The hands of time move ever-forward, and as those hands spin round and round, life…happens.

Long-running elected officials and members of civic boards grow old (or older, in some cases). While you have been going about your business, these people have been sacrificing their evenings to make sure you have the ability to ignore them.

After all, if it ain’t broke, well, why pay attention?

The thing is, just as life happens to you, it also happens to everyone else.

Suddenly you turn around, and a bunch of people have resigned or retired — people you depended on without even really knowing it.

Both major parties struggle with civic engagement, but they also struggle with even getting candidates to run for many of the seats that are available.

Keystone Central School Board is in the news at the moment, so let’s talk about them as an example.

Last year, four seats were up for election: those held today by Elisabeth Lynch, Shelby Bohartz and John Miller. The fourth seat was the only contested race: between Megan Houser and the victor, Mary Kramer, who resigned at last week’s meeting due to her position as Renovo’s borough secretary.

This marks the third resignation of a Keystone board member since Polly Donahay resigned in October. This was followed by Jeff Johnston who resigned in December.

Functionally, this will mean that by the end of February, six of the eight school board seats will have changed hands in the last year.

And of those six seats, it is entirely possible that there will only have been a contest for one of them.

The jury is still out for Johnston’s vacant seat. Two additional candidates sought the position, but were late in applying, which may result in their being discounted despite previous board precedent. And, of course, we don’t know how many people may come out for Kramer’s recently-opened seat.

How can a society that prides itself on meritocracy hold up in a world where there are no challenges?

At the moment, it seems as though the merit at work is simple: have free evenings and a willingness to sit through long meetings.

Merely being willing to fill the seat is apparently good enough these days, to say nothing of whether the candidate is a good fit for the position — and the community they are supposed to represent.

As more time passes and more of the old guard gives way — willingly or otherwise — more of these positions will become open. It’s time for people to rise to the occasion and step up to keep our society functioning.

It’s hard, usually thankless work. But it is vitally important, and it is equally critical that these positions be filled by people who can find it within themselves to complete the role with pride, intellect and responsibility.

Boards and committees are the bedrock upon which we rest. Everything else builds off of them.

And if you aren’t ready for that kind of responsibility — especially if you’re someone who is only newly engaging with local politics — the best advice we can give you is to show up. Attend the meetings. Ask questions when appropriate. Learn from current community figures.

Before you know it, someone will have retired or stepped down. There will be a vacancy; a need which must be filled.

And you will have already taken your first steps towards meeting that moment.