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ELECTED JULY 1986 · IN OFFICE AS OF NOVEMBER 2026 · TERM RUNS TO 2030
Larry Beehler is the Madison Township member of the Penn-Harris-Madison Board of School Trustees, the elected board that governs schooling for most of Granger, and he has sat on it, consecutively, for forty years. The corporation's own record dates the start three ways, and all three print: its Board Members & Terms page prints his term as begun in 1996; its release of January 2018 counted him as entering his thirty-second year of service, which counts back to 1986; and its 2026 releases state it outright — he was elected to the board in July 1986 as the Madison Township representative and "has served consecutively for 40 years." The 2017 record agrees with 1986 and not with 1996: when the Larry Beehler Ticket Center at the Penn High School football field was dedicated on September 15, 2017, the corporation credited him with 31 years of service, and a man in his thirty-first year in 2017 was elected in 1986. The 1996 figure on the terms page stands unreconciled against the corporation's three other printings, with the corporation's minutes as the settling record.
The career at its documented points: Beehler is a graduate and class valedictorian of the then Madison Township High School at Wakarusa, and a lifelong resident of the school corporation with his wife Judy. He has served as the corporation's representative on Indiana School Boards Association boards, as its board policy liaison and legislative liaison, and received the Penn High School Distinguished Staff Award in 2010. In 2017 the football ticket center took his name. On May 18, 2026, the board named its own meeting room the Larry and Judy Beehler School Board Room, the naming to last twelve years. In October 2026 the Indiana School Boards Association named him the recipient of its 2026 Indiana Outstanding Board Service Award — conferred annually on one school board member out of the 1,686 in Indiana — expressly for forty years of service; he received the award at the board's October 12, 2026 meeting. On November 3, 2026, he was re-elected, his term expiring in 2030: if he serves it out, the career that began in July 1986 will run forty-four years, every year of it in an elective seat filled by the voters of the three townships, Harris Township's Granger voters among them.
The rest of the field was tested against the same measure, so the type case stands as a finding and not a pick: Raphael Morton's more than 32 years on the County Council; Mark Root's 20 council years; Prosecutor Michael Barnes's 20 years (see the prosecutors article); Trustee Kenneth Lindsay in office since January 2015; Penn-Harris-Madison's Gary Fox on that board since 2001; James Lowry Jr.'s twelve trustee years and Franklin Lowry's thirteen as postmaster in the nineteenth century. None reaches forty. Beehler alone does, and he is this ground's measure of a service career.
Sources: Penn-Harris-Madison School Corporation releases, read November 2026: "Larry Beehler Ticket Center to be dedicated Friday, Sept. 15" (September 14, 2017 — 31 years of service; elected July 1986; valedictorian of Madison Township High School); "Larry and Judy Beehler School Board Room" (May 19, 2026 — elected 1986, served consecutively 40 years; naming approved May 18, 2026, effective twelve years); "P-H-M Board Member Larry Beehler Receives Indiana Outstanding Board Service Award" (October 8, 2026 — ISBA 2026 award, 40 years, one recipient among 1,686 Indiana board members, presented October 12, 2026). Banked Government leg, school-board article (the terms page's 1996 printing; the January 2018 "thirty-second year" release; the 2026 election and the term expiring 2030).