OXFORD — Selectmen unanimously appointed a volunteer Oxford Hills alumnus to fill the vacant school board director seat at their meeting Thursday evening. 

The board agreed to place 26-year-old Colin O’Neill who, in a June 30 letter addressed to Town Manager Michael Chammings, wrote that his interest in the position surfaced when he discovered no one else was interested in the position. 

Selectmen have been grappling with how to fill the vacancy. There was no candidate when voters cast ballots to elect a new School Administrative District 17 director on June 9. Instead, six residents cast votes for a write-in candidate who declined to take the position.

O’Neill, whose parents are teachers, is a 2007 graduate of Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School and works in Auburn and Oxford. 

“As a member of the school board representing Oxford, I would place students’ needs as my weightiest concern and balance that concern with a desire to accurately and effectively represent the people of my town,” O’Neill wrote. 

Selectmen said O’Neill will serve until at least next June, when the seat will be open for election. 

ccrosby@sunmediagroup.net