BUFFALO TWP — A longtime Freeport School Board member who decided to run for another term late in the election did not regain his seat Tuesday night, but he has no hard feelings toward the newcomer replacing him.

“I served for 14 years and was very honored for the chance to do it,” said Mark Shoaf, who has been the board president, and is currently the vice president.

“Melanie Bollinger will be replacing me, and she will be an excellent board member. And for the first time in about 14 years, I can do something on Wednesday night,” he quipped.

There were five open seats on the school board and six names on the ballot.

Along with Bollinger, others who won are Michael Huth, Barbara Toy-Gaydos, Frank Prazenica and Frank Borrelli. All are current board members except for Bollinger.

In Butler County, Huth led with 889 votes, Toy-Gaydos had 876, Prazenica had 814, Bollinger had 893, Borrelli had 802 and Shoaf had 638 votes.

Adding in tallies from two precincts in Armstrong County, Huth finished with 1,437, while Toy-Gaydos had 1,376, Prazenica had 1,281, Bollinger had 1,378, Borrelli had 1,229, and Shoaf had 1,046.

Shoaf did not run in the primary because there was a possibility of him moving out of the area at the time. But over the summer, fellow board members Christine Davies and Toy-Gaydos, along with the district’s teachers’ union president urged him to try for another term. With their help, he was added as an independent candidate.

Bollinger, a mother of three students in the district, is excited to begin her first term on the board.

“I want to be that voice for the kids and all the other kids in the school district,” Bollinger said Tuesday night. “I just started going to the school board meetings and wanted to have a vote in what they were saying. Different issues would come up. I wanted to have a say-so in it.”

Some of the issues she wants to focus on are education, safety and school lunches.

Prazenica, going into his third term on the board, has three primary goals: Providing quality education, keeping costs under control and representing the district as a whole.

“We really have to focus in on the cost and tax dollars any way we can, avoiding cost and tax increases for the people,” he said.

Toy-Gaydos will be beginning her sixth term on the board, having served for 20 years. When she began, like Bollinger, she also had several children attending Freeport schools.

“It’s nice to see other people coming forward to do it too,” she said of Bollinger.

Borrelli said he will continue the path of improvement the school board has been on.

He said working with the new superintendent, school safety, and improving the education of the students will continue to be his priorities.

“I appreciate each and every vote that I got,” Borrelli said.

Toy-Gaydos, who said this will likely be her last term on the board, wants to keep tabs on various issues that are new or in flux, such as the recently opened middle school, the new football stadium being built and the superintendent who recently started.

At the same time, she’s going to miss a fellow board member.

“I’m sorry to see that Mr. Shoaf wasn’t re-elected. He was a really good board member,” she said. “He was a big asset to the board. He will definitely will be missed.”