The Guilford County Board of Education officially has a new member. Thursday’s board meeting started off with the honorable Judge Stuart Albright swearing in Christopher E. Gillespie as the new District 1 representative.

The board selected Gillespie out of a pool of six candidates who applied to fill the vacancy left by J. Carlvena Foster, who was elected to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners in November.

Gillespie serves as the executive director of West End Ministries in High Point and an instructor of nonprofit management at Forsyth Technical Community College. He is an active member of the High Point community and has been an employee of Guilford County Schools as a teacher, a director of an afterschool-care program and a tutor.

He also holds a master’s degree in nonprofit management from High Point University and a bachelor’s degree in public relations from North Carolina A&T State University.

Gillespie will serve the remainder of Foster’s term, which expires in Dec. 2016.