The New Lenox School District’s elections board decided to keep a non-incumbent candidate on the ballot after he was challenged by an objector who said he had minor errors on his application and is a one-issue candidate.

Phil Adair, a New Lenox resident who is running for a District 122 School Board position, was challenged by Wendy Williams, a Mokena resident who lives within the district’s boundaries. Both parties pleaded their cases Tuesday night to the district’s elections board, which includes board members Kathy Markus, Patrick Martino and Sue Smith.

Williams pointed out various errors in Adair’s candidacy petition, including a missing election date and incorrectly writing that he’s running for a board “trustee” and not board member. But her reasoning for questioning Adair's candidacy, she told the board, was that he had spoken at a board meeting about renaming Liberty Junior High School.

"She felt he just had an agenda to rename the junior high," district spokeswoman Jenny Zimmerman said. "She wanted to know if he was going to do anything service-worthy."

Adair has spoken mutliple times during the board's public hearing portions in favor of changing the junior high's name after Ron "Papa" Schaper, the founder of New Lenox Mustangs Football who died in February.

"She said I’m just a single-issue candidate, but I said, 'Haven’t you seen any of the other meetings where I've talked about other issues?'" Adair said. "I've talked about the tax levy, expenses and other issues. She couldn't answer that."

Additionally, while questioning errors in Adair's application, Williams failed to include all the required information for an official objection. The board's decision states the objection "does not state the Objector's interest in filing the objection." The board voted 3-0 to keep Adair on the ballot.

"The board decided the errors were not significant enough to remove him from the ballot," Zimmerman said.

There are three open seats on the District 122 School Board that will be decided in local elections April 5. Joining Adair on the ballot are William Strons, Maureen Broderick, Nick Di Sandro, Kevin Barry and Sue Gillooley. Broderick and Gillooley are incumbents, and Markus did not file for re-election.