Arden Tewksbury, who served a record-setting 64 years on the Elk Lake School Board and became well-known as an advocate for dairy farmers and the benefits of drinking whole milk, died Friday. He was 93.
Tewksbury, of Meshoppen in Wyoming County, was born in 1932 on his family’s farm and worked as a dairy farmer until his retirement in 2003.
He was elected to the Elk Lake School Board in 1961 and served continuously until Dec. 1, 2025. During his last term, he became the longest-serving volunteer school board member in the United States, Elk Lake officials said when they honored Tewksbury at a school board meeting in October.
Tewksbury was a passionate supporter of providing whole milk to school students, rather than limiting them to low-fat or nonfat milk in school lunches. The passage last month of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 — which allows schools to serve whole milk to students — “would have been especially meaningful to him,” Tewksbury’s obituary states.
Elk Lake School District Superintendent Bob Galella agreed.
“He was literally on the steps of the state Capitol in Harrisburg advocating for whole milk in schools,” Galella said.
There was far more to Tewksbury than his focus on dairy issues, according to Galella.
Galella said he spoke with several of his predecessors as superintendent, all of whom praised Tewksbury’s dedication to the district and its students, staff, sports teams and residents. Tewksbury was “a true diehard of serving on the school board as a volunteer,” Galella said.
Tewksbury was a strong supporter of the Susquehanna County Career and Technology Center, which opened during his tenure on the board, Galella said. He learned much from Tewksbury during the two years the two men sat next to each other at school board meetings.
“No matter what health ailments he had he was always sharp enough to talk about … his pride in Elk Lake,” Galella said. “His wisdom came through in his words.”
Tewksbury was a big supporter of Elk Lake’s sports program and served for many years as a basketball referee, Galella said.
Tewksbury was a successful basketball player and team captain at Meshoppen High School in the late 1940s, said retired Wyoming County Press Examiner Editor Robert L. Baker.
What made that remarkable is that Tewksbury only had the use of one arm because of an accident on the farm as a child. That alleged disability — and a newspaper account at the time which described him as “a freak” — did not stop Tewksbury from making an impact in everything on which he focused his efforts, Baker said.
“In the early board meetings after I became editor in 2004, I could count on Arden to bristle at unfunded mandates from the federal and state education departments… practically never backed up with a way to pay for it,” Baker said.
Perhaps because of the way he was treated at times because of his disability, Tewksbury was the “victims’ biggest advocate in the room” when he heard of bullying incidents at school, Baker said.
“He was also an extremely savvy school board member for the Career Technology Center,” Baker said. Tewksbury grasped the possibilities the center could bring to the district and the region better than did officials of other districts, he said.
Galella said he knew Tewksbury was dealing with serious health issues, but “it still was like a gut punch” when he learned of his death.
“There are a lot of heavy hearts,” Galella said.