Frank Kelty (City of Unalaska)

A familiar face has been appointed to serve on Unalaska’s school board.

Frank Kelty was the only applicant for the seat that Unalaska’s fire chief used to hold. Abner Hoage stepped down in November for a job leading the Ketchikan fire department.

Kelty says the school board "is about the only thing I really don’t have on my resume in my 44 years in the community."

Kelty is a natural resource analyst for the city of Unalaska -- and a serial public servant. He was Unalaska’s mayor for a decade, and a city councilor before that, with stints on regional panels and fisheries boards along the way.

In that time, Kelty has sent one daughter and three grandchildren through Unalaska schools. And he says the district has transformed itself.

"Parents would pull their kids out when they got to high school age and go down south and leave the community because they were concerned with quality of education," Kelty says. "That’s not the case now. We have an award-winning district, we have great teaching staff -- many of them have been here long-term. And I think it’s one of our best assets in the community."

Kelty says he’s hoping to protect that asset against a possible drop in state funding by volunteering to serve on the district’s budget committee -- just as he’s done, for the last 30 years.

Kelty hasn’t decided whether he will run to keep his school board seat when it goes up for election in October.