Evaristo Salas Jr. said there were days he wasn’t sure he would make it out of prison.

But one thing he did know was that, if he ever got the chance, he wanted to help the youths of Sunnyside, Washington.

Now, with a significant lead over his opponent, Laura Galvan, for a seat on the Sunnyside School Board, he says he’s ready to serve his community.

Galvan didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“I’m surprised and happy about it,” said Salas, who won 61.4% of the vote counted as of Friday. “I put in a lot of work.”

Salas is a consultant for the Grandview School District, where he mentors at-risk students, and a full-time student at Columbia Basin College majoring in social work with a minor in criminal justice. He was 16 when he was wrongfully convicted of shooting 24-year-old Jose Arreola twice in the head in November 1995. He spent 27 years in prison before being released two years ago.

With no compensation for his wrongful imprisonment, Salas continues to fight his conviction and has a lawsuit pending against multiple agencies in Sunnyside, including the Sunnyside Police Department and the city of Sunnyside.

Still, he said his focus now is on the community and on making sure people he will represent have someone they can depend on. He noted that, during the months he spent canvassing, many residents told him it was the first time a candidate had come by their home to talk about a campaign.

He recalled one resident who has been living in Sunnyside for 60 years and said they had never had a one-on-one conversation with any local leaders about their campaigns.

“Having that connection with the community is something that I think Sunnyside is really hungry for, because a lot of the houses I went to, they feel like they don’t have a voice,” Salas said.

Perla Clara, a Sunnyside resident, said she was excited to learn he was leading in the vote. Clara said she grew up with a childhood similar to Salas’ and lived in a high gang activity area.

Seeing him persevere has been inspiring for her, she said.

Clara and her husband, Chase Reiff, a local muralist, are working with Salas to restore community murals that have been covered with gang graffiti.

“I really respect what he’s doing,” Clara said.

Salas has a lead of 89 votes. Since there are only about 800 votes to count in all of Yakima County, that lead should be enough to win.

But Salas isn’t declaring victory, though he’s cautiously optimistic. He is using his free time to prepare for the school board and plans to start work on a mural project next week. He said his idea is to tell a story about history through Aztec and Mayan traditional art for one of the murals near Sunnyside High School.

They also plan to redo another mural near Kiwanis Youth Park, an area known for gang activity.

“I’ve always understood that no matter where you come from, whatever struggle you face in life, or even whatever setbacks you have, that if you’re determined, your intentions are in the right place and you really care about the community you come from, you can make a difference,” Salas said.

“That’s something that just got reinforced with this, and I think it’s something that I’m going to carry with me the rest of my life,” he said.

This article was first published by The Spokesman-Review through the Murrow News Fellow program, managed by Washington State University.

This story is republished from the Washington State Standard, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet that provides original reporting, analysis and commentary on Washington state government and politics.