By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Friends of Denise Soucy knew something she didn’t on Tuesday: She was a School Committee candidate.

They wrote her name in for the Ward 6 seat – there was no official candidate – and she won with 23 votes.

“I said, You little rascals,'” Soucy said Wednesday.

As of Tuesday night, when she got the news from a Sun Journal reporter, the 41-year-old mother of four wasn’t sure she wanted to serve. But by Wednesday afternoon, she accepted the seat.

She said she was “deeply honored” by the vote.

Raised in Lewiston, Soucy graduated from Lewiston High School in 1981. She worked as a nurse at Maine Medical Center in Portland and at the neonatal unit at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.

She served on the school committee for Holy Cross School in Lewiston when her children were enrolled there. When the children transferred to Montello Elementary School a few years ago, she joined that school’s parent-teacher organization. She is now the vice president.

Her husband, Gary Soucy, a Lewiston native and accountant, said he considered running for the Lewiston School Committee when he learned that the current Ward 6 representative, Ronella Paradis, wasn’t seeking another term and that no other candidate had come forward. But he realized he didn’t have time.

Instead, he urged his wife to go for the seat. So did her friends.

“I’d said, Someone should step up and do it,'” Soucy recalled. “And they all kiddingly said, You should do it, Denise.'”

Turns out they weren’t kidding.

“I have a feeling I know who voted. I do have a lot of family and friends in the area and they know how committed I am to schools,” she said.

Soucy will continue to serve on the Montello parent-teacher board when she joins the School Committee.

As the Ward 6 member, she will represent families in the Martel Elementary School zone, although her own children go to Montello Elementary School. Because the children had been attending Montello when the family moved to Ward 6 a couple of years ago, they were allowed to stay. Soucy may now consider enrolling them at Martel.

As the new School Committee member, Soucy is interested in learning more about the school system’s gifted and talented program and its new ban on candy. She also looks forward to getting involved with the Pettingill and Farwell elementary school building projects.

“And of course, I’d love for them to rebuild Martel,” she said.

Soucy will begin her two-year term in January.