MILFORD, PA — The season of elected officials’ departures continued in Milford on December 16 as Karl A. Wagner Jr. attended his final regular bi-monthly meeting as a Pike County Commissioner.

Commissioners Chair Rich Caridi recalled working with Wagner for four years as county jail warden.

“He’s always been honorable and always listened. There’s a lot of pressure in this job, and he made us laugh together. It’s never been politics, only relationships. Only doing the best we can do for Pike County,” he said.

Commissioner Matt Osterberg said Wagner has been “a great teacher and a great mentor. He guided me to be a better commissioner.”

He also became Wagner’s driver, when the two Milford residents went to distant meetings. “I’ve driven Karl over 5,000 miles,” Osterberg said. He displayed a road map highlighting every back road they traveled between Milford and Pittsburgh. “I enjoyed every minute of it.”

“It’s been a long run,” Wagner said of his years in public service. “I had burned out at the law and this was new work. I liked it.”

Noted for his wry sense of humor, he admitted some ambivalent thoughts about the four-year cycle of election politics. “I will miss it—when I’m in town.”

He further demonstrated that sense of humor. The three commissioners’ portraits hang vertically on the wall behind their table. Majority party members are always the top two. Wagner, a Democrat, has been the minority member since 2004. An audience filled with friends and family broke out in laughter when Wagner pointed out that he had switched his position to the middle for his last meeting.

Wagner is married to the former Denise “Denny” Bullock. They have four children, Joye, Karl III and Kimberly and stepson Tom. According to his Facebook page, the family also includes “a dog Dunkin and cat Martin Luther King.”

“My wife’s tired of campaigning and we’ve got a place in Sarasota,” he said.

On the whole he summarized, “I enjoyed it. I really did.”

Wagner, 75, is completing his fourth elected term. He served 16 1/2 years after joining the board to serve out the final year of the late Gene Garvey’s term in 1999. An attorney and Milford native, Wagner joined the Air Force after law school and was a captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

Returning to Milford, he spent 29 years with the firm of Beecher, Wagner, Rose and Klemeyer, which his father began. He served as Pike County District Attorney from 1977 to 1980 and has served as solicitor for Delaware and Westfall townships and Matamoras Borough.

Wagner has served numerous civic duties. He is vice-president of the board at the Center for Developmental Disabilities of Pike County, Ltd., and has served on boards including the Zane Grey Chapter Ducks Unlimited Co-Chairman, Pike County Historical Society, the Pike County Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pike County Preservation Historic Trust, chairman of the Signage Committee and belongs to the Milford Lions Club and the First Presbyterian Church of Milford.