Somerset Hills Board Member Leaves After Nine Years

Karen McMahon, the Far Hills representative to the Somerset Hills Board of Education for the last nine years, said good-bye to her fellow board members on Wednesday, prior to a new board member being sworn in at the board's Jan. 2 reorganization.

McMahon said she had chosen not to seek re-election, but nonetheless said she would miss working with a group of "extraordinary" board members and school administrators.

The new Far Hills board member, Susan Petrilli, is due to be sworn onto the board at the reorganization meeting scheduled to be held at 6 p.m. on Jan. 2, at Bernards High School. The school board election was moved this year from April to November, with newly re-elected board members to be sworn in at the beginning of the new year.

McMahon is the sole Far Hills representative on the board, which also includes six members from Bernardsville, two members from Peapack-Gladstone and one from Bedminster. With a smile, she said wanted to give special thanks to board members from the smaller towns.

Far Hills and Peapack-Gladstone are the smaller sending towns to the regional school district, while Bedminster Township sends its high school students to Bernards High School on a tuition-paying basis.

Board members and Schools Superintendent Peter Miller thanked McMahon for her years of service. Miller said McMahon had headed the policy committee while the district was redoing its policies.

After McMahon teared up, Board Member Linda Kragie assured her, "Every time you apologize for being emotional, I want to say, 'No, that's the voice we want to hear." She said McMahon had been the "emotional heart" of the board.

The board also will be responsible for naming a board president and vice-president on the night of the reorganization meeting, said board Business Administrator Nancy Hunter. She said that even if the board does not want to make committee appointments that night, liasion appointments should be made since some of those groups meet early in the year.