Topeka ? A former state Senate president is among three new appointees to the Kansas Board of Regents.

Gov. Bill Graves announced Friday he would appoint Dick Bond, who served as Senate president from 1996 to 2000, to the nine-member board that oversees the state’s universities, community colleges and technical colleges.

Graves also will appoint Donna L. Shank, co-owner of a Liberal insurance agency, and James Grier III, chief executive officer of a Wichita construction company, to four-year terms on the board.

Bond, Overland Park, said he thought his time in the Legislature  from 1986 to 2000  qualified him for the position. He said he had first discussed the position with Graves a year ago.

“It’s a help to understand the legislative process and know personally a lot of the people who are involved,” he said. “I know the majority of the regents personally.”

Sen. Sandy Praeger, R-Lawrence, is a member of the Senate committee that on Friday will discuss confirming the appointees. If the committee approves, the appointees become provisional members until the full Senate approves them early next year.

Though she said there had been some grumblings about replacing current regents Chairman Clay Blair with Bond, a Graves ally, Praeger didn’t expect anyone to block confirmation.

“I think any potential downside will be compensated by his knowledge of the state and his dedication to education,” she said. “There will be a little bit of political fallout from it. Maybe people will disagree with him personally or ideologically, but his credentials for this job are right on target. Anybody who tries to make an issue of it is being petty.”

Nonpartisan board

Current Regent Bill Docking of Arkansas City, a Democrat, said politics had little to do with governing higher education.

“As long as I’ve been on the board, we’ve always operated on a nonpartisan basis,” he said. “We check our political affiliation at the door.”

Bond is vice chairman of Guaranty Bank & Trust in Kansas City, Kan. He received both a bachelor’s degree and law degree from Kansas University.

He also is co-chairman of Jayhawks for Higher Education, the lobbying arm of the KU Alumni Association, and serves on the boards of the KU Edwards Campus, the Community Foundation of Johnson County and St. Luke’s South Hospital.

Shank is vice president and co-owner of Al Shank Insurance in Liberal. She has degrees from Seward County Community College and Wichita State University.

She is a board member for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry and is on the Accreditation Review Council for the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Grier is chairman and CEO for Martin K. Eby Construction Co. in Wichita. He received a bachelor’s degree from Kansas State University, where he is a member of the schools’ Engineering Hall of Fame. He also is a board member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Associated General Contractors.

Neither Shank nor Grier were available for comment Friday.

Commitments to others

Blair, Overland Park, and the other regents leaving the board  Floris Jean Hampton of Dodge City and Steve Clark of Wichita  were appointed by Graves in 1999.

Blair and Clark said publicly they didn’t want to be reappointed to the board. Though Blair in private conversations said he would have liked to continue on the board, Hampton said she had been willing to serve if reappointed. All the departing regents are eligible for at least one more term.

“I serve at the governor’s wishes,” Hampton said Friday, “and I appreciate he has other commitments to people.”

The appointments mean the board will start July with a third of its members new and searching for a replacement for Kim Wilcox, the board’s executive director, who is leaving July 15 to become dean of KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“It’ll be a challenge,” Hampton said. “There were already heavy challenges to be met with the fiscal crisis.”

Docking said turnover would continue to be a challenge for board. Since the board was reconfigured in 1999, two or three members are up for reappointment in most years.

“We have to adapt to this new system,” he said. “And the fact is, many years three regents will be leaving the board simultaneously.”