Resiliency and courage leads Struther's woman to inspire next generation

In 2020, a fun-loving Kristin Fox would never have imagined a battle with the flu would alter her life forever.

"I was diagnosed with Influenza A and went into septic shock and got bacterial pneumonia and ended up becoming a quadruple amputee," Fox said.

Fox also went into a coma, however, upon waking she was determined to move forward with her life regardless of her circumstances.

"My instant thought was how do I get back to work, how do I get back to being a mom, being an educator and how am I going to overcome this because I wasn't going to let it define who I was," Fox said.

Little by little, Kristin regained her skills. She tells 21 News she even drives now and is the principal at Northeast Ohio Impact Academy in Campbell.

"I just rode four rollercoasters this weekend with my kids and my nieces and nephew and I had to do it differently but I find a way to do everything differently and sometimes in education you have to pivot and do things differently in order to meet the needs of all students," Fox said.

This tremendous adversity has also helped Fox to find ways to maneuver through hardships within the district.

"At a time where funding has been drastically changed at the federal and state level and so how are we going to get creative with continuing to fund programs and afford opportunities to students that we always have or that we haven't yet, how do we get creative with doing that," Fox said. "I think my situation made me get creative with how do I go about living my life to the fullest in a different way," she said.

So when Fox threw her hat in the ring for a Struther's Board of Education seat, she saw it as an opportunity to further encourage her children and her students.

"I knew that how I came back from this was how they would look at a lot of things in life of how you can overcome the unthinkable," Fox said. "In some ways I think it's made me a better version of myself because I'm almost proving to myself all the things that I can do and I always tell my friends like don't tell me what I can't do, help me find all the ways that I can and will do it," she said.

Fox wants to be apart of what she calls continued success within the Struther's school district.

"I just have always believed in the school system and passionate about what we do here and I just want to continue to help us move forward and help us continue a lot of the momentum that we have," Fox said. "I am a literacy passionate person guru of believing that every child should be able to read and write proficiently and with passion and purpose," she said.

Fox said it's important to her, for the sake of the young eyes watching, to show perseverance and to never take no for an answer.

"When you're working with children, you have to have a growth mindset of like, you know, 'I can't do that isn't really an answer.' I can do that differently is more of an answer," Fox said. "You have to never give up and always find a way to be successful no matter what that looks and sometimes that looks differently," she said.

There are currently three board seats open and Fox is officially a certified candidate in the race alongside Joseph Fulin Jr. and Robert Noble.