The Mehlville Board of Education’s longest-serving member, Larry Felton, recently took office as the new president of the Missouri School Boards’ Association, or MSBA.

What an honor for both Felton and the Mehlville School District.

As MSBA president, Felton will attend a monthly education roundtable with Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven in Jefferson City and the same MSBA meetings he already attends, but he remains committed to Mehlville.

“My first priority is obviously Mehlville,” Felton told the Call’s Gloria Lloyd after winning re-election in April. “It doesn’t change everything I’m going to attend in the district. That’s why I didn’t mention it in the campaign, because that’s not what I was running for.”

We believe that having Felton at the helm of the MSBA is a real plus for the school district, as the knowledge he will gain at state and national events can help further Mehlville’s goal of becoming a destination district. As MSBA president, Felton also will have the ability to showcase to a statewide audience all of the great things that are occurring in the Mehlville School District.

Felton first was elected to the Mehlville school board in April 2007 and has won re-election three times.

As a four-term board member, he is the longest-serving Mehlville board member since former board President Alex Lantos, who served five terms and 15 years on the school board, from 1983 to 1998.

As the board’s longest-serving member, Felton knows from experience what works here and what doesn’t work. We also firmly believe that Felton has really come into his own over the past year, demonstrating the maturity, vision and common sense needed to lead Mehlville forward.

Obviously, his MSBA peers have observed his leadership potential, as he has steadily risen through the ranks of the organization to become its president.

At the 2016 MSBA Leadership Summit earlier this month at the Lake of the Ozarks, Felton said his priorities as president will be advocacy for public schools, improving the local presence for school boards, leadership development and continuous improvement.

Given his nearly decade-long involvement with the Mehlville school board and public education, we believe Felton’s term as MSBA president will be a fruitful one.