmers are already running a slim profit margin. You can regulate them out of business. You have to work closely with the farmers.”
As a prospective state legislator, the Milford High School and Wesley College star athlete says his main concern is the state of the economy. He said he has begun working with chambers of commerce to see what small businesses need to prosper.
Kenton believes that education and the economy are intertwined. To build a strong economy children need a good education, and to attract large businesses, the state needs strong schools.
“We spent a lot of money on education, but teachers are forced to teach to the test and are not given the chance to open up creative minds,” he said. “We spend too much money on administration.”
Kenton’s hope is that the funding Delaware was awarded as a winner of the federal Race to the Top education grant will enable the state to spend more money in the classroom. Improvements in education, combined with supporting small businesses and attracting larger ones, will create a brighter outlook for students as they enter the workforce, he said.
“If we create the right jobs we will stop losing our quality kids who are getting an education and having to move” to find jobs, said Kenton.
