"That was my last Curators meeting," Cynthia Blosser told the News Tribune Thursday morning, as she was heading from the Lincoln University board's just-ended February meeting to the Mitchell Auditorium, where she would attend her last Founders Convocation as a curator.
Blosser resigned from the board as of Friday, she told Gov. Jay Nixon in a letter delivered Thursday.
"For the past 12 years, I have faithfully carried out my duties as a member of the Board of Curators - seven of those years past the end of my original term," Blosser told the governor.
David Henson was Lincoln's president when then-Gov. Bob Holden named Blosser to the board in April 2003, for a term ending Jan. 1, 2008.
Blosser served as the Curators president in the 2012-13 school year.
"I've been part of the revitalization of the campus, both in the physical plant and the perception of Lincoln University in the community," she told Nixon in her resignation letter. "I served under four presidents - three of which I had a hand in hiring," referring to Carolyn Mahoney, who succeeded Henson in 2005; Connie Hamacher, who was interim president from August 2012-June 1, 2013; and Kevin Rome, who began his presidency on June 1, 2013.
Blosser also told Nixon: "I feel the campus is now under excellent management, both under the leadership of the president and his staff and the current board of curators.
"This is a good time for me to make room for a new local curator to join the team."
Blosser said Friday she gladly would have served another term, "if it had been offered when my original term ended - but I've just been hanging for seven years, at the pleasure of the governor. I didn't want to resign, but I just felt that it would be an advantageous time" for someone else to join the board.
"We're starting to be in a really good place," she explained, "and more people would be interested in wanting to hold a position.
"When I came on the board, it was not that way."
Although a number of lawmakers have complained in recent years about the high number of vacancies on state boards and commissions, as well as the number of people who continue to serve after their terms have expired, Missouri law generally allows people to continue serving until their successor has been appointed and "qualified" by winning approval from the Missouri Senate.
And, while lawmakers complain the Nixon administration hasn't been quick to fill vacancies, it also was an issue during the Matt Blunt administration.
Blunt was starting his fourth year as governor when Blosser's term expired, so his administration was responsible for the first of her seven continuing years without a new appointment.
According to the Official Manual of Missouri and governor's records, Lincoln's Curators board has four members serving in current terms: Don W. Cook Sr., D-St. Louis, and Winston J. Rutledge, Independent-Jefferson City, with terms expiring Jan. 1, 2018; Frank J. Logan Sr., D-St. Louis, to Jan. 1, 2017; and Herbert E. Hardwick, D-Kansas City, to Jan. 1, 2016.
Blosser, R-Jefferson City, was one of four Curators working on expired terms - and hers was the longest.
The other three are Dana T. Cutler, R-Kansas City, and Marvin O. Teer, appointed as a Democrat from St. Louis but now living in Jefferson City, both expired on Jan. 1, 2012; and Greg S. Gaffke, D-Jefferson City, whose term expired Jan. 1, 2014.
"It kind of pushed me over the edge when I see how quickly they appoint new members of the Board of Curators at the University of Missouri," Blosser said Friday, while Lincoln and other state-owned universities have members continuing to serve well past the end of their terms.
"People continue to serve because they're afraid there will not be a quorum for the university" board meetings, Blosser explained, "and they don't want to leave the university in a position where the board won't have a quorum" and can't do official business.
At the same time, she noted, having several people working in expired terms would make it possible for the governor to "clean house" by making several new appointments at one time, replacing those long-serving members with "his own people - but then you would have no continuity, which I thought was the point of having (staggered) terms anyway."
State law says Lincoln's Curators are to serve six-year terms, with three terms expiring every two years.
Although LU's board has operated for several years with eight voting members and one non-voting student representative, Missouri law actually requires the board to "consist of nine members who shall be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate. ... Not more than five Curators shall belong to any one political party."
The non-voting student representative is listed in a separate section of the law and is not counted as one of the nine.
That means with Blosser's resignation, the LU Curators board has two voting-member vacancies - and a full complement of Democrats, plus one independent and one Republican.
Blosser, a Columbia native and Stephens College graduate whose husband is a Jefferson City native, intends to remain active in Lincoln's activities and work.
But she also is expecting her seventh and eighth grandchildren next month, and will be able to use her extra time visiting more with family members.
"I've enjoyed my time on the board, immensely," she said Friday. "I've learned a lot about Lincoln."