One of the nation’s longest-running public education advocacy groups will install new officers and mark a major transition in its executive director ranks.

The Horace Mann League, founded in 1922, will meet for its annual recognition and installation luncheon at 11:45 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 17, at the Marriott Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio. The organization always holds its winter gathering during the AASA national conference.

The league will install William J. Mathis, managing director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, as its president for 2023-24. Mathis  earlier served as a superintendent in Vermont.

Assuming office as president-elect will be Brent Clark, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Administrators. He formerly held a superintendency in the state. David Berliner, professor emeritus at Arizona State University and a prominent author on public schooling, will be the vice president.

Kevin Riley, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and a former superintendent, will be reappointed to the organization’s board of directors.

The Horace Mann League’s most striking change will be the retirement of Jack McKay as executive director after 29 years in the post. He started as executive director while working as a professor of educational administration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He earlier worked as a superintendent in Washington, among a variety of other positions in K-12 and higher education.

Jeanne Collins Deweese, who retired as a superintendent in Vermont last year, will assume the league’s reins following the meeting.

(Jay Goldman is editor in chief of Conference Daily Online and editor of AASA’s School Administrator magazine.)