The Littlestown school board appointed a new member Monday. Joseph Bucher will fill the vacant seat on the board.

Bucher, 54, will replace Robert Rippman, who died last month. Bucher previously served on the school board from 1996 to 2004.

"He has eight years of hands-on experience," said school board President John Warehime. "He should be able to step in and hit the ground running."

The board unanimously chose Bucher out of five applicants for the position. He will be sworn in at the board's next meeting Monday. The term expires at the end of 2007. When on the board previously, he served on the budget and finance committee, and is currently on the recreation committee.

Bucher said he did not run for a third stint on the school board because he is a believer in term limits. But, as of Thursday, no one had yet stepped forward for the open seat, and Bucher said he did not want to see a judge arbitrarily appoint someone to the position.

Bucher said he was the first to express interest in the position. Several others followed after he submitted his letter of intent Thursday.

Paul Sharpless and Eleanor Dehoff, two people who have butted heads many times with the school board in the past, submitted their letters Friday.

Dehoff, 53, is also a former school board member, having served on the board from 1999 to 2003. She filed a free speech lawsuit against the district in 2005 in federal court, which she eventually lost.

Sharpless, 65, has been a frequent critic of the board in recent years, and once took the district to court over financial documents he sought, losing the judgment. Sharpless has served on the Littlestown Borough Council from 2000 to 2004. He also ran for three positions in the 2005 primary election – mayor, borough councilman and school board member. He lost all bids.

For the man he replaces, Bucher said he had a lot of respect.

"(I) considered (Rippman) a friend," Bucher said. "He and I shared similar philosophies about the duty, actions and conduct of school directors and had similar philosophies on most district issues."

He said though he was not considering another run for the office, he did it out of respect for Rippman.

Bucher is married with two children – one in college and one in high school. He works as a regional sales manager for the American Solenoid Co. based in New Jersey, and has been with them for 24 years. He is a lifelong Littlestown resident.

He said the school board faces its share of challenges.

"The biggest priority is the contract issue with the teachers union and trying to control some of the costs involved with the health-care issue," he said.

Teachers and the school board are expected to meet in negotiations again Wednesday.

Act 1, he said, will be a challenge for school boards with its restrictions on how they can operate and levy taxes.

Many issues in education that school boards face need to be addressed at the state level. He said the state has burdened districts with unfunded mandates for programs and has left much of the taxing responsibility, and the blame for raising taxes, on school boards.

Contact Steve Marroni at smarroni@eveningsun.com.