John Allison, superintendent of Mt. Lebanon schools, is a finalist for the top school job in Wichita, Kan.

The other finalist is Denise Wren, Wichita's assistant superintendent for high schools who has spent her entire 26-year career in education in the Wichita district.

Mr. Allison also has Kansas ties. He spent much of his career in the Shawnee Mission School District. In 2002 he took the position of deputy superintendent of the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He left Texas in 2007, when he took the Mt. Lebanon position.