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Commissioner-elect, 25,
ready to serve Woodsboro

Jeremy Hauck

(5/30) Woodsboro voters elected David Eaves, 25, to the town’s board of commissioners earlier this month by a margin of 16 votes.

On June 12, he will become the youngest elected official to serve in northern Frederick County, and the only one in his 20s. ‘‘I’d like to bring Woodsboro up to date with the times," he said in an interview Friday. ‘‘It will be an adventure."

Eaves will be sworn in at the next regular town meeting; his four-year term will end in 2011.

Eaves will join fellow commissioner-elect Joel Rensberger as new members of the board. Commissioner William Rittelmeyer was appointed to serve his first term on the board after a commissioner resigned in January, and Commissioner Scott Brakebill was elected in 2005.

The career firefighter/EMT lives within a stone’s throw of town hall, which shares a building with Woodsboro Volunteer Fire Company No. 16. Eaves volunteers at the fire company and works as a professional firefighter in Loudoun County, Va., working a 24-hour shift once every three days. He also works as a landscaper in Frederick County.

Among Eaves’ goals as a Woodsboro commissioner is to improve the town’s Web site. ‘‘We’re trying to make that more user-friendly," he said, adding that his goal is to ‘‘get the ideas out there."

When town officials began counting the 94 ballots cast on May 12, Eaves didn’t expect he’d win. Three candidates were vying for two open seats. ‘‘Nominated, yes, but voted in, no," he said. ‘‘I really didn’t expect it."

Woodsboro Burgess Donald L. Trimmer said Tuesday that he has known Eaves ‘‘ever since he was a little kid."

‘‘I can’t say that 10 years ago I expected him to be a commissioner," Trimmer said. ‘‘I’m glad to have him on board."

Eaves, a 1999 Walkersville High School graduate, was born and raised just outside Woodsboro. For three years in high school he competed in long-distance swimming.

When he was 22, Eaves trained in Loudoun County to become a professional firefighter, which he called a ‘‘very intense program."

Although he’s been to only four town meetings, Eaves said he learned leadership and diplomacy while serving in high school as vice president of the Maryland FFA, and working with family on a dairy farm.

‘‘Being around family for 12, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, your patience gets tested quite a bit," he said.

Eaves said he would fight for controlled growth for Woodsboro’s less than 1,000 residents, a ‘‘friendly atmosphere," more business in town and better public attendance at town meetings.

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