When Fred Boykin purchased a 42-foot trawler last year, retirement was inevitably around the corner. Last week Boykin sat in on his last Decatur city commission meeting, a board he originally joined in 2000.
“I can truly say,” said Boykin as his final meeting wound down, “that I never worked with a commissioner who viewed their position as a stepladder to a higher office. Nobody ever stepped in and wanted to take the credit. It’s always been a team effort.”
Kelly Walsh who defeated three other candidates in November, will succeed Boykin.
Boykin is probably best known for initiating the city’s pilot project for Safe Routes to School, part of a nationwide effort to fight childhood obesity.
But he’s been in Decatur government for a quarter century as a member of the Business Association, the Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals and the Library Board. He’s been Mayor Pro Tem the last two years.
In 2016 Boykin, 67, also retired from Bicycle South, the business he founded at age 20 in 1971. A nearly lifelong boating man, he and his wife plan to split time between Decatur and Ft. Myers, Fla., where the trawler’s docked.
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