Mark Bowden running for school board

Mark Bowden, an award-winning author, is running for a seat on the Kennett Consolidated School Board.

KENNETT SQUARE >> Mark Bowden, an award-winning news writer and author of “Black Hawk Down,” is running for a seat on the Kennett Consolidated School District Board this year.

“I have five children of my own who went to public schools, and I have a real interest in public schools,” Bowden said. “I wanted to do something more for the community, and this seemed to be the appropriate time to do it.”

Bowden, who lives on Sickle Street in Kennett Square, is seeking the open seat for the borough on nine-member board, and plans to cross-file to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries this spring. He is presently on the faculty of The University of Delaware as its Distinguished Writer in Residence.

He has been a college professor at Loyola University and University of Delaware for 16 years, and is stepping down later this year from his full-time position there. His wife, Gail, recently joined the board of The Bayard Taylor Memorial Library.

“Leaving my full-time teaching job has given me more time to do something other than my writing,” Bowden said.

Bowden, 65, is the author of 13 books, including his latest, “Killing Pablo,” and is a longtime journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair magazine and The Atlantic. For more than 20 years he was a reporter and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“I care about the schools, and I care about the community,”

Bowden said. “I bring a lot of experience, working with young people and having been a teacher. I have a real interest in public schools.”

Bowden was a National Book Award finalist in 1999 for “Black Hawk

Down,” and an American Society of Newspaper Editors finalist in 1979. He also earned the Overseas Press Club’s Cornelius Ryan Award for “Killing Pablo,” a story about Pablo Escobar, a ruthless Columbia drug czar.

“I love Kennett Square,” said Bowden, who moved to the borough two years ago. “Kennett Square is everything

we hoped it would be. I have made a lot of new friends here.”

Bowden owned a horse farm outside of Oxford, but sold it to move to Kennett Square.

“The kids are a lot more eager to visit us here in Kennett Square than to come out to the farm in Oxford,” Bowden said. “There’s a lot more to do here.”

Mark Bowden