CAMDEN – Five Town Community School District board chairman John Lewis at a directors’ meeting in Camden last week paid tribute to Jim Patterson of Camden, who has stepped down after six years of service to the SAD 28 board of directors.

“There are other people on this board who have more service than I’ve had,” Patterson said after the meeting.

Patterson has been involved in education for more than 20 years in Maine, beginning with a stint as president of the former Northern Maine Vocational Institute in Presque Isle.

He then was superintendent of the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone and more recently director of the Hutchinson Center in Belfast, from which he retired last year.