A former Panther Valley school board member returned to visit his former colleagues last week.

R. Mickey Angst said he came to praise and thank the board, but also to ask that they will provide him with legal representation in a lawsuit against the district in which he is named. The district's former Junior ROTC instructor, Kenneth Markovich, recently filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging breach of contract. The suit was filed in Carbon County Common Pleas Court in October.The school board elected not to renew Markovich's contract in June 2013 after the Department of Defense revoked his certification to be an ROTC instructor.Markovich previously sued the district, a former superintendent and angst in federal court in 2013 in connection with his dismissal. Last July a federal judge dismissed all charges in that case.Angst said that based on newspaper accounts of the current suit he thought that he was being sued. However that appears to be inaccurate.Assuming that he had been sued, Angst said that he should have been notified by the district in the interest of full transparency."Usually when you're sued, somebody sends you some kind of legal document. The only thing I've seen are the newspaper items," he said.He specifically wanted to see if they would allow the board's solicitor, Robert Yurchak, to represent him in the pending case, something he said that they did not do for the federal suit."Bob said it's not gonna be that way. I said, 'I'll be at the board meeting to make sure.' Are you going to let Robert represent me?" Angst said.Yurchak told angst that unlike the federal suit, the suit filed in common pleas court did not name him as a party. Therefore, he said, Angst does not need to worry about getting legal representation."Mickey, you don't have to worry about that. You have not been sued individually; the school district has been sued," Yurchak said.In the common pleas court suit, Markovich lists 16 instances where the district violated his contract. He is seeking $75,000 in damages, as well as attorney's fees.In the federal case Markovich sued, alleging that the district breached his contract, retaliated against him, violated his right to due process, and that Angst invaded his privacy and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. A judge dismissed all of those counts last July.During his visit to the board Thursday, Angst also offered effusive praise for the board members and their efforts. At the beginning of his remarks he said that he had come to the board to discuss four things - praise and thanks, as well as the lawsuit and the board's transparency."I gave him just the four words I want to address - the first one is praise for you people, and thanks for being willing to be 'front-page public servants,' " he said."You'll earn every penny you don't get."