Inside the Precincts: The Seismic Shift in Bethel Township

Vol. III, No. 161 - A Race for School Board Shows a Shift

We Are Feeding our Neighbors here at Civic Capacity

Throughout November, this publication is giving our readers an opportunity where our readers can support local food pantries. Every dollar received from our “Buy Me a Coffee” Page will be given to New Path Food Pantries.

We started November with a modest goal to raise $750. After the seventh day of our campaign, our community has raised $1,970! Our new goal for November is to raise $2,500. You can be a part of this effort by making a donation here:

Is Bethel Local Schools turning into North Huber Heights City Schools?

If there is one part of Miami County that shows the most dramatic change, it is the southeastern corner—Bethel Township. And the place where that change is felt most clearly is inside the Bethel Local School District. As Huber Heights has expanded north over the past decade and a half, families moving into that area have enrolled their children in Bethel Local Schools, creating a wave of new students. The result has been nothing short of remarkable growth.

This year’s graduating seniors are leaving a district of 1,921 students. When those students began kindergarten, Bethel Local had just 905 students. That is a 107 percent increase in thirteen years. The school district they are finishing in 2025 looks and feels nothing like the one they entered as kindergarteners. Classrooms are fuller, buildings newer, and the mix of students and families more suburban than rural. Those shifts in population are now driving changes at the ballot box.

The Bethel Local School Board election on Tuesday reflected this transformation in ways the district has never seen before. For decades, Bethel Township residents dominated local elections. But the population balance has now tipped toward the north. Four years ago, a narrow majority of voters—about 51 percent—lived in the township, with the rest in the Huber Heights portion of the district. Going into the 2025 election, that reality flipped. Today, 56 percent of all registered voters in the district live in the City of Huber Heights.

That single fact changes almost everything about how campaigns are run and who prevails. Bethel Local is no longer a small-town school district in both identity and voter makeup. It increasingly resembles the northern extension of Huber Heights, with many of its households and voters sharing suburban concerns rather than the rural traditions that defined Bethel Township for more than a century.

Those changes showed up clearly in the numbers on Tuesday night. Kristen Amburgey, a resident of the Huber Heights portion of the district, finished as the top vote-getter in the four-way race for three school board seats. She received 1,025 votes, or about 28.7 percent of all votes cast. While that total secured her the top spot, the breakdown of where those votes came from tells a bigger and more revealing story.

In Bethel Township’s voting precincts, Amburgey’s support was limited. She earned just 436 votes, equal to 19.18 percent of the township total. But in the Huber Heights precincts, she performed exceptionally well—earning more than 38 percent of the vote in every one of the city’s four precincts. In Precinct Huber Heights D, her strength was overwhelming: she captured nearly 55 percent of the vote, a rare showing in a race that allowed voters to choose up to three candidates. Many voters there appear to have supported Amburgey alone and left their other two options blank, an indication of focused and intentional backing.

Altogether, Amburgey carried 45 percent of the vote in Huber Heights precincts. The other two winning candidates, Natalie Donahue and Andrew Vieth, trailed significantly among city voters. Donahue received about 20 percent of the Huber Heights vote, while Vieth drew around 18 percent. Their numbers were stronger in the township, where Amburgey struggled, but not strong enough overall to overcome the city’s growing voter share.

What emerges from this election is not just a result—it is a reflection of how quickly Bethel Local’s identity is changing. The township still holds onto its rural roots and traditions, while the Huber Heights neighborhoods in the district represent newer growth, denser housing, and families often newer to the area. As those city precincts continue to grow and send their children to Bethel schools, they now hold decisive sway in who sits on the school board and what direction the district takes.

This is also going to change the nature of school board elections moving forward. As the vote becomes more concentrated in the Huber Heights portion of the district, there will naturally be less effort by candidates to attract traditional Bethel Township voters. Campaigns always follow where the numbers are. When more voters live in one concentrated area, candidates working with limited budgets and scarce resources will direct their time and energy to where those votes exist. Increasingly, that will be the neighborhoods on the Huber Heights side of the district.

Tuesday’s election was about more than candidates and vote totals. It marked a turning point that makes clear Bethel Local is no longer the same district it once was. The leadership chosen this week will now guide a school system that is learning how to balance rural heritage with suburban growth. The question in coming years will be how well that balance is kept—and whether the district can stay united as its future increasingly looks more like Huber Heights than old Bethel Township.

Participate in our November Community Survey!

Back when this project was kicked off over two years ago, this newsletter was imagined as a helpful tool to not only help have our residents understand their community, but also to receive feedback and get ideas on how residents perceived where our hometowns was headed.

In order to achieve that goal, the decision was made to release a small survey that would ask residents their thoughts and feelings every two months. Every month seemed excessive, yet, once a quarter didn’t seem quite frequent enough. The idea was to help create a picture of the sentiment in the community and measure that sentiment over time.

So, throughout November, you can participate in our survey to give your thoughts and feelings on the direction of your hometown!

You can access the survey here:

Thanks for your time and your participation! It is greatly appreciated!

A New Handbook to grow Civic Capacity!

Recently, we created a new digital handbook, “The Citizen’s Guide to Public Records”. This handbook is designed to help residents have a better understanding of public meetings and meeting records. It’s filled with templates, ideas and other information that will open a new world of public affairs.

Also, if you have ideas for future handbooks, please let us know at pinnaclestrategiesltd@gmail.com.

Want to Learn More About Troy’s Businesses?

Our publication has recently released our September 2025 Economic Abstract, the most comprehensive and up-to-date report on the businesses and industries in the City of Troy. For those that want to understand our community’s business and industries, this is a must-have report.

Thank you to our New Media Partners!

Recently, many of our stories has been showing up on the local news website, www.mymiamicounty.com. We are grateful for the good folks for sharing our work with their audience and we would encourage our readers to check them out at their website!

Our publication would also like to recognize the good work being done at www.piquanewsnow.com. Piqua News Now is a new web-based news and information site for the Miami County area, with a specific focus on Piqua!

In addition, the good folks at Piqua News Now have started a new, 24-hour streaming YouTube channel. This channel is awesome with continuous weather updates and more importanly, it provides a 24-hour audio feed from county wide dispatch. Check it out here!

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