ALBION – Freeland E. Drake took a three-year break from the Board of Selectmen after serving for 17 years. Little did he know he would end up being on the board for 33 years more.

Drake, 88, stepped down on Saturday after 50 years as a selectman. Add a couple of more years as road commissioner before he became a selectman and Drake’s career of public service dates back to at least 1950.

That’s more half a century of running meetings, balancing budgets, debating issues and solving disputes in this Kennebec County town of about 1,900 where Drake was born and raised.

Drake isn’t sure what inspired him to be a public servant for so long. But once in office, he approached his civic duties the same way he took care of his farm: in a steady, methodical and thorough fashion.

It takes a lot to get Drake stirred up, but he admits

that some controversies

have tested his patience.

“You have to bite your tongue quite a few times,” he said. “I’ve always tried to be honest in everything. I think it pays out.”

Michael Starn, a spokesman for the Maine Municipal Association, said there are fewer and fewer people like Drake these days given the modern-day mobile society. While some people remain devoted to public service, it’s harder to do that in the same community over a span of multiple decades.

“I don’t think we are going to see much of that in the future,” Starn said. “It really is an unusual but admirable thing that someone could devote so much of his time to the community, to public service.”

Town officials said Drake’s fiscal conservatism is a big reason for Albion’s history of financial stability.

“Freeland just likes to save money,” said fellow Selectman Lloyd Corson. “He doesn’t like to waste money. He is set in his way that way.”

Drake managed to fit in his time as a selectman while he ran a dairy farm, helped raise four children, did some roofing, tended to broiler chickens and did a stint as a milkman.